Do the voters always get it right?
August 14th, 2008
What do we think of “The Fink’s” thesis?
There’s an interesting piece on Times Online today by Daniel Finkelstein who argues that in every general election over the past 80 years the voters have chosen the party that was most right to run the country at the time.
He writes: “The proposition is that in every contest in these last 80 years the party that was more fit to govern has been victorious. Sometimes both of the main offerings were weak and unappealing, often the winner wasn’t much good, but always the winner was better able to conduct the business of government than was the loser.”
Clearly 1992 was controversial. Kinnock looked all set to lead, at the very minimum, a minority government but in the end Labour was more nearly 8% behind in the popular vote and John Major’s Tories were returned with a small majority.
The Fink says that when he has tested this on people the most disagreement comes over 1970 - when Heath’s Tories ousted Wilson’s Labour - and in the two elections of 1974 when Labour returned firstly in a hung parliament and then with a small majority.
I think that there’s something in this. In my life-time it was right that the tired Tory government should be beaten in 1964 and that probably the country was right about Labour at the 1970 general election. Since then it’s hard to argue.
One remarkable factor is that since the war a party with a fully working majority has been replaced by another, also with an adequate majority, only once - in 1970.
It’s hard to argue now that the mood is for change and that Labour looks to have run out of steam. But will this, in the end, be how the voters see it.
What do others think Finkelstein’s piece?
Mike Smithson
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Germany 1933 springs to mind !!
Jack W is 105.
First
1 - I think the thesis deals with British voters only.
Morus : — In a nutshell: I think that a truly radical islamofasc*st imam deserve more of our respect than a soft, centrist journalist; in that regard, Putin is greater than Gordon Brown — even if I would be glad to fight both the islamofuka and the new Tsar of War.
Fink also ought to have added the 1975 referendum on our membership of the EEC. I’vve not seen SeanT recently.
2 charlie. Not !!
I’m a voter, and I always get it right.
QED.
3 James. We’re very international in a non EU fashion here on PB !!
Looking at the comments under the article:
“The election that gave the wrong result was the 1983 election. If Thatcher had been sent packing then the Tories might have been forced to dump their divisive policies, as they are doing now, and elect a less ideologically driven Leader. North Sea Oil money could have given us modernisation.
A Clark, Basing, england”
If he had his wish we would be living in a very strange world
8 - Indeed, I think you could apply the theory to the USofA quite adequately though.
The problem with this kind of argument is the implied counterfactual of what would have happened had the other lot won. By definition you can’t know. On the other hand you sometimes have a pretty good notion. 1992 is a good example - given that Labour (in the shape of G. Brown) were even more supportive of ERM membership than the Tories, the outcome would have been an even more rapid debacle but without the competent clearing up of the mess. Overall I find the thesis persuasive though, as a version of the ‘wisdom of crowds’ argument. The other interesting question to put to pols is “Is thare an election your party won and inretrospect you really wish it hadn’t?” A lot of Tories might pick 1992.
It’s clearly nonsense, since the electorate has sometimes said one thing and the electoral system delivered a different answer.
1951 was a classic case. The largest vote went to Labour. Labour’s share of vote and numbers who voted for it were higher than in 1950 and higher still than its performance in the landslide win of 1945.
But the Conservatives won the election and formed the government.
The Tories won, courtesy of the single-member constituency system, FPTP, distribution of votes and the lack of Liberal candidates.
So how could the electorate have been right when it’s verdict was not translated into an election win?
Further, the Conservative governments of the ’50s, by and large, were a success. If you like, the ‘right’ choice and the electors thought so in 1955 and 1959.
And just what was the electorate enthusiastic about in Labour in 1945 to give it even more numerous support than it did in 1945? Its manifesto was a route map of further Nationalisation and controls on the way to a complete Soviet-style, client state. How could the electorate have been right to vote for that in such numbers?
9 - substitute ‘very strange’ for ‘complete nightmare’
This is like one of those historical ‘counterfactuals’. How would we ever know how Party A might have performed if it had beaten Party B at the election?
It also means that you have to remove your Party allegiance from the equation, which is difficult for most of us.
Election Central: Lieberman And Graham Are Going To Georgia
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/mccain_announces_that_lieberma.php
I should note that “more fit to govern” does not imply “good”.
Given the rather disastrous state of the Weimar republic, Hitler was almost certainly most fit to govern in 1933.
Does that mean they got it right? According to Finkelstein, yes.
1970 - Wilson most definitely deserved to go over the 1967 devaluation, and opportunist timing over the GE - I’ve never bought the story over the trade figures or Peter Bonetti, the polls were simply wrong from day 1 of the campaign. And in 1974 Heath certainly deserved defeat as well over the miners strike / 3 day working week etc.
So the Fink is broadly right, although 2005 is an interesting one for me, unreconstructed Conservative party vs illegal Iraq war / economic straws in the wind. Arguably Labour largest party in a hung parliament may have been the fairest result there from a non-partisan viewpoint?
1945 was clearly a mistake which we are still paying for now. In the light of what happened in 1914, you could add the two 1910 elections to that list as well - though the voters very nearly ousted the Liberals then.
12 - It has only done that twice in the postwar period. In both cases there probably wasn’t a lot to choose between the parties. Nothing much was going to alter either way and the party that gained a majority of seats was the one whose support was most broadly based.
Had Major won in 97 I think we’d all be a lot better off right now.
11 - Conservatives 1992 certainly. And Labour 2005 almost definitely!
It’s the Pangloss theory! It’s hard to argue with empirically since we would have to get in a time machine, change history, and see how things would have been different with different governments. It would be funny indeed, though, if the theory applied only to the UK and not, for example, to the U.S. If the population of the EU were allowed to choose American leaders rather than U.S. voters, I would imagine that the post-war period would have seen the U.S. governed by an unbroken succession of Democrats.
In retrospect, it would have been better if 1992 had delivered a hung Parliament. This would probably have delivered a Lib/Lab pact that would have moderated the Labour party in the way that it needed at that time and would have taught an arrogant and exhausted Conservative party a valuable lesson.
The beauty of democracy is not that voters get it right, but that they can have another go in four or five years’ time without descending to civil war.
18. Dear me, those are the three greatest election results of the century.
Do you seriously think that a Tory government would have kept out of WWI?
Or that a Tory government would have managed the transition from WWII nearly as well as Attlee did? There would have been no productivity drive, considerable profiteering, and an attempt by hard-line Conservatives of the Ralph Assheton variety (bolstered by the success of the party’s Hayekian manifesto in 1945) to ditch the party’s commitments to social reconstruction. So a skeletal NHS, and a fairly rudimentary national insurance scheme would have been all that would have ensued.
It also depends on how you define ‘fit to govern’. The Conservatives in 1997 had clear problems, and many people across the spectrum have said that we deserved to lose, however the Cabinet and John Major had a wealth of experience.
Conversely, the New Labour Grovernment in 1997 was elected on a wave of goodwill and promise of change and many commentators have stated that Labour were emminantly more suitable for office in ‘97 than the Conservatibvves they beat.
However, most Ministers, with one or two notable exceptions, have been nothing better than middle managers and political hacks, who would never have been given a serious job in the real world. (I noticed last night that Hazel Blears currently has a bit part in Coronation Street married to Sinbad)
Since 97 Labour made numerous attempts to ban hunting and reform the HoL and whilst they got there in the end, made very heavy weather of it along the way.
Therefore ‘fit to govern’ is a very subjective yardstick open to numerous interpretations.
The voters always get it right, in the sense they can see that the government of the day has run out of steam, and change is in the air.
What the voters can’t see, is the social and economic change which will make their choice irrelevant.
This comment by Fink is interesting.
My contribution is to admit that even though I voted Conservative in 1997, 2001 and 2005 and wanted to see the party advance, it wasn’t ready to govern.
I wanted to see the party, ‘advance’ what does that mean? Advance to what and to where ?
Obviously he must mean to the present situation where Cameron’s Conservatives have a healthy OP lead. But the Tory leaders at that time weren’t offering the sort of Blue Labour policies that Cameron is now, in fact quite the opposite.
22. I like the terminology! In the US case there have been quite a few cases where you could argue that either the voters ‘got it wrong’ in their choice of president or that it was a choice between two candidates of roughly equal capacity who would have pursued much the same policy. I would give 1916 (and probably 1912) and 1888 and 1928 as examples of the first and 1948, 1952 and 1956 as examples of the second. Of course the genius of the US system is that the choice of President is much less important than people imagine, given that much of the real power is with Congress.
Ladbrokes still have Andy Kerr as favourite, but not William Hill:
William Hill - Next Labour Leader In Scotland
Iain Gray 5/4
Andy Kerr 11/8
Cathy Jamieson 3/1
My mind thinks would not it have been better if the Tories won in 2005, just think how much better the economy would deal with the credit crunch. Labour accused the Tories in the run upto 2005 of planning to cut £20Bn of public spending. Just imagine how that money could be deployed now: We would be in a far better state to weather the economic storm. In addition the Tories were right on NHS ‘dirt’ and very right on Immigration. Just think how much non-eu immigration could have been prevented in the last 3 years! We are talking major town/ small city populations here. Maybe this would not have let house prices be pushed up further only to fall further in the long run.
25. “So a skeletal NHS, and a fairly rudimentary national insurance scheme would have been all that would have ensued”.
You’ve convinced me -the voters did get it wrong in 1945.
I think a Unionist government would have been even more likely to enter WWI than the Liberals. If CB had still been PM instead of Asquith it might have been a different story.
Depends what you mean by voters. In leadership elections almost the reverse is true. The Tories chose IDS. If they’d chosen Ken Clark they would have won in 2005.
I just hope they get it right next time!
25 I don’t think a skeletal NHS would be a particularly bad thing. It would almost certainly be better than what we’ve ended up with. Again, I’d suggest a rudimentary NI scheme might have been a better idea in retrospect
30 - But the tories were not yet ‘decontaminated’ so would have an electorate turn on them much quicker than they will after 2010 or so.
The loss in 2005 is the price to pay for a more secure and more well supported government later.
32 Ken Clarke made himself unelectable as Tory Leader. Had he won the Tories would have been completely split within minutes, Clarke on one side and everyone else on the other. They’d have done worse than they did
28 - Errr this isn’t an article about the USA.
The voters always get it right - it is only in retrospect that they realise they voted for the wrong party (as in 2005). At the time they vote, they vote for the right party given the avialable information at the time.
32 I seriously doubt Clarke could have won outright in 2005 even if all had gone well. In any case his EU views and yes the head on clash with IDS over Iraq and who knows what would have happened then.
Not sure about this Fink thesis. Given that he has been for many years a loyal Tory, has he deliberately voted for a party that by his own thesis is worse equipped to deal with running the UK at the last 3 elections?
In about 1992 I heard a talk given by then Cabinet Sec Robin Butler. He said that in his first six general elections he voted for the winning party 5 times. But he would not reveal which.
His first six would have been 1959, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1974. Given that Labour won 4 of these 6, it means that this pillar of the establishment must have voted Labour at least 3 times.
28- Its flattery indeed for you to call the U.S. federal system genius! But your point is correct and one that is missed by most people outside the U.S. and also many in the country. The power of the President is always modulated by other forces at the national level, including the Congress, the Supreme Court, and even the mass of civil servants composing the Executive, who can never be replaced wholesale by any administration for both legal and practical reasons. The power of the President is greatest when circumstances conspire to make him powerful, as during major wars or economic disasters.
Could you elaborate on your theory on the election of 1888?
By the way, I don’t think there’s any American presidential election that Republicans, in retrospect, wish more that they had lost than the 1928 election. There’s a fascinating alternative history to explore: Al Smith wins the 1928 presidential election!
32 - with Clarke as leader the Tories would have called Iraq and reaped substantial benefits.
32 - I think Finkers is referring to the public. Party members are a self-selecting group so the thesis probably doesn’t apply.
As has been said, the counterfactual is almost always too open to debate. It would be a grim outlook for democracy if the voters weren’t slightly better at choosing than a coin toss would be. But I think “every election for the past 80 years” is pushing it.
Federer loses in Olympics !!
Latest Rasmussen Tracker :
McCain 46% .. Obama 47%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
“It’s hard to argue now that the mood is for change and that Labour looks to have run out of steam”
Um, is this a typo? Surely it is hard to argue AGAINST this?
Anyway it’s quite an interetsing article I agree, but the thesis is untestable. Not sure about 1992 either, not really well placed to comment on the other years mentioned as possible counter examples.
10 years after 1992 most tories may have wondered if they would have been better off losing, but now perhaps it’s all working out for the best for them, with labour in really quite extraordinarily deep doo-doo and the tories having finally worked out how not to choose a cr@p leader. The historical view is always very interesting.
28 I think the fixation with Presidents is partly due to modern mass democracy’s fascination with symbolic ’strong’ leaders (maybe significant that Julius Caesar was a leader of the popular party, certainly attitudes to him are a good political litmus test) and partly due to the influence of television which I think as a medium is biased towards a focus on individuals and personalities, and not just in politics - it affects the coverage of team sports as well.
In 1888 I simply think that Cleveland was by far the better candidate (mind you I rate him one of the top 3 presidents) and his policies and those of the ‘Bourbon Democrats’ were the better option. Unfortunately because he lost he went on to win in 1892 and promptly found himself faced by the Panic of 1892/3, brought on in no small part by the policies of the previous administration and Congress. I think things would have been much better if Al Smith had won the election, I’m pretty sure he would have handled things better than Hoover. The best thing would have been if Coolidge had run again. No wonder he went and drank all day when he hear they’d nominated Hoover, he knew what a disaster he’d be.
14. i see hardly anyone has been able to divorce from hardline party or ideological allegiance to engage with the question.
i think that his observation may well be right, but mainly because our electoral process shapes the parties more than they like to admit. most of our elections take the form of “more of the same” vs. “we have gone too far to xyz extreme and need to revert to/overshoot the mean”
i don’t think “suitability to govern” makes much sense - everyone is inexperienced in government to start with. usually both parties are electable.
18. 1945 wasn’t a mistake. On the contrary, after 10 plus years of “National Government” - the vast majority tories, and at that time appeasers of Nazi Germany, - the great majority of war tired civilians and demobbed soldiers, were only to anxious to rid themselves of the old guard.
While admiring Churchill as a great man and war leader, (some in the tory party loathed him), people didnt trust the Tories as a party at that particular time.
I remember the Labour posters on the walls at that time, which were far superior to their Labour and Liberal counterparts.
Labour were really elected by default, as in 1945, the other parties were tarnished by pre-war policies.
42: Him and anyone in a GB vest today
Thanks heavens for that swimming lass!
40 If they’d held together perhaps. But given the huge IDS faction whoch would already have hated Clarke over Europe it could have broken apart. You can be sure a master like Blair would have spent two years by that point putting Clarke on the spot with his Party over Europe time and again, and Clarke could have done nothing about it.
On the question of how people view Julius Caesar, Johan Hari had a column a while back about what a great chap he was because he screwed the old rich and brought strong government to Rome. I rest my case.
Maybe Labour would be vastly better off today if the timing of the gas crisis of late 2000 had instead coincided with the 2001 general election, the Tories had limped in with another weak majority or patchwork minority government, and then been tagged with the Iraq intervention. Labour could then have avoided being undermined by the consequences; they could easily have used it for years to come as an argument against the competence of the Tories and washed their own hands of the affair (not to mention they would already be back in government with a fresh mandate, likely as of 2006).
41. Actually in another sense “party members” are quite a good indicator of the mood of the nation - look at the rise in Labour membership under Tony and the eventual collapse. The willingness to work for a particular party does underline the general public’s willingness to vote for a particular party. The Tories in Scotland collapsed as their credibility faltered under Westminster centralisation and a series of unpopular policies were applied, and to a lesser extent this happened in the North of England. The loss of councillors and activists reflects a wider mood, both for the Tories in the 90s and now for Labour. A loss of vision, a loss of trust and a loss of confidence. Does anyone have a time series of party membership?
Sky: US saying Russia now sabotaging Georgian airfields and other installations…
On the Obama “smear”, having spent a goodly amount of time looking into it, and speaking as someone favourably disposed to him, I have to say that the story does have some serious legs to it.
