Would Gordon walk away from certain election defeat?
September 3rd, 2008
I was very struck by this post by ChrisD overnight.
The only way I ever saw Gordon Brown still leading the Labour party through a GE, was if there was a good to certain chance they would win. Even if he was not openly challenged or quietly pushed, I have never bought the into the idea that he would therefore cling on till the bitter end to lead his troops into an absolutely certain defeat in 2010 like Major did back in 97′. Those in the Labour party who think that Brown is a John Major type politician in that respect, are going to be left feeling sorely disappointed and let down.
I seriously could see him walking away and leaving the whole government and his *beloved* Labour party up the creek without a paddle.. There seems to be an almost blind faith within the party that Brown is there until the GE if they decide not to oust him, in much the same as that conviction that he would be a great PM despite being totally untried in a contest to prove it. I am with Daniel Finkelstein’s friend on this. The Macavity theory
Mike Smithson
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I honestly believe GB still feels he IS a great PM; he no doubt thnks that “events” and “plotters” have conspired against him, instead of his own weak leadership, poor vision and execution (as well as terrible PR skills).
Any incumbent PM would want to stay on as long as possible in the hope that things will get better. Even the m
Since Gordon Brown’s half-baked and unfunded plan to revive the housing market has been greeted with universal derision, perhaps he will simply be laughed out of office.
GB is not a leader - there are very few natural leaders in any society = most people are happy to be followers if the leadership is good and allows the followers freedom in action and thought within the boundaries accepted by that society.
Good leaders also offer the prospect of security, happiness and contentment without undue stress - they also enable a society to pull together without petty jealousy and engender an esprit de corps.
GB reminds me of a small boy who has struggled to get hold of the ball and wants to keep it to himself to play with and will resist all attempts to take it from him.
Often the result is that the rest will either overcome him by force or will leave him on his own whilst they find and play with a new ball.
Problems occur when GB’s ball is punctured - does he try to mend it (most likely unsuccessfully) or throw it away in disgust and burst into tears and rush to the comfort of mummy’s apron strings - which in reality he has never left.
An outbreak of collective madness was reported in 2007 in Great Britain as the Parliamentry Labour Party endorsed Gordon Brown as leader and Prime Minister.
This disease seems to have resulted in the complete loss of feeling in the spine, memory loss, selective amnesia, deficent critical facilities resulting in paralysis and certain death by May 2010.
To walk away means awareness of oneself as a failure.
Since when has Gorodn publicly admitted failure?
I suppose there is always a first time…but it would seal his record as a total and abject failure and he would end up derided and despised by his own party.
Would his price accept that? Surely he’d have a nervous breakdown first.
price = pride
Can somebody please explain the SNP’s local income tax policy? With no room for local variation, how are they intending to allocate the funds to councils? Are they taking current spending as a base, thereby penalising those councils who are currently more efficient, or have taken active policy decisions to pursue lower taxation agendas, at the expense of “luxury” services (eg. local theatres, extent of sports facilities etc)? Or will the spending be completely independent of the current situation, which leaves open the possibility of some councils getting millions of pounds which they can’t spend, or others having to make savage cuts?
I don’t think Brown would simply “do a Keegan” and walk away, leaving Parliament in confusion.
But I can easily see the “health” card being played as the excuse, in order to salvage something of his personal reputation for posterity.
I think he’ll try to hang on always in the belief that things will get better in the polls, and always with the effect that they will get worse. Wonder what the price on LDs coming 2nd is?!
I cannot imagine someone who has schemed for a decade to get into No 10 ( bearing in mind how he did it) giving it all up when defeat looms at the General Election. But somehow what ChrisD posted makes sense.Gordo doesnt do courage.
He would never give it up willingly, and if he is not ousted, the “ill health” scenario is the only way Gordo could escape the responsibility of what he has engineered, and the wrath of the electorate.
Very good early posts on this thread, which hit the nail on the head: Gordon has to see himself as part of the problem before he will go. I don’t think that’s at all likely before 2010.
If a leader does choose to go ‘before their time’, the minimum they usually want is to pass the baton on to someone who they believe will follow in the same style (or at least, what they believe to be the positive aspects of it). There’s no way Brown can fix that - he’s in such a weak position that it’s very difficult for him to carry out a reshuffle, never mind persude / bully the candidates and electorate in an election to succeed him to do as he wants.
So I reach the opposite conclusion to ChrisD for similar reasons: Brown will not quit because to do so would involve making an active decision as well as not only an admission of failure but a recognition that someone else could do better - much easier to put it off and hope something turns up.
Even if he doesn’t walk away, it is still very possible he could get the push, either by senior members of the cabinet acting together or by the PLP. The most likely catalyst is next June’s elections, which is immediately before the last realistic window for a leadership election, and will be the last (and largest) test of public opinion before the general election.
I saw Gordon on TV last night and thought he looked sick. Did anyone else notice? It could of course be a mild summer flu but if it’s the job that’s laying him this low then for his own sake he should give it up.
3. “Since Gordon Brown’s half-baked and unfunded plan to revive the housing market has been greeted with universal derision”
…..which it hasn’t other than on here and I doubt he reads this.
ChrisD may well be spot on here. She has a good knowledge of Scottish politics, and her ‘Macavity Theory’ insight is worth serious consideration.
It is my contention that it is utterly impossible to understand The Right Honourable Dr Gordon Brown MP without a comprehensive grasp of his natural milieu: the Scottish Labour Party.
If you are betting in any markets whose outcome depends on the actions and thoughts of Gordon Brown (and that is most of the betting markets we discuss) then you must do your background research on Brown. Read some of the biographies, especially Tom Bower’s. It is truly frightening: Brown has never had a ‘proper job’. His entire life is deeply soaked in the mire of Scottish Labour tribal politics, eg. he detests (and I really mean detests) the Conservative Party with a vengeance.
Brown has no hinterland. When his political career collapses in flames around him, Brown the person will collapse too. No ‘elder statesman’ he. Kinnock and Blair are stiff bouncing around making pricks of themselves, but I suspect that we will not hear much of Brown after he goes. The loss of office will cripple him even more than it crippled Thatcher, and at least she had the comfort of an astonishing history-making career behind her. Brown is a world record breaking failure.
It’s happened before, Brown ducking out of contests he doubted he’d win. The 1978 selection for the Hamilton by-election, the 1992 leadership contest (it was apparently Brown’s decision not to stand that year which started the rumours about his personal life), and then the 1994 leadership contest.
13. Brown has carried out EU policy to raise Stamp Duty on House Transfers, burden the market with HIPS and energy assessments, and grind it down until it is no longer the primary reason why Britain could never join the Euro.
Like farming, like fishing, like our financial industry, the UK housing market is on the EU’s hit list.
Brown has only been carrying out his ‘instructions’ as he told us in his speech post Crewe and Nantwich. The EU desires as big a housing bust in Britain as it possible to engineer, as that, they hope, will shatter the belief in bricks and mortar.
It won’t. Once the slump is over, and interest rates are down, the market will recover. The EU will find another Brown-like stooge to do their bidding, and keep loading burdens onto the market to try to stop its vitality.
Brown is only the latest, and will not be the last. If Brown walks, another EU-puppet emerges.
13
I doubt this site is ignored by No 10. Nick Palmer for a start will be reporting back on some of what what is said (the general mood). Roger says there is no universal derision. I suggest Roger reads the headlines and leaders that I am just hearing read out on R4 just now. They are hardly positive and no doubt reflect the views of the majority.
I think he is like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He is panic stricken and pride does not come into it anymore. He is screaming for help yet the words won’t come out and he is no longer connecting with reality or anybody. Look at the number of advisors he has, top class people, and as far as one can see he just scampers amongst them, does not trust them, does not know where to cherry-pick. I cannot feel sorry for him for the way he has behaved in his plotting past, he never once has thought of the nation only his own ambition. As it is, in my car I would run over him and put him out of his misery.
“His entire life is deeply soaked in the mire of Scottish Labour tribal politics, eg. he detests (and I really mean detests) the Conservative Party with a vengeance”
This doesn’t make him weird. I know many people who-as a result of Thatcher-feel the same and none are mired in tribal Scottish politics.
7 - Isn’t this the system in the Republic of Ireland?
12. Roger
Look at this photo of Brown:
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Brickbats-for-Brown39s-stamp-duty.4451381.jp
He looks so ill that at first I did not realise it was him.
21. I don’t think he looks that bad in the photo, considering the angle it’s taken from. Remember that he is blind in his left eye, which must have some effect on the features of that side of his face.
Re 19. I wonder whether in we will get the hatred of Labour on the same scale as the hatred of the Tories that you talk about…
The party appears to be finished both as an intellectual and moral force and it could take decades to repair the damage.
13. The only way to revive the housing market is to reduce interest rates but the Gov. can’t because they bottled that decision years ago. Even if they could influence the rate cut they can’t because of the rampant inflation. No more boom and bust. Indeed it will be bust and insolvency!
23. Unlikely. The Labour Party hasn’t taken on - and defeated - vested interests like the Tory Party of the 1980s did, so hasn’t built up enemies in the same way. Derision rather than hatred is the likeliest negative feeling towards it.
22 21
Gordon looks fine to me. He’s just had a holiday.
Whatever you may think, he appears to be strong and healthy.
And to survive since January being derided and rejected by the electorate requires some inner toughness - coupled with a refusal to accept anything is his fault.
26. I hope your not a Doctor.
25. On reflection, that sounds a bit one-sided, as if Thatcher’s getting to grips with union power etc. was the only factor behind the hatred of the Tory Party by some.
Labour hasn’t undertaken the kind of economic and social reform that the Thatcher government did, breaking with the 1945 political settlement, which was probably a bigger part in the strength of feeling felt by those who either lost out by it or felt betrayed in some way.
23. Mike Smithson - “The party appears to be finished both as an intellectual and moral force and it could take decades to repair the damage.”
I agree. Certainly in Scotland it would appear that among the vast majority of the electorate (and by “the electorate” I mean the people who actually vote, not people in general) the Labour Party has already gone beyond the point of no return.
“Finished as an intellectual and moral force” - totally over the top.
There is clearly tons of intellectual activity in the Labour movement. If anything there is too much intellectual activity and not enough translation into practical street politics. We get document after document after document. Look at the conference fringe for the scope of what is going on. What Labour lacks is focus and a bit of a mission.
As for a moral force, still think Labour has as much of a claim to that as the other two parties. One party untested by govt the other has it’s own moral questions to answer.
Just as worldwide events ie “credit crunch”,higher oil prices,and higher interest rates have added to Gord’s unpopularity so the reverse will soon be true.
I am no supporter of Gord but as world oil prices head back down towards $100 a barrel and interest rates will fall later this year there exists a last chance for NuLabour to claw back some points in the opinion polls.
My proviso is that a new Chancellor needs to be in place to rid the economy of the present uncertain situation.
29
I think it’ll be a geographical picture. As Stuart says, Large areas of Scotland will be lost.In England Labour still a force in metropolitan areas, but in non metropolitan England I suspect it will be a bloodbath. In Wales Labour will no longer be the force they were, and N Ireland will be a desert for all the major parties
23. Unbelievable post. You genuinely believe the Lib Dems are now more relevant than Labour, don’t you.
23, 24. Bollox. We ALREADY have hatred of the Labour party equivalent to hatred of the Tories. It may not seem that way but that’s because of several factors.
a) hatred of the Tories was over-stated in the first place. Everyone was meant to loathe them by 1992, remember? After a decade of lethal Thatcherism? Yet, er, somehow they got back into power.
b) by 1997 yes they were loathed by many, but our apocalyptic FPTP political system made the “hatred” seem worse - the Tory vote didn’t collapse, just melted, and the Labour vote wasn’t as high as Major’s in 92!
c) Tory haters circa 1990-1997 tended to come from the most voluble parts of society: the media, the chattering halfwits, us, comedians and celebs, writers and journalists, filmmakers and musicians. The cacophony generated by this minority made it seem that everyone on God’s earth, probably including God himself, hated the Tories with a vengeance. Not so, as the votes showed.
d) The people who HATE Labour now are sizeable but scattered minorities - eurosceptics are one. Working class white people affected by immigrants another. Scots are a third. Foxhunters and rural types ditto. These people simply can’t create the volume of noise compared to the punditocracy, and the vocal middle classes have yet to really suffer under Labour, so it seems that Labour isn’t quite as hated. Yet.
