At last! Somebody does something on the record
July 30th, 2008
Is this the start of a bid to oust Brown and become leader??
After days of speculation based on unattributable sources there has been a move in Labour’s leadership crisis by one of the main players and favourite to replace Brown - David Miliband.
For the main story on the BBC website overnight, is a report of a feature he’s written for the Guardian setting out what can be seen as a vision on how Labour can turn itself round with some not so hidden comments about Brown’s advocacy for Labour.
In the highly charged atmosphere that has dominated UK politics since the party’s loss of Glasgow East such an initiative will only be interpreted in only one way - this is the Foreign Secretary getting ready to fight.
The whole language he uses and his approach, in the words of Patrick Wintour in the Guardian, as “can be read as an implicit criticism of the current leadership’s political style” How else could you describe this from Miliband?
“To get our message across we must be more humble about our shortcomings, but more compelling about our achievements…When people hear exaggerated claims either about failure or success, then they switch off.”
This goes to the heart, surely, of Gordon Brown’s whole rhetorical style and his apparent inability to make a case for Labour in way that resonates with the public and stops the seepage of party support.
The overnight Ladbrokes price on Miliband for Labour leader was 5/2. That looks like value though the big question is how long your money would be tied up? My guess is that this might be getting closer.
Today on PB I’m off on a 24 hour trip to France and won’t be able to put up a new thread until this evening - assuming my Vodafone modem works. If this discussion gets very long, as I expect, then I’ll either publish a continuation piece from my mobile phone - or else our guest editors Morus and Double Carpet will put something up.
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Like Brown, Miliband writes a better speech than he delivers, but what does he offer in The Guardian? A return to the Star Trek slogan of the early Blair years: “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.
“Now we need the imagination to distribute more power and control to citizens over the education, healthcare and social services that they receive,” says Miliband, but without more detail, without a proposed mechanism, it is a principle any LibDem or Conservative could sign up to.
5/2 is value in a contested election is value, as is 8/1 Harman, though an uncontested, agreed handover would bring in Jack Straw. It is hard to see beyond those three if Brown were to go this year.
Trouble is, we do not know that he will, and my feeling remains that Brown will lead the party into a 2010 election, so I am disinclined to get involved (though I have a 20/1 voucher that Brown goes this year, which will be ample consolation if I am wrong).
Many contributors to the last few threads seem to be evaluating the plot rumours on the basis there is no smoke without fire. Read the back pages, the football transfer market where, according to the papers, just about every big name player will be linked with another club over the summer. In most cases, no bid emerges. Froth and bubble, idle speculation fuelled by fans’ hopes, and agents hoping for an extra few quid.
Is that all we see here? Frightened MPs, and the usual, Blairite suspects?
But yes, if you think Brown will go this year, Miliband and Harman look the value.
Miliband is 9/2 with Paddy Power to be next Chancellor. I need to think about that one.
It will be interesting to see if the Conservatives attack Miliband for losing three thousand passports from a contracted out, insecure security van.
There’s nothing at all new in Miliband’s article, and nothing to take the socialists out of the abyss. There’s no real recognition of past errors, at least not in a way that will help them electorally. If Miliband is the best they can do, they are doomed. There’s not much in there that will endear him to Labour members either. And the comments, the last time I looked, were almost universally hostile.
Interesting angle from the Mail the morning - an appeal to the plotters to “give it a rest”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039723/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Plea-plotters-just-rest.html
I can’t decide whether this story is an ingenious plant from Gordon’s staff or whether it’s a sign of incipient panic from the Tories, as represented on the Mail’s largely conservative editorial team.
Talking of panic, it was amusing to see a pale and sweating Chris Grayling being slaughtered on Newsnight last night by a very calm Stephen Timms. Stephen repeatedly asked this supposed convert to the cause of income redistribution why he didn’t support Labour’s child poverty targets. Grayling stumbled, evaded and blustered but couldn’t answer the question.
5. Yes it was the equivalent of a striker with 20 footballs missing an empty goal from 2 yards - there is so much material for him to work with but he couldn’t score.
3 - Passports are a Home Office matter or used to be!
6. Um, I don’t quite get your point, Ghost. Stephen did score. Have a look on i-Player, and enjoy.
8. No I meant Grayling - there are a thousand failures of the govt on this issue and he couldn’t make one stick - poor effort.
Milibland must be mad. Why does he want to lead Labour to electoral failure.
7 - James, the foreign Office is responsible for the security of passports that are destined for overseas embassies and foreign destinations etc; in this case the passports were en-route from Oldham Manchester to RAF North Holt before shipment and therefore under FO remit.
Apparently the documents were being transported in a ‘non-armoured white Citroen van’ driven by an over weight chocoholic and a security guard that when confronted, did a runner leaving the keys to the vehicle and strong box with the assailant.
A foreign office spokesman said this has been common practice for the past 15 years.
Good grief…!
10 I guess he’s “seizing the moment”, which most senior politicians signally fail to do.
Yes, Labour will lose the next GE, but he wouldn’t get the blame for that and he’d doubtless be given another chance as leader.
Who knows what 2014 might bring?
11 Smacks of an inside job IMO.
If Miliband is the best Labour men can do, harriet Harman looks a shoo in.
But nothing will happen. Gordon will stay.
It’s all fluff and no substance.
7 — the passports were stolen from the Foreign Office. Short of handing them out in the street, it is hard to see how the FCO could have been more cavalier. That is what comes of having a Foreign Secretary too young to have watched The Sweeney, a 1970s documentary series about robbing security vans whose drivers stop to buy Mars Bars.
The Home Office, according to various reports, takes more care of blank passports.
Daily Mail:
Downing Street sources insisted they had known about Mr Miliband’s article in advance and were ‘totally relaxed’ about its content, which they said was designed to encourage rebel MPs to focus their attacks on the Tories.
They said there had been a deliberate decision not to mention Mr Brown’s position because the debate should be about policy rather than personality.
That’s alright then.
Passport Scandal:
Q: Who will get sacked for this?
A: No one, as usual.
Pathetic.
Why would anyone want the top job now? Electoral oblivion beckons. Better to pick up the leadership after defeat than before, IMO.
Or could this be a positioning piece for the forthcoming reshuffle? He sets out his stall, Gordon panics and offers him what he wants, and then he wheels in behind the PM in a clear number 2 position getting ready to takeover after defeat.
That’s how I’d play it anyway.
18 Robin - Life’s just not like that, you have to grasp opportunities when they appear. There’s absolutely no guarantee that he would get another chance, in fact it’s very unlikely he would, having seen seen to have passed on two previous occasions.
Certainly in my career, there have been a couple of situations which have worked out well for me and another where I made a big, big mistake by allowing a great opportunity to slip by.
Isn’t this the same for most people, unless you’re a pen pusher for your entire career and even those jobs probably don’t exist any more.
Previous thread - Wales & LD chances:
Bankers: LDs will lose Ceredigion to Plaid, Hold Cardiff Central
Probable: LDs lose Montgomery to Conservatives - Forget national politics, or even Lembit the Clown. Glyn Davies has a huge personal following and will win easily.
Possible: Will be very tight in Brecon & Radnor but I think LDs will hang on just.
Outside chances: Swansea West more likley than Newport East but probably a bit too much for them this btime round.
No chances: Wrexham, Bridgend, Newport West, Cardiff South, Cardiff West - anywhere else in Wales.
This is Milliband’s, ‘Sword in the Stone’ moment, if he does a Portillo, he’ll never get the chance again.
The electorate, never forgives indecision, they’d rather someone who tries and fails, than someone who never tries.
As for taking Labour to defeat, that shouldn’t even be a worry, after three wins, the chances of a fourth are always slim, and probably not desirable.
Its always how you lose, i.e. in a position to spring back after one or two terms in opposition that matters.
19. It all depends if you think you can mitigate Labour’s loss of seats at the next election by taking the top job. I thought that Iain Martin’s article, in the Telegraph, was rather chilling (from Labour’s point of view).
21. There’s no worse combination than longing to wound but fearing to strike.
O/T Sorry (may be of interest to USA followers)
July 30 (Bloomberg) — The federal indictment of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican and one of its most influential lawmakers, is the latest election- year blow to a party that’s already reeling.
Stevens, 84, was charged yesterday with seven counts of making false statements on Senate financial disclosure forms, by failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts and renovations on his house. Stevens “knowingly and willfully engaged in a scheme to conceal” gifts from Veco Corp., an Anchorage oil-services contractor, a grand jury in Washington charged.
If anyone thinks the prospect of David Miliband on TV is going to swing voters back to Labour then they ought to get a reality check. he’s a David Cameron clone without the personality or easy charm.
Are Milliband, Cameron, Balls, Cooper, Purnell, Smith all ex. Oxford PPE students? Who was teaching the courses?
As for the blank passports, another example of a cavalier attitude to data security. Nothing has been learnt since the loss of HMRC disks with 25m names, etc. By the way, who authorised the decision to announce the write off of another £2.5bn of overpaid tax credits, and time the announcement when there is recess. This is government for, by of spivs.
Is Mr Palmer going to help put the knife in, I wonder….
5. Must have been watching a different interview to me. Timmes stating rhetoric about targets and money without tackling route causes.
I’d suggest three key areas where Labour need to do better, and could under a new leader:
1)Empathising with voters concerns, “we’re listening”
2)Making the case for the Government’s policies and acheivements.
3)Providing confidence in leadership.
These are in my view key shortcomings of Gordon Brown. What would Miliband realistically improve on? 2 and 3 in my view. He would be able to articulate the Government’s position well, and would challenge Cameron, and I suspect would be a more solid leader than we have at the moment. However his wonkish style could struggle to make progress on 1 - where only a Hattie or Postie could really help.
Miliband’s no great hero, but likely to be at least a partial improvement. Still, at least silly season will be a bit more interesting this year.
24 Presumably, the American Government doesn’t send 84 year old men to prison.
Not that the UK has any room to talk on the compassion stakes, with Ronnie Biggs still banged up despite being nearly 80 and with failing health, for a crime he committed 45 years ago.
Miliband would be a popular leader among the labour party, but in the country he’d only be slightly more popular than Brown. He stutters when under pressure, during his speeches I feel like I’m watching a sixth former give a presentation, and I severely doubt most people have heard of him.
21, 23 - Sir Walter Raleigh wrote on a window pane: “Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall”, to which Elizabeth I added “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all”.
29 Also, how about:
4) Sorting out the UK’s out of control economy - rather important wouldn’t you say?
22
Absolutely! Someone will say it, so it might as well be me!
‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly’
25
When its done, then the electrorate will have the choice of the ‘Three Blairs’
‘Blairband, Blairon and Blairegg’
‘You can have a PM in any colour you want, as long as its Tony’
I wonder if we’ll suddenly see new articles appearing: “Harriet Harman: my vision for a matriarchal Britain” and “Jack Straw says Demon Headmasters victims not villains” perhaps?
There’s a rather good analysis of the next phase on the Spectator’s Coffeehouse site:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/865746/miliband-sets-out-his-stall.thtml
23. The danger is that he is appearing to strike but isn’t really doing so. This looks more to me like a positioning piece which serves three purposes, none of which is to bring Brown down now.
The first is that if there is a vacancy at the top, it puts him firmly in the frame. Whether or not it’s a particularly inspired piece (if it was a challenge, it would lay out some proposals in more detail; by keeping it vague he can simply say that he’s listening to the critics and suggesting a way that Brown can take Labour forward), it should push plenty of the right buttons for Labour supporters.
Secondly, in the event of a cabinet reshuffle, it ought to make it harder for Brown to move him if he is believed to be a genuine leadership contender, though given the way Brown’s been behaving recently, that might not be the case.
Thirdly, it’s an I-told-you-so article for the 2010 leadership election, which he can point back to and say that if only his advice had been taken, things wouldn’t be so bad.
As it happens, I do think that 5/2 is good value for Miliband because unlike Harman or Straw, Miliband will be a leading contender in a 2010 leadership election so even if Brown doesn’t stand down during his tenure as PM, the bet still stands a chance.
29 - tpfkar, I’m afraid I couldn’t disagree more. The idea that the public needs, wants, or could be persuaded by, a better articulation of the Governments’ successes is a fallacy. We have gone well beyond the point where the electorate are willing to give the Government a fair go.
And as for Harman being the right person to assure people the Government are listening…sheesh. She makes it sound like an instruction rather than a compromise. It comes us no comfort to people to have highly-paid government ministers emphasising with their difficulty in meeting heating, food and fuel bills.
No, the only thing the Government can do is try to convince people it has a coherent strategy to see this country through the economic downturn and the policies to improve the country over the next decade (granted you sort of pick that up in your point 2). It isn’t quite Mission Impossible IV (or is it V now, I’ve lost track?) but the odds are heavily stacked against them.
21,23 - I think Miliband struck last night. To write an article with no mention of Brown was the assault it was perceived to be. In this matter, he has won the first round against Harman who did back Brown, limply. He struck first.
Everybody is missing the significance of the fact that Brown is on holiday. Nothing can happen in public until that ends. The public want rid of Brown but I think would recoil at overt statements of challenge while he takes a break with his family.
Miliband will use the holiday period to sound out support and gather a campaign team. I would expect prompt calls for Gordon’s resignation and/or leadership challenge announcements the day after the return of the PM (not the day itself, that would look too obvious).
With Harman saying “I don’t accept ‘it’s over’” and this Miliband article even the political dunces of the PLP can see Gordon is too wounded to carry on. How could they fight an election with the fiction that he was asking to lead the country for another five years?
Whether they initially wanted to remove him or not, they are hoist by the petard of the frenzy of their briefings against him. They must act. There is no choice.
19 et al.
I understand the old Carpe diem moment, but just feel that Labour are so doomed that it would be folly for any serious future contender to tie him/herself in too deeply to that defeat. (I’m thinking as a politician here!)
The defeat is going to be at least 2 terms in opposition, IMO. Anyone taking over now is not going to get the chance to stay on after 2 defeats at a GE to contest the 3rd more winnable one.
If I was Millibland, I’d be looking for a meaty deputy PM role - so I could get the exposure/gravitas/experience with the electorate over the next 2 years, but retain sufficient distance to build my platform for the 2010 leadership bid.
Just thinking about it, one of the biggest problems Labour has at the moment is that just about anything that any senior member of it does will be viewed through the ‘is this an incipient leadership bid’ prism. Any minister outshining Brown will be talked of not as a cabinet heavyweight but as a potential prime minister / replacement. Splits and divisions that are genuinely about policy (entirely likely given the lack of cabinet government) will be looked at as tactical positioning, and indeed will by that very speculation become partly about tactical positioning. What won’t be possible is any sense of long term strategy.
37 David - I’m sure Aaron would wish me to remind punters on PB that bet365 has David Miliband at 3-1 to be the next Labour Leader
Out of interest, what is it about Labour leaders that makes them want to give positive name-checks (or photo-ops etc) to Margaret Thatcher? Conservatives stopped doing that publicly years ago.