Like it or not, Obama’s circumstances of birth and his peripatetic upbringing do raise multiple prima facie doubts about his eligibility to the presidency under the Constitution. It is also fair to say that, while impugning the eligibility of presidential candidates is something of an American national sport, no previous candidate has ever had as problematic a background as Obama has.
There are serious and complex issues, involving the Constitution and international law, and I think this story will run…
It’s not about him (ever) being a Muslim or not, although that may of course be a political issue; it’s about his eligibility under the Law, and there are serious questions about it….
32,36 — Ken Clarke alienated doctors, nurses and patients as Health Secretary; moved to education where he upset teachers; then as Home Secretary stopped even the police voting Tory.
Attacking your own supporters is stupid because once enough people stop voting for you, the other lot get in, as Labour is finding out.
Ken Clarke’s reputation, like Michael Portillo’s, depends not on what he has done but on speaking to and drinking with the press.
47. Interesting. But how were the Liberals tarnished in 1945?
My understanding is that they had been stabilizing their position during the late 30s by helping lead the fight against appeasement and by criticizing the agricultural policies of the National Government; and that they fared badly in 1945 because they were badly organized, tied themselves too closely to Churchill, and appeared muddled on economic policy. Perhaps also figures such as the Bonham Carters had become too patrician - notwithstanding their progressive rhetoric - for the egalitarian mood of 1945.
(takes off ranting mode, puts on investigative mode)
As is my wont I was just checking out the US networks and there is no mention, as far as I can see, of the Georgia/Scheunemann/McCain links, yet it is all over the dead tree press (just type the three names into Google News). It is quite possible that this will hit network news and cause some blip in prices.
I was using it as the handiest stick laying around in the last thread but, tactical matters notwithstanding, this as opposed to the smears being responded to, may well have legs.
It has everything that TV news loves, a new angle on a now familiar subject, the impression of investigative journalism and the potential to make it matter.
Here’s the AP report for one -
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iG-8I87S5w4QP8CPIrx2wh8irqmgD92HKVB86
Surely the word ‘counterfactual’ is an oxymoron? And if not the word alone then ‘counterfactual history’ must be. If it’s counter to the facts — that is, reality — then it can’t be history, full stop.
Whatever happened to ‘what-if scenario’ to describe this kind of speculation / imagination? It’s like these people who insist on using ‘oneiric’ instead of the perfectly workable ‘dreamlike’.
25. “So a skeletal NHS, and a fairly rudimentary national insurance scheme would have been all that would have ensued”. Sounds great to me instead of the economically illiterate nationalised mess we got that took 40 years to put right.
Is President Gore nay good, by the way. It is on the shelf but I’ve never got round to reading it.
56 - Counterfactual history is very difficult to do properly because the tendency is to eschew principles of history. Counterfactual history in its pure form is not there to pose a new scenario, but to more properly understand the scenario that is.
54. Hi Jack. The Liberals were already a dying party in 1945.
In fact I believe that the ‘Beverage Report’, which was taken over lock, stock and barrel by Labour hastened their demise. As Beveridge - a liberal - was attacked by his own party on some of the proposed measures.
We must remember to bookmark this article until 5, 10, 15 years from now, Labour (or the Lib Dems) look more ‘fit to govern’ than the Tories under Cameron’s successor. I look forward to Mr Finkelstein saying “don’t vote Conservative”.
O/T But Peter Ridell has another good piece on the Lib Dems that maybe worthy of a thread.
“… and the SNP is 1/4 to win it…”
“… a view affirmed by the bookies, who yesterday offered short odds on an SNP victory…”
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/New-Scots-vote-gives-Brown.4388537.jp
Huh? Which bookies? Where are these odds available?
53
If your a minister for long enough, your gonna p**s an awful lot of people off.
The idea that 1945 was a mistake is just laughable. Of all the elections that caught the national mood it has to be that one.
The miscalculation was that we could have a welfare state and remain a major world power particularly a military one. The UK couldn’t afford, ‘Guns and butter’
The NHS did a remarkable job in eliminating the diseases of poverty, TB for one, even Dave refers to it as,’Our NHS’ hmmm.
As for nationalisation particularly of energy and water, give me one year (when in the public sector) gas ever rose by 35% in one go?
Is the consumer really better off, BAA is doing a wondeful job I’ve noticed, the railways bigger subsidies now than when nationalised.
47. Oh the electors in ‘45 were right ‘cos Labour had the better posters
Moscow has been saying that the Humanitarian Aid is not all it seems to be. (see my post yesterday on another thread).
29. Stuart Dickson and any other PBer with a view on this. Do you see value in backing any of these three Scottish Labour Party Leader candidates at current prices?
265, 266 from previous thread - bang on, that’s the fella. 268 - Corwin was jaundiced, of course. I prefer to think of him as the quiet guy who stayed in the background not saying much, and ended up inheriting everything when the bigger, more charismatic types killed themselves off or burnt themselves out…
52. Apologies for going off-topic, but what’s all this about? I haven’t heard this story… why might Obama not be eligible to stand for President?
69 - Because people on the internet have a theory. Also 9/11 was an inside job and man may not have landed on the moon.
60. Dying, perhaps. But tarnished or discredited? No. I think that by that time they had much to be proud of.
And the elections of 1945, 1950 and 1951 saw the Liberals slip further backwards - from 20 seats (a respectable, if small, parliamentary party) to the taxi-cab six. That was by no means inevitable before the war took place, or foreseeable before the 1945 election. The public mood in 1945 was progressive rather than socialist; indeed, in the loosest sense of the term it was pretty liberal. Yet the Liberals went backwards because they were squeezed out by ideological and class polarization and because they failed to articulate a compelling narrative during the campaign.
65. That was not the crux of my post. But yes the posters were bright and spoke to the returning soldiers, Bevin boys, nurses, and so on much better than the other parties. Remember there was no TV, and Nation Newspapers had only 4 pages, The Mirror 8.
70. Fair enough. I expect it’s about as plausible as the claims that John McCain is not eligible to be President because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone (i.e., not at all).
69 - See what I mean from the last thread? As the saying goes, a lie is half way around the world before the truth has its boots on.
64: Name me one year under nationalisation when oil hit $170 a barrel?
Then your question about gas prices might begin, but only begin, to make sense and deserve an answer. In its current form it’s a meaningless demand since whether under public or private ownership the price of gas is driven by the price of the raw material.
43. Thanks for the response in the previous thread Jack. I’ve now came across it before.
I’m about to re-enter the Presidential and VP betting market and I can’t get over my nagging doubt about Obama’s ability to “put his “man” away”. As each day passes these doubts grow.
I’ve just listened to an interview where in response to McCain’s offshore drilling proposals Obama advocated everyone checking their tyre pressure instead. I’d agree with this but I doubt the majority of the american voting public would.
Obama should receive a bounce with his imminent VP choice. I think that’ll be the time to back McCain.
71. All true Jack; but what does that make the Lib-Dems today?
69. surely if there was a real technicality preventing Obama from being president by law,
(a) it would/should have been properly exposed by now
(b) the best course of action for his opponents would be to allow him to stand (changing the law if necessary) in the interests of fair play, and because he so obviously “should be” eligible.
58- Books of these sorts are really hit and miss, but mostly miss. After reading “The Plot Against America,” a bestseller by Philip Roth, I really have no idea why he is such a popular writer. The book starts interestingly enough, featuring an alternative 1940 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia where, after countless unsuccessful ballots, Charles Lindbergh strides to the floor and is nominated by acclamation. He defeats Roosevelt in the election and goes on to cozy up to the Nazis and distance the U.S. from the British. But the plot then drifts off into highly improbable and even impossible events, and ends with a thud. It’s as if Roth ran out of time and abandoned any attempt to create a credible alternative history. Very disappointing.
78. It’s all a load of S–T.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/128025.html
“Alas, this was only the second-stupidist event in Birth Certificatestan this week. The stupidest:
Forensics specialist Techdude, who has been chipping away at the Obama Birth Certificate mystery for some time, has confirmed that the name on the original Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) which was used to forge the document presented by Barack Obama as his valid Birth Certificate IS:
Maya Kassandra Soetoro.
Maya Soetoro is Barack Obama’s half-sister. She was born in 1970. In Indonesia. Fun fact: Indonesia is not part of Hawaii.”
Seriously, and the question that I was leading to on the last thread - how do you stop this sort of thing?
Ignoring it is counterproductive, just denying it is weak, showing how it is untrue gets you an angry ad hominem attack, doing your own ad hominem attacks isn’t very liberal….
What works, something must otherwise we have a real hole in the democratic process.
67. stjohn
Betting ‘value’ is not my sphere of expertise (eg. I still find it hard to grasp that Candidate B at 16/1 is supposed to be excellent ‘value’ when any old idiot can see that Candidate A at 1/8 is still going to win).
The best answer I can give you therefore is: I think that Iain Gray is going to win it.
(And on a purely partisan note: I sincerely ”hope” that Iain Gray does win it!
Never look a gift horse in the mouth… )
47. 1945 is a ridiculous suggestion for an example of the electorate “choosing” wrongly
but it can be argued (and was by Churchill for one) that it was an extremely inconvenient time for a change of government, and we lost a lot of international influence as a result when the USA, USSR, and novice UK government got round to sharing the spoils.
No - otherwise we would have had a Loony landslide a generation ago
79. I think ‘The Plot Against America’ was intended more as an ‘It Could Happen Here!’ style cautionary tale than serious alternative history. At least, I hope so, because I agree it fails as the latter.
Then again, most alternative history books seem to be written to make some sort of political point about modern-day society; if ’serious alternative history’ even exists, it’s certainly in a minority.
5. I haven’t read the thread properly - sorry - and I haven’t got time to read the Finkpiece - sorry - because Tom Knox is in Thailand, writing the end of his thriller; and entertaining his muse, the lovely Neung.
- BUT surely all Fink is saying is a version of “the wisdom of crowds”. No? i.e. That if you “ask the audience” as in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, you are more likely to get a correct answer than if you ask the individual.
If that is what Fink is saying, I am sure this is, generally, true.
But your European point, Mike “Oooh there goes my Dongle” Smithson, is clearly specious. Unless you believe this Fink-doctrine on Crowd Wisdom only applies to Brits (and why should that be? Even a sceptic patriot like me wouldn’t claim Brits are any smarter than other Europeans) then, if you think we got it right in 75, then you musty equally admit that the Irish made the right choice in voting No to the Lisbon Treaty, likewise the French and the Dutch when they nixed the Constitution.
Or do you believe people only get it right when they say Yes to Europe, otherwise they are by definition ignorant. That is, after all, the standard position of europhile elitists.
@81:
I think it’s one of those “undue weight” scenarios. Responding to it risks giving unnecessary credence to the story and implying you’re scared.
The correct response is, at best, amused contempt.
1970 Heath - Bad Choice.
75
The link between gas and oil prices is a spurious one. It did not in fact exist before 1981, when the then Conservative government forced BG, (under pressure from the oil industry who were losing market share to gas) to raise gas prices by 9% above the rate of inflation for four years. The money raised being taken off BG by what became known as the gas levy.
There was no reason then to link gas to oil, there is no reason now, other than to inflate the profits of the oil companies.
82. Thanks Stuart. I read the links you provided on the previous thread and he looks a worthy favourite with his level of support amongst MSPs+MEPs+MPs. Plus the bookies are reporting he is being backed. If he is Brown’s preferred choice that won’t help him though? Also, has Kerr got greater name recognition to help him and could Jamieson come through the middle?
[88] - Which is the perfect opportunity to give a plug to Anthony Wells’ “What if Gordon Banks had played?”, a what-if history based on the premise of a Wilson victory in the 1970 election had England defeated West Germany in the World Cup semi-final. See:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chief.gnome/
I found it gripping and entertaining reading.
89 coldstone “There was no reason then to link gas to oil, there is no reason now, other than to inflate the profits of the oil companies.”
Er, who do you think sets wholesale gas prices? The tooth fairy?
79. Well said S & S. I’ve tried several times to read the much-admired “later novels” of Philip Roth - Human Stain, Sabbath’s Theater, American Pastrol.
Bejasus they’re dull. Not only do they meander, at great length, they lack the wit you associate with Roth. I loved Portnoy. But these new ones… hmmm…
Absurdly overpraised if you ask me. But then I find many supposedly great American novels absurdly overpraised. Much of Updike (ghough not all) is drivel. Mailer sucks. The Corrections? Bleah. Richard Ford just goes on and on.
On the upside I have heard that “No Country For Old Men” is fantastic and I aim to try it soon. I should also point out that I find most British fiction equally dull, if not worse.
I like Philip Pullman though.
91. quarter final?
87 - Well I tried that and its that sort of ‘detached liberal superiority’ that you get attacked for. You’re just an ‘elitist’. out of touch with ‘real people’.
In any case, ‘undue weight’ was the tactic over the Muslim smears and that, for many Americans, has now become a ‘truth’.
Can it be really true that the American right have every avenue of argument covered or is it an emperor’s new clothes situation?
Is the lack of challenge, in itself, the reason. That the right are getting away with these things because liberals let them? That the biggest fear, in fact, is that liberals get over the initial contempt that co-opting their tactics would get them for longer term benefit?
(Completely Off-Topic)
In 1924 a 14-year-old lad from the north became a butcher’s assistant, went on to join the army and had a brief career as a professional boxer. For goodness-knows-what reason, I found myself imagining what he would have been like if he had become a Labour MP or a Trade Union leader instead of doing things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_MSi0MhM_c
96 - A remake awaits with John Prescott and Hazel Blears….
88. Enoch Powell - good choice.
92
Sorry! what I’m saying is that there is no reason to link the price of oil too gas! they should be priced as per their costs, there is no need to link them.
If you want to know who was responsible for linking them it was this guy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Tugendhat
He persueded the then Energy Minister David Howell to even out the price that then existed between gas and oil, by imposing a stealth tax.
81. Seriously, around here showing something is untrue and providing evidence to back your position up will be read with more respect than screaming “liar” at people who post something you don’t like and posting smears of your own (so what if McCain employs someone who used to advise the Georgian government on how to get their voice heard in Washington? There’s no serious suggestion that anything sinister has been going on - though I have to give you credit for originality, the left usually try this “Manchurian Candidate” stuff to try to explain why McCain has been a strong supporter of good relations with Vietnam, despite spending five years being tortured there. He was brainwashed, apparently).
Not sure if anyone’s seen this, but:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7560392.stm
In order to celebrate the city’s success at recycling, Birmingham prints 720,000 leaflets. With the wrong Birmingham in the picture.
I suppose people this dim have to be employed in some sort of non-job like this – otherwise they might do anything.
93 SeanT “On the upside I have heard that “No Country For Old Men” is fantastic and I aim to try it soon.”
I can vouch for ‘All the Pretty Horses’ by the same author.
@93:
Pullman’s a speculative fiction author, not a mundane. As such, he’s exempted from the run-of-the-mill drabness of literature.
[94] - Er, yes. My mistake, not Anthony’s.
89. Of course there’s a reason to link the price of gas to oil. Both come from the same holes under the North Sea - or at least they did then.
Without a decent gas price there was no reason to pump it ashore. The drillers would have found it cheaper to just flare it off.
re 82 Stuart D - I can see why it’s not your speciality. Seriously if you ever see two candidates at those prices then put your shirt on it because you can’t lose.
90. stjohn
“… has Kerr got greater name recognition to help him?”
Yes, slightly (but it will not make a blind bit of difference). Kerr is a bit of a numptie, but Gray is a champion numptie. Gray is a classic, quintessential Scottish Labourite donkey.
“… could Jamieson come through the middle?”
No. She is the best candidate by a mile, but there are not enough bright folk left in the Labour Party or Unions to see the blindingly obvious.
100 - I’ve been trying out different tactics for weeks. Next, I might try the surrealist version, or maybe Dada (what’s that about Dada issues?)
There is, actually, something in the Georgia connection, it’s all over the dead tree press who have a concern over matters of truth that bloggers worry little about.
Here’s a clip from the SF Times - “Georgia war is a neocon election ploy” (and yes, I know the author is a liberal)
“There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction. It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.”
“What is at work here is a neoconservative, self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is turned into an enemy that ramps up its largely reduced military, and Putin is cast as the new Joseph Stalin bogeyman, evoking images of the old Soviet Union. McCain has condemned a “revanchist Russia” that should once again be contained. Although Putin has been the enormously popular elected leader of post-Communist Russia, it is assumed that imperialism is always lurking, not only in his DNA but in that of the Russian people.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/12/EDCD129NI4.DTL
BTW That wasn’t the Surrealist tactic….