But they are. Go and speak to some white people in a poor part of London heavily affected by recent immigration. They LOATHE the Labour party. Why else would they vote in their droves for idiots like the BNP? Its a cry of pain.
Likewise hunters, eurosceptics, etc.
And look at the polls. Gordon Brown is the most unpopular British leader since of the Aethelred the Unready boiled a puppy on Breakfast TV.
If you think Labour aren’t hated you are deluded. They are. Just wait for the next elections. And the property crash has YET to really kick in.
29. if Labour are finished in Scotland as an intellectual and moral force what would you say about the Conservatives who aren’t even benefiting from this absence?
35. Tories don’t need a single scottish seat to form a majority gov!
Look out David Cameron
Boris Johnson has taken another giant stride along his path towards the leadership of his party and, one day perhaps, the keys to Number Ten.
The Tories’ blond bombshell has been named Politician of the Year in GQ magazine’s annual awards - following in the footsteps of his glorious leader (Call me Dave) who was similarly honoured last year.
The famously crumpled and dishevelled Boris was presented with his award by TV style gurus Trinny and Susannah.
You couldn’t make it up.
34. An opening for a new party then. ‘The Eurosceptic Hunters’ That’ll have Gordon quaking in his boots.
37 Shouldn’t you have accredited Boulton and Co from whom this post has been pasted word for word
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:e0248a84-4040-40eb-bd3a-d011c42ec839
30. Save it for some retard who might believe you.
Your illegal war led to the deaths of half a million people. A war for which you have yet to apologise, let alone atone.
And STILL you people in Labour deny us an inquiry.
Labour aren’t just finished as a moral force, you are RUINED. People may not care about the ins and outs of foreign policy, but they can see when something is rotten from the head down.
“Hand on heart the polls had nothing to do with my decision to call off the election”.
That’s you that is. That’s your leader. That’s everything you stand for. Lies. Big lies, small lies, little lies, massive lies. LIES.
New Labour are the stinking corpse of social democracy. Someone call the undertaker.
Support for Labour in tade union Unite has halved.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1051978/Support-Labour-halved-unions-members.html
35. Roger
I’ve said it once, and I’ll be saying it again: IMHO I think it entirely possible that the Scottish Tories will pip Labour for 2nd spot at the Euros next June. That will shake the very foundations of Scottish politics.
I wonder if, just as it serves to prevent Opposition leaders becoming complacent, the 1992 precedent might give Brown a glimmer of hope.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s doomed, but he might look back and think “If Major can do it, so can I.”
42. really? I wasn’t expecting that.
Brown doesn’t like elections and added to that we had the news yesterday,that private polling by the UNITE union showed that only 35% of their members would vote Labour.
So someone that doesn’t like elections, who may well suffer the most humiliating election defeat ever,will have run a mile by election time.
One of the many things we know Brown doesn’t do is courage.
31 The benefit to the UK economy of the fallback in oil prices from $140 to $109 a barrel has been impeded by the simultaneous fall in the pound from $2.03 to $1.79 in that same period. Unleaded was still costing me £1.15 a litre with BP yesterday.
30 AND you ARE finished as an intellectual force, too. Mike Smithson is quite right, even if he is a Lib Dem.
I noticed this same intellectual bankruptcy just yesterday - no kidding.
I always like to read the Guardian - even out here in Bangkok - cause I find it stimulating to see what the idiot lefties are thinking: I like to start the day with a caffeine shot of outrage.
But normally within the PC piffle and mediocre-lefty-think, which gets me nicely riled, there is usually some interesting stuff, too: striking new opinions, a stimulating concept, a radical lefty perspective which, though I might disagree with it, at least has force and passion.
Yesterday’s Guardian, for the first time in my memory, contained not one single interesting idea or challenging notion, not one single witty insight or refreshing new take.
It was the newspaper of a vanquished movement. The manifesto of a party that doesn’t know what it believes any more, if anything. It was the in-house journal of a government that has no real faith in its own future or value.
Even the Monnbiot stuff about global warming felt kind of half-hearted, like they were going through the motions, after one of the the dullest and cloudiest Augusts in recorded UK history.
Yesterday’s Guardian was a living embodiment of your ideological vacuity. You ARE finished. You’re toasted and burnt. The fire went out ages ago, and now, even the smoke is drifting away, on the chill Autumn wind.
It’s over.
Next June’s Euro elections will be a bloodbath for Labour. I can see no way that Brown will be able to tough it out after those results. Next summer is the absolute backstop for his involvement in UK politics. But by then, he will have sealed the fate of his Party for a generation.
Even Gabble seems to have given upon the ghost with Labour these days…. No cheerleaders; nothing left to cheer. Only the dying refrain of “B-b-b-but the Tories eat babies!!” fades on the wind….
And then Labour was gone.
Brown will have to be dragged from Downing Street - I can see no other way of it happening. If he were a better actor, we might believe in some of the words that come out of his mouth - but almost every consonant and vowel seems to be twisted in some way to reflect a skewed world view.
We have consumer confidence at a 4 year low, unemployment at a 16 year high and the OECD say that we are effectively already in recession and in a worse position than any other leading economy. Will Brown concede any of that? No - he will trot out his lines about ‘tough times’, ‘global pressures’ and ‘helping decent families’ - which he clearly cannot believe.
(BTW - shouldn’t we, as a nation, be helping all members of society not just ‘decent families’? Aren’t we all entitled to the attentions of our government?)
35,42 I wouldn’t be surprised either. Anyway the Conservatives are just letting the Tartan Tories (SNP) do the dirty work before they come back and become the largest party in Scotland.
On the subject of Gordon and would he walk away from defeat at an Election, I cannot disagree with ChrisD as that could be very dangerous to my health and well-being.
If Nicol Stephen can walk away from being Lib-Dem leader in Scotland with barely a murmur stating he wants to spend more time with his family, why wouldn’t we believe Gordon when he says this.
37. Boris is going well. He is good with words, and unusually for a politician he’s good with money. Britain needs to rebuild its financial credibility. He’d be the ideal candidate.
Firstly, and most importantly, thanks for Henry’s excellent tennis tip. Muller beat Davydenko in 4 sets. I was actually (and very unusually) cut down by SPIN. Anybody betting against Davydenko when he is the jolly, is suspect…
In the past, MS has commented on how well the FPTP system works, in terms of the British people picking the ‘right’ man as PM. There is some truth in that.
The problem is the size of the majority. In retrospect, a small majority in 2005 would have meant that this govt could not have limped on until 2010. And the current shambles could mean that tories would lead the socialist party by 250 seats after the next GE.
There is much enthusiasm for getting rid of this incompetent and damaging govt. But you don’t have to be a rabid lefty to wonder whether DC having a huge majority, and thus limitless and unalloyed power, is only good. In the future, some will look back at the GEs in 2005 and 2010 think that an element of PR may not be so silly after all.
49. I miss Gabble…
The Labour Party reminds me of an advert some years back where people were perpetually pushing a heavy rock up a series of inclines without getting anywhere. The mood music was funereal, the clothing was tattered, the environment miserable and the participants were wandering around like zombies.
“Never overestimate the Lib Dems.” Tony Blair, Labour conference September 2005.
There are many reasons why the Labour party will survive.
The Labour Party still attracts men of ambition and talent. The LibDems have a few – Laws, perhaps Huhne.
Labour still has the backing of the Trade Unions and don’t underestimate the funding and resources which that provides.
The Labour Party is still seen as the party for the underdog and that gives them a powerful brand in the political market place.
The LibDems are largely untested in office and where they have been – Scotland and Wales – their electoral fortunes plummet.
No the Labour Party will recover post Brown.
As we’re having a Scottish day …….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1n-f-Zusaw&feature=related
One day after the Sept Brown re-launch can we say it has failed already?
I agree with the article. Brown does lack the courage to fight to the bitter end .
Roger is probably right that Brown is ill. Heart disease is my guess based on the ear crease.
It is highly unlikely that Labour will disappear completely at the next election but the direction they take will be coloured by who is left in the parliamentary party. Given the scale of the losses they can expect, it will be interesting to watch the fight for the leadership.
New Labour is too tainted as a brand for any standard-bearer to be considered electable.
Old Labour will certainly mount a bid - but they are split into many splinter groups and haven’t made themselves terribly popular in recent years
A coherent new vision for Labour has yet to be outlined (which is very often the way for political parties after 3 terms in office) and until that emerges, I cannot see a massive revival for them.
Parties need time away from power in order to regroup and rethink. It would seem that it has ever been thus.
56 “The Labour Party still attracts men of ambition and talent.”
Who? If the apotheosis of such ambition and talent is the current Cabinet, then they have been attracting a pretty low grade of talent for some years now. And who in their right minds, coming into politics today, would choose life as a rising star in the Labour Party? You could be collecting your pension - and still not have got anywhere near the levers of power.
23. Labour has never been an intellectual force. As a moral force, it has been in decay since the 1960s when it was taken over by middle class armchair revolutionaries.
And the hijacking of the party by the ugly, yobbish clique of Campbell-Whelan-Draper-Balls types in the 1990s has arguably created the most amoral and nastiest political party we have seen in modern British history. The lasting feeling the public will have toward this party is not so much hatred, as contempt.
56 Fernando “Labour still has the backing of the Trade Unions and don’t underestimate the funding and resources which that provides.”
Yes at the moment but a new Conservative Govt will bring in a £50k limit and then Labour will have its funding reduced to something that the Lib Dems can compete with.
46 it went 1p a penny at my local garage yesterday!
61. If you were around when Thatcher and her clique were in office I can only think you’re being ironic.
56
The financial backing of the Trade Unions? Who depend on a Government subsidy? Guess where that is going.
30
“There is clearly tons of intellectual activity in the Labour movement”
Agreed. But do not mistake activity for meaningful thought. Most of it is written by people with no idea of economics and no concept of the thinking through of the consequences. There is no intellectual rigor or depth..
31
Yes oil prices will fall in $ terms. Yes food prices will fall in euros.
But the UK economy is going into a period of recession and nil or weak growth. The pound will fall. So the sterling benefits of lower world prices will be muted. And more importantly unemployment will rise.
And Government borrowing will double to nearly £100Billion…
All those vaunted and worthy poverty programs are going to go into reverse (as they are unfundable at higher levels) and the recipients are going to be very upset at broken promises. As many of them are unlikely to vote, however, it means that not much will happen electorally - but Labour’s core will vote less.
Labour needs an injection of young blood with brains , vigour ideas and more than a nodding understanding of economics. After the next GE it is unlikely to have many MPs with any of those characteristics.
64.Thatch had to lance a few boils for the good of the country - and Mr Scargill was a particularly unpleasant boil who was looking after a small cabal of workers who were dragging the country down.
Brownism is dragging the whole country down - including the lazy and feckless whch his “borrow to bribe” policies are aimed at.
64. No irony needed Roger - this lot are infinitely less pleasant than the Thatcherites. It’s going to be a long electoral exile…
60
A truly awful reflection on the judgement and lemming like behaviour of Labour MP’s, that they allowed someone who was known to be a bully,with poor interpersonal,presentational and communication skills to be elected unoppossed.
62 TC, lots of money goes to the TUs for political purposes. Somehow or other, whatever the future limits imposed (if it ever hasppens) I’m sure a way will be found to route that legally to the Labour Party. They can’t be that lacking in ingenuity.
64. Go back to 1969/70 and 1978/79, if you were around at that time, and compare the state of the Labour Party / Government with then. I am no political historian, only a hard pressed taxpayer, but from my perspective this lot have got themselves into a bigger mess overall than then.
48-Wasn’t the 2004 Euro score risible in itself?
With Labour then, say at the mid 30s in the polls they got mid 20s. “Do the math.” True, the Tories got high 20s or so, but add most of UKIP (what happened to them?) and they could be on nearly 40% before we adjust for polls. It is not inconceivable for the LDs to top Labour. In fact, every new relaunch (life expectancy less than a house fly’s) and every day this sorry, nay sickly, crowd carry on makes that more likely.
65. I think the big problem is that Labour no longer stands for very much. As such, it will only attract careerists at propitious points in the electoral cycles, not people who are committed to achieving particular social goals.