41 And that is the really damaging part for the party. The prism of a leadership challenge will continue even with Brown still in office, as it will simply refocus to the period after the next election.
The only way out is to bring things to a head and settle the matter for the next two years. There will, if Brown wins through, still speculation about who takes over after the inevitable defeat. And so the destabilisation will continue as all the contenders postion themselves and create their cliques.
37 David - I’m sure Aaron would wish me to remind PB punters that bet365 currently has David Miliband at 3/1 to be the next Labour Leader.
41 - You’re right. I mentioned this a while ago - it’s a really tough time for ministers and Labour MPs because everything they say is held up to close scrutiny, looking for nuances and ambiguities that may not have been intended or may not even be there. It must be particularly difficult holding real-time conversations with journalists (particularly on air), because the ebb and flow of conversation almost inevitably presents opportunities for words to be taken out of context.
There is a world of difference between a minister saying “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a leadership challenge” and a minister responding to the question “In the current climate, do you think a leadership challenge is possible?” with the answer “It wouldn’t come as a complete surprise…[but]…” and yet in each case the words could be put in print in a way that would keep the momentum for change going.
30. The only reason Biggs is still in prison is because he did a runner and it took almost 40 years to get him back behind bars. If he’d stayed put he would have been freed in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s like most of the other robbers. Are you seriously suggesting that a successful escape attempt should invalidate a prison sentence?
42 Presumably and sorry to be somewhat morbid here, to condition the British Public for the State Funeral Labour apparently proposes.
39
“frenzy of briefings against Brown”?
Frenzy? I hear and see no frenzy. Just a bunch of journalists repeating third hand carp.
Now IF we had an on the record “Gordon must go ” speech froma Cabinet Minister.. or ex Minister.. but we do not.
We need a sense of proportion. Storms, teacups.
this is the Labour Party: they do rebellions properly. Where are the reginations?
All puff and hot air and journalists with time and no story.
I refuse to believe any of it is serious until a Geoffrey
Howe type speech.
They are ALL wimps.
even resignations.
41 - That’s a fair point, but you would presumably accept that at a time of political ferment with the Prime Minister’s leadership under serious scrutiny an article by the Foreign Secretary that:
1) sets out his recommended solutions to the travails of the Labour party; and
2) does not mention the Prime Minister once
can reasonably be viewed through that prism?
Re. 22, yes, I’ve just read it, and it ties in with John Kampfner’s articles for the same paper asking if Labour might not be heading for the same sort of pummelling the Canadian Conservatives got in 93. I’d say that, if Brown stays (or gets replaced by Harman), the party could easily find that being reduced to 150 seats and four terms in opposition could be the least of its worries.
The big question is whether the LDs can, at the next GE, offset losses to the Tories with gains from Labour. If they stay where they are, or emerge slightly stronger, and Labour drops to about 100 seats next time, the LDs might replace Labour as the main opposition party.
To be honest with all this shenanigans it is easy to get ahead of ourselves but Alea iacta non est. Well not yet anyway. Milliband is just, with a bit of sophistry, in the territory of plausible deniability. I suspect this will now bubble away all summer and then fizzle out in the Autumn, but it is probably worth another few seats for Cameron either way!
46 What I’m suggesting, Random, is that he be released on purely compassionate grounds. I understand this is to be “considered” next year, but please, now would be better.
Penddu-Gower is a possible win for the Tories.Labour will hold Swansea West on a three way split.
In terms of policy, Miliband, like Brown, is offering more of the same New Labour. But Blair himself was very unpopular when resigning as PM. So it’s not at all clear why Miliband’s more-of-the-same approach will appeal to the electorate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7531243.stm
finally nick clegg does something smart
56 - I’m waiting and seeing on this one to be honest. I imagine that he will still be trying to fight a war on two fronts.
Talking of keeping old men in prison, what did Reggie Kray know that meant he could not be released?
56 After at least 3 Labour-leaning previous leaders, particularly their most recent, it’s hardly surprising that Clegg should wish to try a different tack.
57 true, but at least hes realized its a good strategy
re Flockers @38: possibly the most polite post I have ever read disagreeing with me here (I think my previous mistake may have been to suggest that David Cameron was somewhere below God on the scale….) - hope you continue to post as often.
I’ll grant you Harman on the listening front (although I think she comes across as far more a member of the human race than Brown/Miliband, which is what I was getting at.)
But the Government simply has to have a figurehead who can talk it up to the country, and this is what Brown simply can’t do with the unconvincing tractor production stats.I’ve taken a longish quote of Tony Blair’s last conference speech in 2006-below. I’m sure it loses something written here compared to when it was first spoken, but I’m no Labourite and it was mighty impressive stuff when first spoken.
Finally, for yourself and pfp, the economy surely works across all three of my points. But as I’ve said before the fact that Cameron and co have never said anything concrete that they would do differently now about the economy has reduced my confidence in the ability of the Government (of whichever party) to do any more than hold tight and get through with as little damage as possible until things turn up globally.
Here’s Tony:
In 1997, we faced daunting challenges.
Boom and bust economics.
Chronic under-investment in our public services.
Social division, with millions living in poverty, including over 3 million children.
And more than all this, a country culturally and socially behind.
No black Ministers and never a black Cabinet Minister.
Parliament, supposedly the forum of the people, with only 1 in 10 women MPs.
Gay people denied equal rights.
Trade unionists able to be sacked for joining a union.
Workers on £1.20 an hour, legally.
London the only major capital city in the world without city Government.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all run from Whitehall.
Inner cities depleted, a refuge for the dispossessed.
This was a country aching for change.
Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved.
We have had the longest period of sustained economic growth in British history.
Mortgage repossession, like mass unemployment, are terms we have to be reminded of.
The last NHS winter crisis was 6 years ago.
Heart patients wait on average less than three months.
Cancer deaths are down by 43,000.
You are more likely to see a new school building than a crumbling one.
There are virtually no long- term young unemployed.
Today we ask: Can we meet our ambitious targets on child poverty when, before 1997, the idea of a child poverty target would have been laughable.
We have black Ministers and the first woman and then the first black woman Leader of the Lords.
Not enough women MPs but twice what there were.
A London Mayor, thankfully Labour again.
Devolution in Scotland and Wales.
But not just this.
Free museum entry that has seen a 50% rise in visitors.
Banning things that should never have been allowed: handguns, cosmetic testing on animals; fur farming, blacklisting of trade unionists and from summer next year, smoking in public places.
Allowing things that should never have been banned: the right to roam; the right to request flexible working; civil partnerships for gay people.
And in 2012 it is London that will host the Olympic Games.
Of course, the daily coverage of politics focuses on the negative.
But take a step back and be proud: this is a changed country.
Above all, it is progressive ideas which define its politics.
That is the real result of a third term victory.
56. Oliver. Yes, Clegg’s move is overshadowed by Brown’s exit, but it’s an exceptionally good one
the BBC gets it wrong here
“Turning his fire on the Tories - who climbed above the Lib Dems to third place in Glasgow East - Mr Clegg said while a lot is heard about them, “the truth is there are huge parts of the country where they haven’t got a hope.
“Not even a single elected councillor in Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool or Oxford, let alone an MP. Places where only the Liberal Democrats can defeat Labour.”"
That’s actually not Clegg having a go at the Tories at all. That’s Clegg saying “winning here” ie, whatever you think of the Tories vote tactically for us where you can’t vote for them… vote for the party best placed to remove Labour. It’s clever politics and shows he has had the guts to move off the equidistance thing which is dumb when one leading party is preferred to the other by 15 points or more
51, the thing is that despite Tories soaring and Labour plummeting the Lib Dems seem stuck at the mid-high teens.
The support being taken from Labour is passing either straight to Cameron or to ‘others’ (presumably nationalists).
Now is a golden opportunity for the Lib Dems that may not come again for decades. They need to do all they can to shaft the government.
But then, they had that chance over Lisbon, but preferred to roll over and slap the floor with their tail. Killer instinct and Lib Dem membership don’t seem to coincide frequently.
58 John L - Re: Reggie Kray, Is your post intended as a subtle “that’s for me to know and for you to find out” style question?
The other story to keep an eye on is the recommendation that innocent people be removed from the DNA database. Three questions arise.
1) Now David Davis has resigned from public life, is there anyone in the Shadow Cabinet who cares about civil liberties?
2) If not, will Nick Clegg take up this issue for the LibDems? There ought to be some traction for a party with liberalism in its name, and it may concern voters more than the tax policy of a party that won’t get within spitting distance of the Treasury.
3) Are there any journalists or parliamentarians who cannot be snowed by the Home Office’s dodgy statistics? Any MPs with a maths background, perhaps?
Even though this article deals with McCain, it does make some other points, are there hints about the present situation re-Brown?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4425864.ece
Quentin Letts
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1039714/QUENTIN-LETTS-So-Harriet-Harperson-WAS-PM.html
50. Miliband presumably knew it would be viewed as such and so accepted that when he wrote it.
It is somewhat difficult writing these pieces for any cabinet minister or Labour member of similar authority, as they have to explain why they are about 15% behind in the polls without completely undermining the PM or the government’s policies. For it to be useful, they also need it to be at least close to accurate.
It’s inevitable that when analysing an organisation going through some difficulty, some criticism will come for the person at the top. Miliband doesn’t make it except by omission, but to have stated that ‘everything is well with Brown, his policies and delivery and we don’t need a thing’ apart from being singularly pointless, would also be an admission into la-la land.
Given that it was inevitable that there would be a perception of implicit criticism, why did he do it? Partly, I think it is the positioning reasons I listed at [37], but there may be more to it than that. Is Brown open to suggestion? Has he tried to make these points privately but without success? As well as it serving his personal interests, we shouldn’t forget that Miliband presumably wants Labour to win the next election, and that does mean that something must change to bring it about. If it’s not possible to persuade in private those who need to make the change, what can he do? The newspaper article is one option.
PfP @ 64 re Kray. Not at all. Half the time I’m not even sure about the conspiracy theories given Kray’s repeated insistence they were doing the public a favour. The parole board prefers a show of remorse.
61. You are Gordon Brown and I claim my £5.
56. “They will lose every by-election they fight in this Parliament. And at the next general election, they will lose in their heartlands to the Liberal Democrats” he said, as the Lib Dems dropped to fourth place in Labour’s (former) heartland of Glasgow East and lost their deposit. OK, I know it’s a cheap shot.
71 -
Agree my predictions assume natioanl Tory lead of about 18-22%, as at present. If that falls to 14-17% nationally, then Gower, and both Newport seats probably stay with Labour, keeping the Tories off double figures. - I think Newport West would still be on a knife edge either way Morus. The results from May show that.
408 - He is an excellent candidate.
406 - If the Tories can win Montgomeryshire, they can wipe out the Lib Dems in Wales (except, of course, Jenny Willots)
by Morus July 29th, 2008 at 10:59 pm - No Morus Gwynfa could be right that Montgomeryshire is more likely to fall than Brecon. In any case this is not 1979 if Lembit were defenestrated owing to a combination of a highly capable opponent and his own Ok! public persona I don’t think it automatically means wipeout as the effects would be contained to him alone. I caution you on Ceredigion. Plaid should win but they’ll have to fight. The last two times an MP has been beaten were huge shocks in 1992 and 2005 whereas when earlier events were tipped they didn’t materialise. It is a very contrarian seat mostly and Mark Williams unlike Lembit will fight tooth and nail. If you can get value odds a bet on the Lib Dems dropping Montgomeryshire and holding Ceredigion could be worth a punt.
68 - You are a generous man. I would have expected at least one ritual line along the lines of: “Of course, some of our unpopularity is a side-effect of the necessary and decisive actions that we have taken under our stalwart Prime Minister, the benefits of which will become apparent to the electorate shortly. We are indeed lucky to have such a wise and steadfast Prime Minister leading us.” But for some reason, polite expressions of support all ended on the cutting room floor.
So Boris is upto a little, ‘Knife Crime’ himself!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4426048.ece
20 see 73. BTW Who had the idea that the Lib Dems ever had chances in Newport West or Cardiff West.
Millipede’s move isn’t exaclty a decisive blitzkreig type action.
He has put his head above the parapet when others are biding their time.
If he does not now go through with this, he himself may be seen as a ditherer and we can expect the same consequence as the election that never was.
This is potentially good new for the Harperson, although if she gets in, I can see the YouGov lead rising to 35 points.
P.S Gabble FTSE Up 1.26%
@66:
“Prettiest Eyelashes - Andy Burnham”
Lawl.
For some reason, that photograph makes me want to give him a big hug, tell him Mummy’s here to make it better, and then suckle him.
@75:
I think it’s faintly ridiculous that the Mayor doesn’t have the power to sack the cretin Blair.
That’s something we’ll have to change in 2010. It will probably mean hiving off Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist activities into a new force, though, so won’t be an easy change.
75, in between bouts of grand larceny against genocidal maniacs no doubt.
Should he knife Blair (Ian not Tony) I can only imagine it improving his popularity. Indeed, he’d be doing a public service by removing a politicised leader of the Met who all but campaigned for Labour before the last GE.
20. I cannot see Lembit losing his seat, despite his antics, that part of Wales has been Liberal almost since time began and Lembit has a huge majority
Also, Plaid have a decent chance in Ceredigion but I’d only give it 60:40 in their favour. Plaid have hardly covered themselves in glory in the Assembly, not sure who their candidate is mind and that will make a big difference
Ok, so must punters on here seem to agree that Labour are likely to lose the next two elections (as predicted by Anthony Wells late last year). That being the case, why would anyone want to take over from Brown now?
A new leader elected prior to the next election faces two consecutive defeats. When was the last time a leader of one of potential governing parties has had to fight two or more consecutive lost elections? Of the top of my head I’d assume it would have been Disraeli or Palmerstone.
39 Yes - this process is now developing an unstoppable momentum. Nobody - except a few hopeful Tories - expects Brown to survive and so they are taking action accordingly. Miliband’s article has moved things forward - the first overtly campaigning step for the leadership election that is to come. His rivals will now have to scramble to catch up in the next few days.
@83:
Go, Hattie! Kick wonky-faced Millibland in the nuts! You can do it, woman. We’re all counting on you.
82 - Kinnock?
82 Neil Kinnock.
Your premise is wrong - no potential political leader thinks they are going to lose - they all have massive and unlimited self-confidence and believe that they can be the saviour of the Party. It goes with the territory. Even if they did lose their name would still be on the list of PM’s - the ultimate political accolade.
@86:
Except Jack Straw, who has already offered to lead Labour to immediate managed defeat in a suicide election.
73. I fail to see why being a ‘celebrity’ should damage Lembit’s chances of being re-elected - it didn’t seem to do Boris Johnson any harm.
@88:
The question is, (a) have Lembit’s cheeky antics brought his office into disrepute, and (b) if they have, does anybody give a flying one anyway?
I’m tempted to say no, and no.
88 - Perhaps the Welsh are a little more parochial than worldly cosmopolitan Londoners.