94 No Heath. No Thatcher! No early EU entry.
Wilson 3rd Term 1970-1974
)
Macloed 1974-1979 (Disaster)
Healey 1979-1988 (Thatcher Leader of the Oppostion - Foot’esque defeat 1983
Hesletine 1988-1997 (Owen Labour Leader)
Blair 1997- (Tory or Labour?)
64
Antibiotics, which were not discovered by the NHS, cured TB. Not the NHS.
To compare the NHS, with the system it replaced, I recommend James Bartholomew’s excellent ‘The Welfare State We’re In’.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Welfare-State-Were-James-Bartholomew/dp/1842751611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218724060&sr=1-1
101- brilliant!
Birmingham, Birmingham
The greatest city in Alabam’
You can travel ‘cross this entire land
There ain’t no place like Birmingham
100- But you have to admit it’s good to have someone to keep us all grounded when we start to get carried away with the notion that perhaps McCain might have some human or redeemable quality placing him above the ranks of the Hitlers and Stalins of the world.
112 - Godwin’s law?
107 Jamieson - I believe Easterross said exactly the same.
82. I wouldn’t put money on it, but I agree Iain Gray looks the best bet, if only for the reason that because he was out of the parliament from 2003-2007 he has less ‘previous’.
Finkelstein’s analysis is so wooly as to be meaningless. Labour in ‘97 was due to the country being fed up with the incumbents, a stage it has reached with albour now. If Brown would stand on street corners giving out £50 notes I doubt it alter things a dot.
92. Nice one!
Belief in the efficacy of Nationalisation is exactly equivalent to belief in the Tooth Fairy.
109. McLeod? A posthumous PM from 1974 to 1979?
I think the Fink got it right. “Clearly 1992 was controversial” But the fact that so many people voted for Major in that election makes that result all the more remarkable, controversial or not, the voters certainly turned out to vote in numbers which we have not seen since.
117 No no.11 Stress, no early heart attack. Couldn’t think who else. Whitelaw?
105
You are confusing ‘associated gas’ with the gas in the gas fields.
The north sea licences are very strict when it comes to flaring off. The government would have not sanctioned drilling in blocks with out the assurance that the gas was going to be piped ashore.
The sop to the oil companies were the, ‘Take or Pay’ contracts whereby BG guaranteed to take annual amounts of gas (ACQ) and if they failed would pay for it anyway, BG never failed. These contracts ensured speedy explotation of the North Sea.
The gas consumer had an amazing deal, which privitisation and the so called free market destroyed.
I wonder if one of the benefits of the, ‘Liberalisation’ of the UK energy market will one day be Gazprom, (Russia) buying Centrica or National Grid Transco, wouldn’t that set the cat amongst the pigeons.
A lot of counterfactual theorising is simply nonsense or wishful thinking. You can tell this by the way that history in most alternate history speculations works out better (from the author’s pov) than it actually did, you seldom get accounts of how things were much worse apart from the sub-genre of “If Histler Had Won”, most of which are tosh aprt from “The Sound of His Horn”.
However counterfactual thinking does play a key part in history. Firstly every act of historical judgment implies a counterfactual. Suppose you think and argue that the election of Thatcher in 1979 was an important event. How do you know this? only by arguing that things would have been very different had she not won. You can’t know the details of course but must have a vague notion of the degree and nature of the difference or you wouldn’t be able to properly assess why she was significant and what exactly made her significant in historical terms.
Secondly you can do serious counterfactual speculation -Niall Ferguson edited a very good book on this. The exercise is to go and see what people at the time of a major event reasonably expected to happen. When you do this you can start to work out what events and outcomes were highly predetermined and which were largely the product of fortuitous contingencies. You get some surprising results. Most historians conclude the English Reformation really did come down to Henry VIII’s personal travails while the defeat of both the Central and Axis powers was highly predetermined, in fact the really interesting question once you realise this is that of why they did as well as they did.
109 - Iain Macleod died in 1970. I think we can safely say that if he had been elected in 1974 that would not have turned out well.
122 - I see the point has already been made.
115 - On WillHill’s odds Jamieson looks the clear value bet to me. She has roughly the same number of MSPs nominating her (so no reason to think she’ll do badly in that part of the college) and surely as good name recognition amongst party and trade union members as the others (she’s the only one I had previously heard of anyway). And she’s a woman which Mike would probably point out. The main unknown is how she might do on MSP’s 2nd preferences - any reason to think they’ll break against her?
Either way, at 3/1 and no obvious reason to suggest she has less chance than Kerr anyway, she looks the best value to me. But I wont be tempted to bet either.
Ooooh all the Tories showing their true colours on the NHS.
You haven’t read the script, you’re only supposed to admit that you loathe the institution after you’ve already won the general election. Report to CCHQ for immediate reprogramming!
123 - UK’s first zombie PM? Could have made for interesting PMQs, I suppose.
120. I’m confusing nothing.
It’s you who are confused. How else to explain the love-in with the catastrophe of Nationalisation of staple industries in the 20th Century?
99
Your argument is fallacious.
We have a half empty LPG terminal : half empty because we refuse to pay the price asked and the cargoes go elsewhere.
Exploring and setting up production facilities for gasfileds far away from cosnumers is MORE expensive than oil if it involves liquefaction as you have to build liquefaction plants and shipping terminals…
There is lots of gas in the world but most of it is sitting in fields being flared off or it’s too esxpensive to be economic.
At present. When prices treble in 10 years’ time…
O/T for all you anoraks…is Iain Dale’s awful performance in the 2005 G.E. the worst attempt anyone has made at contesting a marginal? I believe he managed to turn a 400 odd majority into something like 10,000?
126 - Are you sure that he would have been the first?
125. Grow up. It was a Tory Minister of Health who wrote the White Paper (1944) that led to the NHS.
The only difference between the the major parties post 1945 was that Labour wanted a Nationalised industry approach and the Tories did not.
State ownership of Hospitals etc was never necessary for the delivery of a system of universal health care.
A mistake, not repeated by France, Germany, Austria et al.
122 - I am not so sure. Could have been a golden age of masterful inaction.
121
Didn’t Mr Ferguson work that up into a strategy-type computer game? (vague jangling memory)
129 - I think Kingston-upon-Thames was almost certainly worse in 2001.
129. By the way this doesn’t include by-elections
130 - I said zombie, not brain-dead. Too many of them before 1970. And one too many since 2007, too.
134. You’re right, Kingston and Surbiton, cheers
109./122. When we were watching Princess Diana’s funeral, my dad spotted someone in the congregation in the Abbey,pointed at the TV, and asked “Is that Reginald Maudling?”.
Re: Obama’s eligibility. It’s heavy-going stuff, but well-argued.. (try and read Judah Benjamin’s two long articles.)
http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/08/02/obama-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen/
How can anyone claim to know that the public ‘got it right’? Just a year-and-a-bit ago, most of the commentariat were telling us that Gordon Brown was about to become a great Prime Minster. If he’d been run over by the proverbial bus before the appointed day arrived, he’d now be immortalised as ‘the great lost leader’. By contrast, few in 1979 foresaw Margaret Thatcher’s dominance of the political stage and historical significance. So it’s utterly nonsensical for anyone to say they ‘know’ the public got it right about Kinnock.
Perhaps more to the point - what does ‘getting it right’ actually mean? Because of our crazy voting system, who governs Britain is decided by a relatively small group of people in middle England - ie. the 9-11% who voted Tory in 1992 but didn’t in the three subsequent elections. This narrow group vote in their own self-interest, so if you look at things purely through their middle England lens, it’s hardly surprising that, hey presto, you reach the conclusion that the public ‘got it right’ every time. But from a Scottish perspective, we’d have elected Michael Foot as Prime Minster in 1983, and of course we’d have given Kinnock two terms. Does Finkelstein believe the Scottish/Welsh/north of England electorate usually get it wrong and need to be protected from themselves? Yes, I’m sure he earnestly does believe that, which is yet another reason why Scotland needs maximun self-government as soon as possible.
On the Birmingham council recycling leaflet issue, I suppose I will receive this when I return home tonight alongside the weekly council newspaper which gets binned and the (seemingly) weekly letter from my local Labour MP which also gets binned. And my council tax bill which again went up this year.
116. “Belief in the efficacy of Nationalisation is exactly equivalent to belief in the Tooth Fairy.”
GeoffH, this is a deeply unfair comparison.
In theory, the Tooth Fairy could exist.
121- Or if it doesn’t turn out “better,” it at least turns out the way it was supposed to turn out (bad guys punished, good guys victorious). It is rarely difficult to reconstruct the author’s personal beliefs from the course of the narrative. The best sorts of alternative history writing I’ve read are precisely those where the author’s beliefs remain obscure from beginning to end. One of the elements of Spielberg’s genius as a film director, particularly when addressing topics that are vulnerable to politicization, is his ability to present shades of gray rather than the childish good guys vs. bad guys theme so many fiction authors fall prey to.
137 - Yes, Dale lost 6.3% and Lamb gained 10.8%. In Kingston, Shaw lost 8.4% and Davey gained a whopping 23.5% (mainly from Labour).
Shaw was awful though. Dale’s campaign was alright by all accounts (some important errors but can’t fault the work rate). Dale was a bit unlucky in that Lamb was a very strong incumbant in a seat that likes incumbants (Prior lost in 2001 despite a large increase in his vote since first getting in in 1997). So “worst attempt” is probably unfair even if it had been worse than Shaw’s statistically, which it wasn’t.
140 - You make a compelling case for unionism there.
129 Charlie, you could be right - but since you’re curious, why not go onto Iain Dale’s blog and ask him direct?
121 / 133
Found the article I was thinking of
“Why a Famous Counterfactual Historian Loves Making History With Games”
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/games/2007/05/gamefrontiers_0521
I think the game, is “Making History”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-History-Calm-Storm-CDs/dp/B000TZRYMS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1218725773&sr=8-3
139 - Rod, it’s rubbish written by a crank, why waste your time on it? Just because it was written on the internet doesnt mean it’s worth reading.
The words ‘Finkelstein’ and ‘interesting’ in a single sentence? Must be a first. Maybe it says a lot about our society that someone actually pays this navel-gazer to sit and toss his ideas around.
Re. 58, excellent, but I contributed chapter 16, so I’m biased!
140. I think from Kinnock’s performance at the EU were as commissioner in charge of fraud he managed to suspend only one employee during his term, that employee being an auditor who came forward and exposed a fraud.
Its fairly comfortable to say on that occasion the great British public got it right !
146. I posted something on his blog before, asking why he hadn’t bothered to check his sources for telling us that a Labour MP had died, and it got moderated. I’m not a fan of the man, but my question was a genuine one anyway.
145. Well yes, that was essentially the Tory case for unionism in the 1980s and 90s - ‘we can’t stay in power by democratic means, so isn’t this incorporating union with England fab?’ It always amused me that on the night of the 1992 election, the Scottish Secretary Ian Lang actually said “tonight Scotland has said no to nationalism, and Britain has said no to socialism, and that’s a double whammy”. Which was just a tortuous way of conceding the uncomfortable truth - Scotland had said yes to socialism, and meant it!
139 - Rod, Rod, Rod, I’m out of rant mode now but that is ‘Texasdarlin’, of the PUMA’s that you linked to (you know that Clinton person who you remember). You may as well just channel Larry Johnson and his amazing disappearing theories.
So the question remains, if people like you read this stuff and believe it then it’s clear that it works.
Maybe it *is* necessary to break through the initial scorn that liberals would get for using similar tactics against McCain, maybe the only way really isn’t to ridicule, ignore, sneer or explain but to destroy.
142
Winston Churchill nationalised Thomas Cook in 1909 because he believed it was in the nation’s interest. Ted Heath Rolls Royce 1971, one day we will have no choice but to take back our energy industry.
128
LPG has nothing to do with the Gas Transmission, you might mean LNG, obviously your knowledge on this subject is a somewhat limited.
152 I believe he claimed he had it from two separate people who’d been reliable previously and pulled it within hours when it became clear that it had not happened.
re 64 coldstone I’m afraid that you’re very much mistaken if you think that TB has been eliminated. It is becoming an increasingly problematic disease.
155 The Travel Agents?
re 141 Sean at least you get the The Voice (or whatever it’s called), I haven’t seen one for years and yet the Council reassures me that it pays people to deliver it. I just subtract it’s cost from my Council Tax now.
131. at least we can be thankful that no respectable political party nowadays agrees with you on that. Cammo is now pretty committed to “our NHS”.
153 Amusingly considering Scotlands later rejection of the Conservative Party in 1951 election part of the reason the Conservatives and allies- the Unionists and National Liberals - won was because though they got 230,000 fewer votes they took a lot of Scottish seats, then over-represented in Parliament (in addition 4 Tory MPs were returned unopposed which probably accounted for half the difference between the parties), So what comes around, goes around.
The first European economic shoe drops.
BRUSSELS (Thomson Financial) - Euro zone GDP fell a provisional 0.2 percent in the second quarter from the first quarter, and was up 1.5 percent year-on-year, EU statistics office Eurostat said.
140- “which is yet another reason why Scotland needs maximun self-government as soon as possible.”
Ahem brother, please leave the UK as quickly as possibe. Also if Wales and N.Ireland could do the same please, thanks!
159. And that’s just yet another reason why Finkelstein is talking garbage. He says the public got it right in 1951, and just about in 1974 - but if the public had actually got their way Labour would have won in 1951 and the Tories in 1974!
126. Don’t we have a ‘dead man walking’ as PM now?
64.”The NHS did a remarkable job in eliminating the diseases of poverty, TB for one, even Dave refers to it as,’Our NHS’ hmmm.”
Coldstone, we have not eliminated TB, its on the rise again aided and abetted by too much public complacency. We are seeing the same with diseases like measles too.
156
I think hairs are being split here, TB was a national problem which mass xray and the NHS eliminated, along with ‘prolapse of the womb’ I don’t think thats the case today.
I’d also recommend Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” as well.
158 Labour and Conservatives both now agree that Bevin’s monolithic NHS has been a failure and “choice” and involvement of private sector is the way forward. The Conservative NHS model in 1945 was close to that adopted by Germany, widely recognised as among the best there is.
167. they both keep their views a secret then do they?
This from Downing Street on the petition on Lisbon
The petition;
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to respect the result of the Irish referendum and abandon the attempt to ratify the Lisbon Treaty.”
Government’s response
In the UK, the Lisbon Treaty has now completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament in the UK following 25 days of debate. The Bill received Royal Assent on 19 June and the UK ratified the treaty on 16 July.
We believe the treaty would be good for the UK and good for the EU. This treaty adjusts existing treaties, in the same way as previous EU amending treaties.
However, European treaty change rightly requires unanimity across all EU Member States. That is why the ‘no’ vote on the treaty in the Irish referendum on 12 June is important, and needs to be respected.
I am sure sean can see the holes in this, particularly the last hypocrisy about unanimity which Lisbon in practice seriously curtails and in practice almost certainly abolishes if Gisgard is to believed.
129 - I very much doubt it. If we include the annus horriblis 97 - places like (for example) Norwich South which had changed hands in 87 and was a Labour seat but gettable for the Tories turned to a majority of 14k for Charles Clarke - take you rpick of the tight 92 Labour held seats, the Southamptons were tight seats and turned into whopping Labour majorities etc etc
144: What does your average rural Norfolk voter think of metropolitan out gay men?
Just a thought.
162- But even if this Finkelstein isn’t a political genius, he’s certainly a genius at self-promotion. Look at how we’re all talking about him here!
171
They probably think being Gay is an illness for which the only solution is the one used on Edward the 2nd. I live in a rural area most people here probably, (sadly) would agree with them.
The best Cormac McCarthy novel is Bl00d Mer1dian.
167. Maybe. But the Conservatives support for the NHS has varied. In the 90s they seemed to want to destroy it by stealth through chronic underfunding.
171- What hope Alan Duncan at the next election?!
TB was not eliminated and has not been eliminated in the UK ( I speak as a as a past sufferer).
Indeed it is growing again and the strains found are more resistant to current antibiotics.