All political parties have this problem to an extent, but it’s particularly acute for Labour which has dumped all its historical ideals - or seen them rendered irrelevant by economic and social change - and has instead emphasised its ‘managerial’ competence. A rather laughable concept, today.
60 Marquee Mark, i was really trying to compare Labour and the Libdems. Like them or not, the people in the PLP look more substantial that the rag bag of glorified councillors and isolated men of talent in the Libdems.
61. No, I disagree. Labour HAVE been a moral force for good AND an intellectual force for good - in the past.
The NHS was a noble creation. So was the Open University. Those are just two examples. We can argue about who specifically came up with these ideas, whether the conception was shared by different movements - but nonetheless they happened under Labour governments.
There are several other cases - some equal rights legislation, Freedom of Information, etc.
But now? Now there is nothing. They are a sad, hollowed out husk. Their intellectual impotence was first revealed in their initial years in office - they just stuck to Tory party spending plans;then, when they thought they could get away with it, they went on a stupid, obscene and juvenile spending spree. Which has nearly bankrupted the country.
Their moral nullity was first shown by Iraq, and their treachery on Europe, and cash for coronets; it has now been confirmed by their non-election of a leader who blatantly and openly lies to the British people EVEN WHEN HE DOESN’T HAVE TO.
“Hand on heart the polls had no affect on my decision yadda yadda yadda”
Labour remind me of a company going helplessly bust. A company run by a bunch of frightened middle managers, all of whom are too inept or cowardly to challenge the obviously senile chairman. Meanwhile the poor workers look on, in amazement and despair, as their jobs go down the khazi.
47 Nice Try Sean.
73 - Not sure I’d entirely agree. If you swapped the current Labour front bench for their Lib Dem counterparts, the overall quality of minister would shoot up.
O/T, but has anyone seen the latest Dairylea advert (or is it because I spend too much time here, and not enough time listening to “left-wing education for the proles” - a.k.a. TV)? I saw it for the first time on Zone Horror (+1) this morning.
It is a nice little tune with the line “Here we go, two, three, four”. Seems to ring a bell with me. Is this what they call subliminal advertising…?
69
The current route which can easily be stopped,is that the government (Blair’s Warwick agreement) gives the trade unions around £ 10 million a year of taxpayers money for their so called modernisation fund.
Yes, you guessed right,the trade unions then pass almost exactly the same figure back to the Labour party which is called their political levy.
75 Yes, it was it wasnt it, and under the posts as well!
70
I’m not sure your correct, post de-valuation the Labour Party was in a pretty poor state. The Wilson government had revived somewhat by 1970, but the debacle over, ‘In Place of Strife’ and the’ ‘Trade Union Question’ gave the Tories the, ‘Legs’ to win in 1970.
78/79 was a much worse period for Labour than this, ‘The Winter of Discontent’ was Labour’s ERM disaster.
The problem the government has is the obvious, ‘The curse of the Third Term’ you’d think political parties would have learnt by now, ‘Do all you can to win two, do all you can not to win three’ and whatever you do, ‘Don’t win a fourth’
p.s.
I was around at that time.
70
You are probably correct.
I am trying to recall thn. At that time it was a period of Union dominance.. incompetent Conservatives (Heath and the Barber budget) and a Labour Party racked by problems of strikes, rising oil prices stupid taxation nearly banrupting comapanies . Prices and incomes policy was a failure. And immigration was an issue - a racial one.
The PM Callaghan was popular but the Chancellor Healey was totally out of his depth.
Today it’s different.
A Government which has tried to pass as many laws as possible without being able to enforce them.
Spinning and lying so no-one can believe what they say.. eg the economy.
Trying to change behaviour.
Immigration : the social and economic disruption more than the racial bit.
And the same economic incompetence exacerbated by claims of the Messianic qualities of Mr Brownas a financial wizard.
When people realise it’s just all words and no action, they get very angry . largely becuase they have been duped.
In the 197os it was WYSIWYG.
This time round it’s been a gigantic conjuring trick.
The electorate have been treated as fools and for a period they believed it.
Now they see reality.
That in my opinion is why the Labour Party is detested and reviled by many.
A complete change of personnel and policy is required. In effect a new generation…
68. Remember that when Brown was elected he was taking over from the ultimate showman/communicator who the country had grown tired of and Brown seemed the perfect antidote. A serious unshowy politician who got on with the job.
Looking back we took Blair’s talents too much for granted. When you see Cameron-who even his greatest admirers must admit is just a poor Blair impersonator-being 15 points up in the polls it makes you wonder whether the party were a bit hasty.
82. 20 points Rog, 20 points
54 - I’m with you. I miss gabble. Roger has his amusing moments, but gabble was consistently funny.
74. I think when the Labour Party was still primarily a working class movement aimed at alleviating poor working conditions and fostering self-improvement, it certainly was a moral force for good. But that ceased to be the case a long time ago.
Insofar as it ever had an ‘intellectual’ edge, that was the discredited Marxism beloved of the likes of Mr.Palmer and his predecessors. That was never a force for good, and continues to exercise a malign influence even today, when it has morphed into the ugly, primitive class envy seen at Crewe etc.
Re. 34 (c), Geoffrey Wheatcroft is very acute and amusing on this point in The Strange Death of Tory England, including some typically over the top quotes from Harold Pinter when he joined Charter 88.
82, Balls!
Brown was doing well (in polling terms) when he appeared to be that unshowy fellow. He only got into real trouble playing political tricks and telling lies very badly. If he’d stuck to the “Just Gordon” image he might be behind now, but not by 20-25 points.
morning all, I normally agree fully with Chris D but having watched Gordon Brown for over 25 years, he just cannot see that he is unpopular and reaching the stage of being hated. He genuinely believes that he will win the next GE. It is the Hitler bunker mentality as I mentioned the other day.
Stuart Dickson is as usual 100% spot on. There is now a real prospect next year of the Euro elections going SNP 2, Tory 2, Lab 1 and LibDem 1 which would mean Labour losing 1 seat when Scotland reduces its representation from 7 to 6 seats. The Scots Tories managed to win 2 seats 4 years ago when we were far less popular than we are now.
For several months now Scottish opinion polls have been showing the Scots Tories in the range of 15-20% whereas before 2005 it was nearer 10%. Generally we poll as much as 3-5% above poll ratings because in Scotland there is still a reluctance to admit to voting Tory. At the E that will only translate into 4-6 seats but if Labour tumbles badly that could double to 8-10 seats in the 10-20% majority at 2005 range.
This morning Alex Salmond is outlining the Scottish “Queen’s Speech” as I type. The contrast between the SNP minority Government in Scotland and the Labour 60 seat majority Government in Westminster could not be clearer. The SNP are riding high in the polls 16 months after winning the Scottish election, is full of confidence and looks and sounds like a Government knowing where it wants to go.
Labour have been sniping e.g. because the minority government has not yet incresed police numbers by 1000 but in the past year they have increased to an all time high and he has just promised the 1000 by 2011. The day before yesterday he was seen on TV opening the largest hydro electric scheme in Scotland which when fully operational will power 600,000 homes i.e. the city of Glasgow or more than 20% of Scotland’s homes.
As I have been in bed with flu since Monday, I have watched SKY news and BBC News 24 constantly and yesterday the overwhelming majority of commentators derided Gordon Brown’s measures to help housing and some went as far as to say it would make things worse. Prize of the day must go to Kay Burley’s face during an interview. Last week in Beijing at the post Olympics party she looked as though she was having an orgasm while interviewing Brown and “ramming her tongue up his ass with her brown-nosing”. Yesterday’s interviewee, a respected economist dismissed Brown as the most disastrous Chancellor this country has ever had and she simply sat there mouth open in total disbelief.
If things dont improve for Labour then in Scotland you are looking at 20 SNP gains not the modest 14 I have previously predicted and seats like Glasgow East and Glenrothes will stay SNP and Dunfermline will stay LibDem.
Historically Brown has sought to avoid any contest he might lose, being ever cautious. People criticise him for this but this approach has led him to reach the very summit of government.
He waited for a safe constituency seat to become available before putting himself up for election as an MP. He stepped back from a contest with Blair for the Labour leadership, expecting to take over unopposed when Blair eventually stepped down. He backed off from the “election that never was”, fearing he would lose.
His extreme caution led him to defer his actions until he judged a more propitious and opportune time had arrived. The difference with the next General Election is that it cannot be deferred indefinitely. The sands of time are running out. He still has a degree of choice over when the election takes place but not if it takes place.
My view is that he truly believes that he is the right man for the job and as well as always wanting to be PM he has always wanted to lead Labour to a General Election victory. I don’t think he will choose to step down and increasingly doubt he will be persuaded to step down or be toppled. His health could lead him to step down but otherwise I expect he will lead Labour into the next General Election: and lose heavily.
[23 etc] A good point. My recollection is that the Tories were widely hated up to 1992 but pitied thereafter. The latter is far more damaging and applies to Labour to-day.
I wholly agree with Our Genial Host: Labour is terminally ill. Harold Wilson said “The Labour Party is a moral cusade or it is nothing” - a proposition New Labour have tested to destruction.
At a time when the received wisdom was for a hung Parliament, I offered what Roger was kind enough to call my Apocalyptic Scenario which has become the received wisdom in its turn. I now repeat my other prediction: that by the middle of the next Parliament the polls will have settled into a “four, two, two, two” pattern - that is to say, 40% Conservative, 20% Labour, 20% Lib Dem and 20% others, the last being a mix of civilised Celtic nationalists and uncouth English populists/racists - and the odd Green. Dunno how you’d turn that into a betting profit, mind.
Roger @ 82 - “Remember that when Brown was elected .. “. Must have missed that. When?
BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS **** BREAKING WIND NEWS
The breaking news is that WIND is reporting to JNN the contents of a new ARSE (BUTT) poll of polls that indicates :
McCain 45% .. Obama 50.5.% .. Others 4.5%
The PISSED Jack W Index with added SOAMES BIG MAC weighting shows :
McCain 157 .. Obama 260 .. Toss Up 121
Changes Since Last Projection - Alaska moves from Toss Up McCain to Likely McCain. Indiana moves from Likely McCain to Toss Up McCain. Missouri moves from Likely McCain to Toss Up McCain. New Jersey moves from Likely Obama to Safe Obama.
Toss Up - Up to 5% .. Likely - 5%-10% .. Safe - Over 10%
Eliminate Toss Up States - 270 required for an Electoral College majority.
McCain 227 .. Obama 311
Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America
……………………
Sources :
WIND ….. Whimsical Independent News Division.
JNN ………..Jacobite News Network.
ARSE …… Anonymous Random Selection of Electors.
BUTT …… British Underpinned Tracking Totals
PISSED … Political Intelligence Seat Selector Election Determinator
SOAMES …System Of Amending Measured Election Scores
BIG MAC ..Ballot Indicies Grid Manifesting America’s Choice
85
The Labour Party has never been primarily a working class movement. Most of its senior members, leaders etc. would be classified as middle class, often public school educated: Attlee, Gaitskell,Blair.
The desire to improve the lot of the poor etc, comes from the Whig tradition, Plantagenet Palliser being their role model.
80. Time will tell whether this Government finishes up in a worse mess than the 1974 - 1979 one. I consider the integrity of this one is much lower than then whilst the quality of the participants is significantly worse. That will, in my opinion, ultimately lead to an outcome that compares very unfavourably with 30 or 40 years ago.
#88, regarding the next GE.
I pumped through Populus’ latest poll into Baxter’s, having adjusted the Scottish poll, and I have to disagree with your revision. I cannot see any nationalists - save those English fringe parties that are grouped amongst them - doing better then expected.
The calculation used - and variations thereof - gave a minimal Tory majority of 110 (which I think is fair). However the SNP would - according to projections - only get 21 seats (and not hold Glasgow-East).
The problem: with LibDems polling 13-14%, they will retain a large number of seats (thanks to FPTP - ironic hah). If the Tories do better than four seats then that will be a good result, even with one-fifth of the electoral-vote.
Annabel Goldie the Scots Tory leader has just confirmed she will consider support for ALex Salmond on a policy by policy basis
Madasafish (5) has a good point.
Brown will not walk away.
He has ducked and dived to avoid direct competition.