81 You should be right but Lembit has annoyed people, he has a realy well known and popular opponent and the Tories did well there in May. That said you are right about the seat. Should just be a haircut for Lembit’s majority.
88. Lembit makes Boris look like a monk in media terms, and Montgomeryshire is different to Henley in outlook. Still see above should merely clip his majority.
81 I agree on Ceredigion see 73. Likely Plaid but not the 100% certainty some think.
89 - I don’t think his activities have brought him into disrepute. However, the difference between Boris Johnson and Lembit Opik is the difference between eccentric and odd. As to how that would affect his re-election chances in rural Wales I wouldn’t care to speculate.
Thompson Financial:
” In its monthly distributive trades survey, the Confederation of British Industry said 61 percent of respondents said retail sales in the first half of June were lower than a year ago, while 25 percent said they had risen.
The resulting net balance of -36 percent is the lowest reading since the survey began in July 1983 and marks a sharp fall from June’s -9 percent. Analysts had expected a more modest fall to -15 percent.”
89 I think the answer to a) is yes. He can date whoever he likes, but his relentless courting of the tabloids over it will not have gone down well. Wasn’t there a major LibDem conference of Welsh LibDems and he cancelled attending to go on Any Questions or something?
The voters of Montgomeryshire will not take kindly to being made accessories in his quest for celebrity, imo.
O/T - The strange death of the Labour Party? Iain Martin speculates whether Labour are finished not just for a generation but forever?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/07/30/do3001.xml
95, most unimpressive thing, his treatment of Sian Lloyd aside, was his appearance on Apprentice for charity (Sport Relief I think).
Indecisive, too nice so he didn’t want to offend anybody, and thoroughly inept. His only saving grace was the presence of oversensitive prima donna ‘comedian’ Singh Kohli who made him seem more normal in comparison.
@96:
It’s quite possible that we could force through a party funding deal in 2010 that would sever Labour from their union teats.
At which point, Labour would be bankrupt.
Essentially, the death of the Labour Party is in our hands.
Montgomeryshire was lost to the Tories, by Emlyn Hooson - hardly a Lembit, in 1979 (and regained for the Liberals by Alex Carlile in 1983).
#85/86
You are correct (1987/1992). Could also argue Wilson/Heath depending on how you call the first 1974 election.
My question was not well phrased unfortunately. Kinnock lost two elections then jacked-it-in. Now if Miliband stands against Brown, surely he will expect to lose two elections, but have a fair chance of at the subsequent one? Again, I can only recall such stamina in the middle of the nineteenth century.
98 Have you told the voters yet?
95
Still as the last Tory to hold Monty! was Delwyn Williams, the bar isn’t set too high, for the present PPC.
87. Martin Coxall. Where have you read that about Straw?
98 I hope we would not do that. I wouldn’t support it anyway. Labour tried to do it to the Tories with the communications allowance. we have to be better than them.
87 Straw’s argument that a second change of PM would require an immediate election was designed to put obstacles in the way of Brown’s removal. At the time he said it he probably thought that Brown could be saved.
Straw has little personal following in the Party and IMO would not be a strong contender to replace Brown. His comments about an immediate election serve to weaken his position still further.
104, if Labour sets up funding rules creating a 50k cap for companies and individuals but allowing unlimited union funding it would be the only fair course of action. Bankrupting Labour would just be a lovely bonus.
Should the funding situation stay as is, I hope Cameron and the other party leaders can hammer out a reasonable agreement with cross-party consensus.
98
No-one will “force” anything on political funding. The tit for tat repercussions when power changes would be too severe.
That’s why little changes: no-one wants a change so nothing is agreed.
98 That is what Thatcher thought when she insisted on ballots on the abolition of union political funds. However……
104 - I agree, spite in ascencdancy is never a good tactic. I think that liberated from the moderating influence of government Labour will probably spend the first term of opposition gouging lumps out of each other.
76 - Mark Senior I think - certainly not me!!
Miliband has to strike now. If he calmly acepts the electoral cycle and waits two-and-a-half terms there’ll be other better placed contenders around. He might curse his luck that he’s risen to the status of leadership contender just as Labour are on the wane while, say, Tony Blair got to the same position in the dream year of 1994, but there’s not a lot he can do about that. He is, on the other hand, lucky in his timing that at the time he gets a proper sniff of a chance his only real rival is Hattie. His best hope is to take over now and hope Labour are only out for one term. The congnoscenti might consider that unlikely, but it’s surely less unlikely than Miliband still being the best candidate in 10 years time?
FWIW I think Miliband as PM is Labour’s best option going into the next election. Better than Brown, Harman or Straw, certainly. Miliband also retains some credibility from the ‘unguarded’ comments he made on Question Time shortly before Tony left about how much we’d all miss him once Gordon took over.
@104:
I hope we do. Party funding has to be reformed. We can no longer afford to have political parties in thrall to large special interests buying policy with lump sums of cash.
This *has* to include unions, as a point of principle. Unions are very special interest, and highly politically motivated. Allowing them to carry on controlling parties when everybody else is banned sends out the wrong message, is inconsistent, and will generate resentment and anger towards unions.
Now, that might result in the destruction of Labour, but they’d just be collateral damage, I’m afraid.
101. Why should the Tories tell the voters? You guys actually LIED in your manifesto: you promised to give them a referendum on the entire way they are governed, then thought, Nah, f*** it, who cares about the voters.
Crushing Labour financially, and stamping what’s left into the ground so that it can never rise again, is a mere bagatelle in comparison. The voters won’t be worried. And your happy referendum precedent gives athe Tory party carte blanche to do Anything They Like.
I agree with Martin. One of the aims of the next Tory administration must be the extermination of Labour and leftism FOREVER.
This is now very do-able, not least by cutting off the union money - so it should be done. Most people in Britian would welcome it.
99 Yes and and unfairly too as it was attributed to the antics of Thorpe than his own actions.
Just come on site! I dont know how the topic of Boris v Opik came about, but realy there is no comparison. Boris is an erudite, educated, and believe it or not a consumate politician. Opik on the other hand is a politcal jay walker, a real master of the oxymoron.
True that Boris needs to rid himself of some of the dross that surrounds him at city hall, but I beleive he is learning fast to be his own man.
56 - perhaps Clegg is playing a smart game. He is shifting gradually from being anti-Tory to being anti-Labour. In a couple of years, nobody will remember the LDs used to be at war with Australasia and will assume they have always been at war with Eurasia.
As far as Labour-funding, I was under the impression that the party’s day-to-day cash-flow was provided by an organisation related to Mohammed Sanwar [sp?] ? A £50K annual cap would surely mean that the Labour Party would not be able to pay the wages, and would cease to exist as a party machine.
113. I’d like to apologise to the readers of PBC. I should have foreseen that my intervention at 101 would present the opportunity for a seanT Euro-rant. I’m very, very sorry - and promise to take more care in future.
116. Funny…………..
It appears that Downing Street may not be so intensely “relaxed” about the Milliband article, after all. This just in from the Daily Mail:
http://tinyurl.com/6eskg6
@113:
I never said it was an aim, just a happy side effect.
Of course, the Greens and the BNP will simply rise to fill the void left by Labour.
(I was going to include the Lib Dems in the above, but they’re only fools to themselves, I’m afraid.)
114 - the MPs closest to Thorpe were Hooson and John Pardoe - who both lost. I think both constituencies were fairly non-Conformist (Baptist?) in 1979 and any talk of buggery or shooting dogs was a slight turn off.
12- peter- you are right. And anyway, the chance to become PM of UK ltd is such a personal accolade, that to hold that role, even for a few months is worth it.
So go on Miliband- seize your moment. It may never, ever look this good again.
113. lollll. If you think that 118 was a genuine old-fashioned, batten-down-the-hatches SeanT “eurorant” you are obviously new to this site. Welcome.
112 do you support limited state funding for political parties? I differ from many tory activists in that I do. Otherwise you are simply too in hock to big donors. The way it ran would ahve to be well thought out and it would need to be paid for by a reduction in the size of government, politicians and civil servants (eg regional assemblies getting scrapped) but it seems to me to be th least bad way forward.
125 just to make clear I support a cap in Union financing but there must then be state funding of parties to allow an effective opposition for the sake of democracy.
120 - This is going to be a fun summer! Never have I been gladder that I can’t afford to go on holiday..
Although I admire David Miliband for being the first to make a move, he would be a dreadful choice for the Labour party to choose as Prime Minister right now. He has nothing distinctive to offer to capture the public’s attention or to change their mind about the Labour party. He cannot present himself as a clean pair of hands. He is not offering a fresh direction. He is not a battle-hardened fighter. He would not shore up the base.
Most importantly, we don’t know who he is prepared to offend. A leader is best judged by his or her enemies, not his friends. Harriet Harman scores well on this, because she reduces her opponents to incoherent abusive splenetic rage. Jack Straw is at least the politicians’ politician. David Miliband has nothing to offer except a rather celebral yet faintly human charm.
124. No, I’m not new. I just thought I heard the first crack of thunder presaging the storm - and I’ve been through a few in the past.
The interesting thing about Miliband’s (rather good) article is the stream of invective with which it has been met in the CIF comments. Given that these are presumably made by largely left-leaning types, the level of vitriol is remarkable.
This suggests that, if Brown does go (and I can’t see now that he can stay), it won’t be a clean handover.
Isn’t Dave a lucky boy?
99 Why did Emlyn Hooson — a very popular, long-standing and conscientious MP from a well-known local mid-Walian family — lose in 1979?
Ansswer; This was just after lots of unfavourable publicity for the Liberals regarding Jeremy Thorpe, Norman Scott, bunnies going to France and a murder trial. All this played badly to Montgomeryshire audience.
Lembit has not (yet) reached this level of infamy, but rural mid-Wales (with its long-standing Nonconformist history) is the wrong seat for an urban media-tart like Lembit.
And the Conservatives have found a very capable local candidate who will unseat him.
Does anyone seriously think he is listening…?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/7532352.stm
127. Agree; we are re-lerning the old dicktum, ” The king is dead, long live the king”.
130 - You can almost hear the cackle from the Connaught Sq coven!
121, 113. That’s OK, you’re a fully paid-up Tory, aren’t you? I understand you can’t actually come out and say what you really think: Labour Shall Die, bawahahahahaha!
I’m just an itinerant non-Tory sex memoirist sitting in his Sicilian hotel room staring at the peasants in the olive groves, so I can say it like it is.
To wit. After the next election, through changes to party funding and by accelerating natural processes already in train, the Tories can engineer the final extinction of Labour and real leftism in this country, once and forever. The Tories can also ensure a nice cuddly non-threatening Lib Dem party takes over as the official Opposition, where they shall remain for several decades due to their puerile europhilia.
Tories gain Utopia. Ave it!!
Day 6 of the Labour Leadership crisis and someone is going to be sacked/resigned if this runs another 4 days.
I find the Daily Mail report of a Brownite MP attacking Miliband as significant. The Iain Martin Telegraph article sets out how precarious Labour’s future is. “When Labour left office in the late 1970s, it was able to retreat to its Celtic redoubt. ”
http://tinyurl.com/56zyaz
With the SNP in Scotland and other parties stronger in Wales, Labour after the next GE could have 30 fewer MPs in their celtic areas compared to 1983.
128- I think sanitisation is a good quality frank. Miliband neither enthuses, nor enrages, like Cameron, like Clegg.
Miliband will save Labour from wipeout, and will combine well with the LD’s in a anti Tory coalition 2009-18. He will also be the first political leader to take a party from government into opposition into government.
And, with Miliband there will almost certainly be a spring 09 election- there is something in this for everyone, even Gordon who will be saved ultimately the ignominy of electoral wipeout.
135. You are a lucky ‘B’ sitting among the olives. However to extingush the left in this country it’s not enough to expunge labour, the unions have to be de-socialised, (is there such a word?) too.
Unions like the teachers union will have to be purged. Ha Ha.
136, how fittingly ironic it would be if Labour’s botched and unjust devolution ended up being its political guillotine.
Just to say that, if Milliband DIDN’T intend his Guardian article to be perceived as a pretty overt bid for the leadership, and an implied criticism of Brown, then he must be very very stupid. Because everyone - from the BBC down to politicshome - is interpreting it exactly that way: as a blatant job application, with accompanying CV.
Given that Miliband Major is not stupid, by all accounts, we can only assume that this effect is precisely what he intended. He wants the chance to lead Labour, now, and he’d like Brown to quit.
@135:
It won’t happen like that. The Lib Dems are not really placed to hoover up Labour’s core when they collapse, assuming they don’t all swing blue.
The BNP are best placed to do that. And GMW goes to the Greens.
140 - He could have challenged last year though. He gives the impression that he won’t attack someone when they are strong, but will sort of attack them once someone else has kicked them half to death providing he can sort of deny it if the heat gets too strong.
SeanT, Leftism is alive and well in the new Tories. They are the self Styled
“social” - Andrew Lansley,
“liberal” - David Cameron,
Conservatives. “Fully committed to the NHS” and being “in the heart of Europe”.
Very Heathite.
116. I suspect after the next GE the Lib Dems will be at war with themselves rather than Eurasia or Australasia.
@140:
Is there anybody *that* dumb?
It has been interpreted exactly how it was meant to be.
Actually, thinking about it, it’s possible that Gordon did know about this in advance, but didn’t sense the danger.
So, in answer to my own question, yes.
@143:
Hardly. You can’t blame Dave for using Guardian wolf-whistle words from time to time, but so far, all his ideas have been staunchly, traditionally Cosnervative, with a new localist, anarcho-communitarian edge.
143. So very true, unfortunately.
144. I mean. So very true, unfortunately.
141. No. I think Labour will be reduced to a rump, but a sizeable rump - comprised of GMW, a few chavs and public sectoe wallahs, and ethnic folk. Say 15-20% of the vote. Like the communists in 80s France.
The Lib Dems will stay where they are - making them the same size.
The Tories will then reign forever in a kind of golden age, lasting perhaps a thousand years, during which time we will build an enormous Thatcherhalle, at the end of the Mall. This will be a huge dome containing a two mile high statue of Margaret Thatcher, made entirely of coal hewn by retired miners forced down the pits one last time. At gunpoint.
This is now within our grasp. We have to seize the moment.
143- yes jonathan- NuLab have won all the arguments.
And give Cammie some time with Merkel and Sarkozy we will see him converted to the EU aswell.
And, no going back on hunting and exterminating badgers- the Tories will be very palatable back in power.
147. The posts at 61. and 143. are both examples of the resigned yet still denial-dominated mindset now gripping the British left.
They know Labour and their Lib Dem allies are heading for a drubbing at the next GE. But they are keeping their spirits up by arguing that the incoming Tory government will be basically social democratic in its approach, won’t roll back much of the Blairite agenda, and will soon collapse as hordes of rabid right-wingers drag Cameron down.
They are in for a big shock.
My postnumbers are confused. The last comment was for Martin “new shirt” Coxall.
@151:
The electorate beg to differ, Ty.