The biggest killer in Africa is TB made more deadly as it is the most frequent terminal illness in Aids sufferers.
Global travel has made the issue more acute.
176 — and Labour wants to finish off the NHS by wasting billions on failed computer systems and PFI building contracts.
178- One wonders what a Republican Party would do if they ran the UK. Abolish the NHS straight away? Or wait a couple of weeks….
@177:
Don’t we still offer the BCG to all schoolkids as a matter of routine?
175.It was underfunded, but it also desperately needed to be overhauled because it was pouring money down an ever expanding drain through very bad management in some parts of the UK.
I saw both sides of the NHS under the Conservatives.
177.Remember Michael Howard being pilloried because he dare to mention this problem during the 2005 campaign. He spoke sense and gave a fair warning of the problem, alas the media and others just saw it as another anti immigration dog whistle.
171 - From all I have heard it was not an issue and Dale himself has said Lamb did not make it an issue.
Exeter elected an out gay man in 1997 with no apparent difficulty at all. Exeter is not, of course, rural - but it is very much a provincial town rather than a classic cosmopolitan centre. And by the same token, North Norfolk is hardly pitchforks and witchburning - it is largely a wealthy retirement area and place out of town for well off folk working in Norwich.
Dale lost for other reasons. A very strong opponent, a weak council group and local Tory party and a couple of major strategic blunders (a misconceived attempt to paint himself as the local candidate when he was entirely unknown to anyone and losing a key council by-election on the eve of the General).
I think you will see at the next election that the classic “family man” the Tories chose to succeed Dale will not cause the vote to recover (certainly beyond any national swing). But that’s conjecture.
Actually Margaret Thatcher liked the NHS, because she thought it helped keep down the amount of GDP spent on healthcare - she thought the level in the US for example was excessive by a cost benefit analysis but reflected peoples desire. The cabinet papers for the Attlee government make interesting reading with regard to the NHS. Herbert Morrison wanted a state funded system but with the hospitals and therefore delivery staying with a mix of charities, local government and private institutions. Sadly he lost the argument with Bevan.
175. Labour has guaranteed the eventual demise of the NHS by testing to destruction the theory that all the system needed was extra money. We now have spending at ‘EU levels’ but nothing like the effectiveness of the mixed public-private health systems in our European neighbours.
171. Well that’s my consituency and I don’t think there’s a great deal of difference between the views on homosexuality here and in the rest of the country. Norman Lamb is very highly regarded in this area. He has been fighting this seat since 1992 and has increased his vote in each election he has fought. Given the way people are here I would have thought the fact that he is local is far more important. He went to school here then worked in Norwich as a solicitor and in local government. Iain Dale appears to have grown up in Essex, which we consider foreign parts, and flown in for the election. Apart from that, Norman Lamb is also Lib Dem spokesman on health, and we have a lot of retirees here - young people tend to move out and old people in - which makes this area critical for voters. His reputation as a consituency MP - about how he interacts with people - is also very good (by word of mouth).
185. where to begin with this string of inaccuracies and half-truths
182. most of his campaign was an immigration dog-whistle. just look at the posters, if you want any evidence of this.
i suppose it made some sense as a core vote strategy. as a supporter of the iraq war there was not a single positive thing for him to campaign on.
@187:
You could start by pointing them out?
185.Agreed. Further to the often bandied about accusation that the Tories wanted to the destroy the NHS - tripe!
I worked in the NHS under the Tories, I saw them make some much needed changes which Labour unravelled when they came to power. But they also made some bad decisions which IMHO have had a long term detrimental effect too. But until we realise that the problems in the NHS are not solved by throwing money at it, anymore than they are all caused by a lack of money. We will keep struggling to get the best out of state healthcare while it is a political football.
188.He was right about TB.
190. The problem of underfunding is elegantly solved by increasing the amount of funding to the NHS.
It doesn’t solve all the problems but it solves that one.
157 - you probably don’t notice because its wrapped up in a Lidl newspaper so is not usually visible. I may also try subtracting the cost from my council tax. Wonder if I can subtract the cost of the police (who never turn up when required as they are too busy), the support police or whatever thay all called (as they never turn up as they don’t have a car and its a long walk to my house I am told), the binmen who didn’t collect the bins for a month this year as they were on strike, the labour councillors who are only there because their seats haven’t come up for election yet, the local schools which have had no investment since I left 20 years ago, the roads on my estate which are seven years old and have still not been tarmaced and the library I havent used since the internet was invented. I don’t mind paying for the fire service, even though (touch wood) I have yet to use them. £1,200 seems a lot to pay for an insurance policy that a fireman will turn up if my house is on fire.
187 You said “keeping them secret”
Well no.
2006 Patricia Hewitt (in the Best Year Yet for the NHS) ” there should be no limit to the involvement of the private sector in the NHS.” when removing the limit of 15% for elective surgery put in place by John Reid.
Since then we have proposals for privately run polyclinics, patient choice agenda with GP commissioning allowing greater private involvement, government contracts for day surgeries and PFI amongst others.
Tellingly both Labour and Conservatives say “Free at the point of use” rather than the Bevanite state monopoly provision. The NHS is increasingly being developed into commissioning and provisioning arms with the latter being a mixture of public and private.
We eliminated TB last year after a long struggle. The related GB virus is an irritant, but should be cleared up much more quickly. Unfortuantely just as we’re making progress there, TB itself seems set to make a comeback via the previously unknown Miliband strain.
192- Which government agencies, or government-owned enterprises, ever say “no thank you, we have enough money! Perhaps you could allocate it elsewhere?”
189. according to the world health organisation, we spend less on health than 25 other countries, but rank well above that on health system performance, by several different indicators, despite having a not particularly healthy population to start with.
“privatisation=always good” fantasists would do well to examine the US health record, where they spend 50% more of their larger GDP per capita on a system that ranks in the #70s in the world, i.e. beaten by third world countries on many measures.
148/164. It’s certainly not rubbish, I can assure you. Speculative certainly, but that is because of the alarming gaps in Obama’s personal records. If any one of the allegations turns out to be true, Obama is toast.
192.Sorry, that’s rubbish. I saw good management produce results within an allocated budget in one hospital, while in another city I saw what bad management could do. Both under the Tories.
195. The flip side of your question is - what problem of underfunding has ever been solved by less money?
194. tellingly, the small administrative point you raise is very much _not_ the same as wanting a private health system.
i think objectively few people can deny that NHS performance is better now than it was ten years ago - if you need an essential op on the NHS you will generally get it.
i also think objectively few people can deny that money has been wasted and that bad management practices are still commonplace.
so there are two sides to the coin.
On the topic of alternative history, it looks like Tarantino is about to take a crack at the Nazis, in more ways than one! Get ready for a roaring good time of the shoe being on the other foot, with the Jews taking a literal pound of flesh from those nutsy Nazis!!!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4530662.ece
@199:
The Labour disease is that it never bothers to find out whether the actual problem is underfunding. Naturally, it would prefer to waste billions of our money than admit that the stalinist monstrosity they worship could in some way be flawed.
The NHS’s problems have *always* been structural. And it has become painfully obvious that Labour either does not recognize this, or on the rare occasion it does, have any solution to offer.
203. it was pretty clear to everyone that there was an underfunding problem as well. this was nothing to do with health, it was just cack-handed policy elsewhere resulted in penny pinching.
insufficient structural changes have been made so far, that is definitely true.
196. The problem with those rankings is by what standards they are compiled.
Their yardsticks include ‘fairness’, which is not a term with an agreed upon meaning - ie it is a subjective, politically contentious measure.
They also use things like the tax system for tobacco. The US has lower taxes for tobacco because they are politically more inclined that way. The WHO has decided to include such matters in a ranking of health systems. This is clearly illegitimate.
Similarly, they include survival rates for babies. Well, more young babies die in America because more babies that develop complications in pregnancy are induced and then treated. They get a chance at life that they don’t get in other countries - like for instance Cuba, where they abort many babies who are induced in the US and therefore have lower child mortality figures.
They also include life expectancy. Consider obesity, for example. America is so rich that poor people can eat themselves to death. Yet these deaths are chalked up to a fault in the US medical system. There are many factors that influence life expectancy that the health service cannot be held responsible for.
US citizens survive cancer, heart disease, and other serious ilnesses far longer than the UK and other European countries (need we really discuss the third world countries!). There is much more advanced medical equipment and many more advanced drugs in the US. Most of the new drugs and treatments in the world which benefit seriously ill people come from the US. Whatever the faults in the system, to say that the US has a worse health system than ANY third world countries is patently absurd. Is there any wonder that Michael Moore is the proponent of this view? This report from the Cato institute discusses these issues:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9272
@204:
Well, if that were the case, Labour’s throwing good money after bad would have made the NHS not be rubbish.
196 I’m assuming the ratings ranking the USA in the 70s for healthcare are the ones that prize equality over quality, presumably beloved of Alan “It’s better if everyone dies equal” Johnson.
That’s not to say that the USA doesn’t spend a huge amount on healthcare, and may not (probably don’t) get great value per $
It’s quite possible that both sides are correct, i.e. that there was a historic underfunding of public healthcare and that the way it was organised and delivered meant that when funding was increased a lot of it was ineffective and wasted. One problem found in many countries is the power of the organised medical profession and their capacity to capture a lot of the money. The big problem for all healthcare systems, no matter how they are organised or funded is the cost of long term care for the chronically unwell, which in most cases is the elderly. This can only get worse.
205- It is also interesting to see all the wealthy Canadians who come here to the U.S. for advanced treatments when they feel they just can’t afford to put their own survival at risk in the Canadian healthcare system. It is not only interesting but also amusing when those individuals happen to be folks who otherwise demonize the American healthcare system and America in general.
203. I dislike Labour as much as you do, but my criticism of them is that far from ‘worshipping a stalinist monstrosity’ (meaning I take it an NHS committed to traditional public service principles) they’ve been all too eager on solely ideological grounds to dismantle it. At least in Scotland we’ve been insulated from the worst of that.
207. instead of assuming, why not read it.
205. you make some valid points, there are problems with any ranking of course and this is no exception. but the data is there. if anyone cares to present data that they consider to be more useful, please feel free.
i personally thought some rather extreme and unhelpful political viewpoints on the issue could be dismissed pretty easily just by looking at the data, i.e. we spend on a par or less than many european countries, and our performance looks ok on a number of measures. the way i see it, in that context, anyone claiming the NHS is awful, or a waste of money, or “funded at EU levels” but much worse than their systems, needs to provide DATA to back up those assertions.
210 Frances “..’stalinist monstrosity’ (meaning I take it an NHS committed to traditional public service principles)
No, this is a fundamental misunderstanding. It’s not the traditional public service principles of the NHS which are the problem, it’s the attempt to micro-manage everything from the centre. It’s true that this has always been a problem to some extent, but it’s got a lot worse under Labour.
When you consider how complex even one medium-sized hospital is, let alone the whole system including GPs, labs, district nurses, etc, etc, plus the interaction with social services, plus the rather odd structure whereby the employment status of doctors is confused, it’s frankly a miracle that the organisation functions at all.
170.
The “Southamptons” were not held narrowly by Labour in 1992. John Denham narrowly won Soton Itchen (by 500 odd) in 1992 defeating Chris Chope (now Christchurch. Soton Test only went Labour in 1997 when Alan Whitehead defeated Sir James Hill.
Soton Council went Tory this May.
Soton Test likely to turn blue in 2010.
On healthcare, I note that the US system is being attacked - despite no-one suggesting it as an alternate to the NHS.
What most have suggested is that the Continental public/private systems are noticeably better.
I’m not at my home PC at the moment, so I can’t provide the link immediately, but a European survey about a year ago placed the UK about 17th in Europe (with some rather poor countries above it); the top five places were all occupied by countries with the “Bismarckian” insurance model.
I do think that Bevan winning the argument in Attlee’s Government was a mistake and that the more Bismarckian systems favoured by others in the Attlee Govt and by the Churchillian Tories at the time would have served far better.
Unfortunately, we’re in the position where criticism of the state control of the NHS is seen as a desire to withdraw universal public healthcare and move directly to the US model - as if there is nothing between the US model and the NHS model, as if it has to be one or the other. When just over the Channel, we see a far more successful model.
208. agreed on the elderly - this is going to become the big issue.
interestingly it could render a lot of the debate about public vs. private obsolete - because there aren’t going to be too many choices. the public NHS is going to be completely overwhelmed by volume. the type of care required is going to be chronic and therefore pretty ill-suited to the private model. insurers won’t cover it and people can’t budget for it.
the inevitable result, NHS paying out to private nursing homes to look after millions of people.
214. i was looking at a survey recently (i’ll try to find a link) that put us roughly on a par with a number of major european countries. france came top, but i wouldn’t say the differences were big or that we were noticeably getting worse value for money.
213 yep, you’re right - although I think Denham’s 500 from 92 would qualify as ‘tight’ - I didn’t say he held it in 92 - I was wrong about Itchen, I thought it also went red in 92.
Test indeed likely to turn blue in 2010 along with most of the rest of the South of England that is currently red outside London.
Also means that the 13,500 majority in 1997 puts paid to the ‘Dale worst in a marginal’ effort as Denham piled on a further 13k compared to Lambs measly 10k or so.
New IBD/TIPP poll :
McCain 38% .. Obama 43%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/RCP_PDF/TIPP_pollpic081408.pdf
210 Indeed it will be good to see in 10 years the differences in measureable outcomes between the monolithic Scots model and the mixed economy choice based English NHS.
211. I’m sure you’re right that the extreme claims are wrong. The healthcare debate is laden with ideological baggage on both sides. It is worth pointing to the conclusions of the comparison carried out by the taxpayer’s alliance. They compared rates of mortality amenable to healthcare from 1981, way before the increases in spending by Labour. There main conclusions were:
“In 2004, the latest year for which data is available, higher rates of
mortality amenable to healthcare in the United Kingdom relative to the
average of European peers led to 17,157 deaths in that year. This is
equivalent to over five times the total number of deaths in road accidents
and over two and a half times the number of deaths related to alcohol.
The United Kingdom caught up with its European peers at a nearly
constant rate between 1981 and 2004. This implies that the massive
additional spending since 1999 has had no discernable effect on
mortality rates.
If NHS spending had continued to increase relative to European peers at
its pre-1999 rate £34.3 billion – £1,350 per household – less would
have been spent between 1999 and 2004. In 2004 alone, £9.8
billion less would have been spent, 9.7 per cent of total spending in that
year. This extra money has largely been wasted.
In the last three years studied (2002-2004) amenable mortality
convergence was slower than the trend over the entire period. This
suggests that, if anything, relative improvements in mortality amenable to
healthcare could be slowing.”
The report is well worth reading. They compare 5 big european countries, not the US, all of which have universal healthcare programs and all of which outperform the UK.
http://tpa.typepad.com/home/research-by-the-.html
212.”When you consider how complex even one medium-sized hospital is, let alone the whole system including GPs, labs, district nurses, etc, etc, plus the interaction with social services, plus the rather odd structure whereby the employment status of doctors is confused, it’s frankly a miracle that the organisation functions at all.”
Simple to the point commons sense. A well managed hospital will produce results who ever is government, whether they are penny pinching or spending like drunken sailors.
219. 10 years is not long enough for any differences to really show up.
As a resident of Bournemouth East,only 30 miles from Southampton Test,I would be intrigued to see how the election of the first overall Tory council in May in Soton plays out-I recall from the 1980s Southampton being a model ‘moderate’ Labour council,not partaking in ‘loony-leftism’.I feel the May vote was as much as anything a referendum on the then-10p income tax c**k-up.
Looking to the next GE;two factors favour Alan Whitehead’s survival:
(a)His majority is still 16.8%
(b)There will be swingback to the govt from mid-term polls.
My view is ,in common with Bristol,Southampton will be one of the last red blotches in a sea of blue (with orange patches in the West Country) post the next GE
214. Yes your point is absolutely critical. The debate is seen as being between a universal system of healthcare and an entirely private one, the US or Soviet Russia. This is absolutely not the case. For example, both France and Germany have universal healthcare systems which outperform our system without the state monopoly.
219.”210 Indeed it will be good to see in 10 years the differences in measureable outcomes between the monolithic Scots model and the mixed economy choice based English NHS.”