He undermined and backstabbed his rivals to achieve what he wanted without the rigour of a Party Election.
He has lied and double dealt to escape a situation where he might lose (and lose face) - 42 days detention and the EU referendum.
But when things do go wrong, after a period of denial, he will turn around and blame someone else.
OT but I strongly recommend Google’s new browser Chrome - just downloaded it this morning. Fresh, fast and funky. And it fits in very nicely with iGoogle - if you have it. Which of course is itself totally brilliant.
I *heart* Google.
O/T Here is the GOP’s defence of their VP vetting process:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080903.wconventionpalin03/BNStory/International
I like the quote that McCain ruled out Pawlenty and Romney because “he felt they would bring little drama or intrigue to the race”. Well he certainly has got what he wanted from the Palin pick!
95 Fluffy Thoughts, things like Baxter have no understanding of Scottish politics and dont pretend to. If the SNP has 21 seats that would be the 14 gains I have thus far predicted. For Scotland it is Holyrood 2007 not Westminster 2005 which counts.
Brown being a protege of Adolf Hitler, will no doubt have had his felt tips pens out recently annotating diagrams of his final battle. When he fails; he will will have ordered all these drawings to be burn’t with himself in a trench outside the downing street bunker!
Brown will not accept defeat lightly and he will see the benifits of casting one final cloud over downsheet by being cremated in the No.10 Bunker.
I should image that Balls had been assigned the task of pouring the petrol and striking the match.
Balls does have crazy eyes afterall! 
93. Rubbish - the Whigs were the party of the high aristocracy and later of the factory owners. These were the people who, among other things, embraced enclosure, strongly opposed regulations on working conditions, introduced the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and took an ideological approach to famine relief in Ireland that greatly exacerbated the suffering.
The Labour Party came into existence at the end of the 19th century as a working class movement precisely because the Whigs/Liberals were not seen as representing the interests of working people. New Labour looks more like the decadent Whigs of the late 18th century.
[103] Er, runnymede, precisely which Labour minister reminds you of Charles James Fox?
104. In terms of talent, none of them.
The answer to Mike’s question is “No”. The man is obviously deluded – “best placed to weather the global economic downturn”, “no more boom and bust”, “no-one will be worse off as a result of the 10p tax abolition” – and in his delusions he will never beleive that he is leading his party to a catastrophic defeat.
101 Baxter is of course a Scot. So it’s a bit harsh to say “things like Baxter have no understanding of Scottish politics”.
In fact, I think Scotland is handled better than Wales in his machinery.
88 Easterross - always appreciate your knowledge of the local situation.
Whilst I have not worked in Scotland for many years, I believe it is very possible that at the next GE that Labour could emerge with less than 10 seats. At present SNP, who seems to gather voters from all parties, appears to present hope for the future.
If SNP do not make any bad gaffes between now and 2010, will this prevailing mood swing in their favour even outstrip the present polls and emasculate Labour is Scotland for some time to come? - Would appreciate your comments
14. Here you go roger
http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Brickbats-for-Brown39s-stamp-duty.4451381.jp
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article4663903.ece
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b8a2cea-7920-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/09/02/bcnstamp1002.xml
@99:
Chrome is *amazing*.
I mean, it’s not finished, and is missing a few Firefox extensions I need, but its process isolation/task manager is a thing of genius, its UI is beautifully minimal but highly functional (Omnibar: kiss kiss), and OH MY GOD TEH SNAPPY.
I just benchmarked it as 40x (FORTY!) faster than Internet Explorer on my PC, and 10x faster than Firefox 3.
Wow.
90. “The Labour Party is a moral cusade or it is nothing”
I think this is right. However even from the Tories the public expect a sense of direction. Just implying they would manage things better than Labour will only work if things haven’t improved by election time. Cameron has nothing like the respect or the ideas Blair had in 1996.
If Labour start to turn things round and look competent again they could still win on the basis of better the devil you know.
A whimsical thought:
Following the boundary changes, I wonder what the first seat to be declared next time will be? For the last few elections Sunderlands North and South have always been first to declare, but these seats always had a small electorate and a small turnout - and, I suspect, weren’t actually counted terribly accurately - did accuracy really matter when the result was so far beyond doubt? Now the bulk of these seats is combined in the new seat of Sunderland Central which is a) larger and b) much less safe I wonder where the first to declare might be? My guess is Barnsley Central - compact, safe, low turnout (so less counting needed) - and Barnsley have historically always been pretty quick off the mark.
111, the Tories turned the economy around before 1997. There reaches a certain stage where the public just loathes you too much to forgive.
The “LA Times” reports on McCain’s earlier critisism of Palin’s policies in Alaska.
Other media outlets are reporting on new e-mails directly linking Palin to Troopergate.
Palin appears to be the gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-earmarks3-2008sep03,0,6851593.story
@114:
Democrats have allowed their Palin panic make them shoot their wads *far* too early. What’s happened to Obama’s strategists? Have they been sleeping on the job since Palin was chosen?
91.
Labour has indeed been destroying itself as a moral and intellectual force for the past 10 years. The Conservatives have the luxury of never pretending to want to be either, and delivering accordingly. The coalition which is the Conservative Party is and always has been about the pursuit of power for their own clique and hangers-on for its own sake. Occasionally they forget that, letting glib pseudo-Tories like Blair steal their position on the back of smiles and twaddle. But their gyroscope always pulls them back to home base.
re 89 Easterross yes I thought that Sky interview with the finance person (linked yesterday) was truly amazing. The interviewer woman seemed so dumbstruck by the answers she was getting that she wanted to disagree with everything he said. Rather than interviewing him she ended up arguing with him.
53. Thanks David. Did you watch the Muller-Davydenko contest? The look of hatred in Davydenko’s eyes when Muller accidently hit a ball into the Russian’s back? Someone should send a video of it to David Miliband in case it’s a snapshot of Russian temperament at this moment in time.
It’s been a good tournament so far from a punting perspective and very interesting too. I’ve got some serious doubts about Nadal, Federer and Djokovic going on and winning the title. This is Nadal’s worst grandslam (he’s never passed the quarters) and he’s played so much tennis it’s catching up on him. Djokovic was all over the place yesterday and looks like he’s carrying an injury. Federer could so easily have lost yesterday against Andreev. After his performance in the previous round against Stepanek I thought Roger’s confidence was back, but not after his latest performance. Murray, Roddick, Fish and Del Potro all have serious claims for reaching the final on current form but all have tricky match-ups to navigate.
I am very much looking forward to the two matches tonight. Del Potro and Murray will be a real grudge contest. I backed Del Potro each way at the start of the tournament at 66/1 but I’d make Murray favourite tonight. Anything could happen in Fish v Nadal if Fish plays as well as he has been. He’s impressed me the most out of anyone in recent rounds, but he’s yet to take a set off Nadal in four matches on fastcourts.
I’ll post later if there’s any bet selections worth taking.
16. Brown is not on his own spouting that line: Ed Balls say’s the country is best best placed with the current donwturn with low governemnt debt!
There are all completly deluded!
What is worse; Balls asked if he was going to become the next C of E - Had a smile of pride and look in his eyes that he knows he is going there! Bllody hell this country is fast heading into the biggest basket case in the west!
89 Easterross The Sky midday output is dire and Kay Burley an embarrassment to herself about Brown.
Did you see the look on her face when she asked Lamont whether he supported the stamp duty holiday ‘after all you did the same thing as Chancellor.’
She was convinced she was going to get support for Brown’s whizzo idea, and the look on her face when Lamont said his scheme was a waste of time was wonderful.
Stunned mullet.
Have Roger and Gabble ever been seen together?
Judging by the photos here, Gordon’s lost an awful lot of weight in just 2 months; looks to be between 2 & 3 stone gone.
http://dizzythinks.net/2008/09/malcious-narrative-on-browns-health.html
As for the manner of his leaving, it’ll be quick and full of accusations that an ungrateful party didn’t deserve him and they’ll regret it it.
Wrong again, Gordon.
93
The working class has always been poorly represented in the Labour Party leadership. When the Liberal Party disintegrated in the 1920’s some went to the Tories, some to Labour. The Whig tradition carried on.
Enoch Powell when asked what was the fundemental problem within the MacMillan cabinet said,’The PM was a Whig along with half the cabinet, the other half were Tories, two totally incompatible political tribes’
Similar problems will soon arise in the Cameron (Whig) cabinet. Most of the Tory contributors to this site will within two years of DC becoming PM, be baying for his blood and for Redwood to take over.
118. Should have been for 54 and not 53.
104 charles James Fox - It would have to be a composite. Someone with the
morals and administrative ability of John Prescott
the background of Hilary Benn
the judgement of Brown
the oratorical skills of….um….here I’m stumped and have to resort to the late Robin Cooke
123
“for Redwood to take over”
Joke of the month. Lol.
115 Martin C. Too funny !!!
The Democrats can’t believe their luck. The GOP has for now lost control of the media narrative and the MSM are swarming all over Palin.
On a tactical level the Palin pick was an error. Palin who ??? All too quickly the bright shiny new button, nationally unvetted by the MSM hit the spotlight and all the faults and little scandals known in Alaska about her got the national treatment.
Palin may turn the situation around. We’ll see.
123. Stop writing such drivel. Keir Hardie, Arthur Henderson, Ramsay MacDonald, William Adamson, Robert Clynes - these were all working class Labour leaders.
123. Redwood to take over?……..you obviously have no idea what most tories want.
113. by ‘97 they were risible in pretty much every department. the sluggish economy, numerous scandals, sleaze, corruption and unusually strong opposition that were also features of the period masked the fact that pretty much every single policy was a dud, and pretty much every minister was out of his depth.
Lab are suffering some of the same problems - being in power for so long leads to the rise of a generation of politicians whose careers were not built on the victory, but on prolonging power. their ideas are not based on desire to improve the country, but a desire to keep things going as long as possible.
the biggest difference, for me, is that the Cons in the 80s and 90s had alienated large geographical and demographic sections of the populations - they really did become reliant on a core vote. they are still suffering from that now, with insignificant presence in Scotland for example, despite significant recovery since.
127. Yes the Lieberman endoursment of McCain must be a shattering blow to the Republicans! If he had been VP on the ticket i would have understood it but when he is not on the ticket - it has shot the media narrative to pieces.
On topic, yes I can see Brown resigning. I wonder if he’ll look for a legacy issue first like we have with Blair. Labour needs to give him an exit strategy to save face. Ill health won’t do it.
[79] - The Union modernisation fund, as far as I’m aware, is mostly spent on various bits of training. You might not have realised it, but the Unions gave the Labour party plenty of money before the Union modernisation fund existed.
I doubt the political levy is going to cease to exist if/when the modernisation fund is stopped.
131 Martin Day. Old news …. in fact very old news …. in fact almost 105 year old news !!!!
Lieberman supports McCain. In other news George W Bush might be slightly Republican !!!!
112: ‘…and, I suspect, weren’t actually counted terribly accurately…’
You’re not suggesting they did a rushed job (and bugg*r counting the electorate’s votes correctly) just for the publicity of being the first to declare?
93,123,129 Redwood is an ideas man and not a leader, nor can he relate to or resonate with the electorate.
136. most of his ideas are terrible as well
128
Had to go back a few years for that lot! try post WW2
129
John Redwood is a patriot, and will take no pleasure in the Chancellor’s confirmation that Britain may, after all, be Going To The Dogs. But he has cause to feel vindicated: at every step, his economic analysis has proved superior to the Monetary Policy Committee’s - let alone Labour’s.
The Conservative front bench has been more circumspect. The party was burnt once before, predicting “a downturn made in Downing Street” that never materialised: a “false dusk” as Francis Maude ruefully called it. And, of course, no Opposition likes to open itself to the accusation of talking the economy down. Redders, though, couldn’t give a straw for such considerations. Like an Old Testament prophet, he has been warning policy makers through his blog, on an almost weekly basis, to mend their ways before it is too late. And, like an Old Testament prophet, he has been disregarded.
Politics rarely rewards those who are right before their time. On the contrary, they tend to be marked down as cleverdicks. So, since no one else is going to say it, I will: Redwood has been accurate all along, and it’s high time we started listening to him.