Glad to see you survived your ordeal on Guido’s place.
152. sorry 62. and 143.
And 151. as well !!!
139 Morris, yes devolution could kill Labour in two steps first the nationalists grab most seats and then in Scotland they get independence. Labour currently have 39 MPs in Scotland and 28 in Wales.
155 Your faith in the Tories is touching.
@153:
All my shirts are new, because of GASTRIC BAND.
Anyway, I was trying to make a good impression on Stodge. I promise I’ll come to the Christmas do dressed as a tramp.
117-Surely it’s Oceania (us, guess the NP MPs among us anyway), Eastasia, and Eurasia?
Dream on, tyson and jonathan, dream on. The Tories haven’t really changed, they never will - they just got a nice new shiny packaging. Everyone know you lefties love bright shiny things.
Here’s What to Expect Under The Next Tory Government (in time). A brief explanation for Deluded Lefties:
Lower taxes, less Europe, lower immigration, more and more cruelly eviscerated foxes.
Possibly a form of “droit de seigneur” will also be reintroduced in poorer areas - giving millionaires and rightwing memoirists the right to take the maidenhead of attractive chav girls, and the nubile daughters of impoverished public sector workers.
There will also be official taunting of beggars. And foreigners.
160 They say love is blind.
BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS
The breaking news is that WIND is reporting to JNN the contents of a new ARSE (BUTT) poll of polls that indicates :
McCain 45% .. Obama 51% .. Others 4%
The PISSED Jack W Index with added SOAMES BIG MAC weighting shows :
McCain 135 .. Obama 265 .. Toss Up 138
Changes Since Last Projection - North Carolina moves from Toss Up Obama to Toss Up McCain. New Hampshire moves from Toss Up Obama to Likely Obama.
Toss Up - Up to 5% .. Likely - 5%-10% .. Safe - Over 10%
Eliminate Toss Up States - 270 required for an Electoral College majority.
McCain 202 .. Obama 336.
Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America
……………………
Sources :
WIND ….. Whimsical Independent News Division.
JNN ………..Jacobite News Network.
ARSE …… Anonymous Random Selection of Electors.
BUTT …… British Underpinned Tracking Totals
PISSED … Political Intelligence Seat Selector Election Determinator
SOAMES …System Of Amending Measured Election Scores
BIG MAC ..Ballot Indicies Grid Manifesting America’s Choice
161 - More a case of LolPhasers set to Irony, Captain!
In 1983 lots of people forecast that Labour would soon be dead - 27.6% of the vote, only 2% ahead of the Alliance. They elected Kinnock, which many at the time saw as the weak choice, and he held the party together, was courageous in his dealings with the Left and the Unions and destroyed the alternative opposition so that by 1992 it was a straight fight between Tory & Labour.
Iain Martin is correct in saying that the Celtic fortresses are now breached but the North East, urban Northern cities are unlikely to fall and in opposition Labour will go all out to reclaim those areas its lost to Lib Dems and nationalists. In Scotland, once relieved of the burden of Westminster Labour when the next GE is lost, the Scots Labour Party will IMHO prove a more resilient opposition and could do better than expected in 2011.
Milibland:
“And if we act through the EU, we green the largest single market in the world.”
Did he just use ‘green’ as a verb? KILL HIM NOW.
O/T very little being said on the LD blogs (apart from Norfolk) about the radical change in direction by Clegg on resources.
FYI all membership fees are collected centrally and then paid back to those seats they wish to campaign in. There could be real ructions within the southern and south west LDs over this one.
165 - No coronating for you, Miliband.
Sadly for Millipede, regardless of whither his teeange moustache would take us, the Tories will fully blue the electoral map come 2009/2010.
Chamber’s Gain Dodgy Verb
164 Correct. The demise of Labour has been predicted many times before, just as the demise of the Tories was predicted as recently as last Autumn.
Idle chatter.
168 UGH - CHAMBERS, not Chamber’s
(162 - Jack, “When the dog barks; when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad, I simply remember my favourite things…
http://tinyurl.com/6cbflp
…and then I don’t feel so… @!$!! )
@166:
That doesn’t sound very federal.
161. Heh. What if I’m slightly correct though? Can you imagine your grief and anguish?
Tories are TORIES. Twas ever thus.
The only difference is that Cammo has realised you have to say a few nice words now and again to make people buy the Tory politics they really want but are embarrassed about. It’s like like adding a fruit drink to a vodka to disguise the alcohol everyone really wants.
Thatcher was just vodka. Cameron is vodka and blackcurrant juice. But it’s still basically vodka, and it’s still gonna give you lefties the same nasty hangover - as the foxhunts ride again and Brussels poacks it backs and every last Sure Start centre in the country is turned into a cigar bar, with topless waitresses.
@173:
With regards to the Yerpean Issue, nobody really knows what’s going to happen. None of the Big Countries have ever elected a EU-hostile government before, so in 2010, Dave and Billy will be breaking new ground.
Tremendously exciting.
172 John O.
…. One think I had in common with John Major - I love gorging on a bit of red hot curry !!
Morning all.
Just reading through last night and this morning, and realise that meurig, penddu, gwynfa, hunchman, and the old codger all disagree with me that Lembit is safe. This appears to be largely because of a local candidate, and change in attitude towards the Cheeky One. I’m tempted to defer to the local experts on that one.
I think Ceredigion is going to go - I get the caveats etc, but a 291 majority for the LDs over Plaid in a Welsh-speaking seat means Clegg won’t even bother. Better to defend B&R, which is not entrely safe either.
Jonathan and Tyson may be right, but probably not, if the Conservatives win 380 + MPs at the next election. That will simply shift the centre of gravity in the Commons a long way to the Right of where it is now.
I can remember that on our side, we kidded ourselves that Blair was really a soft Tory. The rest is history.
52. Fortunately, for Labour, there’s no equivalent of the Reform Party. IIRC, in 1993, the combined vote for the Reform Party and the PCs was almost as big as the Liberal vote, whose landslide was based on a split Right wing vote.
Nice to have a grown-up thread today - Maggie Thatcher Fan interpreted my near-silence yesterday as significant, but so many posts boiled down to:
- I think X is moderately good
- I hate X, how can you like X, you moron
- Labour is doomed, haha
- I fancy having sex with Y
- I’d hate to have sex with Y, you must be gay to fancy Y
I was pretty busy anyway and just didn’t feel motivated to contribute.
I think Flockers at 45 has got it exactly right - it’s literally impossible for senior ministers to say anything at the moment that can’t be spun into a continuation of the story. Do you support Brown? Ha, Number 10 has persuaded you to desperately rally round. Do you not refer to it? Ha, you’re deliberately letting Brown swing in the wind. Do you claim everything’s fine? Ha, you’re part of the bunker strategy. Do you admit to errors? Ha, it’s a veiled attack on Brown. I think the best advice for the next few weeks for anyone who anyone nationally has heard of (which lets me out) is to shut up, with the holidays as a perfectly good excuse.
So what’s actually been happening? FWIW, my take of what colleagues are saying is this - and I’ll keep my own opinion out of it, for the usual reasons.
- Everyone agrees there’s a huge objective problem: we’re 20% behind in the polls. There are obviously several reasons for this;
- Some people think that the leadership is a key reason, and that we’d do much less badly - or even well - with a different leader. So it’s inevitable that there’s speculation about challenges.
- If there was a leadership election, it wouldn’t be uncontested, and the potential candidates need to keep themselves in the frame. That doesn’t mean they are seeking an election, but that they’ve taken the contingency on board. It’s tricky for the reason mentioned above.
- At present there is no kind of plot at all, or even a clearly-formed will to have a plot. Ther’s a lot of people feeling that they don’t want to be 20% behind indefinitely. The general mood among most MP as recess started was to go away and take a break and have another think later on.
- In September, we’re likely to see some policy changes, a reshuffle, and the party conference. My reading of the position is that most Labour people will want to see those through and have a look at the impact. If you’re betting on the issue, I therefore think you should bet against any leadership change this year.
164 Ted and 169 nickc. Some of these Northern cities have been lost to the LDs. In 1983 Labour could rely on union cash. After the next GE the Conservatives will bring in the £50k per union limit and reduce Labour to struggling to fund the interest on £20m of debt with virtually no centrally funded workers.
In 1983 Labour had 35% of councillors, it is now down to 22%. Labour is also down to 158,000 members.
74 “If you can get value odds a bet on the Lib Dems dropping Montgomeryshire and holding Ceredigion could be worth a punt.”
That’s a very astute observation, Punter. As I recollect, the Plaid Cymru PPC in Ceredigion lost his council seat in May (despite advances elsewhere for PC). That is an extremely ominous sign.
So, I suspect you’re right — the LibDems are more likely to hold Ceredigion and more likely to lose Montgomeryshire than judged by the majorities.
Re. 160, agree entirely. Cameron is merely offering reactionary wine in a centrist bottle, just as George W Bush did in 2000. Once in office, the minimum wage will be left to wither on the vine through cutting back on inspections (and below inflation increases), Education Maintenance Allowances will be scrapped, the UK will withdraw from the Social Chapter, the right to join a trade union will be scrapped, the right to leave in a family emergency will be scrapped, and the right to four weeks’ paid holiday will be scrapped.
Just about the only things to look forward to will be the ‘free schools’ policy, getting rid of the ludicrous and counter-productive 50% participation in higher education target, and building more prisons.
@178:
Nick Palmer secretly wants to slip Ruth Kelly a length of his Broxtowe canvassing returns!
You appear to know a lot about the Liberal Democrats, TC.
Do you have a reliable reference about their collection and redistribution of membership fees?
I normally take a view on life that cannot be called consensual. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that the problem with the Labour leadership starts at the very bottom of the parliamentary party.
The quality of the MPs is in general extremely low. Few have had any experience in running anything that is remotely commercial. Hardly any have had an experience where they have had to make a profit. Even fewer understand the practicalities of translating theory into action. And quantitaive assessment is well down the list of qualities demeeded to be required.
The result is that even with the substantial majorities gained, there has been a dearth of adequate candidates for the lower ministerial ranks let alone the middle and upper reaches. In these circumstances, playing politics has become more important than a sound administration of the country.
For a time, the magic roundabout kept going around. However, that has now stopped and there are no engineers around to repair it. Of equal importance, there are few with even a basic hands-on experience to take charge of assessing what needs to be done. Hence the infighting we are now witnessing.
So will anyone be able to get a grip. There are few who are capable. The qualities required are totally different from what has been on offer for the past 11 years. And I am not sure there are sufficient of the 350 MPs who are able to understand their predicament.
181 — You forgot: No ID cards or NIR.
Cameron as bad as Bush?! Now you sound as silly as seanT is today.
173 If your right, it won’t bother me in the slightest. I’ve always have had low expectations from Tories. A hard lesson learned growing up in the south.
Whereas if I am right, you’ll have nowhere to go politically. Your hopes dashed. You’ll be the new George Galloway. Who knows you might get on Big Brother too.
The Tories have spent the last 10 years in rehab, they may well fall off the wagon in time. But for now it’s holier than thou stuff and Blackcurrent squash.
176 Morus. I agree with you on Lembit, he is safe. We heard all the “Tories are back and Lembit is surrogate toast” in the Assembly elections - Ooppps.
Cerrydungeon - Who knows but I generally don’t bet against first term Lib Dem MPs with a tiny majority - Remember the saga of Mrs Dale in NN !! ….. and why should it be either or with B&R ??
There can be no doubt that seanT this morning is at his most disgusting, disgraceful, outrageous very best!
You may hate him, but God he’s funny!
FWIW I don’t think Miliband has all the qualities needed, but he does at least negate some of Brown’s perceived drawbacks - eg he is young, English, reasonably charming on a human level, and most importantly, was not responsible for every mistake in economic and social policy that has been made by New Labour since 1997. I don’t think he is the ideal candidate by any means - someone with wider experience such as John Denham or Alan Milburn would have been my choice, and it’s also a shame Alan Johnson went to such absurd lengths to rule himself out - but Miliband would certainly be preferable to either Straw or Harperson in terms of articulating a compelling vision for a fourth Labour term and countering the Cameron threat.
Miliband’s op ed is just a little comfort blanket for the chattering classes. It won’t reach beyond them - nor will Miliband. ‘Change’ might be the mantra amongst the market analysts but I don’t sense any appetite for radicalism amongst the British public - nor any confidence that Labour would deliver on that front anyway. In troubled times like these the public want a steady, reliable, conservative approach. Cameron will continue to score highly as that reliable candidate - sufficiently modern and tolerant to unite the country - sufficiently conservative to allay fears. But poor old Labour supporters do need some change they can believe in. And Miliband may well supply a little balm for their troubled psyches.
173 - Thatcher as vodka? Shurely some mistake?
Remembered this from a previous thread:
“The relationship between policians and drinks is an interesting and often difficult one. Just as you can imagine people as animals or musical instruments, I recently found myself thinking of politicians in terms of what drink they would be.
Just as US President Andrew Jackson had his ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ let us imagine Gordon Brown’s ‘Drinks’ Cabinet:
Douglas Alexander - Scotch - Liked by fewer people than who claim to
David Milliband - Sherry -You can imagine Old Ladies being fond, but not really anyone else.
Alistair Darling - Port - Liable to induce headaches and drowsiness
Jack Straw - Vodka (& coke) - NuLabour yet also an Ex-Trot: Detente in a glass
Hillary Benn - Brandy - Cultured, and seems older than actually is
Ed Balls - Bourbon - brash, clumsy, poor immitation of Scotch (see above)
John Hutton - Absinthe - Doesn’t mix well with other drinks mentioned
Harriet Harman - Advocaat - completely useless, and no-one has any idea what it is doing in the Cabinet
Jacqui Smith - Gin - A London-centric drink. To help you survive Home and the Office.
Hazel Blears - Moonshine/Poitin - Detestable in small measure presented, would be unbearable in larger quantities
Alan Johnson - Bailey’s - A little slippery, a little cloying, liked by the ladies apparently
Ruth Kelly - Vegetable Oil - Simply doesn’t belong
Peter Hain - Orange (crushed) - no explanation required
Margeret Hodge (aka Proms hater) - Soda Water - no f***ing taste.”
Then people started adding their own suggestions:
Nick Clegg - Bucks Fizz - Yellow, goes flat very quickly, not taken very seriously by adults
Gordon Brown - bitter (Old Peculiar)
Lord Soames - stout
Iain Duncan-Smith - mild
Vince Cable - pint of Brains
Michael Howard - something of the nightcap?
Peter Mandelson - Campari and Orange. Deeply and satisfying bitter.
Clare Short - A Bitter Lemon
Stuart Penketh - Old Navy Rum.
Iain Dale - Pink Lady
Robin Cook - Whisk(er)y and Ginger
Michael Martin - A corked bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite - All that money, and you’re left with a teetol evening, an unpleasant smell, and the suspicion that you are the victim of a serious deception.