Agreed Ted, hence my cynicism when I hear people say that the NHS has been much better under Labour, not in Scotland it hasn’t.
Re. 213, I’m sure I heard on Sky News the day after the local elections that, on the basis of council results in Southampton, John Denham would lose in Itchen as well. I’d be very sorry if that happened, when he’s one of my favourites for the Labour leadership (either as PM or Leader of the Opposition). I’d much sooner vote for him, Benn or Johnson compared with Miliband.
Why Brown split Education in the first place is a mystery, but putting Denham in the more high profile post at Schools, and the hectoring Balls at the less high profile Innovation, might have spared the government a few problems. That said, the government would have even fewer problems if Balls wasn’t in the Cabinet (or government) at all.
223 continued I see both Alan Whitehead and John Denham holding Southamoton Test and Itchen,albeit with much reduced majorities!
Democracy is the collective right to be wrong and take the blame. It is arguable that since World War 2, or possibly well before that, neither government nor major opposition has had any pressure on it from the electorate to do other (or promise other) than make glib promises of featherbedding the British economy on mounds of private as well as public debt, in ordeer to maintain a denial of the true extent of our nation’s relative decline - squandering opportunity after opportunity to re-direct and reapply human as well as financial capital. To be fair, they have both delivered on this general policy despite various crass meddling inefficiencies such as six remodellings of the National Health Service structure and flooding/abandoning what waqs left of our deep coal reservs, uch of which are now unrecoverable despite the relative economics versus oil having changed dramatically (as it was always going to).
The ‘bubble’ of the British economy can now be burst at any time by the redirection of massive resources by a handful of people, none of them elected. These people also have disproportionate influence upon the major players in both our country’s major parties to help keep the boat ’steady as she goes’ in their interests. Neither of the two major conservative parties has any interest whatsoever in either creating genuine free markets or opportunities for social change which is why britain drifts and drifts.
Sadly, successive governments of both parties have largely lived on Britain’s collective laurels, the capital hang-over of empire and discriminatory trade arrangements which have favoured Britain for decades - their complacent inaction has effectively marginalised the usefulness of governments of any party in years to come.
The facade of complacent ‘comfort’ in our economy for Mr & Mrs average is eggshell-thin and could be displaced horribly by ‘events’ leading to the kind of electoral, as well as financial, panic which could foster a massive move towards extremist Parties of right or left. At which point, clueless Blairite ’saviours’ like David Cameron will have no no more relevance than the narcissist original upon whom they modelled themselves.
Despite his military connections McCain is losing the fund raising competition among the US military at home and abroad :
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/08/troops-deployed-abroad-give-61.html
224. the US happened to be an interesting case.
france and germany both spend considerably more of GDP than we do on health.
and we don’t have a state monopoly!
Latest Gallup Tracker :
McCain 43% .. Obama 46%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109513/Gallup-Daily-Obama-McCain.aspx
230 They have many more doctors (expensive) and many fewer nurses (cheap) in both France & Germany amongst other factors. The Social Insurance model that works best is Japan, which spends about the same as UK, has much lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy (despite its higher suicide rate) and has fewer doctors per 1000 than any other developed economy and fewer nurses per 1000 than anywhere but France. Japanese patients can chose the hospital or doctor they want.
I generally agree on most of the stuff that has been posted about healthcare, but you can’t get round the fact that America has 40m people without decent access. The Republicans refusing to deal with this awful state of affairs was the first thing that made me realise they weren’t the party for me when I went to the US.
I think the thesis is right, generally. Though I’m not sure either main party were ‘right’ in 2005.
OT but the Policy echange report recently in the news was written by Lib Dems….
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/jonathan_isaby/blog/2008/08/14/that_policy_exchange_report_was_written_by_lib_dems
Interesting that Sky News say the Polish are signing the Missile Defence deal at 19:00hrs!
This is a two finger salute at the Russians!
Interesting that Sky News say the Polish are signing the Missile Defence deal at 19:00hrs!
This is a two finger salute at the Russians!
235. Probably the same group of people who believe in legailising Hard Drugs! Maybe they sampled some before writing the report!
82. Agree completely! The idea of ‘value’ can be very flawed…
Going back to the thread - I always remember Tebbit saying that the 1992 result was the collective wisdom of the nation saying that the tories would have a parliamentry majority but were on notice!
Thinking about this; I believe the said could be same about Labour’s 2005 ‘election victory’. The nation was saying they were giving them a parliamentry majority but a very weak mandate - Labour were also put on notice. I believe that Labour’s percieved advantage in the FPTP system is not as clear-cut as the results in 2005 would suggest. Some majorly big Chickens are going to come home to roost at the next election IMO.
Oh- well I am looking forward to seeing Cameron as PM! Think he might be a good hand on the tiller! He also has some very good people to stick in his cabinet! Unlike the tied third rate MP’s in Labour’s government (I of course exclude Nick Palmer from this as he is more capable IMO than many of the Labour ministers in more elevated positions!
)
240 - That’s a very incisive observation in your first two paragraphs.
I think the most interesting election ‘what if’ would have been 1974 and a Tory/Liberal coalition. That probably could have worked if the arithmatic had been there in the commons.
I would be interested on the LD’s views on this could they have supported a Heathite/ Liberal government. I know people like Mark Senior hate Thatcher but could Heath have been a genuine possible co-alition partner? Certainly Heat and the Liberals could have found a common-consensus in the pre-Thatcher days.
241. It’s a fascinating issue and believe that tebbit hit the nail on the head! Interestingly when i watched Tebbit on election 1983 he was a more appealking figure than the one i remember later! I think it was because he still had hair!!!
220 I strongly recommend the document on healthcare cited by thomas. The URL is:
http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/wasting_lives.pdf
Unlike some of the TaxPayers Alliance stuff, this has a lot of serious research and comparisons in it. It’s also got good quick summaries of some of the other European systems, and their pros and cons.
243 - Oh don’t say that. I’ve got about as much hair as Norman Tebbit has now. (Still, I got a nice compliment today from someone I have my eye on, so all is not lost.)
Norman Tebbit is a complex and interesting character. I disagree with a lot of what he says, but the political path is littered with the roadkill comprising politicians who underestimated him.
He also has a feline sense of humour, as illustrated here:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/stephenpollard/33230/tebbits-humour.thtml
Does anbody else think the Olympics have been a damp squib? I don’t watch sport like football and rugby because i hate it! Sometimes i will watch major sporting events like the Olympics, Wimbledon etc.
240. I do agree in some ways - I think the electorate did send a message to all three parties in 2005:
To Labour - we’re unsure - you’re the best of a bad bunch right now but we think you could do with some humility and less of a majority.
To the Tories - we don’t want you forming a government under Howard this time but we’ll put you in a position where it won’t be impossible to form one next time around if you reinvent yourselves.
To the Lib Dems - we agreed with you on Iraq, but you don’t deserve to be the second party (seriously, I think the Lib Dems had, considering the circumstances, a pretty poor night in 2005).
I think part of the problem Brown has now when he says he’s listening and learning and taking on board people’s concerns is that Labour lied through the teeth about that before and now it’s like the boy who cried wolf. Remember in 2005 when Tony, on the platform in Sedgefield, did one of his little ‘people’s princess’ moments, and, with bottom lip quivering, said “I have listened, and I have learned..” ?
The next day, he brought David Blunkett back into the cabinet. Go figure.
245. Well i hope it works out for you with the person you have your eye on! There is nothing worse than wanting to be with someone but they are with someone else! I would do a face with a sad expression and a tear but don’t know how!
245. Yes Tebbit is an interesting one: he doesn’t quite have the Tony Benn acceptence: that is i don’t agree with him but i still think he is a top bloke! He isn’t petty or personal but debates on the issues! Shame his son is not more of a chip off the old block in that respect (Not Tony’s policies though!).
246. I’m enjoying them so far. But the games themselves have been much different to how I’d imagined them when everyone was going on about how controversial yet spectacular it was going to be having them in China.
At the end of the day, it feels just like an ordinary sporting event; hardly a huge geopolitical statement, however much the Chinese government might have wanted it to be. The opening ceremony was big, but to the point of them overdoing it so much that you ended up feeling desensitised and disinterested by the end. Nothing like the magical start to Athens. And the seats are surprisingly empty.
But GB are doing quite well and its watchable in my view. The time difference is irritating, though.
247. I seriously thought about voting LD in 2005 but i voted Tory! I was frustrated with the tories line on Iraq! I still think that was a pointless war - If it was really about oil the Armed services should have restricted there invasion to the oil regions and left the regiem in it’s place. It is feasable that the intellegence was incorrect but when going to war you need to ensure your intelegence is correct! What if the US. and USSR had gone to war on a false premiese from 1960 to 1990?
The LD’s did have a poor night - they should have bagged 80-100 seats given the circumstances. That’s why people should take with a pinch of salt LD claims they will hang onto most of their seats at the next election! I actually feel sorry for them abit as it is going to be a really shit evening for them! At least they will have the Jeremy Vine yellow taxi graphic to look forward too!
New University of Texas poll for Texas :
McCain 43% .. Obama 33% .. Barr 5% .. Nader 2%
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/poll_ut_texas_71830.php
249 - I don’t know, I thought the opening ceremony was wonderful -(although it always struggles with the never ending entrance of the athletes).
So far the organisation seems to have been excellent, no drugs stories (so far) and a lot of excellent sporting activity.
The recent one that really was poor was Atlanta, badly organised and scarred by the bombing.
254 Would you say Texas and Arizona are now the only Border states North or South the GOP looks definite to hold on.
249. Yes GB are doing quite well!
I suppose a s achild i remember 1992! I liked those Olympics because it was the summer i was expecting my GCSE results and the time difference was marginal! Linford, Sally and the bloke in the boat were great! I think there was a cycling gold from boardman! Plus some shooting and sailing!
249. The seats are embarassingly empty but yet the organisers insist all tickets are sold. Any theories as to why this is the case?
254 - Corporate tickets mostly, also some are turning up for their athletes match (or whatever) and then leaving.
251- Bob Barr at 5%… if this is even remotely accurate, here’s one more reason for you knock-kneed Obama cheerleaders to get over your jitters and start organizing your election eve soirees.
252. I don’t remember the bombing particularly clearly - Didn’t Bill Clinton open them?
I am a big Bill Clinton fan! Think he is a great politician even if i don’t agree with some of his idea’s! In some ways my favourite Bill Clinton moment was the bit where he says “it depends how you define………” or words to that effect.
v.funny but workable!
256 - Do you really think Barr will poll more than 1% nationally or more than 2 or 3% in any state (even his own)?
254- The purchasers have all been stabbed at various tourist sites or deported for a variety of reasons.
256. Do you think it will happen? I think he’s way overstated. He’s a very poor candidate. What sort of libertarian votes for the Patriot Act?
258- I don’t think he will do anywhere near that well in any state except possibly in Georgia where he may get about 3% of the vote. But if he does surprisingly well, that sure does cut away most of whatever little hope McCain has in this race.
The guy who did the Atlanta Olympic bombing’s justification -
“Even though the conception and purpose of the so-called Olympic movement is to promote the values of global socialism, as perfectly expressed in the song Imagine by John Lennon, which was the theme of the 1996 Games even though the purpose of the Olympics is to promote these despicable ideals, the purpose of the attack on July 27 was to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.”
Nowadays he’d probably have a blog with a large readership…
261. What about isolationist states like Montana? I bet there are a lot of folk in the West who think Obama’s a crazy socialist but hate the Iraq war.
262- No reference to our genial host, I would hope…
256 - It’s getting closer, Mccain has taken leads in many of the key states recently. Electoral-vote.com is showing that Mccain is now leading in Nevada, Montana and most importantly Ohio. EV had Obama up at 320 Electoral college votes about a month ago. Mccain is fighting back well.
262 - No, Mike has a *gigantic* readership.
265 - Not sure if you would have read my comments on it but electoral-vote is by far the poorest of these type of sites as it uses just one poll per state to create its map.
Pollster.com is much more effective and Fivethirtyeight.com is a statisticians wet dream.
262 — Just remember, ukpaul, that the guy who did that wasn’t a terrorist. White Christians never are.
Evening all, Channel 4 New leaking Gordon Brown’s big comeback.
Free laptop computers and broadband connection for England’s poorest families. That should help pay the soaring utility bills and putting food in their stomachs. He is going to spend 100 million on it. Sounds like a policy of his Education Secretary. A complete load of Ballocks!
As for the A level results. 26% of candidates get A grades and they claim they are not being dummed down. Even though most employers moan that school leavers and graduates cannot, read write and spell and several Universities say many new undergraduates not suitably skilled to start their courses.
263- Bob Barr’s appeal isn’t per se a libertarian appeal. He is instead running on an available ticket with his own agenda (much as you have suggested). To put it another way, I believe he is a Libertarian of convenience, not one of conviction. Therefore, his voters will be, of course, some devoted folks who always vote Libertarian (maybe 0.5% of the vote) plus those who are familiar with him and like him personally as their favorite choice for President. That would be some diehard conservatives who are disgusted with what they see as the refusal of the GOP, and John McCain in particular, to stand up to the left-wing agenda. This will be a very limited group of people in certain states with large swaths of conservative rural isolated communities, particularly in the South. If he does well, I expect to see him picking off somewhere between 1% and 2% of the vote in some southern and Rocky Mountain and Great Plains states.
262. I cannot understand people using voilence on an olympic games - the games are about peace: How on earth is bombing or killing people at an even reprenting peace going to get people to sympathise with you?
I have just seen that the government is going to give laptops to kids seen as being from deprieved backgrounds! My folks were proffesionals with degrees but my parents are devoiced: I should imagine i would slip through the net for this laptop thing if it was 15-20 years ago! I bet the kids who get the laptops will be stigmatised like the ones who got free school meals when i was at school!
254. Many tickets are sold for the whole day, but people just turn up for the particular sessions (e.g. finals not heats) that they want to watch.
269. I think quite a lot of Ron Paul’s “lolbertarians” are getting behind Bob Barr as well. They lack numbers, electorally speaking, but more than make up for it in swivel-eyed enthusiasm.
264. Whilst i take my hat off to mike and this website as it has provided me with a great outlet to discuss things online that i find most interesting (Sometimes i let myself down and get *bollocked*!). I do hat the phrase “our genial host”!!!!
DEM - 284, GOP - 154, TOSS UP - 100
http://www.pollster.com/
DEM - 298.2, GOP - 239.8
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
Although if you tot up the states one by one the result is -
DEM - 269, GOP 229, TOSS UP - 40 (at less than 60% certainty)
DEM - 284, GOP - 241, TOSS UP - 13
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
It has less of them now but when polls are out of date then EV.com gets out of kilter.
273- Well don’t just complain, be constructive! What should we say?
270 — Careful, Martin, you’re making him sound like a terrorist…
Count the number of times the media refer to the likes of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph and now the anthrax poisoner as “bombers”, never “terrorists”.
271 - Officials are doing that apparently, turning up for their own country and then leaving. As usual it’s the corporate interests that annoy the real sports fan.
On the Olympics - noticeable undercurrent on Radio 5 all day was that they aren’t well organised in terms of either press or spectator access. One of the boxers parents said how difficult it was to obtain tickets, move around site, find out what’s happening at events or who is competing and enjoy the Olympics, though the Chinese people were friendly and there were plenty of cheap rooms in good hotels; reporters spoke about the hassle of dealing with officials; similar stories popping up.
Much of that is result of Atlanta bombing & post 9/11 security but I hope the 2012 organisers are asking visitors as well as talking to officials.
One in tribute to bannedhorse while they are around -
“What were they talking about last July? Did Rove meet Saakashvili in Georgia? What has Scheuneman been promising Saakashvili for years - and what message was sent to Georgia after McCain won the nomination? Was Saakashvili goaded into goading Russia for campaign purposes?
These are all questions at this point. But given the record of Cheney and Rove of engineering foreign crises for domestic political purposes, they can’t be dismissed out of hand. We could have simple miscommunication here between a supportive White House and a somewhat excitable Georgian leader. Or we could have something halfway between miscommunication and malevolence. With Rove, you can never be too sure.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/rove-rice-and-s.html
Is Sullivan reading? Yoo-hoo!
I’m a ‘he’.
275. I’m not complaining: just one of my things! Is uppose i sound like a bit of a cnut!
No carry on using it everybody! 