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From the blog of Daniel Hannan MEP
A straw in the wind.
re 109 Now that relaunch number 2,359 has completely bombed is there a bit of a breather until the next, or is it straight onto 2,360 today?
138. One MEP does not represent an entire party, or even a much smaller group, such as the tory supporters on this board.
138. Yes - if you’d read the earlier posts you’d have seen that the point I was making was precisely that Labour abandoned its working class roots a long time ago.
127.
Bristol Palin’s Facebook shots (courtesy of sister-in-law-to-be) seem pretty much the same as many UK teenagers. Unfortunately UK teenagers are the closest Europe gets to the hypocritical US position of pretending their kids are not having lots of unprotected under-age sex from about 12 years-old onwards, and deciding they’d be better off kept in the dark about sex, with resultant high teenage pregnancy rate.
http://stupidcelebrities.net/2008/09/02/bristol-palin-likes-to-party-photos/
142. Aren’t there special sites for people like you?
No-one is in charge.. a fascinating read.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2214c984-791e-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html
From Benedict Brogan - Brown wants to nationalise mortgages !!!!!
Sue Cameron in today’s FT provides some useful insight from various Whitehall-watchers into the problems facing Team Brown. Professor Peter Hennessy, who knows a thing or two about how Governments work, says: “If you think this lot have a Baldrick-style cunning plan you are flattering them.” And Martin Weale of the National Institute of Social and Economic Research points to Mr Brown’s reluctance to let go of his old Treasury domain: “It’s not the PM’s job to make economic announcements but whether we’ll ever get back to constitutional government again. I’m not sure.” Intriguingly, she believes Mr Brown wants to bring in state-backed mortgages.
Hades will host the Winter Olympics before I call for Redwood to lead the Tories, thank you!
Sound advice here : “ignore Hazel Blears”
http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/dont-listen-to-hazel-blears-dont-buy-a-house-13546.aspx
144, this leapt out at me:
“Insiders say Prime Minister Gordon Brown has a multi-billion pound shopping list of plans, including state-backed mortgages, which he is saving up to announce in his speech to the Labour conference later this month.”
Whatever his medication is, clearly it isn’t working. I posted yesterday I was relieved, that at least the housing plans didn’t include the above.
147. So why would Hazel want you to buy a house quite as much as she does? Either it is because she is very stupid, has no idea how markets work and has bought into the absurd idea put about by her government over the last decade that home ownership is a good thing in its own right, regardless of the cost to individual or to country; or it is because she is an exceptionally unkind person who is putting the short term interests of the big housebuilders ahead of those of would-be homeowners (remember, the HomeBuy Direct scheme sticks you with the houses they don’t want). Either way, don’t listen to her. And don’t buy a house.
test,test
On the subject of Gordon Brown, the Telegraph ran a competition recently asking for political epitaphs, in verse, for the great leader. Inexplicably, they failed to print my entry - I offer it here to the more discerning readership of PB.com:
A POLITICAL EPITAPH FOR GORDON BROWN
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more broody and intemperate.
Rough winds did shake the polling-booths of May
And thy Brown bounce had all too short a date.
Alas! Too hot the spotlight on thee shines,
And now it seems thy gold complexion’s dimmed;
As every poll from poll in turn declined
And yet thy fatal course remained untrimmed.
Thus thy briefest summer soon did fade,
And thou has lost that prudence that thou ow’st.
Young Cameron hath put thee in the shade,
As braying Tories brag their votes still groweth.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long they’ll vote for anyone but thee.
129 - Yes, where is David Davis these days?
This point raised in a piece published in 24dash.com is also causing me and my colleagues concern.
£600 million is a serious loss!!
Homes worth £175,000 or less will from today be exempted from stamp duty for the next 12 months in an attempt to shore up the housing market.
But economists have warned the move may force Government borrowing up further in this autumn’s Pre-Budget Report after Chancellor Alistair Darling declined to say how he would pay the estimated £600 million bill.
148 - Oh please God no!
153, I recall the Mock the Week line from Scenes We’d Like To See - Gordon Brown addressing the nation.
“You thought Tony Blair was a ****. Watch this!”
£600m is a lot. If the government decides to spend billions on mortgages, it’ll be small beer:(
test
127
155 - Talking of Tony Blair, he must be laughing his little head off!
Meanwhile Moneyweek give their view of the Hazel Blears housing proposals..
http://www.moneyweek.com/personal-finance/dont-listen-to-hazel-blears-dont-buy-a-house-13546.aspx
And as it is strictly financially orientated there is no political bias.
To sum it up: don’t buy a house yet: the price will keep falling.
159
sorry duplicate of prior post
re 155 Hamish McRae puts the government’s plans into perspective in his piece in today’s Indy. Brown injected about £1 billion into the housing market yesterday, yet the value of the British housing stock is dropping by £1 billion per day at the moment.
Pissing in the wind indeed.
150, 156, 157. I think David’s trying to say something.
David - your comments aren’t showing up in moderation so I can’t work out what the problem is.
O/T - Good blog over at the telegraph and the first comment is cracking!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/andrew_porter/blog/2008/09/03/labours_gerald_ratner_moment_makes_tory_job_easy
130. Again, more bollocks from Mr ed, he of “the American economy is doing worse than the UK”…
By contrast, here’s a report from the slightly better informed OECD:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7592660.stm
Sure, the Tories 79-97 alienated large parts of the country, by area and class, but that’s cause they had to fix forty years of socialist decline. The medicine was painful.
By contrast Labour inherited a well-functioning economy, with good growth, declining unemployment etc etc, over the last ten years they have managed to ram this golden inheritance into the wall - like a 21 year old twit given a gleaming Jag on his birthday, who crashes it on his third outing.
And you think in this slow motion trainwreck Labour HAVEN’T alienated large parts of the populace? Do you not sense a tiny smidgen of discontent with, say, Labour’s free-for-all immigration catastrophe? The over-regulation of everything? The European betrayal? The grotesque sleaze of cash-for-coronets? The manure-spraying repulsiveness of political correctness and multiculturalism?
Labour are at an historic low in the polls. Or haven’t you noticed? The only thing preventing them from complete Chernobyl is the economy just about holding up, and the loyalty of the payroll vote - benefitees, migrants, etc.
You talk scoffingly of the Tories being “reduced” to the core vote and wholly losing “Scotland”.
It seems to have escaped your minuscule attention that Labour are in danger of being wiped out in most of southern and middle England, which is TEN TIMES THE SIZE OF SCOTLAND. Moreover, the core Tory vote was at its worst near 30%.
How low can Labour go? Do you know? No one knows. We don’t even know if Labour have a core vote anymore. Cf Glasgow East.
Tsk.
Nor can I
161, aye, it’s nothing for the market, yet it manages to cost us £1bn. Another financial miracle!
It’d be better for the country to stake £1bn on Rachel Stevens winning Strictly Come Dancing.
I am currently recruiting key staff and for those with the right and relevant qualifications, competence, experience and promise then the package can be six figures. However, for just qualified starters they have salaries that reflect their limited ability.
If these principles were applied to government ministers, then we would have to sack the present lot and it would concentrate the mind wonderfully of all future aspirants.
The current danger for the UK and its electorate is that if the Government does not know what it is doing and what it has done wrong, then it will thrash violently and cause untold damage.
The most telling point in the FT article is that No 10 at present acts like a court of a king, who at a whim, chooses and discards favourites, and forever seeks to please the populus by ever more extravagant spending until he is bust - a major cause of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
Mike, I am bit gobsmacked to see my post from last night up there, littered with the usual errors!
As I said in that post, “there seems to be an almost blind faith within the party that Brown is there until the GE if they decide not to oust him”. Its a widely held view in the media too.
Others think that because he has wanted the job for so long, and is incapable of accepting his weaknesses, failures or lack of unpopularity he will therefore persevere with the view that he can win right up until he loses the GE. I have always found that odd to understand, especially when you consider that the most defining political trait that has run through Brown’s whole career in the Labour party, has been a severe lack of courage.
Brown is more than aware of his weaknesses, think the emperor in the Wizard of OZ, he would not be where is today in the Labour party if he had believed half of his own mythical status in the media in the last 10 years. Its not being the PM of the UK that drives him, if it did, he would have had a discernible vision in place ready to articulate to his party and the nation when he went into No10 last year. No, he thrives on the internal cut and thrust of back room politics within the Labour party, and trying to smash the hated Tory party is like a good dessert after the main meal.
Look at the way that Brown still tries to control and manipulate the SLP at Holyrood, the many feuds he has had with colleagues, especially those he came up through the SLP with before going to Westminster. His personal dislike of Cameron and Osborne will be a driving force too.
The most defining moment in Brown’s premiership up till the moment he steps down, will be that bottled Autumn GE. The whole bandwagon was fuelled by briefings to prevent any dissent from the Unions or his own party while undermining the Tories rather than a genuine desire to gamble that early on in seeking his own mandate. The polls back then probable did not force him to cancel that election, instead they gave him a desperately needed excuse to back off from all the over hyped speculation.
I don’t think the concept of Brown resigning before an anticipated large defeat at GE will be a surprise to some in the Blair camp, or in the present cabinet for that matter. I am sure that is a risk that has been highlighted in some debates about whether to leave Brown in place or not.
An interesting anecdote from an Atlantic columnist; he recieved the following email:
‘My wife was on the fence in this election, and is pro-choice. She does not like McCain, and is lukewarm about Obama and Biden.
The Palin pick energized her to call me from work, email me, and–are you ready?–send in $$ to the McCain camp. I was floored (she voted Kerry last election.) She says the story of Palin (which she spent two hours on line researching) has touched her heart, inspired her, and that is enough. She and her friends are meeting Wednesday for dinner (six to nine women) “to talk about Sarah . . . and Hillary.”
Not Governor Palin. “Sarah.”
My college daughter is reacting the same way and sent McCain $15.00.
I think there is something happening that I don’t fully understand, but there it is.
Time will tell.’
I continue (almost alone) to think this will be an incredibly tight election, with perhaps fewer than 20 EVs separating the candidates. I also (certainly alone) think that both candidates would be adequate, possibly even good, Presidents.
169, hmm. It’s an interesting idea, but surely he realises he must fight an election as PM, and that he may as well resign now rather than later?
Health grounds seem a possible way out.
163. Having read his efforts yesterday I find for the moderator with costs……..
170. Robert - the prospect of McCain winning and the less than 9/1 actuarial chance he will die within his term of office giving Palin the presidency is very alarming.
Hendrey G Manson In case you missed it, Take a Bow
on your Tennis tips.
19 Re Advisors It does`nt matter how good Gordons advisors are, or how many He wont listen to any of them, he is the king
Roger: the funniest comment yesterday was from “percy percy” who pleaded with Mike to make the site impartial again, as the obvious ramping of Obama was distorting odds, etc.
170 - Robert - I agree with you on that last point. I think there are two better candidates for this presidential election than any I can remember. Ordinarily each party will flirt with electing the outsider who might attract support across the spectrum and then retreat into their comfort zone and put forward some uninspring identikit like Bob Dole or John Kerry. This time both sides are stretching themselves a bit.
This election could so easily have been Mitt Romney against Hillary Clinton. I think many people on both sides will be glad it isn’t.
172-Thanks Roger.Single word or words getting through but not monologues.
177. …..that’s more than enough
176. Even if Obama loses he will have done mankind a huge service by keeping Clinton out of office.
171.”but surely he realises he must fight an election as PM, and that he may as well resign now rather than later?”
MD, Brown thrives on the internal fighting and feuding within his party, that is what is firing him up at the moment and depressing some of his cabinet colleagues as well by the evidence on show. If the party decide to leave him in place to fall on his sword for the sake of the party as Major did, he won’t find it easy to cope with being side lined and ignored nearer a GE as people jostle for his position after the GE.
It seems Obama isn’t the only one with a troublesome Pastor in the background.
‘Palin’s Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview’ posted on Dawkins blog, reposted from Huffington. Background story, and also video of Palin speaking about her growing up in the church.
Watch the video and form your own view.
http://richarddawkins.net:80/article,3067,Palins-Church-May-Have-Shaped-Controversial-Worldview,Nico-Pitney-and-Sam-Stein-Huffington-Post
Interesting comment in FT, relating to growth or decline is towns and rural areas of the UK and associated government funding - will this impact on regional voting patterns?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/288befaa-794f-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html
174. Thanks - very kind.
170 robert. Anecdote not showing up in the polling as women and former Hillary supporters are trending to Obama in significant numbers according to Gallup.