George W Bush - N(oil)ly Prat
George Galloway - VERy big MOUTH
John Prescott - Punch
Dennis Skinner - Bols o(r) Ver(mouth)
Vladimir Putin - White Russian
Dmitri Medvedev - Moscow Mule
Gwynfa and Punter: LibDems lose Montgomeryshire and retain Ceredigionshire? I can see the genius in a value bet (it is an excellent spot) but what would you say is the true price? 6/1?
144. Since when were any of those things left-wing? The FDP in Germany are the liberal party and decidedly centre-right. And once again, there’s a difference between having strong alliances with European countries and signing up for handing more power over to the antidemocratic EU.
189. Are you not concerned with wasting a young gun this side of an election mauling?
176 Ceredigion is a curious and unpredictable seat, Morus.
It has a largely Welsh-speaking hinterland, but — unique for a rural seat — two universities (Aber and Lampeter) in its boundaries. The combination of these sub-populations gives a very interesting dynamic.
In recent times, the only party that has never won Ceredigion (or its precursor Cardiganshire seat) is — amazingly — the Tories, although they have often been runners-up. Even Labour have won the seat in 1966!
My views on Lembit are so negative that perhaps you should take my prediction with a pinch of salt, but I think he is more vulnerable than it seems. And, if Lembit and Peter Hain were removed as MPs, and the result in Islwyn was
Morus (Indep) 19,321
Don Touhig (Lab) 4,387
I’d be very happy after the next GE!
To make it perfect, I just need that promise of morris dancer to fire Ed Balls into outer space to come true.
Re. 181, yes, good point re. ID cards.
I’m not being silly in comparing Cameron to Bush. Bush used the same sort of centrist mood music Cameron is using now, and incurred exactly the suspicion, even opprobrium, from some members of his party’s right-wing. Once in office, however, the policies were right-wing. An entirely fair parallel.
178 informative post, Nick, thank you. You stance has shifted I see and you all but admit there will be a leadership contest.
‘we don’t want to be 20 points behind indefinitely’ (ie with Brown we will be)
Nick - you are a PPS. You should strike and call for his resignation. Fortune favours the brave (I am in earnest). You will lose your seat at the election but you might do a real service to the Labour party be helping get rid of Brown.
183 B. Kerswell “You appear to know a lot about the Liberal Democrats, TC. Do you have a reliable reference about their collection and redistribution of membership fees?”
No great insight just what I conclude in reading LD financial statements. Look them up and see the money transfers involved. Cash is handed back in election years and targets get more than others. Conservative Associations retain their members fees, less a £5 per member fee to CCHQ.
I wait for the LD posters to write on here that I am wrong.
178
Thanks for that contribution Nick.
I did think it significant that you hadnt contributed and your phrase “didnt feel motivated to contribute” is IMHO equally significant. Lokking at it dispationately,( if one can) for a moment, it must be a deeply unhappy time for the Labour Party and its MP’s.
I rather suspect that Labour knows that all the different strategies will have equally bloody outcomes.
Many Labour MP’s havent tasted defeat before, but the smell of it is getting stronger day by day.
185, sorry.
@195:
Bush is from an Evangelical Christianist political tradition that simply doesn’t exist in the UK. If Cameron’s going to drift back to a core Tory position, it will be to a new localist, post-Thatcherite agenda.
Bush’s special brand of idiocy and pandering to Neoconservative demagoguery could not, would not be tolerated in the Conservative Party. It might have found a home in UKIP, were they not so shambolic.
189. No, for two reasons. (1) Miliband seriously appears to offer the best chance of avoiding an election mauling, in that he is likeable and can go head-to-head with Cameron on the fresh vision thing, and (2) That the next election will any case be a good one to lose, especially if the new leader is forced to hold it in 2009 before the economic downturn unwinds. Labour will not be out for two terms.
Mandelson is being helpful..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/30/davidmiliband.labour
I can’t see Cameron seeking to repeal gay civil partnerships legislation, extending the internment limit, hiring lawyers to ‘prove’ that pulling someone’s fingernails out doesn’t constitute torture or holding emergency sessions of Parliament to stop a brain-dead woman’s life support from being switched off.
194 - any Tories you’d especially like to see ejected?
197 - no idea! But really what is the point in spending money in 2001 near misses that swung to the Tories in 2005? How many seats do the LDs have any chance of gaining off the Tories next time? Eastbourne is the only one that springs to mind. Better spend the money is LD / Labour marginals.
178 - Your most interesting contribution in that post was: “I think the best advice for the next few weeks for anyone who anyone nationally has heard of (which lets me out) is to shut up, with the holidays as a perfectly good excuse.”
I drew two things from that:
1) You aren’t very happy with David Miliband this morning; and
2) You actually want the existing pressure on Gordon Brown to subside.
Re. 173, worthy of PJ O’Rourke.
The media may be getting very excited about Miliband’s so-called challenge, but not so the betting markets, where William Hill continue to quote Brown at 6/5 against leaving office before 31 December 2008 and 8/13 on leaving thereafter.
195. What?! So you’re comparison is:
(1) David Cameron and George Bush both promised nice, moderate conservatism.
(2) George Bush rejected it in office.
Therefore, David Cameron will too.
Yes, a sound case.
201. Who is your hope to lead Labour in 2014 then?
200 - “Bush is from an Evangelical Christianist political tradition that simply doesn’t exist in the UK.”
Well, not really. His father is a middle of the road Episopalian, and GWB himself apparently never goes to church.
“Who is your hope to lead Labour in 2014 then?”
John Bercow, anybody?
OT. I see the trailer for Oliver Stone’s new George W. Bush film “W” has been released, with screening planned to co-incide nicely with the election.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/07/w-trailer-walk.html
Doubt it will affect the election much though, and I see Tony Blair gets another starring role as well!
194 The Wintertons could usefully join Ed Balls in orbit in the outer Solar System.
I don’t know enough about the Shadow Cabinet to dislike any of them — but time will no doubt change that.
I’m a lifelong atheist and I’ve got fewer sins to be ashamed of, should I ever go to church, than GWB.
203. Or trying to open up our national parks for oil drilling, or standing by cabinet members refusing to turn up to answer in corruption cases, or giving top civil service positions to people who don’t believe in evolution, or not turning up to a national emergency for two weeks, or…
202 Indeed, Mandleson is absolutely right.
It’s about time senior members of the cabinet (Milliband is Foreign Sec after all) got off their backsides and started making a case for the govt and testing the Tories claim to office. To date it has seemed that senior ministers have forgotten they’re in the politics business.
It’s great that Milliband has started expressing himself politically.
In short Milliband has shown what we’ve been missing.
209. Doesn’t mean much - he was a born-again that didn’t get his tradition from his parents. Plus, I know Americans (college graduates no less!) who don’t go to church often who believe Jesus could come back on a white horse “any day now”.
You think I joke.
I do hope Hattie and David run off against each other. Will Hattie say, “Foreign Secretary, I served with Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair. Tony Blair was a friend of mine. David, you’re no Tony Blair.”
216 Are you sure that isn’t a white Hummer?
Cameron is no better than Bush, honestly!
Reminds me of how Ralph Nader said back in 2000 that Gore would be no different from Bush — I bet I could buy every American who still believes that a drink when I go to New York in October, and still have $$$ left over for DVDs.
@209:
That’s as maybe, but he certainly embraced evangelical politics with the furious vigour of a young boy masturbating for the first time.
215 - The BBC found a different angle on Peter Mandelson’s comments:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7532691.stm
@221:
How else can you read Mandelson’s comments? Noted Blairite supports noted Blairite against noted Blairite enemy shocker.
You are wrong, TC. Liberal Democrat membership fees are collected centrally and then a rebate is given to the local parties. Effectively, it is probably very close to what happens in the Tory Party, except that it is in a different order.
Other contributions from the central organisation to the local parties depend on many factors. Again, the Tories do just the same. Except that they are talking in terms of Ashcroft millions, rather than thousands.
223, as opposed to Cohen or Sainsbury millions, or thousands from a man on the run?
Why the left has such a fixation on Ashcroft is beyond me.
224 - because it fits into their “those beastly Towies! It’s all so dweadfully unfair” meme, basically.
@224:
Because his money’s working?
They consider anything which helps the Tories win to be foul play.
216. Are those views any more outlandish than the weird PC views often found on the left (e.g. ‘only white people can be racist’, ‘all men are rapists/women don’t lie about rape ergo anyone charged with it must be guilty’)?
Less familiar perhaps, to someone from the UK, but no more peculiar, objectively speaking.
And in the UK, there are many people in senior positions in public services who espouse extreme PC viewpoints which are as anti-scientific/irrational as are extreme ‘Christian’ viewpoints such as on evolution.
223 Tressage, if I am wrong where does the central LDs get their cash from to fund targets better than non-targets? They have to withold some of the membership fees and re-direct that to the targets.
224 As if the Tories have never had anything to say on Labour party funding!
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Miliband-Fuels-Labout-Leadership-Debate-1230-Lunchtime-Debate-Webchat/Article/200807415060065
Hi All,
Fancy joining me at 12.30pm for today’s Sky News Lunchtime Debate, when we ask: What Is Miliband Up To?
229 - quite. The Tories are none too keen on union money serving Labour.
Tres amusant to see all these summer overheated comments particularly from the usual rampers.
Viewed strictly as a business management problem with respect to Labour the folowing diagnosis is correct:
a) The unelected CEO, formerly CFO has presided over a catastrophic loss of market share since being appointed unopposed by the shareholders. Lack of management experience and ability to relate to customers is the key weakness very quickly identified.
b) A rival competitor superficially offers a better package to customers although constrained by the EU, Wall Street, global economic forces, the rise of India and China, absence of oil and petrochemical resources. The rival firm has stolen a 15-20% lead in market share over the incumbents. Meantime a third competitor trails badly due to poor management experience and lack of product differentiation.
c) The incumbent is facing business foreclosure in two years time due to a potential winding up petition from the customers unless it changes its sales pitch.
This is an everyday occurrence in many businesses, its also the first thing they are taught in the business schools and how to deal with it. Unfortunately most politicians of all three parties don’t have really good business and management experience, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the screwups we’ve had for the last fifty years in this country. See 1940, Suez, the three day week, 80s recession, ERM,sleaze, Iraq war etc..
The solution for the incumbents is quite obvious:
a) Fire the current CEO when he returns from holidays with a golden goodbye and long service watch.
b) Hold interviews for a new management team with a view to installation in October.
c) Change the offer, sales pitch and presentation completely over the next six-twelve months. Apolgise for previous mistakes and listen to customers intensively.
d) Begin a highly effective marketing campaign and roadtest policies.
e) Examine methods to change the funding of the business.
f) Consider a longer term merger with the weaker third competitor to retain overall market share.
g) Begin a campaign to completely undermine the main business rival.
Simple really… But unfortunately politicians don’t have the skill sets to be this ruthless as we saw with IDS, The Liberals, Michael Foot, Neville Chamberlain (removed solely by the threat of total market extinction.) We shall see if a) to f) unfold in the autumn.
I just pocketed my winnings on Glasgow East: £1000 bet at 15/8, and will have a blowout dinner at Le Gavroche next week with two friends before heading to the seaside till September. I reasoned the public hate the current CEO and wanted to send him his P45 in very short order, so any rival offer would be entertained. Firing the current CEO is the first step to business survival. I don’t buy the arguments for a Tory landslide because:
a) An effective change of CEO in the incumbents could have unforeseen consequences for market share all round.
b) the economic situation in the US and UK will get FAR FAR FAR worse in the next 6-18 months
c) A war with Iran isn’t priced in to the markets: GWB has a vested interest in this to ensure a MC Cain win and once the Israeli elections are held Bibi will storm to power and the IAF jets will start taxiing down the runway towards Tehran. This is very likely in the next six-twelve months.
d) The incumbents are likely to play the national security card.
Its always ‘events, dear boy’. Time to step away to the shore till September
OT: Just had a pleasant few days in Edinburgh at a family reunion. Dozens of first, second and third generation American cousins of mine were there, all being as Scottish as they can be.
Not a Republican among them. Made my trip!
British public opinion would not accept another war, even against Iran. The armed forces aren’t up to it anymore, the government hasn’t got the money to pay for it and the tories would probably oppose it leaving the government open to rebellion.
215. Jonathan. What a load of tosh!
Even you are surprised that the Milipede is Foreign Sec.,he looks and displays himself as - I’ll use that delightfuly old fashioned word - a TWERP.
232 Sounds good.
Back in 2000 I shared a house with an American female who was toying with voting Republican, but was concerned they weren’t right wing enough. Not nice. Tried my best to egg her on to vote for a fringe candidate in Washington state.
234 What a sophisticated piece of political anaysis from w’cock. But thinking about it, maybe Milliband is about to give birth to something new.
I think Millibland has been taken out of context again… like his comment on Newsnight a couple of years ago. I think he would dearly love to be Labour leader - after the next election.
Labour need a Michael Howard figure. A competent, experienced pair of hands, who understands that the election is probably lost, but needs to rescue the party from oblivion. That man is Jack Straw.
Millibland X2 and Purnell do not want to do a “Hague” and get the job too soon.
236 - corection - Millibland’s comment on QT…
230, the Tories want a level playing field, Labour a lopsided one. Simple as that.
re 198 yes I too was struck by Nick P’s complete lack of motivation. It may be the weather of course as here it’s too hot and uncomforatble to be motivated to do anything
138 - An anti-tory coalition is not plausible in 2009. A government that has been discredited is not one to coalesce with, the electorate expect punishment and that punishment would extend to any subsequent coalition partner.
The only possible governments next time are labour (unlikely), tory (likely) and tory coalition (possible). Forming a labour coalition would be suicide for the minor partners.
Is David Cameron going to offer rwactionary wine in a centrist bottle? Well we don’t know. And that is what I dislike. Is it really acceptable for a politician to want to be PM without making clear where he really stands. He’s a big fan of Thatcher and the heir to Blair. He wants family friendly policies and a more competitive economy. He wrote the 2005 Tory manifesto but wants to empathize with hoodies. Who is the real Cameron? Don’t we have a right to know?
One thing I am certain of is that he is depressingly conventional. He followed the smoking crowd at Eton, the Bullingdon boys at University, a bit of politics, then a corporate job, married at 30 etc. All of which on an individual level might seem fine. But when has he ever stood out from the crowd?
241, your criticism is that he’s too normal?
He does need to set out a coherent policy platform and general direction. But as the election isn’t until 2010 and Labour try to steal every policy they announce it isn’t too surprising he hasn’t yet.
After all - why interrupt your opponent when he’s making a mistake? And Labour have been doing that for nearly a year now.
241 Frank Booth: “But when has he ever stood out from the crowd?”
Er, where have you been for the last eighteen months?
241 - “All of which on an individual level might seem fine. But when has he ever stood out from the crowd?”
Yeah, but how many politicians have ever done a “proper job”? Nick Clegg - No! Jack Straw - No! It’s very hard to find one who has… aha! John Prescott, a man never afraid to stand out from the crowd!