280 - Okay, I hedged my bets.
268 Does sound like a typical Balls idea - provide free broadband and PC to half a million households if that. What about maintenance, support, replacement etc. Gordon should have learned that gimmicks aren’t winners when people worry about gas and electricity bills, mortgages, food prices etc.
Hope Cameron remembers to bring up the pensioners rebate on Council Tax - bought in before the last election dropped afterwards - how many of these gimmicks will suffer a similar fate?
‘Free laptop computers’
I wonder how many of those will soon find themselves in new homes? A brisk trade should be done in some of Britain’s less salubrious pubs.
280- If you rather went by either BannedStallion or BannedGelding (whichever is appropriate), the unfortunate ambiguity could have been avoided…
285- OK, that was uncalled for. Apologies, BannedHorse!
Further to my comments earlier (if anyone bothers to join the dots on these threads); talk about methods of attack are mirrored in this analysis on how the response to Corsi (anti-Obama book, did the same with Swift Boaters) is being organised and what it looks like.
“The campaign is quietly shopping around research to anyone who wants it and is encouraging allies to look into Corsi’s background. Yesterday, perhaps independently, the New Republic published a list of some of the allegedly bat-dung crazy things Corsi has said or done, and the National Review’s Byron York notices a pattern of such stories in mainstream publications.
Outside allies of the campaign are getting involved. Yesterday, the center-left group Catholics United called Corsi out for his comments about the papacy.
The goal is to discredit the man … with the theory being that if no one thinks the man is or reasonable, no one will pay attention to, or transmit, his messages. Obama aides Vietor and rapid response chief Christina Reynolds are heading the effort from campaign headquarters in Chicago.”
On the other hand, bloggers are going for the jugular on him and are metaphorically dancing on his body.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/
283. I wonder how they are going to stop the kids loading up shoot-em games etc on them?
284: yes good point runnymede, I suspect they will end up in less secure homes, so could be asking for trouble.
On thread, the voters always get it right, even including the unanimous nationwide vote for Gordon Brown last year….
287- This is a strategy of tearing up the weed by the root rather than just cutting it. If you can destroy the guy who wrote the book, you don’t even have to get to talking about what’s in it, and you can tar anyone who dares refer to the book with the same brush as the author. If successful, this strategy basically puts the guy out of action forever as a conduit of adverse information and allows the candidate to avoid ever being confronted with, or the public ever being exposed to, the allegations that provoked the firestorm.
289. Still I suppose an influx of goodies into the ‘back of a lorry’ market might help boost the economy in Labour ‘heartlands’ - perhaps that’s the real target of this policy?
OT - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7560986.stm
Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, former leader of Kent CC, former Local Gov Assoc chair, English Heritage Chair, has died.
All round good egg.
I think the thesis is flawed in that even if you think the right side won a particular election (I don’t) their margin of victory may be completely undeserved.
I don’t think the right side won in 1945, or 1997 onwards. Even had it been the right side, Labour did not deserve the sort of leads it won in 1945, 1997, 2001.
But conversely, Labour didn’t deserve the sort of thrashing it got in 1931 or 1935.
108 “ow else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction.”
If you google, you will find that there was a build up before Georgia launched the operation. South Ossettian forces were conducting attacks on the Georgian Police, Army and even had intelligence to attack the defence minister in transit.
There is a list of incidents, including bombings, intimidation and kidnappings. In one, 50 Georgians were kidnapped - only 47 were freed.
During this time, the South Ossettians would hide behind their Russian backers.
It is disingenuous to suggest Georgia launched an unprovoked attack on the South Ossettian minority. The Ossettians were already attacking the Georgians.
Further, 1/3rd of South Ossettia’s population is Georgian. What the Ossetians were doing to the Georgian minority is not yet clear..
284 - refurbished ex-govenment stock all with free data still in them?
287 I don’t know why you get so worked up about it all. You’re not voting in it.
237 “the Polish are signing the Missile Defence deal”
Clearly it is a sensible decision.
Only the Russians would say “Defence” is “Provocative”.
291. Yhat’s what it is precisly about! Thing is i should imagine it is too little too late!
“privatisation=always good” fantasists would do well to examine the US health record, where they spend 50% more of their larger GDP per capita on a system that ranks in the #70s in the world, i.e. beaten by third world countries on many measures.”
Only if you believe Michael Moore.
294 - This sort of low and mid level stuff has been going on between them for years, it is a well known unresolved border conflict, not something that is a surprise.
296 - The US has as much influence on the direction of the UK as does Europe.
(hoping I haven’t stirred the EU beast)
296- I know very few people in the U.S. who follow the minutae of the daily twists and turns of the campaign to that extent. The vast majority of people are more interested in enjoying the waning days of summer, following the Olympics, and occasionally getting the gist of what’s happening with the campaign here or there. There simply haven’t been that many juicy stories in this campaign about either Obama or McCain yet (at least not since the Jeremiah Wright saga), and most of the action has yet to play out. I would suggest a bit of calm before the coming storm, and in the next several weeks I’m sure there will be some campaign stories truly worth getting worked up about.
159 An odd feature of the pre-1964 elections is that a lot of people taking the Conservative whip in the Commons weren’t actually Conservatives. There were Scottish Unionists, Ulster Unionists, National Liberals, plus the odd Liberal and Conservative, who between them, made up a large minority of the Parliamentary party.
Is there any way I can filter out posts by certain people[or even just Martin Day] before I scan through posts?
McCain is sending Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman to Georgia to investigate goings-on there. Kos makes the rather good point that Obama was assailed in the media for being “presumptuous” by making a speech in Germany, but now McCain is sending a diplomatic team into a foreign conflict, when he’s still the nominee. How many calls of presumption are there?
Must be another example of that liberal media bias that sacked Phil Donahue…
299 Any thoughts on this from Peter Riddell
Regional signs of Lib Dems’ shifting strategyPeter Riddell
If you want to understand what the Liberal Democrats are up to, look outside London. Over the past fortnight several local papers have published almost identical stories in which the Lib Dems say that they are shifting resources to target Labour seats in their area. Nick Clegg is quoted as saying that if only x voters shift from Labour to the Lib Dems (usually less than 10 per cent), they will win Swansea West, Derby North, Hull North, Norwich South, Liverpool Wavertree, Warrington South, City of Durham, Blaydon, Newcastle North etc.
These are the visible signs of a big shift in strategy. In 1997 and 2001 most of the party’s gains were in southern England from the Conservatives. In 2005 there was a slight shift as the party lost five seats to the Tories while gaining three. This was dwarfed by nine gains from Labour. In subsequent local elections the Lib Dems have been badly squeezed by the Tories in the South, though the pattern has been patchy, with the party holding on in many places where there is an incumbent MP. Three months ago the Lib Dems achieved gains from Labour in northern industrial cities and towns, taking control of Burnley, Hull and Sheffield, and advancing elsewhere, notably in Derby and Oldham.
Mr Clegg believes that the party has to adopt a defensive approach in the South in order to retain seats won from the Tories in the past. After taking account of changes to parliamentary boundaries, the Tories’ top 100 target seats (on the basis of swing needed to win) include 21 held by the Lib Dems, or a third of the party’s total strength.
Some, such as Romsey, Somerton & Frome, Hereford, Carshalton & Wallington, Sutton & Cheam and Richmond Park, look very vulnerable to the Tories. But, in other cases, such as Portsmouth South, Westmorland & Lonsdale and Eastleigh, strongly placed incumbents may be able to resist the swing.
Related Links
Former Liberal leaders back Tavish Scott
Clegg survives first big campaign
Mr Clegg is pinning his hopes on taking Labour seats in parts of the country where he believes that the Tories do not have a realistic chance of winning, such as Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Oxford. Resources, both cash and people, are being shifted to these seats. In his pre-holiday statement, he talked of 50 Labour targets. But this is double the real goal, though even that looks ambitious. Just 20 of the Lib Dems’ top 50 target seats are Labour.
The problem is credibility. The party has had a rotten run of poor by-election results. The Lib Dems need a good Labour/Lib Dem marginal where the Tories are nowhere.
Mr Clegg has talked of a big tax-cutting package for low and middle-income earners, funded not just by raising green taxes but also by real cuts in spending plans. The party also intends to phase the replacement of council tax by local income tax over a long period to cut the number of losers.
Vince Cable and Mr Clegg have been working on proposals to announce at their party conference in Bournemouth next month. There are delicate issues of positioning: between outflanking the Tories on tax cuts and Labour on fairness. The Liberal Democrat message needs to be clarified.
293. You are too partisan! Labour needed to win for the good of the country and democracy in 1997! I have always voted Tory in every election since i had a vote!
But it is essential that there is movement from one side to the other - Actually it took the tories a long time to realise they needed to change. In some ways the tories problem was too long in office and sleaze! Though i don’t agree with the way Labour went about 1997 - the tories needed to get rid of some of the MP’s who were using the grey areas to their advantage. Unfortunatly there are some that still do: they should be removed immediatly! There are plenty of people to fill there boots! If the Tories got really desperate they could have me! 
With me of course they would know my allowances for support went on support such as communications with the electors! (My spelling is too poor to do it myself!)
304- Phil Donahue lost his show because only you and a cat in Cleveland ever watched it.
If McCain invites the leaders of Russia and Georgia to Camp David to broker a peace deal, I’ll go along with you on the other issue.
307. It was the most watched show on MSNBC at the time…
So are you saying this Graham-Biden thing is less presumptuous than giving a speech abroad. (Well a speech given by Obama, when McCain gave speechs in Mexico and Canada that was just good campaigning…)
307 So don’t Cats have rights to watch TV?
300 Low level for someone far away from Ossettian kidnappers and mortars.
Georgia were looking to enforce peace.
And who was behind the attacks on Georgia? Could it be the same country that had been previously shooting down Georgian UAVs and firing missiles at Georgian radar installations?
*That is 314*
re 310. I suppose we could offer a paid-for premium service that allowed people to block out certain posters. This would be just like those sites where you can pay to avoid the irritating ads.
I have that with our polling software where a payment has to be made to block the ads.
306- arguable sean. IMO the market makes people greedy and vulgar. Plays to the worst excesses of human nature.
315- OK, I had to tease you a bit about Donahue! Yeah, there were other motives too, but he hadn’t done his cause much good through the modest audience he had attracted. Television is a cutthroat business, and you either have to succeed or move over. And my oh my, how MSNBC has changed since then anyway! You must be pleased about that.
But as for sending a guy who has been described as McCain’s “wingman” to Georgia to personally check out the situation (certainly a much more low-profile event than Obama taking Berlin by storm), it doesn’t seem so odd to me. If Obama sends a close advisor of his to Georgia, I certainly wouldn’t have jumped all over that, either.
319 see 312.
321- I think Donahue was on late at night in the UK about 20 years ago. Before we got all the classy shows like Rikki, Oprah and Jerry.
316- No, but they may soon have the right to vote in Spain, if the current trends there continue:
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/27/spain-to-grant-some-human-rights-to-apes/
Evening all , the basic premise behind the thread is that the overall electorate is an entity with an opinion that is expressed at each GE . It is not , it is the aggegate of the opinions of individual voters with differing views , some strongly believing a certain party should win , others believing so less strongly and in recent elections a growing number who don’t care who wins .
Much as Mike is correct that averaging opinion polls from pollsters with differing methodologies gives a meaningless average figure of public opinion , so a GE aggregating the different views of millions of voters does not give an average result for the electorate as a whole which everyone will be happy with . Those strongly in favour of Party A will be happy if they have won and unhappy if they have lost .
312. I posted on this the other day: It is my belief that the LD’s have niscalculated! Labour have deffered there debt problem till 2015! In some ways this is an acknolgement that they will lose and hope in opposition they can raise funds. They will of course have short money in opposition plus continued flows of union funds. What this means is th battle for the next election will be harder for a cash starved third party trying to transfer losses to the tories to gains from Labour. I do think these are going to be a very bleak time for the LD’s full of unfulfilled promise.
310 ApRhys “Is there any way I can filter out posts by certain people[or even just Martin Day] before I scan through posts?”
That’s easy. They’re marked with little yellow blobs.
[Personally I like Martin's posts. They add a human touch.]
321- Come to think of it, I wonder if McCain might after all be considering Lieberman for his VP. It wouldn’t totally surprise me if he does this, and it is fairly unpredictable how such a choice would shake up the race. But there’s no doubt the choice would shake up the race, which would have to at least initially shake up the Obama camp too.
320 Well, I was arguing against the view that US healthcare is 70th or so worst in the World.
On your wider point, the failings of markets are a good deal less bad than the failings of those who want to restrict them.
294. ukpaul: The goal is to discredit the man … with the theory being that if no one thinks the man is or reasonable, no one will pay attention to, or transmit, his messages.
A theory that self-confessed trolls should study.
310. Arse hole - what is your problem? Just ignore my posts if you have nothing constructive to say!
326 Err have they also deferred their unpopularity problem to 2015 as well then.
327. That’s why i add the yellow blobs they get noticed!
Thanks for your kind words!
328. Will add nothing. Plus the party has its foot down to get a solid republican in the VP post.
By that i mean identifiably conservative even it not on the right of the party.
328- But that’s just the thing with McCain… I’ve always thought his decision would be a very personal one, unlike Obama’s choice. That’s why I thought it would be much easier to predict Obama’s VP based on objective criteria. But McCain seems like the type of guy who will make a decision more from his heart than from political calculation. Even if you can argue that Lieberman adds nothing, I think McCain would still select him if he feels he would like to have Lieberman continue to be his “wingman” in a McCain administration.
325. Hello Mark, Hope you have had a good day!
Just out of interest as the longest Liberal supporter member i think on here ( i think Mike joined in the late 80’s don’t know about his previous!), what would be your thoughts on a Tory/ Liberal coalition in 1974 - Pre-Thatcher? Obviously you don’t like thatcher and what that entailed which is fair enough! But do you think a Liberal/Tory coalition is something you could have supported way back then? Just interested to know!
321. How is the biggest audience on the channel “modest”, and why weren’t the rest of the anchors sacked first? I think you need to accept that a lot of news channels are really scared of being labelled liberal, do go overly conservative to make up for it. Plus how has MSNBC changed since then? Morning Joe? Pat Buchanan? Lou Dobbs?
328. How I would love Joe Biden to become McCain’s VP pick. It would motivate Democrats even more, evangelicals and social conservatives would stay home, and Obama would win in a landslide.
336. He can surprise, I’ll give it that but I think it may just be a leap too far.
338- Why would McCain choose Joe Biden as his VP? Fascinating hypothetical though! I think the result would look something like this:
Obama-55%
Barr-35%
McCain-10%
Apologies if this has been posted earlier
May be of interest to those having a punt on USA politics
Turndown Obama
That the women are beginning to have a good time
is an especially bad sign for Barack Obama’s campaign. – Froma Harrop
CNN: nine million Hillary supporters
will not vote for Obama in November
(growing — up from 7 million last month)
——————————————————————————–
Hundreds of websites and projects include:
hillarysupporters.com — good overview and links to most of the groups and resources: very clean neat professional site
clintondems.com — short essays with comments; action calls, resources, petitions, etc
http://pumapacusa.org/- very active, 527 PAC for donations, flyers to distribute, gear, much more
http://pumaparty.com/ — great software and facilities for all to use
http://camille424.wordpress.com/ — “bitterpoliticz” –very active warm supportive group
clintons4mccain.com — handsome web-savvy site, 1489 members, youtube, myspace, mobilenet
writehillaryin.com — neat clear site, “for Americans who refuse to vote for Barack Obama”
340. I meant to say Lieberman!
342 - if McCain chose Dem Lieberman and Obama chose Rep Powell, that would be interesting.
343. Lieberman is an Independent. His main rival in the last election was a Democrat.
338- If you can’t even enjoy MSNBC, I would imagine you’ve just sworn off watching political television altogether.
338/339- I’m not saying Lieberman is a likely choice, but my gut tells me he isn’t an impossibility, and McCain would even risk trouble at the Convention if he really wants Lieberman. I’d put the odds of a Lieberman choice somewhere between 8/1 and 5/1. In the immediate aftermath of the Democratic Convention, the Republicans will be desperate to put up a brave face, and the Convention activists might even manage to swallow this bitter pill in the name of unity (not all, but almost all of them). Don’t discount the factor also of how much parties love turncoats who come to their side, almost as much as the other side hates them.