And strangely Palin hasn’t given an interview since her pick. It appears she’s hunkered down in the bunker prior to her acceptance speech tonight on polar bears, PTA and paternity tests !!
176/179 - It was nailed on Giuliani vs Clinton at one time. Whatever happened to the Mayor?
One thing I will say for Clinton is she was absolutely superb at the Democrat convention. Yes, she had to talk the talk. But the old girl walked the walk too and made people on here who argued she would stop at nothing to deny Obama the Presidency look pretty foolish. The biggest bounce of the Convention according to the daily tracker polls was the day after Hills did her thing.
179 — and I’m sure all the Hiliary supporters who voted for McCain instead will feel a warm flush of satisfaction once Roe vs Wade is overturned and their daughters come back from school having learnt about Bible stories instead of contraception.
180, but he clearly isn’t thriving. He looks and sounds dreadful.
185. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
187. No sleeping at the back of the sex education class !!
188. Sorry grandad - can’t help nodding off, it’s all so repetitive and boring.
“Miss, can’t we learn about how the world was created in 4004BC instead? Sarah says it’s a viewpoint which should be given equal time.”
190. Back on thread, how much time should we give to the proposition ‘Gordon Brown is the worst PM of all time’?
(NB: Give Creationists an inch and the Young-Earth Creationists will end up wanting to take a mile.)
185 - I just think McCain, like most posters on here, misunderstood (and often entirely missed) Hillary’s appeal. It simply wasn’t simply that she was a woman with a chance of winning.
There will be some women who will vote McCain/Palin simply because Palin is a woman. But not many - and polls so far bear that out.
189 runnymede. Sex or the lesson ??
191 — I think at the moment there’s a stronger case for saying Bush was among the worst presidents of all time. Brown simply hasn’t been around long enough to do as much damage yet.
127-Your last paragraph for the first time showed non-partisanship.However to quote Kevin Keegan “I would love it,just love it”to see your face WHEN the GOP turn this round.With the debates still to come this ain’t over & you should not count your chickens just yet.
195 - I agree. You need to distinguish between spectacularly unsuccessful and genuinely harmful administrations. I think only the latter can really compete seriously for the “worst” tag.
196 - Maybe not the best analogy given what happened after KK’s “I’d love it” outburst.
8 - Like Alex, I can’t make out how Salmond’s plan to replace council tax in Scotland by putting 3p on income tax would work. How would it be collected for one thing? At the end of the day, wouldn’t you still need to raise the same amount from the local tax as you would have done from council tax so how does Salmond make out that the average family will be £350 to £535 better off? Might this turn out to be a disaster like the poll tax? Perhaps Easterross et al can cast some light?
194.
197. Well I would argue strongly Brown’s regime is both. Especially if we extend his tenure to include his period as chancellor.
196 david l. I don’t keep chickens but I’ll have my Steward keep a more than keen eye on the number of deer on my Scottish estate !!
BTW perhaps the Keagan analogy from that year isn’t too good a forecast …. He got stuffed that year !!
A thumbs down to Gord’s package from the City,no surprise
FTSE 100 5500.70down -120.00 -2.13%
Interest rates expected to be put on hold tomorrow but could be intruiging for the rest of this year.
Any news yet of Alistair Darling’s resignation ??
Rumours are gathering pace in the City of London
202.
Pound recovers - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7595518.stm
Interesting FT article on not leaving fiscal policy to politicians!
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f255447c-7903-11dd-9d0c-000077b07658.html
203. My ‘gabble’ tags got eaten.
That post should end with /gabble.
202 — ‘Twould break Gabble’s heart; too bad he’s not around.
168 It’s pretty frightening really. How much debt are they going to rack up by the time they are finished (to be fair Major did this too)? We could be looking at UK long rates 7% if they go really crazy.
204 Hmm still a load lower than it was yesterday. Personally I think GBP is now undervalued against the USD - Bernanke is useless.
202- Very amusing!! Oh such folly to underestimate the opposition.
House price watch
These new builds (former offices) are going to auction at half the price at the peak. First time I have seen this for a London postcode.
http://www.countrywidepropertyauctions.co.uk/property-details.php?pcode=CHL081198&dbtype=sales&rps=cherpa&pamend=1220348671
Previous sold prices.
http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=SE18+6HB&n=100
91 Why do you class celtic nationalists as civilised but English nationalist as uncouth? Don’t confuse English nationalism with the BNP as the press deliberately did in May so as to cause problems for us.
203
If Darling resigns, would Gordo be stupid enough to combine both jobs? I wouldnt put it past him?
208. Some scary possibilities in that area Jon, for sure. The fiscal deficit didn’t peak until 1993 last time, i.e. some time after the trough of the downturn - at nearly 8% of GDP. In some respects (e.g. the reliance on stamp duty and corporation tax payments from the financial sector) the public finances are even more at risk this time.
Even if the deficit peaks at a ‘mere’ 6% of GDP, that’s borrowing of £80bn quid a year. String that out for a few years and you are talking about increasing net debt to as much as £800bn from $540bn now…getting close to 60% of GDP.
More grim news of the banking sector
From “naked capitalism”
I am getting very worried about the UK economy
UBS: UK Banks May Have Used £200 Billion in Emergency Funds
UBS analyst Alistair Ryan has taken a stab at the level of use by British banks of the governments’ emergency facilities. His estimate, that it may total £200 billion or perhaps even higher.
To put it in context: the UK’s GDP is roughly $2.8 trillion. The US economy is a bit under $14 trillion, or nearly 5 times bigger (note that on a purchasing power parity basis, the size difference is even greater, over six times). If you use an exchange rate of $1.8 = £1, that £200 billion is equal to $360 billion. The support to the banking system is roughly 75% of the size of the usage made of the Fed’s facilities (remember, some like the PCDF, vary a lot over time, while the TAF seems to be fully subscribed) for an economy 20% as large.
Ryan’s estimates may simply be too high. But even if he is off by 100%, British banks are making far heavier use of life support than their US counterparts.
“Gordon’s alive?” - Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon.
203. Really? Theres rumours he’s about to quit?
217 - If Roger says there is no chance of Darling being forced out, we know his departure is imminent.
214…i think that £80 billion is nailed on. look out £100 billion!
@217:
You think he’s a man happy in his job?
165. Sean, maybe you should stick to spouting rubbish about all those horrible foreigners that are taking over and spying on us.
KPMG say jobs have fallen at the fastest rate since late 2001: http://www.kpmg.co.uk/news/detail.cfm?pr=3164
217. there is now…
Financier. Please contribute more often - I agree with everything you have posted.
220, delirious, to quote Portillo:p
222. Yes - now would actually be a good time for Darling or Brown to resign. Explaining why unemployment is rising rapidly is going to be agonisingly difficult over the next year or so.
And this is also likely to shatter what remains of Labour’s traditional working class support. The polling is going to be hideous.
205. Financier, can you find me a job ?
221. Suck it up, halfwit.
Do you still believe America is doing “worse” than us economically, in the week the OECD revised US growth figures UPWARDS? Do you still believe the US is doing worse than us economically, after the OECD this week said the UK is suffering the “worst of all G7 countries”, and is “the only G7 country likely to go into recession”.
lol. The pain of lefties is a joy to man. Shame you’ve shagged the country.
John Rentoul thinks Delphic Darling’s riddle still unsolved
Did anyone else think he looked and sounded like a politician going through the motions because the boss had demanded it yesterday?
Darling refused to answer some of the queries journalists made about his position.
227. yes i do. your single data point is not going to make you look clever on this one.
and btw i don’t think i have “shagged the country” just yet, i don’t know how mnay Cleggs you would need to notch up before you could claim this?
224 Thank you - time is usually limited as am the FD over a high tec international company, but took time out at lunch today.
211 - Is that the old DSS building?
224. i was just thinking, this site really needs to be more of an echo chamber for extremely right wing views.
Darlings performance on Newsnight last night was terrible. all his confidence had gone, its as if he cant believe things have gone so wrong, having appeared to be so right, for so long. He has no answers. Him and Brown are both toast very soon. Brown looks an absolute hopeless shambles at the moment. He may well be ill - he’s inspiring zilch confidence. I dread to think what’s going on behind the scenes. No one has any confidence in the government. The show is totally over.
Surely the current UK recession will fuel demands for English, Scottish and Welsh independence. I see Scotland looks set to abolish Council Tax and replace it with local income tax instead. I really want English independence, an English Parliament within the UK is no longer enough. UKIP are now in favour of an English Parliament within the UK and so do most Tories and many Lib Dems.
The Free England Party http://www.freeengland.com formed as splinter group from the English Democrats following accusations from the Left wing media that the EDP had links with the BNP. Yes both EDP and BNP oppose mass immigration but does not turn the EDP into a racist party. We English Nats hate the BNP with passion, as much as the lefties do. The Free England Party is committed to full English Independence via the breakup of the UK - bring it on.
231
Don’t know but it sure is ugly enough. The only building I know which is worse is Archway Tower, ex DSS.
I hear those flats at auction are not mortgageable due to no NHBC cert. Why idiots paid 250-300k is beyond me, probably Phil and Kirsty on the TV.
“The market’s raging so we go in at the full asking price….” etc.
I have seen a new build flat in Birm going in with a guide of 75k, similar sold for 210k during boom. Nice.
234. Are you sure that isn’t the Judean People’s Front?
215 - When fannie and freddie go under their $6trn mortgage backed bonds will make the £200bn (unlikley anyway as there isnt £200bn of BOE eligible RMBS I suspect)look like peanuts….
234 The Free England Party are much more determined than the English Democrats who largely draw support from the Tories in the South East. The EDP will accept an English Parliament within the UK, the FEP does not.
237. They aren’t going to default, but there will have to be a huge bailout which will send the Federal debt soaring.
227. “My single data point” - Derrr? what the F*** is a “single data point” when it’s at home, you leaking great milk-churn of monkeyspunk?
You don’t even know what you are talking about. You’re making it up as you go along. You came up with a fatuous lie and now you’re trying to cover it up with some asinine jargon.
On the basis that you an embarrassing, delusional fibber, I therefore put it to you that must be a member of the Labour government, and I claim my five pounds - at pre Gordon Brown exchange rates.
235 - I was getting it confused with this monster.
108 Financier, I think my Scottish colleagues Chris D and Stuart Dickson would agree when I say that as far as Scotland 2010 is concerned, we are now in completely unchartered territory. My view in June was Labour -14, LibDem -4, SNP +12, Tories +6 but over the summer the failure of the Labour party to recapture any spark of support among the Scots means they could seriously be looking at Labour -20.
The Scottish LibDems have elected Tavish Scott, easily their most impressive Holyrood performer and if he is allowed to take a high profile at the GE, he may reduce the likely gains by the SNP and Tories not only from the LibDems but also from Labour. Hitherto I have anticipated all 4 parties making gains in Scotland but now I think Labour will fail to gain any seats, only lose a bucket full. Maybe Mike will start publishing the 7 remaining set of my Scottish predictions from June so we can have a debate on them.
200 Old Codger, I have no idea how the local income tax will compare with the council tax but speaking personally as someone ho receives virtually no services for the £2000 a year Highland Council takes from me for my main home and £1000 from my second home, I welcome the change, given that like many others I am asset rich and cash poor.
Watching the Scottish “Queen’s Speech” and the body language was interesting. Alex Salmond was impressive and confident as were Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott. Cathy Jamieson was pathetic and those of her Labour colleagues who spoke afterwards were uninspiring in the extreme. They look and talk like dead men walking. The way in which Salmond greeted both Goldie and Scott was also telling. Clearly we are going to see alliances built this year again with either the Tories or LibDems, depending on the policies and Salmond has laid down the gauntlet.
237 - exactly but the bail out will make the SLS facility look tiny. The US banking system is in a much bigger mess - e.g. over 100 banks on the FDIC danger list currently
240, how much higher do you think the federal deficit can soar ?
There seems to be an inherent irrationality in the rebound of the dollar
http://www.truthin2008.org/
234.”Surely the current UK recession will fuel demands for English, Scottish and Welsh independence.”