Reading Nick Palmer’s post confirms me in my view that a change of leader is best done next summer post the Euro/Local elections. Gives time for Miliband, Harman and others to establish their credentials as alternatives before then, much as Brown did in the lead up to the leadership transition last year but Miliband failed to. Brown could also recover, of course, post conference and the exciting new Queen’s speech and renewed strategy - well its a hope.
Problem is that the sensible course could be overwhelmed by turbulence - crises need to come to a head and the September Conference could be the vehicle. Likely that Gordon will survive that, in absence of Cabinet resignations, and that makes it less likely there is another bout post June 2009 (much as Major’s resignation and re-election in 1995 ruled out any change in leader before 1997).
242 - “abour try to steal every policy they announce it isn’t too surprising he hasn’t yet.” hmmm… that’s after the Tories have stolen it from the LDs.
If Labour ditch ID cards, I imagine Cameron will state it is a triumph for the Tories. Labour will have stolen a long standing Tory policy. Well, not that long standing…
244 - I am very suspicious of this idea of a proper job. My father, who was a printer, still regards any work where things aren’t being made as not being proper work.
Yesterday I lunched some of the summer students and pretty well the first question that I was asked was how much proper work I did. We then had a very entertaining discussion as I explored exactly what that student thought proper work was.
What people really mean when they complain about politicians never having had a proper job is that they have a very limited life experience and are lacking in certain skills. And that is very true, but by and large the politicians can buy those skills in.
178- Nick- you would be mad to delay the inevitable leadership election into next year.
First, you know that a re-shuffle will not change the narrative. The drift therefore with Gordon will be even more damaging.
Plus last year the Labour party marched the press all the way up the hill during the autumn. You cannot do it again. The party will lose what little credibility it has.
A vibrant leadership contest this autumn will wake up the party, and you will be a much stronger party for it.
233
Since when has British opinion on foreign affairs won or lost an election…?
234-That Millipede is even considered seriously shows the dearth fo talent in GB’s cabinet.
245. Ted - I agree this is the most likely course of action for Labour and have weighted my bets accordingly.
250 - yes, but Milliband is vaguely likeable, not a quality universal in the Cabinet.
245
If Labour wait till 2009 for a new leader- in a recession - they’ll be polling sub 20% … And no new leader will recover from that.
Gordon Brown is like poison in the water supply: the longer he is left in, the more people he will fatally infect.
And since he finds it essential to appear on TV, he’ll remind the voters of what a bad choice Labour made.
247. When did Churchill do a ‘proper job’? Or Gladstone? Or Disraeli? Or Lord John Russell? Or Pitt?
241-Is David Cameron going to offer reactionary wine in a centrist bottle?
I for one hope so!!!
Close down TUs, ban civil marriages, prosecute and victimise minorities, rip up Kyoto, sterilzie Labour voters, shoot the poor, hang the working class…
My God!!! Would be great!!!!
“Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook.”
I used to like McCain, I thought he was different to Bush. Now I know that he isn’t, anyone who goes the Rove route is beneath contempt.
I hope he gets destroyed in November.
Humiliated.
At least the MSM are starting to turn their guns on him instead of Obama and have called out his latest advert as an outright lie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/opinion/30wed1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
253 If they elect a new leader this year the pressure for an election next year will be huge and Miliband or Harman wouldn’t have the press support Gordon received last June-September. Likely the new leader would ask for time to make a difference and not hold an immediate election so would try to take a still fractious and tired government through to 2010. An immediate election would most likely be a gift to the opposition parties.
Let Gordon take the blame and hope for upturn in economy next year.
254-Wasn’t Churchill at one point a war correspondent, then volunteer in WWI?
Guess it’s not working as a civil “servant” or local government “officer” but…
245. You appear to be considering this ‘turbulence’ as political business as usual - a very Westminster bubble view. Just a little bit of re-alignment, some up, some down, a bit of internal politicking, another relaunch - perhaps with a new leader, and then we can sail comfortably on for the next 18 months.
If the coming autumn and winter turn out to be as economically difficult as the majority of pundits expect, then that bubble is going to be rudely shattered as real life in the form of a mightily pissed-off electorate intrudes.
Shades of Marie Antoinette, only without the bloody ending.
245 Until recently I also took the view that a leadership change was likeliest next Summer. However, since the contenders are already starting the contest I now think it improbable it can be delayed that long - the government will be submerged in speculation as soon as MPs return from their holidays - it will be a bit like the Tory resignation crises of the early 90s - everything else will come to a halt until Brown’s position is resolved. And since it is not now possible for him to dispel the many questions hanging over him his position can be resolved only by his departure.
Just my 2d-worth on the main subject…
I am still of the opinion that Brown won’t jump and no one’s going to push him.
However, looking at it from Milibands perspective, clearly it wouldn’t be a great time to take over, but at least he would get to be Prime Minister if Brown was ousted in his favour before the general election. If Miliband leaves it until summer 2010, he might be Labour leader for 8 or 10 years (if they let him) without ever getting his name on the list of PMs.
If he’s the incumbent PM at the next election, it will also help him to retain his seat in the event of a Tory landslide.
On the other hand, the only member of the Shadow Cabinet who gets paid more than a standard MP’s salary is the Leader of the Opposition. So it’s worth going for in any case, assuming MPs are as venal as most PB.com contributors seem to think.
260 - the immediacy of the problem is great for Labour. It is true that IDS could not run a bath,let alone the Tories; but for Christ’s sake, GB is meant to be running the bloody country!
259 I’m not in the Westminster Bubble and trying to look less passionately at what is best course for Government. Yes it will get worse but all the more reason to hold on to the already discredited Leader and sacrifice him next summer.
As CoffeeHouse points out the Brownites won’t go quietly, a leadership election will have Harriet espousing very left of centre London Labour 80’s early 90’s views, McDonnell even further left, Miliband courting the unions. Who will hold the fort as PM as UK perhaps enters a full blown recession? A PM already fired by his party? Jack Straw as PM for 10 weeks?
No the best for Labour is Gordon to say in June next year he intends to resign and give a new leader the chance to establish himself before the general election.
Agree with Nickc though that this is becoming less and less likely as the situation has turned from fluff to crisis in last few days.
261 Certain Opposition Whips get ministerial salaries as well.
256
“I hope he gets destroyed in November.
Humiliated.”
Now we know not only where you stand for, mista UkPaul, but also that you’re a real cruel lad — wishing humiliation to those you disagree with, “beneath contempt”.
What? Would you like a public lynching of McCain?
Mean boy, mean.
258. He was a war correspondent (Boer War), though spent at least as much time reporting about himself as about the action (think later Kate Adie). His service in WWI was more of a token, to redeem himself after he left the cabinet, though it shouldn’t be completely written off.
Churchill was however a writer and effectively earned his living as such. His Nobel Prize was probably partly a result of his public profile, but his histories and biographies remain great works today.
I think, Philippe, you may discover there is a subtle difference between being humiliated at the ballot box and vigilante rule.
266 - very fine painter too. Almost as good as Prince Charles and Prince Philip.
198: no, MTF, I didn’t want to be rude to other contributors, but the reason I didn’t contribute yesterday wasn’t that I was demoralised (you can’t really accuse me of failing to contribute regularly or even of lack of fighting spirit) but that so much of the thread was bollocks. There’s a level of discussion that it’s simply embarrassing to be seen involved in.
Today’s thread is much more adult even if we disagree on lots of points. For instance, antifrank, for the record, no, I don’t agree that a contest is inevitable. I think it’s very unlikely this year: next year is I think genuinely difficult to predict.
266, 268 - In terms of his writing skills, Churchill bears a striking resemblance to Boris Johnson, both being egocentric, fluent naturals.
This article looks to me like a useful exercise for Miliband - waving his hat above the trench and seeing if it gets fired at. He also stakes his claim and is the first to have done so. Miliband as PM? Why not, if he can show us some administrative competence in contrast to Brown.
265 - My contempt for Rove and his vicious tactics are well known, it’s why I despise Tom Watson of the labour party.
If McCain plays fair, as he did until recently, then that’s great, if not then he should be, as I say, be humiliated. It’s the way that politics is conducted that is *far* more important than petty policy bickering.
I want humiliated those who seek to humiliate.
It is this more than differences in policy that move me more, equally against the left wing labour tactics and the right wing Rove tactics. Why? Do you see this is a policy issue?!?
I have contempt for those who agree with the Rove playbook when it suits only their side.
Do you agree with one or the other or do you disagree with both?
I, at least, have some respect for those who admit that they enjoy the Rove tactics of lying and chreating their way to victory but none for those who alternately cheer and boo, depending on if they are attacking or being attacked.
Tell us where you stand ‘Mista’….
@269:
Ooh, get her. Watch out, lads, she’s got her claws out.
Nick, it’s not our fault that you’re facing unemployment, or that your glorious People’s Tractor Commissar has turned out a humiliatingly bad waste of meat.
But you know we’re here to help you work through your feelings of failure and inadequacy.
WE UNDERSTAND.
My updated EV prediction as a compare and contrast to Jack’s!
Updated EV prediction
Definite Obama - Massachusetts (12), Connecticut (7), Maine (4), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), New York (31), New Jersey (15), Maryland (10), DC (3), Delaware (3), Pennsylvania (21), Illinois (21), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (7), California (55), Washington (11), Oregon (7), Hawaii (4) RUNNING TOTAL 238 Delegates
Probable Obama - Michigan (17), New Mexico (5), New Hampshire (4)
RUNNING TOTAL 264 Delegates
Leaning Obama - Colorado (9), Ohio (20) RUNNING TOTAL 293 Delegates
Definite McCain - Georgia (15), South Carolina (8), Texas (34), Alabama (9), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Tennessee (11), Kentucky (8), Arkansas (6), West Virginia (5), Oklahoma (7), Kansas (6), Nebraska (5), Arizona (10), Utah (5), Idaho (4), Wyoming (3) RUNNING TOTAL 151 Delegates
Probable McCain - Indiana (11), South Dakota (3) RUNNING TOTAL 165 Delegates
Leaning McCain -, Missouri (11), North Carolina (15), Alaska (3), Montana (3), North Dakota (3) RUNNING TOTAL 200 Delegates
Too close to call - Virginia (13), Nevada (5), Florida (27)
MOVEMENT SINCE PREVIOUS STATE OF PLAY
TOWARDS MCCAIN
New Hampshire – Probable Obama from definite Obama
TOWARDS OBAMA
New Mexico – Probable Obama from leaning Obama
Florida – Too close to call from leaning McCain
South Dakota – Probable McCain from definite McCain
Obama – 293 EV (no change), McCain 200 EV (-27), Toss Up 45 EV (+27)
Only minor movements with Florida being the only change to the overall EV.
Alaska may well have moved to probable McCain but with both GOP governor and Senator in trouble over scandals in recent weeks this may be premature.
I don’t understand how McCain can stomach working with Rove or his people, after what happened in South Carolina in 2000.
266. I’m not saying he didn’t have many fine qualities. But when he entered politics initially it would have been easy to say he had never done ‘a proper job’ (messing about in the cavalry doesn’t really qualify).
269. Nick, you’re not the only pompous gonk accusing others of immaturity:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23523331-details/Brown%27s+furious+attack+on+%27immature%27+Miliband/article.do
To be fair, I think the Daily Mail is being slightly mischievous here. The headline reads like Brown has just gone round to David Milliband’s house, and hit him on his winkle with a cold spoon, for weeing in the toy cupboard - whereas in fact this is just a rehash of previous rumblings we heard this morning.
But that’s the problem for Labour. Everything they do and say now is caught up in the tornado of speculation, and whirled around again and again - eventually one of the big pieces will fall and hurt someone.
275 - If he’s so weak when he is running for power just imagine what sort of people he would become answerable to if he became president.
263 I think everybody in Labour - apart from one person - believes that it would be best if that one person departed voluntarily. But I don’t think that will happen - his hand will be forced by a combination of circumstances and his colleagues.
The only choice remaining to him is whether to give in gracefully, find a more suitable role, and make the best of the tragic figure he could become or to spend the rest of his life brooding on the betrayal that (as in the case of Thatcher and Heath) was largely self-inflicted and the inevitable result of political failure on an epic scale.
@277:
Looks like the Brown Trousers action have stumbled on “immaturity” as the mot juste du jour.
I know they are but what am I?
269. ‘There’s a level of discussion that it’s simply embarrassing to be seen involved in.’
Mr.Palmer back to his condescending best, I see. One might have thought a bit of humility would creep in after the hubris he expressed during the so-called ‘Brown bounce’ was rendered laughable by the events of recent months - but apparently not.
266. “Churchill was however a writer and effectively earned his living as such.”
As Roy Jenkins and others have shown, however, Churchill left the research for most of his books and articles to a professional team of recent university graduates, and simply put the narrative into his own distinct hand at the end. He was no more original an “author” than William Hague, David Blunkett, and other modern politicians who make a nice little packet from journalism and books whilst simultaneously serving in Parliament.
re 270 isn’t this a mind blowing revelation from Mr P? Nick normally plays his cards exceptionally close to his chest and I’m sure that last Wednesday he would have gone to his last breath saying that GB would be the Labour leader at the next election. Yet now he’s unsure whether there will be a leadership contest or not next year.
“I used to like McCain, I thought he was different to Bush. Now I know that he isn’t, anyone who goes the Rove route is beneath contempt.”
Funny then isn’t it that Rove himself regards the most proficient exponent of his style of campaigning this season to be…. Obama -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121564804985640977.html
(I think we can safely assume that Rove himself does not regard “Rovian” as a term of abuse). Please feel free to share your contempt for Obama with us.
As for portraying the NYT as a disinterested and reliable commentator - I mean, really…
Scottish Labour leadership race….nominations so far (5 excluding themself needed to enter the contest):
Nominations received for Leader
Iain Gray MSP nominated by
Claire Baker MSP
Richard Baker MSP
Rhona Brankin MSP
Margaret Curran MSP
George Foulkes MSP
Iain Gray MSP
David Stewart MSP
Cathy Jamieson MSP nominated by
Bill Butler MSP
Malcolm Chisholm MSP
Cathie Cragie MSP
Patricia Ferguson MSP
Marlyn Glen MSP
Rhoda Grant MSP
Hugh Henry MSP
Cathy Jamieson MSP
Cathy Peattie MSP
Karen Whitfield MSP
Nominations received for Deputy Leader
Bill Butler MSP nominated by
Bill Butler MSP
Cathie Cragie MSP
Patricia Ferguson MSP
Marlyn Glen MSP
Cathy Peattie MSP
Elaine Smith MSP
Johann Lamont MSP nominated by
Malcolm Chisholm MSP
George Foulkes MSP
I would like to defend Nick Palmer,if only because he still posts even under such extraordinary circumstances. I disagree with about 99.99% of what he says, but posters inevitably spin for their viewpoint.In that, Nick is absolutely no exception, in fact, I get so dizzy with his spin, I always read his posts at least twice, the second time anticlockwise and so on and so forth dependant on the level of spin.