337 I was not averse to a Con/Liberal coalition government in 1974 though it was never really on offer and the electoral arithmetic not quite good enough .
345. I can enjoy TV channels which don’t follow my point of view.
344 - an Independent Democrat, though.
333 It only takes a few minutes to scan through the posts. I usually read them all including Martin day’s (I use sunglasses for them… such is the yellow fluorescence), but most especially those who espouse “facts” that are nothing of the kind.
Incidentally , on thread, I think the electorate always gets it right.. so to speak, its only 12 months into the the new parliament that doubts start to emerge. Getting it right also has a lot to do with the boundaries, and that’s why John Major’s win was so remarkable in 1992 with such a huge no of votes. I have no doubt that the electorate will get it right in 2009/10, how long it takes for misgivings to set in depends on how bad the legacy is. One thing is for sure, when electors vote next time, the choice will be starker than for some while. 5 more yrs of Labour..eeeeeek! I don’t think so.
346 It was on offer from Heath alright. It was Thorpe’s decision.
341 — In which case I hope that a President McCain-appointed Supreme Court overturns Roe vs Wade. That’ll learn ‘em.
Lieberman is 66. As running mate of McCain, who is 955, what message would they have for the “yoof” vote, or does it not matter?
352- This would be a choice from the heart and not from the head. As such, it would have very unpredictable consequences (at least I think a wide range of consequences would be possible).
350 - what if Thorpe had gone for it? The Liberals would have been tarred with the brush of Tory collaborators.
Wilson would have gone. Who would have taken over then? Would there have been an SDP type breakaway? My guess is if there had been,they would not have touched the Liberals with a bargepole.
346. Yes - the electoral maths didn’t stack up! Shame in some senses as it might have saved some of the pain later!
As you know my opinion is the LD’s barring a massive break through at the next election should at least consider a realignment with Labour. This actually may mean more of a problem for Labour than LD’s ironically! Interestingly of the two i feel LD ideology is stronger than Labour’s post socialist staNCE (WELL UNTIL BRONW’S LATTOR DAY CONVERSION). I think a unified party of the left that went on Liberalism of the indivdual, market economics and generally a more constructive political philosephy would entice the masses.
Could i vote for such a party: interesting question - maybe but i think i would flip between the new party and Tories, depending on the business stance and the policies that would unite England, wales and NI (assuming that Scotland goes ir’s own way!). I would not see a new unified Liberal left as a threat but perhaps a way of moving forward in a new post-socialist dialectic.
352- Also, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Republican presidential candidacy whose strategy revolved around the youth vote.
352. McCain-Lieberman 08!
357- Even going back two years ago, the level of hatred for Lieberman I found among Democrats was something to behold! I don’t think feelings have gotten any toastier since then:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-14-pelosi-lieberman_N.htm
349.
sorry! I’m sure you look dashing in the shades!!!
354. Interesting point - the Labour defectors may well have happened anyway but without Thatcher the fragmentation of the left may have been very interesting indeed. A Bennite socialist party that commanded 20% of the vote may well have occured with say 100 seats. The Tories and Liberals may have benifited in the short term but i think *moderate Labour* (I will call them that!) would have done vey well indeed, particularly in the meduim to long-term - better than the SDP.
257-excellent socrates
Welcome back Tyson - hope you had a good holiday!
358. Ha! It is impressive isn’t it? Yeah, but what does he expect when he claims the Democrat’s nominee - who has already had smears about being foreign/Muslim etc - as not putting America first.
If McCain doesn’t win Lieberman’s political career is over, I think.
LS - nice of you to think the quote was mine but it’s actually from Marc Ambinder’s article.
In any case, people don’t care who says what, only if they agree or disagree with what they say, we see that here every day. The point we have seen is that any ad hominem attack is because of political disagreement and any other reason given is an excuse to make it appear as though it isn’t.
362- Yeah, if McCain loses, Lieberman will probably just play out the rest of his term and then retire. Of course, it’s always tough to predict what a guy will do in four years, but that seems likely. If McCain doesn’t choose Lieberman as his VP and then goes on to win, there’s a great chance Lieberman would end his Senate career by taking a high-profile appointment in the McCain administration.
PUMA - we really are getting a full frontal assault today.
This would be the organisation that failed to fill even its self imposed small number of places at its closed door convention that then convened somewhere totally different as a result?
364. I think that’s right. Do you think McCain will retire if he loses? On the other hand, he might enjoy getting his reputation as a maverick back by working with the Obama administration. What about Obama if McCain wins? Do you think he’d ever have another shot at the Presidency? The Democrats seem to be quite tough on their losers, but its rare they get someone of Obama’s talent.
361- thank you Peter. Very nice- Cornwall and Devon- took Marcus Wood’s advice. Must thank him. Only back a couple of hours ago,and already back on pbCOM.
363. ukpaul: nice of you to think the quote was mine
I knwo you quoted it, although my attribution didn’t make that clear.
The point is, now that you’ve admitted to trolling, you can’t expect to be taken seriously.
366- The first scenario seems easier to answer! McCain would probably just continue in the Senate, perhaps retiring at the end of his current term. I don’t think he’d have any particular preoccupation with reclaiming a media-imposed title, but I don’t think he’d go out of his way to antagonize Obama, either. In that sense, I see him as a true patriot.
As for Obama after losing, I’m sure he’d stay in the Senate and he may indeed still foster intentions of taking another shot at it in four years. Of course, much would depend on the circumstances and causes of his defeat. He would remain a star within the Democratic Party for many reasons, but he would have a tough time escaping the stench of losing what most considered a sure win situation for the Democrats. He would never again enjoy the same phenomenal status he has profited from in this race.
364. Very True, but a Lieberman VP would not really be viable given Mccain is portayed as a centrist - how will he get out the Rep. vote? If you were a god-fearing Rep. who went for Bush - why go for McCain in these circs? Given the low turnouts usually associated with US. presidential elections you may not bother if you were a rep.? Unless you thought a Black man did not deserve it(maybe rasicm will tip it but a half white/bakc peron, why be preduditial- it eould not make sense. Certainly, if i had reservations i doubt half his origin would tip me, indeed i was sceptical about Obama before but i have warmed to him greatly.
302.”284 - refurbished ex-govenment stock all with free data still in them?”
Marcia, brilliant.
350
The reason why Thorpe turned down Heath’s offer was because Lord Wigg contacted Thorpe and made it clear that if Thorpe accepted Heath’s offer, Wigg would send a file he had on Norman Scott too the Daily Mirror.
370- McCain can’t win this thing by doing thing in an orthodox manner (no pun intended). I wouldn’t blame him for choosing Lieberman and gambling that the centrist theme can win more votes than it loses in this election.
312.Punter, for the first time in ages I am finding the Scottish Libdems interesting. Really looking forward to seeing who wins the leadership contest. Mike Rumbles is my MSP, but which way will the membership jump with both he and Tavish Scott having very different policy stances with regards the SNP.
367 Tyson, to be honest you haven’t missed a great deal over the last 10 days especially on the betting front - although if Mike’s 25-1 “find” of Wes Clark becoming Obama’s running mate at 25-1 comes good, well that would rival his legendary 50-1 bet on Obama himself being voted in as the next POTUS.
On the sports scene, I hope you spotted my already profitable season-long footy tandem bet, which I posted late on the Saturday night prior to your departure. However, IIRC you only bet “against friends” (on Betfair), in which case this might not have been of interest as it comprised a pair of spread bets. But, then again, with Spreadfair being based on an exchange basis, doesn’t this also count as betting “against friends”?
374 The overall strategy was my main point. On Scotland not sure it matters who they pick. The only game changer they have is Kennedy…….
372 - if that had been done, Rinka may not have been shot.
376 - quite. Wind back to 1999 and you see that Dewar and Wallace were substantial politicians. Look at the dross in Lib and Lab now in Holyrood.
368 - You really don’t get it do you. I *Mean* everything that I say, I’m just saying it in different ways to see if there really is an answer.
We all want to affect those who read and find the best way to get our message across.
And that, as they say, is showbiz.
376.”374 The overall strategy was my main point.” I know.
Punter, I think it will matter who becomes the next Scottish Libdem leader, both Rumbles and Scott have very strong, but differing views on how they should approach the SNP. That could make a difference at the next Scottish elections. I think the Libdems were always going to struggle last time, but their position was even poorer because of a very badly run and confused campaign.
Musharraf is apparently on his way out in the next few days:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin
Also reports that Russian tanks moving further into Georgia.
New Rasmussen poll for Colorado :
McCain 49% .. Obama 48%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/colorado/election_2008_colorado_presidential_election
380 We’re talking degrees only. Really they need Kennedy…..
383.Yes they do, but at the moment they are not going to get him.
Seriously, I would take a trip down to Holyrood just to see Salmond debating with Goldie and Kennedy.
New Rasmussen poll for Minnesota :
McCain 45% .. Obama 49%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/minnesota/election_2008_minnesota_presidential_election
382? What? Isnt that meant to be an Obama winner?
382/385- Certainly looks like Obama is in the doldrums. But never fear Obama fans! This, too, shall pass…
386 - RCP average was Obama 1.6% ahead in Colorado before this (it’s now 0.4% ahead, well within MoE (they only poll 500 people!)
The question is, what exactly is McCain doing right?
Guido will not be happy - Wilf Stevenson leaves Smith Institute to advise Gordon
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/2558414/Gordon-Brown-to-offer-key-job-to-close-friend.html
suppose after the Charity Commission report it was better he does it openly.. After appointing someone from outside to do last re-launch Gordon has gone back to his inner circle this time.
389 Maybe he reminds the US of Ronald Reagan now Russia is back in the opposition field.
The world certainly feels a scarier place since the Russia and Georgia conflict. Continually lead News story. What happened to the supposed ceasefire?
As I argued the other night, this surely has to raise McCain’s prospects in the US election? The betting hasn’t shifted so far. The last few polls seem slightly more favourable to McCain. Just now I’d certainly rather be an Obama layer than a backer at around 1/2. Obama’s relative inexperience in foreign affairs has to be his Achilles Heel. As others have argued, if he chooses Clarke then he may actually move the election onto McCain’s territory.
375- thanks Peter- and will check out your footie tips last Saturday week. Prob tomorrow now.
Will deify Smithson if the Wes Clerk tip comes through.
I have to keep my promise to my wife which keeps me on betfair, and allows me no off piste (albeit lucrative betting).
Am looking forward to the footie season mind.
Thanks for the advice though- may need to use it.
Off to bed. Night,night all!
389. Making the election about Obama.
391/. Ah but his narrowing of the gap has been coming before Americans even knew this conflict existed.
Obama per se doesnt look to have made any howlers so, its a fair assumption, that the old bloke is hitting better notes than he was a mere few weeks back.
This then follows on to another question. If he is hitting better notes do they have further persuasive mileage or will they run their course quickly and he has to look at getting some fresh things to play on.
389 Perhaps very little, but maybe voters think they’d rather not give one party total dominance.
Re Coldstone @66 -
1) Yes the NHS was great but eradication of key diseases after the war was also very much to do with new drugs not least new mass produced antibiotics etc.
2) Remember we discovered our own Natural Gas and later oil. Our own gas and oil has pretty much run out and oil nationally is thought to be peaking.
3) Nationalisation and restrictive work practices were doomed as even the more enlightend Labour MPs knew at the time. Indeed the decline of old heavy industry was happening in numerous parts of the developed world and privatisation happened across Europe.
4) Its glossed over that some of the privatisations were very successful. I’m old enough to remember the problems in getting a phone line put in! A report today shows just how well our communications industries have done.
5) Air travel was revolutionised and now ordinary people can afford to fly abroad on holiday. On a related note no-one thinks that an organisation that makes profits means its inherently unsafe at making safe planes.
6) Rail is sometimes said to be a bad privatisation and indeed the structures set up were poor, however along with other nationalised activities (if they has stayed nationalised) the true costs, with lack of innovation and the inevitable cuts as taxpayers struggled, would easily have been worse than the current situation.
7) Across the world liberal capitalist democracies have succeeded while socialist ones have failed.
393 - Are you sure? We just lost at home in the UEFA cup to some little known Danish team.
394. Which brings me all the way back to the fear factor issue for Average Joe America and the doubt factor for Obama.
389.”The question is, what exactly is McCain doing right?”
At the moment age and experience rather than doing anything right, I think some people are still very jittery about taking a gamble and electing Obama because they think he is too liberal and light weight.
The latest developments with Russia and Georgia might stall the Obama bandwagon?
395. Yokel. The polls narrowed recently only to widen again. But McCain certainly seems to be close enough at the moment to have a chance of winning. The Russian threat ought to increase doubts in the minds of some wavering voters about his candidacy, I would have thought.
397 Part 5 It would be a good point to use to favour privatisation to show a few of the designs that nationalised aeroplane production produced after WW2 - the Brabazon something or other I think
399. Got it in one with that sentence.
399. Yes, it’s definitely an issue. But remember, voters felt the same about Reagan for a very long time, and then the election broke late to a landslide. I don’t think a landslide will happen this time, but I am still confident of a comfortable win for Obama.
I am absolutely gobsmacked that Obama, whose candidacy comes at the end of one of the most detested and unsuccessful Presidencies in history (held by the opposing party), is not doing better in the polls than this.
Now, I know that politics is different in the US to the UK and things tend to be ‘in transition’ between presidencies, making parties less unpopular when the election rolls around. But after 8 years of Bush I seriously thought that large swathes of America would be so GOP-phobe at present that they’d go over to the Dem column, even if holding their nose.
I am cautiously optimistic about Obama but if the gap is still this narrow come October there’s reason to be concerned.
400. I think his reputation as a maverick is still more of a factor than his experience. We need to be aware that most Americans are still not tuned-in at the moment. It will be from the conventions onwards that people start paying attention and really making up their minds.
Re: The RCP National average page - the graph is always a useful one to see where things have moved. Actually the main move recently is that 4% of voters have disappeared from the main two candidates -
Aug 1st 90.4%
Aug 5th 91.8%
Now 87.6%
That’s negative campaigning for you.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html
As I say, the graph is, as always, illuminating.
401. Momentum though, McCain appears to overall be going in the right direction, Obama is treading water right now.
405. That would have been the case with any other nominee except McCain. McCain is doing well because he’s seen as a maverick from his party. If you think he can hold that reputation solidly through to November then he should have a chance, if you think it will be eroded at all, then Obama becomes overwhelmingly (85%+) the favourite.
I think Mike Smithson’s point about only one General Election since the War (I presume the Second World War) when a party with a “fully working majority” was replaced in Government by another with a “fully working majority” is wrong. In 1951 Labour had a working majority (albeit small) and were replaced by the Conservatives with a slightly more substantial working majority. In fact, in 1951, Labour secured a greater share of the popular vote than the Conservatives but, at that stage, the make-up of constituencies was more favourable to the Conservatives than it is now.
An interesting exercise, I suggest, would be to compare the public’s expectation of the result of a General Election with the result actually achieved. My recollection is that the public expectation is seldom wrong though the margin of victory may be markedly different to that expected.
re 170 coldstone I’m afraid hairs are not being split. My hospital spends tens of thousands of pounds per month on anti-TB medications, and increasing amount on a dwindling number of toxic drugs because of resistance. It is extremely complacent to think that TB is a disease of the past, it will be a major disease of this century as much as it was in the 19th.
I know I’ve mentioned the planned Obama convention event a couple of times to criticize the oscars atmosphere he seems to want to create. But in the light of recent events I really think the risk is growing that he’s going to score an own goal of epic proportions. If this uncertainty over the Caucasus continues, Damon and Affleck compering Clooney and his rich ex-pat chums as they cheer a biopic of Obama created by a Hollywood cinematic artiste is going to ramp up the sense that this guy is a lightweight celebrity. Don’t do it Bambi, the evil Republican oil barons will set their bloodhound Rove on you and Cheney will shoot you in the face!
411.I share your concern about TB, I am also concerned about the long term effects of a drop in uptake of MMR too.
411 - I was given BCG jab and TB injection when I was 14. Now you fill in a form and they assess if the child is at risk. If they think the child is at risk, the rather traumatic 6 wasp sting test is done at the age of 5. But in most cases the child is deemed not at risk. So no jab on NHS for most.