I think that it will have the opposite effect, in fact I would not be surprised if the SNP don’t suffer electorally if they are seen to be concentrating all their efforts on fiddling with the Union if the economy is still in dire straits or trying to recover. Would also provide a good line of attack from the pro Union parties, not addressing the real and pressing issues in voters minds, companies will be looking for stability in the UK frame work in the short term etc, etc.
O/T - I wonder who has won the Premiership sack race Keegan or Curbishley, could be an interesting one…do they do photo finishes?
@240:
Sean, are you being rude to poor, dim little Ed again?
EXCELLENT.
A failing UK economy = increase in English, Scottish and Welsh demands for independence.
Meanwhile back to betting
Any thoughts on this market?
Welcome to the CNN Political Market, where you get a chance to predict the future of 2008 presidential politics! make a prediction
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Will John McCain drop Sarah Palin as his running mate? Ends: 11/01/08 @ 04:51 PM PDT
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Yes $9.63 $-2.21
Now that money is in short supply the WLQ and the Barnett Formulae are going to explode big time. Mr Salmond’s proposed scrapping of Council Tax in Scotland while England continues to suffer will be the icing on the cake!!! Well done Alex, you are a true statesman.
New Labour=New Tory=Lib Dem=UKIP=unwanted union. English nationalism via the FEP will become a dominant force in English politics. There is talk about electoral pacts between all English nationalist groupings so as to maximise the chances of success. Warning to unions, the days of the union are numbered.
On the subject of Labour traditionally being led by working class leaders, while many of it’s leaders did come from “humble” backgrounds, equally a great many of its leading figures have been drawn from the middle and upper classes. In my own family, our sole contribution to Ramsay MacDonald’s Government was very much a middle class rebel to the extent most of the family never spoke to him again for being a “traitor” to his class. In recent times, men like Viscount Stansgate, Tam Dalziel of the Binns and John Home-Robertson, never mind Tony Blair, Alistair Darling, Ed Balls and Harriet Harman have all come from the higher ranks of wealth and privilege.
It doesn’t matter what social class politicians come from, its the hypocracy of deriding others who come from the same background which upsets the voters and insults their intelligence as we saw in Crewe
245. Chris, given the feelings in Scotland just now it will not have the opposite effect. The SNP are going from strength to strength and putting out policies that the public want. It must be getting close to the tipping point where SNP will wipe Labour out. Also unless Tavish Scott changes his stance and Libdem positions they are heading for the same, they are seen as Labours lapdogs at present.
243. Yes but don’t exaggerate the scale of that - they are mostly pretty small - their total assets are only $78bn. And in 1990-1991 there were 1500 banks on that list and the assets at risk were $840bn.
247. yes, apparently data points are now “asinine jargon”.
New PPP poll for North Carolina 8th Congressional District :
McCain 43% .. Obama 43% .. Barr 5%
Note - Bush won this district by 9 points in 2004.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_CD8_902.pdf
251 - What qualifies as success, more than 0.3% of the UK vote share?
252. there are political reasons why the big fish will not appear on that list - until one of them actually fails.
242 Easterross - Do you have any insights into how well the various candidates for Glenrothes are likely to perform?
@253:
Only in the sense that so is everything you say.
It was announced on the BBC news this morning that house prices in Scotland are continuing to rise and that the Scottish economy is still growing. If this trend continues and the overall UK economy is confirmed as being in recession then the cracks in the union will grow. REmember Alex Salmond was a leading economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland before he entered politics and one of his first acts last year was to create a Scottish version of the Monetary Committee of the Bank of England with several Nobel economics laureates among its membership
[200] - In terms of the average the difference here will mostly come from the difference between the mean and median averages. Essentially, most people could be a bit better off if a small number of people are a lot worse off.
This happens in this case because the top band of council tax is nine times the lowest band, which is smaller than the difference between the highest and lowest earners.
Latest Rasmussen Tracker :
McCain 45% .. Obama 50%
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
OT, from Peter the Punter yesterday:
“O/T As of 2 minutes ago, Kevin Keegan was 0.15/1 with Betfair to be the first Premiership casualty of the new season, despite reports that he’s already left Newcastle.
Is this free money?”
I hope nobody took advantage of this - Keegan’s still there but Curbishley’s gone!
258 Richard, I expect the SNP, Tory and LibDem candidates to do well and the Labour man to be completely out of his depth. A headmaster with no political base of his own will do what Brown wants and I reckon the friction between Labour at Holyrood and Labour at Westminster will be clear for all to see with the poor man in the middle. In addition when media coverage is so important, I think a man with a face which looks well lived in will compare badly to younger energetic candidates from the other parties.
259 I totally agree with you. A booming Scotland creates all the ingredients for a successful ‘Yes’ vote in an independence referendum. PS I come across many Scottish Tories who favour independence.
261 - For comparison, yesterday was 51/45 so Obama ticks down 1, McCain unchanged.
263 - Thanks Easterross. Yes, I was surprised that Labour had gone for someone inexperienced for this high-profile campaign. By all accounts he’s a perfectly decent and capable chap, but he’s bound to come under pressure.
260 In principle, you are right. One could devise a change that makes one person only worse off, and everyone else bar one better off.
In practice, such changes don’t work, because the very small number of people who are a lot worse off do something about it …. like, they move South of the Border or find some other way of evading the massive tax hike.
Interesting news that the SNP administration wants to scrap council tax, using (if I heard it correctly) the 3p income tax leeway to fund it. They’ll need the support of another party to get it through: Labour and Tories have said no, the LibDems were non-committal. They claim 80% of people will be better off and it’ll be revenue-neutral (hmm), rivals claim there’s a black hole. No doubt out Scottish correspondents can fill us in more - this is just what I picked up off the R4 news. It’s the sort of thing that is very popular at first (and might help their by-election campaign), but may not be later as people work out who’s affected - anyone who pays income tax and lives in a small flat will presumably lose out, while people with large homes and low incomes will gain.
Sorry, missed the earlier posts. I assume the 3p is the 3p is the original devolution settlement, and applies to everyone - i.e. it’s ‘nationalised’ the local tax?
262. I tried with paddypower, but they had closed the book. Lucky me, I suppose.
OT,as a Hammer,I wish Alan Curbishley well for the future;the boards policy of player sales left Curbs feeling his position was untenable.
I hope a positive comes from this-that the oft-touted Slaven Bilic comes to Upton Park,as he could take us to the next level from mid-table ‘O.K’ to really pushing for a UEFA Cup spot.Time will tell!
Mr Palmer, don’t you find it interesting that the government’s previously incessant accusation against the Tories of ‘uncosted spending’ and fiscal ‘black holes’ have stangely died down ?
The shop price index is now up to 3.8% from 3.2% y on y so inflation in the high street is still ripping along.
268. i believe the usual terminology is “until the pips squeak”
268 No Mr Palmer MP, the Scottish Parliament will expect more money from UK coffers to pay for the new tax. I bet you are really annoyed that your party pressed ahead with devolution - easily the single biggest mistake Labour made. New Labour’s claims that ‘devolution would kill nationalism stone dead’ have been proven to be wrong. Why doesn’t Labour turn the clock back and reverse devolution, your party will pay a heavy price for it come the next GE. Many Labour supporters I’ve come across want to reverse devolution, but it’s too late.
264. scotland, booming?
268. Is your final statement necessarily true though? Those who live in small flats will invariably live in higher density areas, and alongside people of a similar demographic, thus spreading any assumed increase in cost.
268. It’s another Salmond Bear Trap for Labour, LD’s and to a lesser extent the Tories. If i were the Tories in Scotland i would abstain on this (tactically)
Labour & LD’s will be blaimed for voting it down and the SNP will gain more support off them as Salmond will claim, they are impeding progress for partisan reasons. The Tories will neither benefit or suffer from abstaining on this one electorally but there may be a benefit for them if the SNP weakens Labour LD / Numbers further! 
I’m not sure who these pro-independence Tories and anti-devolution Labour supporters you keep stumbling across are, Francis, but I have to query whether they are very representative of the majority of their respective parties.
BRUSSELS, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Falling investment and private consumption led to the first ever quarterly contraction in the euro zone economy from April to June, while July retail sales signalled more consumption weakness ahead, data showed.
Confirming an initial estimate, European Union statistics office Eurostat said on Wednesday the economy of the 15 nations sharing the euro shrank 0.2 percent from the first quarter.
It was the first quarterly decline since the data series for the euro zone started in 1995. The next weakest result was 0.0 percent growth in the second quarter of 2003.
The economy grew just 1.4 percent year-on- year, a revision from the 1.5 percent rate of expansion reported on Aug. 14.
A quarterly investment drop of 1.2 percent knocked 0.3 percentage points off the overall second quarter result for the euro zone, and a fall in household consumption took away another 0.1 percentage points.
Government spending added 0.1 percentage points and inventories were neutral.
Economists expect the slowing economy will gradually reduce inflationary pressures in the euro zone and eventually give scope for the European Central Bank to cut interest rates cut…….
Falling euro zone activity, pulled down by weakness in the three biggest economies — Germany, France and Italy — and the steadily weakening economic sentiment in July and August raise the risk of a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth……….
The contraction in the euro zone was still smaller than in the world’s second biggest economy Japan, which shrank 0.6 percent in April-June against the previous three months but well below the United States, which expanded 0.8 percent.
272. Quite - the Labour government is going to leave a black hole on the scale of those found in the centres of galaxies at the end of its time in office.
OT (slightly)
Does anyone else find it interesting that Charlie Wheelan has not been brought back, given the fact that he was seen as El Gordo’s answer to Campbell, just wonder why a return to his old job, but this time as the PM’s spin doctor has not been mooted.
Just released three comments, so numbering might be a little out again. I have noted requests that comments get numbered by release time not post time, and will pass them onto Mike.
276 Scotland is doing better than England at the moment. A good devolution settlement with its own Parliament, receives funding from both UK and EU, free care homes for elderly, well funded NHS, good educational system, proud of history, a left wing that is actually patriotic, free prescriptions, ship building still intact (two thirds MOD contracts go to Scotland), a First Minister who cares about his nation, need I say more.
278 - The disadvantage to the Tories there, Martin, is that their UK policy is to retain a property based local tax and to oppose a local income tax. It is pretty unequivocal and abstention would look extremely opportunistic and rather hypocritical.
Labour’s choice seems rather obvious - they oppose it (might not be popular but there it is). The Lib Dems are in a tricky position as they support local income tax but it will depend rather heavily on the details of the effect of this particular proposal on council funding.
288 - My point refers to 281 on the new numbering.
268 The SNP claim that 80 per cent of people will be better off.
The tax hits higher income earners. If so, then very roughly, don’t we just need the 20th percentile in the income distribution of Scotland to figure out who will be worse off? (I understand that there will be exceptions).
But, this is basically the percentage of higher rate taxpayers. So, I’d guess most people earning more than 36k will be worse off (not all, I agree, but most).
288. UK Policy! We are talking Scotland here!
282 No the anti-devolution supporters in Labour are the ‘English’ ones, sorry the people who consider themselves as British. Many Labour voters in England are unhappy with the devolution settlement. Many Scots Tories (about 10-15%) actually support independence.
269/270 Nick the point is that council tax merely reflects the size of the taxpayers house and more than 50% of the money spent by local government i.e. education and social work, has no relevance whatsoever to the size of house. That was the one aspect of the Poll tax which was fair.
I fully expect by this time next year a timetable for abolition will be in place. Remember Alex Salmond’s minority government achieved something 8 years of a Lab-LibDem coalition failed, it achieved a council tax freeze this year across every one of Scotland’s 32 councils and that has proved hugely popular.
Alex Salmond will achieve more in the next 12 months with a minority government than you and your political masters at Westminster will achieve with a majority of 60.
290. Didn’t everyone capable of earning a decent salary leave Scotland years ago?
292 - 10-15% of Scottish Tories, even in good times for the Tories, is not a huge number.
290. There are a good few left in the Edinburgh financial district, so Edinburgh might well end up subsidising the rest of Scotland, if you ignore the public sector ‘director’level jobs liberally sprinkled around.
293 And the Labour Party said Scotland is incapable of becoming independent!!! What utter tosh.
290.