I would hate to be in the Labour Party’s position, I can’t say I’m not enjoying their discomfort hugely, but lets be civil -ish.
Churchill certainly didn’t have a team of researchers in India or South Africa, that was all personal hard graft and was the core of his better writing.
And if not having a proper job suggests inexperience and living by your own talents then Churchill’s early career certainly qualified and it encompasses penurious soldier, journalist, author, prisoner of war, escapee, investor, then I don’t know what is.
286 so Margaret Curran surrenders hope of leadership, nominates someone else
285 - I can point out numerous other articles beyond the NYT, the truth is that McCain has had to go negative. Okay, here’s another from Businessweek -
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2008/07/the_new_normal.html
“This ad asserts a McCain campaign talking-point that Obama wouldn’t make time for wounded troops unless cameras were allowed to follow him, but did make time to work out at a gym. This, of course, is a lie. It’s a blatant lie. ”
and here’s the non-partisan Factcheck -
“A McCain TV spot falsely insinuates that Obama canceled his visit because “the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” ”
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/snubbing_wounded_troops.html
I suggest you look at what is coming out of Factcheck, nearly all of the recent postings are about lies from the McCain camp.
Rove is wrong, he tries to claim he is what he isn’t. The Rove playbook is to release lies and hope that people believe them or, more likely, not bother to check because ‘they sound as though they might be true’. *That’s* Rove and not what he wants to believe he is. The Obama team is almost the anti-Rove in fact, refusing to go for the jugular even now that McCain has been caught blatantly lying.
285 - Rove taking credit for the Obama playbook is completely presumtuous: using the internet for fundraisin and having lots of door-knockers on polling days isn’t rocket science, and the Obama campaign has blown apart previous records for political use of the internet, even compared to 2004.
That aside, don’t confuse the mode of the campaign with its style. Both operate in the ways I’ve mentioned because that’s how campaigns are run. By ‘Rovian style’, ukpaul was objecting to the smear approach, and the substance of advertising and attacks on opponents that he finds distasteful. Obama can’t really be accused of that in anything like the same way. In fact, I’m struggling to think of a negative stroke that he’s played. McCain used to be renowned for that as well - not so much since he took Rove on board.
I don’t object to the dirty quite as strongly as ukpaul - I think there’s a place for it, though I like and respect candidates more if they choose to stay positive.
Nick Palmer your emotional journey continues and now you recognise the turmoil is real and that there is the possibility of a leadership election next year.
Brave of you to says so, in the circumstances when all the armed camps in your party are getting itchy.
Perhaps in another week or two you may well come around to believing Brown will go this year, a new leader installed at the end of the year, a budget and an election in June.
That way you can retain some small hope of holding on to your seat.
Mind you, if Newsnight are right and Darling introduces a suicide budget of reduced taxation, higher spending and state backing for all new mortgages (nationalising all private mortgage risk) then all bets are off, as it won’t even take weeks for the disaster that would provoke becoming painfully clear.
Tony Lloyd MP has just said David Miliband is ‘a policy free zone’… I have the clip!
285. Karl Rove’s political columns are nothing but hitjobs on the opposition. He knows how bad his image is so he obviously wants to connect Obama with it. It’s sad that the once respected Wall Street Journal has gone down into partisan hackery by employing the likes of him.
270. but that so much of the thread was bollocks.
Well i don’t know how nick stays so chipper - My career prospects are in complete ruins! I feel dreadful and am on the conveyeur belt towards the crushing machine! There is no way out! I can say I really don’t understand employers; what there looking for simply does not exist! So much for a skills based society! Seems a load of cobblers to me!
292. Darling wouldn’t be that daft would he?
Regarding Miliband, isn’t it possible that this is a much more cunning ploy than simply making a run for leader? If he does all the usual steps of someone preparing for a leadership bid, while persuading others to stand down, he could then announce his support for Brown next week. The effect would be that he cements his reputation as “the next leader” when Brown goes at a time thats right for Miliband - after losing the next election. Having the Blairite wing behind him, whilst also propping up Brown until the election, he will win the support of both main parts of the parrty. Then, in Labour’s hour of wreckage, he could be the unifier when the party doesn’t have the stomach for a messy contest. Or possibly be the sole moderate against a couple of left-wingers. This could be a very clever manouver by Miliband, far more nuanced than people are currently appreciating.
Kay Burley is beyond horrible. Just wanted to throw that out there.
293. That’s nothing - read what the Guardianistas have to say on CiF, he gets a real roasting.
And so does McShane, worse probably.
To the Lab supporters on PB - you really ought to read the CiF comments on these two - these are your ex-fellow supporters rushing for the exit.
Much amused by Clegg on the radio demanding a public enquiry into the Yamamah deal with the Saudis which BAe did in the 80s.
Silly stuff. It was a profitable deal not just for the principle but for many other UK companies of all sorts, and was politically important in the cauldron of the Middle East.
The reason he wants this seems to be it was signed under the Tories so with the latest deal under the spotlight signed under Labour, he can then try to damn both governments equally.
Equidistant from common sense and political reality.
297..Miliband is no future Prime Minister. there are better prospects on ‘ackney marshes.
Hur hur. Gabble’s getting pissed on by the Guardian frothetariat!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/30/labour.davidmiliband?showallcomments=true
298 well maybe Tony Lloyd should have answered the question…….
ukpaul, why are you quoting articles by Democrats as though they were legitimate political comment? Your Businessweek article is by a dem partisan who calls Sean Hannity a “nut muffin” and who, in asserting that the wholly accurate McCain ad about Obama dropping his visit to wounded troops is a lie, also asserts that RNC attacks on John Kerry as a flip-flopper were lies and distortions.
Don’t think you’ll find many objective commentators who think John Kerry was not a flip-flopper.
Factcheck is another democrat stooge site.
You want lies? Try David Axelrod of the Obama campaign who stated that the Pentagon told Obama he was not allowed to visit wounded troops. He had to back off when publicly corrected by the Pentagon.
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDFmYjA1MjE3NTcwYjFhNjM2M2U1N2Y3MGQzNDRiZTU=
“Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod to the Chicago Sun Times, July 25: The Pentagon “viewed this as a campaign event and therefore they said he should not come.”
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, on Morning Joe, this morning: “We never said that the Pentagon prevented us from going.””
296 Cuddles the very thought gave me the wobblies and the Newsnight correspondent said that if he had report this as a possibility only a year ago he would have been sent to the funny farm.
I think the Labour party has lost its connection with voters and sometimes with the real world: you know all the tractor production figures, the constant mantra about the right long term decisions and the lack of recognition of the reality of the messes they have made.
Milliband doffed his cap slightly to those mistakes but still skidded around them.
Until the publicly recognise the mess, then they are going down and down. If they do recognise it then they may have a chance to avoid total disaster.
300: “Much amused by Clegg on the radio…”
Ah, so that’s what he’s doing these days. Presenting a local radio show, Patridge-style?
What’s that - he’s still leading the Lib Dems? Nah, surely not?
He’s becoming the forgotten man of British politics - an IDS but without the public recognition factor.
Isn’t it time to change thread; Frank Field for PM.
Gabble for People’s Tractor Commissar!
303. Maybe Ms. Burley should have asked questions to glean information instead of headlines.
Sorry to hear of the job problems, Martin - hang in there. Virtually everyone has patches in their lives where jobs are elusive - I had to hunt for two years before my first job, in fact, PhD and all.
b - lol, if I was looking for supporters, I wouldn’t go to CiF. They’re the original angry mob and always have been…
MTF, Witan - thanks!
Chris A: I don’t think you’ll find that I made statements as sweeping as that - I generally don’t make political predictions more than a year ahead. What I said last week is that there isn’t a plot, MPs aren’t wildly thrashing around, and I don’t expect (or want) any leadership change this year. That’s still the position, and since this is partly a betting site it’s important for people to separate what they predict from what they think ough tto happen.
runnymede - it’s hard work being condescending, pompous and demoralised all at once, you know - I have to work at it.
“Politico” looks at Obama’s cash advantage and more specifically whether Georgia is safe for McCain :
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12078.html
290. The only fact that is indisputably clear is that Obama cancelled a visit to wounded troops after the Pentagon told him he couldn’t bring campaign staff or the media with him, but was more than welcome to visit in his capacity as a US senator. (See Pentagon statement at the bottom here - http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/obama-skips-visit-with-troops/ ). Obama is indeed claiming he never asked to take the media with him - which raises the odd question of why the Pentagon felt it necessary to reject a request that hadn’t been made - but not being an Obama supporter I do not feel obligated to take every defensive press release issued by his campaign as gospel truth. McCain’s attack is at the very least a reasonable interpretation of the information at hand, and does not merit the characterisation of it as a blatant lie.
291. “In fact, I’m struggling to think of a negative stroke that he’s played.”
What about the “McCain wants the war to last another 100 years” lie, and the regular attempts (”losing his bearings”) to imply McCain is senile?
305. A budget such as that would be seen just like the attempt at repairing the 10p tax fiasco, a failing government desperately trying to bribe the voters while leaving the public finances to collapse. It would be a disaster for them, and give the tories even more to attack (like they need it).
Miliband press conference 2:30
286.
I wish they’d hurry. Salmond is starving and he likes his food - has hasn’t has any breakfast for over month now.
@310:
It’s a sad day when Labour can’t even rely on the support of the frothy cretinoleft of The Guardian, though, no?
BETTING ALERT
Tim Kaine cancells scheduled event - Obama VEEP watch
311 - For the record, when PtP, Double Carpet and I went to a Democrats Abroad meeting, I was ridiculed for saying Obama should pitch at Georgia. They said it was unwinnable, and that he shouldn’t waste the money. I think, after North Carolina and Virginia, it represents the best chance of taking a Democrat State in the South, and the Democrats have never won without at least a couple of Southern States.
If it comes off, I think we’ll be looking at a big win.
@314:
It could go either way: does he knife Tractors in the back, or the front?
Guess we’ll have Ken ‘the newt’, pontificating on LBC radio from 30th August. Won’t he be mad to miss all the excitement, if the labour crisis is resolved by then?
But probably he’ll be quivering in ecstasy at the labour conference, letting his future listeners know how great is our Great Leader.
I don’t think they were saying ‘McCain *wants* it to last another 100 years’ just that he was prepared to leave troops in for that long (which he is, under certain circumstances).
Attacks on policy positions are fair game (socialised medicine?) - I would object to the senility attacks, though this is by the netroots not the Obama campaign, to the best of my knowledge.
304 - Factcheck is a democrat site? now I know you are joking. You nearly had me there.
You are joking aren’t you?
As for flip flopping, every single politician is a flip flopper, as such, anyone claiming that someone else is either knows they are deliberately obfuscating or they are lying to themselves.
McCain has also been caught lying to the voters however, which is worse. I’m afraid you’ll have to live with the fact that you are supporting a man who is starting to run a campaign even dirtier than Bush’s.
You also appear to have missed the nuance of words in the Pentagon issue. They didn’t say they couldn’t just advised them that it was not possible to do what was planned. Subtle but allows them to claim they didn’t say don’t go.
“But two days before the visit, Pentagon officials told the campaign that only Mr. Obama would be allowed inside the medical center in his capacity as a senator. The adviser who had intended to join Mr. Obama, Scott Gration, a retired major general in the Air Force, was told he could not go along because he was a volunteer campaign adviser.
Mr. Obama was asked by reporters to explain the matter on Saturday in London.
“That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political, and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns,” Mr. Obama said. “So rather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been considered a political controversy of some sort, what we decided was that we not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops that were there.””
It’s always worthwhile actually reading the words.
I know exactly what you would try and claim otherwise, the argument that he was politicising the visit. It’s from the same ridiculous McCain whingeing that Obama was outside the US when it was McCain who had been *goading* Obama to go outside the US because he hadn’t been to Iraq and allies. Unbelievable.
That’s a flip flopper by the way, someone who tries to believe two contradictory thoughts at the same time.
306 - well it is the silly season. Cameron snogging his wife for the cameras while wearing silly shorts, and losing his bike. And funniest of all, HH is running the country.
314 What’s that all about - any speculation from the Beeb or Sky as yet?
321. “losing his bearings” is a direct Obama quote. See here -
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/08/obama-mccain-is-losing-his-bearings/
Miliband is doing a press conference at 2.30 today with the Italian ambassador. I wonder how many questions will be about Italy…
By the way, whoever was slagging off Kay Burley, I don’t usually agree with Kas (he’s a narrow minded fool), but Lloyd really embarrassed himself, and summed up why everyone hates Labour at the moment.
Nick, I usually trust your judgement on internal Labour affairs, as you have first-hand knowledge, but I simply can’t see why Miliband would release that article in the current climate, if he wasn’t preparing a leadership bid.
324. Just a general foreign affairs thing with the Italian ambassador, but we all know what the questions will be now.
327. What did Lloyd say?
ukpaul it won’t wash. Obama would not see the troops unless press and entourage were there. He visited the troops in Afghanistan and nobody said he was playing politics with them. You are so blind by adoration of your candidate that you defend every wrong thing he does. this was a serious error on his part. IIRC you also defended it when he said poor people “cling to their guns and religion”. He simply can’t do anything wrong where you are concerned. McCain’s ad is correct and it hits the spot.
The fact you’d come here and cite that Businessweek article to support your case proves it to me. Anyone clicking on the link can see it’s written by a republican-hating Democrat.
You’re also being disingenuous when you say you used to respect McCain. Since he became the Republican nominee you have missed no chance to have a go at him.
Normally I pass over your McCain attacks because I recognise that you will be unable to have a serious discussion about Obama, but this nonsense about the campaign ad being a lie needed correction. the campaign ad is spot on. Obama refused to pay a private visit to the troops, he insisted he be accompanied.
329. Absolutely nothing. Refused to answer any questions related to Brown.
Miliband fails to say Brown will lead Labour to next election
327 I am honoured…………….
318 Morus. As Georgia is an early reporting state we should know pretty quickly whether AA turnout and Obama’s ground game will make him competitive in the state.
O/T - Has anyone noticed the emergence of baby-faced bloggers at the Telegraph have they plundered them from sixth forms?
Exhibit A - http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/jon_swaine/blog/2008/07/30/david_milibands_missive_has_a_brownshaped_hole
Exhibit B-
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/matt_hackett/blog/2008/07/29/gordon_browns_options
331. and in doing so makes things worse than if he had answered them I suppose?
Regarding the “100 years” quote, Obama started using the term “McCain wants us to go on for 100 years, if necessary” which is what the media were reporting. When McCain clarified that he meant in a German/Japanese manner, Obama started saying “keep our troops there”. It wasn’t a deliberate lie, that some people are making out.
And factcheck a Democratic site? Please…
336. He just made himself look stupid, and I don’t know how anyone can criticise Burley for asking tough questions.
336 - There is probably nothing he could say that would ever be believed anyway!
@335:
Awww, bless.