My children were deemed at risk presumably as they had grandparents born in Belarus and Russia. They have no contact with either country.
What was wrong with the old TB jab system, at age 14?
379. ukpaul.
“I mean what I say” is no excuse for trolling.
414. SBS: I was given BCG jab and TB injection when I was 14. Now you fill in a form and they assess if the child is at risk. If they think the child is at risk, the rather traumatic 6 wasp sting test is done at the age of 5. But in most cases the child is deemed not at risk. So no jab on NHS for most.
Really? That’s outrageous. I was given the BCG as a newborn (hence my scar being on the “wrong” arm, but I digress…) but I think that was because my father is a GP. At 14, we were all tested for immunity and those without got the BCG then.
408. that simply isn’t true, no matter how much the media and some random cranks on here want it to be. virtually nothing has changed in the race at all from when the primary season finished.
416 - it is true that TB is rising, but I think this is mainly among those regularly visiting TB risky countries or receiving visitors from them.
My children remain unimmunized and nobody is the system seems to give proper advice.
possible Labour candidate for Glenrothes
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2425984.0.Why_McLeish_could_be_ideal_candidate.php
405- But there’s something you can do! I know the whole world outside of the U.S. wants Obama to win, so here’s the plan:
Chicago is one of the four remaining candidates for the 2016 Olympic Games, but the winner won’t be chosen until October 2009. Why not have the nations of the world unite and move up the selection to this October? In a marvelous flourish of generosity for the ages, the world community can award the games to Chicago, rechristen them the “Obamalympic Games,” and then watch the Great One ride the unprecedented enthusiasm to victory in November. He can then, at the end of his next term (but not necessarily final term, if that pesky Constitutional Amendment can be repealed) in 2016, can preside over the Obamalympic Games in his very own home town!
As they say in the movies: I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work…
415 - All politics is trolling in your apparent opinion then. Maybe it is but you, I, everyone does exactly the same thing, the partially honest ones know what they are doing however.
My job is about trying on different guises, different roles, different ways of playing the same scene, finding the best way of affecting your audience in the way you want them to be affected. Performance is a major part of politics as well, even moreso nowadays and the need to create an emotional response is an inherent part of both businesses.
It’s just that politicians are often uglier, in heart as much as appearance.
414.We were all tested first, and then given the jab if required back in the early 80’s at school. They have now stopped that system up here, a mistake in IMHO.
My eldest was immunised last year at our local medical centre, but I had to organise it myself. Will be doing the same for my other children if its needed. But its the total lack of proper advice or information at all that I find most worrying.
But then again, the same thing is happening with other immunisations as well. The levels of uptake 10 years ago gave us a bit of herd immunity, but in some area’s of the UK that is no longer the case IIRC?
re 418 and inner city Birmingham has lots of people who visit at-risk countries.
310 - you can skim by avoiding certain post structures automatically. If you don’t want to read Martin, avoid smileys; if seanT bothers you, skip longish posts with lots of one-sentence paras; if Easterross isn’t your scene, avoid anything over 40 lines (though you might miss a Morus too); to avoid me, skip the one-long-paragraph posts like this…
421. ukpaul: All politics is trolling in your apparent opinion then.
Not at all. The genuine politicians here never troll.
You, on the other hand, do.
These posts from you in the last thread were a dead giveaway:
211: I’m just using the tactics so long used from the right to see how it feels.
213: that you are angered is a success.
You are an unapologetic and unrepentant troll. You have no credibility.
422 - I think the advice on MMR was clear and good from the authorities, though at the time of the controversy, Liam Fox did try to make cheap political capital out of it.
There’s nothing quite as exciting as an arguement about who’s a troll or not! Surely it’s similar to Mike’s first rule on polls - a troll is someone who you don’t agree with.
426 The advice was good, it was the press (led by the Daily Mail, surprise, surprise) which messed things up. In areas vaccination rates are edging into the range where herd immunity doesn’t work so well.
At the time it would have helped immensely if the Blairs had said “yes, we’ve had Leo vaccinated, it’s the right thing to do for him”
In this case I don’t think the privacy thing holds water, given the advantage you would get if you make everyone else get vaccinated, while not doing so yourself.
#419. Hmmm. An interesting choice.
How on earth could Labour have a credible campaign since they attacked the SNP in Glasgow East claiming they would release 4000 jailbirds - a proposal put forward by a one, erm, Henry McLeish.
Or how about how Labour thinks the Scottish Broadcasting Commission is a waste of money despite having members like, er, Henry McLeish.
Or their attacks on the Scottish Government’s National Conversation which has been welcomed by, er, Henry McLeish.
Or their policy of not lobbying Westminster for Scotland’s share of Attendance Allowance money even although it has been called for by, er, Henry McLeish.
Labour’s campaign would turn into a joke as their supposed representative was at odds with a rake of their policies.
426.Sorry SBS, I think the MMR controversy was very badly handled by the government. To be fair to Liam Fox, he was a doctor unlike many other politicians.
427. Gasman: a troll is someone who you don’t agree with.
No. Wikipedia says: An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]
I warned everyone yesterday on a previous thread that The KLINTONS would make a bid for the Vice -Presidency; Even Ididn’t think they would have the hutzpa to try for the presideny itself.
But they are. The God’s weep!
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/clintons-name-goes-in-hat-for-democrats.html
430 - Dr Evan Harris MP hit the nail on the head when he said
It is the height of irresponsibility for the Tory spokesman (Dr Fox) to call for the provision of what he accepts is a less effective and less safe approach.
“This will further undermine public confidence in a vaccination programme that is both necessary and has been found, on strong scientific evidence, to be safe.”
433 - yep, the Blairs could have helped a bit by saying what Leo had, but the NHS advice was clear. Not so with TB now.
428.The governments handling of the issue of MMR issue fed the media hysteria rather than calming it. As for the Blair’s and Leo, that’s a difficult one. I respect their right as parents to keep it private, but in doing so when he in fact did get it definitely fed concerns about it at the time.
The governments handling of the MMR issue also had a very detrimental effect generally when it came to research into Autism. The money was spent on trying to prove the MMR was safe, it would have been better spent on the causes of autism at the time.
433.”It is the height of irresponsibility for the Tory spokesman (Dr Fox) to call for the provision of what he accepts is a less effective and less safe approach.”
SBS, I suspect that he thought it was more advisable to offer the choice of a less effective and less safe approach when so many parents were refusing to have their children immunised at all if the only choice was the MMR jab at the time.
I warned everyone yesterday on a previous thread that The KLINTONS would make a bid for the Vice -Presidency; Even I didn’t think they would have the hutzpa to try for the presidency itself.
But they are. The God’s weep!
http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/clintons-name-goes-in-hat-for-democrats.html
435 - I think you’re being charitable to Dr Fox. I beg to differ and think Evan Harris was being more responsible.
431 Sorry, that post should have had a liberal dose of smilies!
435 re Leo. The safest position with regard to vaccinations is for everyone else to have it, but not to have it yourself. That way you avoid the risk of complications from the vaccine (and there are small risks with everything, just not of autism), and you also have herd immunity meaning that the disease is unable to spread, and will die out in the population. I don’t think it’s a particularly ethical position to use, especially not when you’re telling other people to be vaccinated.
432.”435 - I think you’re being charitable to Dr Fox. I beg to differ and think Evan Harris was being more responsible.”
Not at all, I am a former nurse and the mother of an autistic child, the only child at our local school at the height of the controversy.
I was approached on numerous occasions by concerned parents who were making the decision about the MMR, not a comfortable position to be in I can tell you.
438.Read my post @422.
437 - Dr Fox is an accomplished media performer. His indignation can come across as false, and he appears to be a loose cannon. His loyalty is not guaranteed (ask John Major). I wonder what Cameron will do with him ultimately.
439 - that must have been a horrid situation for you.
441.It was uncomfortable being asked by one or two less than tactful souls if I regretted getting my child immunised. The media were very irresponsible at the time, but so were the government in their handling of the situation.
Daily Kos has noted that Bayh, Biden, and Richardson have been given non-keynote slots, and suggests this might mean it’s not them.
Kos still hoping on Sebelius, heavily linked article suggests it might be Daschle. Kaine now favourite amongst Kossacks.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/14/185633/744/443/568070
Night all,
442 - I think the Mail enjoyed the mileage from the story as back then there was so little to attack the government with. It would perhaps be different now Labour have screwed up visibly of so many fronts.
This TB issue with scrapping of skin tests has not really made the news. Shame.
G’night.
445.”This TB issue with scrapping of skin tests has not really made the news. Shame.”
Totally agree, but then would the coverage be anymore responsible?
I suspect that it would not, in fact it will only make the news if there is a good old dog whistle issue like immigration to bang on about.
Goodnight all.
re 434 it’s perfectly clear
The new policy, which starts this autumn [2005], means that BCG vaccination will be offered to infants in communities with an average incidence of TB of at least 40 per 100,000 and to unvaccinated people who come to the UK from countries where the incidence exceeds 40 per 100,000.
447 - I am still lurking…
Policy may be clear to you. Doesn’t work like that in practice. And there is a total absence of advice.
just seen on CNN Biden, Bayh get slots on VP night at convention…on flicking through thread can’t see this mentioned yet
425 - You disagree with my politics. That is your only argument.
Given that I take positions which annoy different people at different times it becomes so obvious.
Cameron at PMQ’s - trolling, Brown barking out figures - trolling, SeanT on Europe - trolling, Nick P on ID cards - trolling, you on me - trolling, me on you - trolling.
You see, it’s so simple to reduce a disagreement to an attack on the motives. As long as the motives are laid bare then the attack is bare, as yours is.
431 - You actually made me laugh out loud at the desperation, quoting wikipedia on trolling, a quote which could refer to any political discourse.
Credibilty, credibility, credibility, wah, wah, wah, wah……
451 - Seeing as people seem to have gone to bed I await your attempt at a reply to show how your political disagreement with me is really some emotional appeal for the integrity of political discussion on here.
Yawn (from tiredness or boredom, I’m not sure which).
Further to my 449, surely one of these for VP now?…have adjusted my betting on this market.
449. PantherDave. See Morus post at 443 linking to Kos. Refers to the same News but argues that this lessens their chances. I think you can argue it both ways. I’m impressed how well kept a secret this choice has been, if indeed it has been made yet?
454 thanks stjohn
450. ukpaul: 425 - You disagree with my politics. That is your only argument.
False. I disagree with your tactics, not least throwing around insults without justification, with the intent of making people angry.
That might be an important part of oratory, but it doesn’t aid discussion.
So which are you? A member of the community that wants to discuss things, or are you just here to hector anyone who doesn’t subscribe to your McCain-is-evil-vote-Obama! position?
Cameron at PMQ’s - trolling, Brown barking out figures - trolling, SeanT on Europe - trolling, Nick P on ID cards - trolling, you on me - trolling, me on you - trolling
No, no, possibly, no, no, no.
Putting Clinton’s name up for a roll call could mean the convention is a bloodbath.
I’m gonna buy some McCain.
456 - McCain is NOT evil.
But he is what you might call an ocassion to sin.
So you have an intense dislike of McCain and the GOP then if you only disagree with my tactics?
Everything was justified, when people post things which have been checked out as being lies I know that I haven’t started the argument. I don’t throw around false accusations, I mean every one of them and I back them up, when called to, with proof. In these circumstances making them angry isn’t a tactic it’s inevitable given that their mind is already closed.
At no point did these posters offer any proof to back up their original posts either, it was just an attempt to smear.
When people post lies I will point that out, sometimes nicely, sometimes antagonistically, sometimes as a ’sneering liberal’.
Regarding the Corsi book, apparently the Obama camp have just released a forty-one page (!) rebuttal, lie by lie, regarding the birth certificate smear just a minute of research will lead to you realising that it is false and that the purveyors of it are not credible.
When people debate then there’s no problem, when they smear deliberately then debating is too weak, a smear deserves something more robust and dismissive. Factual, but dismissive.
As someone who would be fine with a Cameron government I rarely have any run ins with the right on UK politics here, in fact it’s the left who try and say I’m a tory. This, however, is interesting in that I can see how the left see the board and I can understand why so many get upset because of what they perceive as to be its attitude to anything not on the right.
457 - The Wikipedia definition in that case means none of us are -
“someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.”
Do we try to disrupt discussion? No, the topic is politics and the subject is, in fact, illumined by verbal sparring. Is it irrelevant or off topic? Again, clearly no.
Controversial and with an intent to provoke yes, but then every person in the instances I gave does the same. Political discourse thrives on the art of provocation and of opposition (contro) of opinions (versial).
We just disagree.
460. ukpaul: So you have an intense dislike of McCain and the GOP then if you only disagree with my tactics?
I don’t disagree only with your tactics.
If I had a vote, I would probably vote for Obama, despite the tactics of some of his supporters.
Everything was justified
Well, that’s a matter of opinion. I would suggest that calling someone a liar needs a higher burden of proof than merely determining that what they say is untrue.
462. We just disagree.
I disagree with many here, but not many here deliberately try to anger those with whom they disagree. You, by your own admission, do.
462 - It wasn’t me who determined the untruths, I haven’t got the time for that! I have pointed frequently to where it has been done, however, with appropriate references. It gets wearing having the same smears and sources come up again and again though.
When I had one poster trying to claim that the non-partisan factcheck.org site was a liberal front I just realised that closed minds do not respond to logical argument and being given such proof.
463 - Not those with whom I disagree, there has to be more than that, any analysis of my posts over the years will show this.
As per my last post, I *do* take pleasure in annoying those who spread smears and who deny proof to the contrary. That’s not ‘people I disagree with’, that’s people using smear and scare tactics and I don’t feel bound by normal rules of conduct in such cases.
460. Regarding the Corsi book, apparently the Obama camp have just released a forty-one page (!) rebuttal, lie by lie, regarding the birth certificate smear just a minute of research will lead to you realising that it is false and that the purveyors of it are not credible.
Do you have any link to that?
And a more important question - has Obama released a certified copy of his birth certificate(s)?
While some of his inquisitors are undoubtedly trying to damage Obama, the inconvenient questions remain valid questions, for a country shackled to a 200 year-old Constitution…
Where was Obama born?
Under what name was he born?
What was the legal status of his parents’ relationship at the time of his birth?
What was the legal status of his natural father’s nationality at the time of his birth, and later?
What was the legal status of his supposed “adoption” by his Indonesian step-father in 1967?
What was Obama’s citizenship in the 1960s?
Why is he described as Barry Suetoro, Indonesian citizen, religion Islam in a 1968 school record?
What is his current legal name?
Why did he not inform the Illinois Bar society of any previous names, as was his legal duty?
On what passport did he travel to Pakistan in 1981?
Why did he campaign for a relative in the Kenyan general election, and are there any constitutional ramifications arising out of this?
All are valid questions. So far we have no answers…..
http://obama.3cdn.net/a74586f9067028c40a_5km6vrqwa.pdf
Titled “An investigative report into the lies in Jerome Corsi’s ‘Obama Nation’”,
The word lie/liar is going to be a constant over the next few months, it’s a confrontational word but one which demands a reponse.
Suffice to say I haven’t read it so I have no idea if it mentions any of the the issues you refer to. They appear to have been answered elsewhere, although the Clinton echo chamber which you somehow seem to have made peace with over this, have done their best to claim that they haven’t.
466. Thanks for that. Amid a blizzard of ad hominem attacks on his accuser, he plausibly addresses one or two of the less-important questions on the list - the Islam religion attribution and the Kenyan episode..
The more fundamental nationality/citizenship questions remain, of which I accept Obama himself is legally incapable of giving definitive answers, and if I was him I too would, indeed could give no answers…
A standard defence of the democratic argument.
Individually we are all biased, collectively all our biases balance themselves out.
Individiually we are all always at least part wrong, collectively all our mistakes’ incoherences fall apart and what is left over is coherent and ipso facto correct.
By the terms of this argument proposed by the Fink, he fails to make a coherent argument that the Conservatives will make a good government if they win (as he infers), merely that they will be better than the other contesting parties.
It is an excellent self-supporting position to take by a partisan commentator which is undeniable true, but it offers absolutely no insight, except the exposure of his own partisan bias in support of his party and an escape clause from offering any positive prescription to any political debate or policy dilemma.
What a 6th former!