332 when did he do that
330. Sorry Businessweek is now a liberal source? Are you kidding me? It’s written for the Mitt Romney big business crowd for God’s sake. Just because someone calls Sean Hannity a nutmuffin doesn’t make them left-wing, in the same way as calling Michael Moore an idiot doesn’t make you right-wing.
Miliband press conference on Sky shortly…
The “Wall Street Journal” looks at the GOP Convention, McCain and a little problem called President Bush !!
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/07/30/political-perceptions-dear-president-about-the-convention/
341. Speaking to Sky News a few minutes ago
330. And come on, you know what the McCain campaign would have said if Obama had gone. “Trying to politicise our wounded soldiers, overruling the warnings of the Pentagon…”
345 thanks Charlie
It is interesting amidst all this shenanigans to note that David Cameron having seen off two LibDem leaders and the third is causing him no problems now looks like seeing off his second Labour leader and so far none of the potential replacements look like causing him a great deal of trouble.
347. He actually said ‘Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour Party and will lead us to face the big issues’
A ringing endorsement if I ever heard one, lol.
348. Fair point, he’s managed to weather the political storms that have battered the other two parties, and is now looking like being the next PM.
348 - I think you’ll find that drink finished off CK. Unless DC was pouring booze down CK’s gullet forcibly at regular intervals…
I don’t think that CK would have lasted any longer had anybody else been leader of the Tories. Ming’s demise is another matter.
349
Is Gordon going to be out of work and selling The Big Issues then?
348. Yet another parallel with Blair. It’s a shame, I reckon Blair v Cameron would have been a genuinely fascinating election.
349 - That sounds like that point during the 1983 election campaign when the NEC had to confirm that they still believed they were led by Michael Foot.
350, right now Cameron’s job is easy. Lib Dems are nowhere and Labour’s devouring its own head.
However, he played a blinder at conference season, and more than held his own against Blair.
With all the sniping at Milliband, it does look like the Brownites are going to drag this out irregardless of the damage to the party. A 2010 GE with a Labour meltdown to 150 MPs looks more likely.
These MPs would rather sacrifice the party rather than Brown. Nick P’s always welcome comments seem to be in the line with that approach. Crisis what crisis?
349 “Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour Party” = currently, factually correct
“and will lead us to face the big issues” = which of us ambitious but cowardly weasels will finally break cover and tell Gordon he has to go - the biggest issue of all for career those politicians who are otherwise condemned to a new life as Johnny No-stars at MacDonalds
Exactly Mark.
355 - Indeed, but if the Labour Party are still busy tearing lumps out of each other come conference then this year could be a difficult conference for Cameron too, albeit for different reasons.
@356:
IRREGARDLESS IS NOT A WORD.
And now you must die.
352 ROFL
360. What are you talking about you complete cretin?
you can have regardless or irrespective - but not both!
348 Although pretty skeptical of Cameron, I give him a lot of credit for that.
This time a year ago, Cameron was staring down the barrels of a gun. He really has played a blinder these last 12 months.
It is missing the point to say Labour made the mistakes.
Mistakes are made when parties are under pressure — Cameron applied the pressure, which is no easy thing to do when you’re substantially behind.
If it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary, I count it as a word. It is.
317. Test - link please.
Miliband delayed…. perhaps he’s been sacked?
I think Obama’s chances in Georgia will entirely come down to how well Barr does. I can’t see Barack winning that much of the white vote.
330 - Untrue, he was going to but was then told that the one person (apart from security) he was taking wouldn’t be allowed to as it would be ‘political’. As such he cancelled the trip because, whatever he did, he was being told it was too political.
Thats’ the truth. Not the McCain spin.
You know full well that I attack such tactics irrespective of political position, you are hardly a non-partisan however. I supported McCain as GOP candidate by the way, I honestly thought he was different and wouldn’t be dragged into negative campaigning. Maybe that was naive but it was an honest hope.
You also don’t seem up with the situation, Obama made a similar visit Afghanistan because he was with other senators including Hagel so it was bipartisan.
Of course I’m going to link to people who have debunked the McCain spin, both partisan and non-partisan. I do, however, provide non-partisan links as well to give context.
As for factcheck being a democrat front I’m still laughing at that one, your credibility is shot to pieces in trying to claim it as being partisan, something I didn’t do when linking to these articles.
I’m surprised that you are painting yourself into a corner on this. I await the proof that is missing from your accusation, would you also admit that you are wrong on factcheck?
367 Is he writing the answers on the back of his shirt cuff?
Miliband press conference now
@365:
You are “nonstandard” or “wrong” and will not be tolerated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless
More unforgivably, it’s something Bush says.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the unspoken plan of the PLP is for Brown to lead Labour until next May but then, if Labour is still floundering, to ditch him.
That was the plan but now it’s been rumbled the media will relentless pursue this issue until it’s resolved. Can they really stick to this timetable?
Latest Rasmussen Tracker :
McCain 46% .. Obama 48%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
364
No. You’re all wrong . Cameron is a lightweight, Until he has 50% point leads, he’s not safe..
He’s not true blue, he’s an apostate.
Where’s Peter the Punter when you need him to tell us whether Henrythenavigator will win the Sussex Stakes at 3.30pm
From your link, Martin:-
‘The term “irregardless” has begun to move towards acceptance because incorrect words or grammatical conventions are absorbed by the English language based on common usage’
Who are you to judge if a word is ‘correct’ or not? Words cannot describe my contempt for posters like you, I literally cringe every time you spout your awful ramblings.
Miliband is being slaughtered by GB’s bootboys n girls on Politics Home. This is great!!!
British Gas have just put gas prices up by 35% and electricity by 9%, that’s a huge increase, it will be interesting to see if the government does anything about it. If they took a tough stance against the price rises then it could look as if they are actually doing something and it might get them some support.
372. The OED is surely more reliable than wikipedia.
379! WOW!!! Time for a GE! Now.
377, it’s grammar nazis who are our finest bulwark against leet speakers.
Irregardless is pretty bad. Not as bad as ironical though. People who say ironical more than once should be fed into an industrial sander.
Miriam-Webster advises not to use it due to the controversy. It appears to be an Americanism,coming from colloquial speech (ie mistakes) which is not accepted by all. Hold the line chaps. Look what’s happening to ‘few’ and ‘less’!
373 Yes, people I have discussed this with, who inlcude members of the PLP, give me the impression that the “plan” was to give Brown until after the local elections next Summer and ditch him then if things did not show clear signs of improvement.
But I now think he won’t last that long - the contest for his successor is all but underway - it’s inconceivable that things can go on like this for another year. The Party conference will be overwhelmed by speculation about his future and I doubt he’ll be still in place by the end of it.
First question to Miliband:-
‘Are you campaigning to be leader of the Labour Party’
366 Goupillon
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWQ3NjFmOTI4ZTgxZTI2N2VkMmY0N2VhYTlkZmE5M2M=
383 “Miriam Webster”
Nice girl, wondered where she’d got to.
Miliband: “Not campaigning for anything other than a successful Labour government: Gordon will lead us forward”
Miliband backtracking big time. Boo.
387. oh yeah. woops
Miliband squirms - he is such a wimp!!
379
If the Government do anything on gas prices, we shall run out. We rely on gas imports and any price controls mean we shall have no gas in the winter.
Even a Labour Government is not THAT stupid.. although most Labour supporters who call for price controls apparently are.
385 Well there’s honest, as they say up here.
@377:
It’s good to have power over lefties, but it’s a pity I can’t make you spontaneously combust.
Irregardless: falls foul of Orwell’s zeroth law: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Just because you can say “irregardless” doesn’t mean you should.
“Irregardless” is a barbarous Bushesque catachresis, and anyone who spouts it deserving of ridicule and censure.
I am Martin Coxall. Who the flip are you?
389. Just another New Liebour poltroon.
This lot is such a shambles - energy prices through the roof and they slither and squirm and moan about the Tories - do me a favour?
373,384 I think these readings of the situation are correct.
Anyone reckon Miliband has been got to? Been offered Chancellor or something?
Miliband: “Gordon can lead us into the next election and win. Yes”
But he refuses to completely rule himself out of challenging Gordon Brown…
Grammar, spelling and language debates get hung up on truth, when really they should concentrate on beauty (and intelligibility). For example, complaining about misspelling is churlish when the intended word is clear. The test really should be whether the words help or obstruct meaning and whether the words conjure up the right images.
“Coronate” is ugly, and those who use it should sit on the naughty step. David Miliband’s use of green as a verb, while unconventional, did conjure up an image of Europe being turfed over, so I quite liked that. The meaning of “irregardless” is clear and I really can’t get hung up on it.
386. Test - thanks
Miliband visibly rattled at the press conference
Miliband: “Labour never does mad things”
398. Why would he want to be Chancellor, given the economic disaster thats developing? I would have though Foreign Affairs would be much safer at the the mo, than the hot house that is the Treasury?
This is beginning to resemble the last few days of the beloved Margaret:-)
i’M NOT SURE HE is backtracking - he’s saying it’s not about personalties. He just denied the Labour party would be mad to change its leader when asked that by a journo
@401:
The problem is, that it looks like it means the opposite of what the simplefolk using it mean.
Also, people who say “could care less”. There shall be special harshcamps just for you.
404. Except ditching their greated election winner in their history and putting in charge a complete depressive mad man.
I don’t think he’s been got at and I think he has spoken very well. He sidesteps every opportunity to back Brown unequivocably. He is streets ahead of Brown and I think he will be PM before the next GE.
406 - I have never heard Margaret Beckett called beloved before. But her final days, both as acting Labour leader, and later as For Sec,were tragic.
Nice one from the Italian girl!
Miliband seems to be waiting for the Standards ten junior ministers.. wonder if they exist
Miliband - total crap!!! Its xmas every day 4 the Tories
410 agree totally that was not backing Brown, again and again he said it’s about a Labour vision, not a personality, he said “getting on with the job” was not enough on its own (dig at Brown) etc
408. That is the American usage I believe, at least Americans have told me so. Although it is completely illogical.
410 Yes, yes stjohn, but this year or ‘09?
394. “Irregardless” is not a Bushism. It’s been standard American dialect for decades.
401. I agree with your point, but disagree on “coronate”. I’ve yet to hear justification of why it is ugly. Besides, it does conjure up a different meaning than “crown”. You crown a legitimate monarch. You coronate an unworthy pretender.
408 - So you’d never use the phrase “cheap at half the price”? Language isn’t always logical, and since you understand clearly what is intended, you hole your own point beneath the waterline.
If Dante were to come back in the new millennium and rewrite his Divine Comedy, I hope and trust he would have a special circle for linguistic pedants in hell, probably in the section reserved for sins against God, Art and Man.
408. And “awful” should mean “full of awe” (in the same sense “wonderful”), and “inflammable” should mean the opposite of flammable.
414. Yes - if this pathetic wretch is the ’solution’ to Labour’s ills, then they are in an even deeper hole than hitherto thought.
It’s like Miliband thought ‘hmmm, I know, I’ll make myself look like a complete goober over the coming days, and destabalise the party even more! All while GB is away on holiday’
@420:
Your pedant-fu is weak, young warrior.
420 - There’s a hymn (I forget which one), which talks about god having “awful majesty” - some of the newer hymnals spell it “aweful”, just to avoid any misunderestimationnesses…
Since events are moving fast, the probability of an early election must now be higher than it seemed a few days ago. So it is possible - albeit still unlikely, in my view - that Cameron could be PM within a few months.
If that were to happen, he has said he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, if it is not too late. Does anyone know for sure what the position would be regarding ratification? By this I mean that the UK has already ratified the Treaty, including the final stage of depositing the sealed documents in Rome. Can it be un-ratified?
420 - My English teacher was a full scale pedant and banned the use of words unless they were strictly accurate to the situation. Fantastic was therefore not to be heard to describe weekends or holidays, unless of course said weekends or holidays had been a fantasy!
Note the bright red Milliband tie this morning compared to the usual purple and blues of Brown.
Who is not afraid to wear his heart at his throat?
@425:
Of course. It could be repealed in a few hours with some emergency legislation.
410. Peter. That’s down to the PLP! Currently in search of a backbone.
420 well flammable is a recent creation, simply because so many people thought that “Inflammable” meant something was fireproof.
364 But surely Cameron’s amazing stroke of luck was Brown marching his troops to the top of the hill and then bottling it. If he had played his hand more sensibly and then gone for the election, Cameron might very well be an ex-leader by now.
197 Your predictions of blood on the floor over the redirection of resources to Labour held seats is a bit silly. I am sure you know this.
418 coronate is an ugly word and should only be used when action is to attack with a Crown or hit on the crown (of the head), whereas “to crown” is to place the object gently on the head or of course in its gynaecological sense.
411
The “beloved Margaret” = Mrs Thatcher.. but of course you knew that
421. Thats a bit naive really isn’t it?
Something that is awful can still inspire awe - even if it’s just awe at how bad it is.
And I’d never use the phrase ‘cheap at half the price’ unless that is what I meant.
If it isn’t for the viginlance of the pedants it will be under ten years before we in the English-speaking world are reduced to communicating by incoherently screeching at one another like gibbons. And our civilisation will end and the French will laugh at us.
Honestly, if we’re not going to use words to mean what they mean*, what’s the point? My particular bugbear is ‘disinterested’. There’s a perfectly good word ‘indifferent’ which means exactly what most people who use ‘disinterested’ mean and fits the rhythm of the sentence just as well. Although it wouldn’t have scanned quite as well in that Elbow song.
*apart from when we’re being humourous, of course.
re 383 the few/less pass was sold many years ago. I bet most people today don’t realise the difference. Sad but true.
431. Why? I think “In 1993, Bob Smith was crowned leader of Club X” has a different meaning to “In 1993, Bob Smith was coronated leader of Club X”. Thus, the term adds to meaning.
New thread now up.
Thanks
Double Carpet
424. Yes - ‘awful’ is a word which has subtly changed its meaning over time. Another example is ‘naughty’ - once far stronger in meaning than now.
But it would be strange in the extreme to argue that we should return to the usage of two or three hundred years ago.
re 401/399 but we can reconstruct Miliband’s language.
“Gordon can lead us into the next election and win” is ambiguous and if he thinks that this would put an end to the speculation then he’s stupider than I thought.
If he had meant to say “Gordon will lead us into the next election and win”, then why didn’t he say so. Ergo - this is not what he thinks nor wants.
What annoys me most about grammar and spelling is false pedantry.
It may be ugly to split an infinitive, but sometimes that word order is required: “Your job is to really motivate people.”
-ize endings are not American. They are standard English. The -ise in “realise” etc are 20th century British bastardizations.
I could go on…
David Milliband is becoming Labour’s Portillo
Never really challenging, but never supporting either, with acolytes stirring the pot. And when push comes to shove, despite being talked up by his friends and the media I don’t think the MPs as a whole will back him.
And yes, I still bear a grudge after taking quite a bit of the 7/1 on him last time, and then the spineless snake didn’t even stand.
151 Cameron is offering a free vote on hunting. He will vote in favour.
310. Thanks Nick! I liked the last paragraph as well!