According to ASHE, the 80th percentile of earnings is anyone (NB not household) earning £31,522 per year (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_labour/ASHE_2007/2007_res_la.pdf). Those figures are for 2007, so add 3.4% average earnings growth to that and you get it at around £32,600.
293 Alex Salmond may well abolish it … and that may or may not be a good thing.
What I want to know is who is going to be worse off in Scotland?
Let’s take the SNP’s figures at face value. Can we have some examples of the 20 per cent who will be worse off?
299. basically anyone who does more than attend the job centre every fortnight or sell heroin to earn their income.
290.”The SNP claim that 80 per cent of people will be better off.”
Apparently so Gwynfa, I started laughing at that bit, not so funny is the deliberate attempt to stoke up a bit anti Scots sentiment on here by taunting NickP with the idea that Westminster and the EU would pick up the tab.
As for the wee rant about the NHS, education and free prescriptions, while reality had appeared to have left because I don’t recognise this wonderful utopia.
285.I think Charlie is still there in the background and continues to have some contact with Brown, but I would be surprised if he is ever brought back in an official capacity because of the cloud he left under? I think that he lives not far from my family in Strathspey, and he occasionally writes a column for the local paper there.
And, out of interest, the same figures for the other ‘devolved nations’ would be (roughly):
England: £36,000
Wales: £30,500
NI: £30,000
293.”it achieved a council tax freeze this year across every one of Scotland’s 32 councils and that has proved hugely popular.”
Easterross, the people of Aberdeen are not feeling very happy at the moment.
[298] - Oh, that’s a good point that I’d forgotten about this, whilst you receive a single-occupant rebate [25%] for council tax, you don’t do so for single-earner households.
Consequently, single-earner households will generally be the biggest winners.
302 England is not a devolved nation because it has no Parliament of its own, instead is governed by a UK government that includes MPs from non English constituencies who vote on English only affairs.
The Tories should really be thinking about a way to abolish council tax in E&W as well. Perhaps this will be the catalyst for some new thinking in this area.
301. Look at it from Charlies point of view: Would you start a job with someone that is A)Impossible, B) Doomed to Failure, C) Working with a man who insists on using Felt Tip Pens and Crayons to outline his masterplan.
To add to that when the Labour empire falls would you want to be shot and put in a trench outside NO.10 and creamated?
305. God save the Queen.
306 Easy to do in Wales because it has its own Assembly, unlikely in England because of the lack of English Parliament. Westminster is UK Parliament not an English one.
There is a growing number of Scottish Tory voters as opposed to party diehards who no longer see independence as a move towards the anti-christ. The fact that the SNP Government has proved to be far more business friendly than Scottish Labour ever was helps and SNP Ministers are working very hard to earn and keep the respect of the Scottish Business community.
Arguably the most influential business organisation in Scotland is SCDI (Scottish Council Development and Industry) which draws memership from the constituency of the CBI at one end to that of the FSB at the other end. I am an active member in the Highlands and we have had Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and other SNP Ministers to lunches and dinners where the gloves have been off and where they have impressed the vast majority of business leaders present. We also have MSPs and MPs from the 3 unionist parties and MEPs from all 4 parties.
As I have said on here before, there are active lines of communications between those surrounding Alex Salmond and those surrounding David Cameron and no-one should underestimate the wish and willingess of the two men to work together post GE.
Here in Scotland the construction industry has been affected like in the rest of the Uk but with several major infrastructure projects in the offing, M74 extension, A96 Aberdeen by-pass, A9 upgrade, Commonwealth Games 2014 and the building of the largest renewable energy wind plant in europe about to start in Lanarkshire plus the booming oil industry, reinvigorated hydro electric power industry and burgeoning renewable energy industry, Scotland plc is looking forward. Alex Salmond would like nothing more than to receive all Scotland’s revenues and receive nothing from Westminster to prove we are not Barnett formula dependent.
308 No, god save England (from Anglophobic Scottish Labour, Libdems and Tories).
279: Booming, no, but there’s none of the outright apocalyptic gloom evident in England. Whether that’s because of genuine economic differences or merely being in a delayed part of the cycle, we’ll find out soon. Possibly it might be because the house price market here is definitely lagging the rest of the UK - eg in Edinburgh prices are static/slightly increasing over the last year (I’m thinking of selling up before they tumble!).
306 I seem to remember reading that VAT receipts were of a similar size to the centrl government grant to local government. Just put councils in charge of VAT (and able to vary the rate), so they’re reponsible for raising their own money. I suspect the calibre of local government might improve in the short to medium term.
309. not that easy because they only hold 12 seats in the assembly
Why are the LD’s opposing it? I thought they liked local Income Tax?
I don’t because it takes no account of assets, until Labour RAPED the housing market - Old folk could sell there houses to relase equity or take lifetime mortgages etc. Why should young struggling families, individuals in rented accomadition for instance subsidise greedy 60 year old baby boomers who retire at 60?
310 The Barnett Formulae dependence was Labour’s way of guaranteeing votes in Scotland, and to undermine Scotland’s chances of becoming capable of independence. Now Labour has found a new constituency - immigrants and resident EU citizens who are generally more in favour with Labour than the Tories.
312. but is that apocalyptic gloom based on economic fundamentals? and is scottish optimism based on any real differences?
310. Scotland is actually, apart from NI the most insulated from Recession due to the huge proportion of Public spending/GDP. To a lesser extent the dwindling oil production at a time of High Oil prices: though I note those have fallen to just over $100 P/B.
I Know where I would like to see the Cuts in public spending
313. Yes - that’s the sort of approach I would favour too. The current system is open to manipulation both by central and local government and the result has been bills spiralling higher year on year and growing inefficiency.
We need a system that will encourage councils to compete to attract people and businesses to their areas, not fleece everyone in sight, and encourage them to keep costs under control. And we must have a system that can’t be fixed by central government to reward its own supporters at the expense of everyone else.
306. The more localist inclined (Douglas Carwell et al.) are keen on a local sales tax to replace VAT - which apparently stacks up because VAT raises almost exactly the same amount (to the nearest £billion or so!) as the government doles out to local authorities.
Seems attractive to me (as a Tory) as it will introduce competition. Of course, from the other side, it will lead to a ‘race to the bottom’ and unequal outcomes.
However, I’ve not heard anything suggesting that this is likely to become party policy - presumably because the other parties would jump on those who lose out (as we are sort of doing to Mr Salmond here, but times it by 1 million because it will be the nasty tories doing it, and we would undoubtedly do to Lab or the LDs)
315. How did Labour do such a terrible thing to the housing market?
321 HIPS, Stamp duty, increased regulation, etc., etc.
312.Andrew, I think the suggestion of being in a delayed cycle is the more realistic scenario. Despite the increase in house prices, I would suspect that the amount of houses on the market is increasing very quickly too as people get nervous and try and cash in before any slump. Very noticeable increase in for sale signs and fixed prices up my way. Beginning to see the odd story of people being caught out having bought and then not able to sell, with the added problem that the house value had plummeted adding to their misery.
I thought I saw news yesterday that house market in Edinburgh was showing definite signs of slumping?
323 If the whole of the UK is in the slump, surely demands for independence will grow?
I’m really not sure if the Democrats are in a huge panic or if they’ve become so intellectually sloppy out of laziness, but incredibly, a theme has developed overnight linking the GOP to the Nazi Party, and even the Obama campaign has jumped on the bandwagon:
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/09/morning_joe_on_the_nazi_smear.html
http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/09/more_nazi_talk.html
The Democrats also released Palin’s social security number and home phone yesterday.
Are these the post-partisan folks who will soon be uniting the nation? This is the dirtiest stuff I’ve ever seen in a presidential campaign, and makes “swiftboating” look like a lovefest. Are there any Obama fans out there who defend this stuff (actually, I’m sure there are lots of them)? Amazing.
317: “and is scottish optimism based on any real differences?”
My instinct is probably not, although there are some positives: slightly less wild home price boom to start with, more effective government, really low unemployment (something like 4% vs UK 5.5%), knock-on effect of high oil prices, success of the Edinburgh financial industry and so on.
Quite whether that’s an effective shield against the worst of things to come, we’ll find out.
322. so you think less regulation would have helped or would help do you?
320. The beauty of it as a reform is that there aren’t the sharply visible classes of winners and losers there are under, say, a shift to LIT.
325 I don’t like the American political system and certainly don’t want them poisoning our ‘UK’ politics, however they already have.
325. I’m sure Paul will say its all fine because the Republicans started it.
327 Yes, too many costs and burdens placed on the vendor. No one looks at the HIPS report.
329. The real problem with US politics is it seems to lack the comedy acts we have here.
315 - The devil is in the detail. Would local councils themselves retain any influence over the total amount raised and spent? Would there be a loss of funds from central government? Would it cost people more on the details of the scheme proposed?
I have some sympathy with your point that assets as well as income can be relevant to ability to pay. Although I would note that pensioners, particularly if as you say they have chosen to retire at 60, have income and sometimes a fairly substantial income.
Additionally, whilst I sympathise with hard working young-ish people making their way in the world (and why wouldn’t I?) you do have to look at the treatment of people by the tax system over a lifetime. Unless these pensioners of whom you speak popped into existence without first having been young, or these youngsters are unlikely to be old in due course.
303 Chris, you and I know thatis due to the incompetent LibDem administration in 2002-3, 4 years before the SNP joined the administration
321. For Political purposes they did a number of things that tried to make short term popularity for long term pain.
Firstly they failed to regulate the products offered by the Financial Service sectoras responsible lending - i.e 125% Mortgages.
Secondly they overtaxed the transactions through excessive stamp duty.
Thirdly they introduced HIPS at exactly the wrong time.
Fourthly they encouraged the mother of all Buy-to-Let-Booms: which encouraged people to over-extend themselves and put more fuel on the fire (Back to product regulation).
Fifthly: Immigration - stoked up house prices even further.
Sixthly: The Government failed to deal with NR in a prudent way instead they squandered the taxpayers money on a failed political nationalisation that spread throughout the Financial system.
Seventhly: Floating ideas about Stamp duty, then announcing for political purposes measures that are the equivelnet to a man pissing in the Ocean to remedy the mess they created.
I could go on further but doubt the Leftie/ Economically stupid could tolerate further facts on Labour’s failure in economic management.
LABOUR = DOOMED
329. Pots and kettles springs to mind.
328. I agree, although - playing devils advocate - it could be argued that it hits the low-paid hardest because it switches taxation from ‘wealth’ (either on income or property) to consumption. But it is less clear cut than other measures, so their is wiggle room.
334.Easterross I have made that point on here before, but its an SNP administration running Holyrood, not the Libdems or Labour anymore.
The SNP’s a swift response or lack of one in that respect will make a difference.
337. Yes - especially as there would have to be some shifting around of central/local spending responsibilities (e.g. over education) to make it work properly. And council tax is pretty regressive anyway.
331. so removing these restrictions would have encouraged more people to speculate in housing. that sounds like just what was needed. too late now? or can we be saved by implementing this now?
if accounting rules are relaxed a bit further NRK could go back into business offering 150% mortgages to a wave of new HIP-free buyers
330- I can’t wait for the TV ads morphing McCain’s face into that of Hitler, followed by Obama’s statement that he is offended that Republicans would dare to suggest he had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, Obama might find himself in a bind if he is asked in a debate whether his vision of post-partisan unity means he plans to work with the Nazi Party in moving America forward.
327. The type of regulation Labour have introduced is regulation of the Sales, not the products.
When you go through a Financial Sales proces know, the paper work is so convoluted, un-neccesary and repetitive it makes you wonder the motivation behind it. TCF (Treating the Customer fairly) is something I hold as sacrosanct - The authors of many devising this regulation believe in boring the cutomer to death. Meanwhile the actual product regulation seems to have been by-passed.
Please ED: None of your expert advice on what outstanding debt is today!
New Thread
328. LIT and LVAT both favour those who can afford to be mobile, and more or less guarantee that slum areas will remain so while wealthy areas get more and more cash.
342. my quibble is with the claim that excessive regulation has caused the current problems in the housing market. i haven’t heard anyone put this case sensibly (i know that isn’t what you are saying)
340. You are making yourself look stupid again Ed. 150% Mortgages and their regulation is to do with Institution and Product regulation. As i have said before the type of over-regulation Labour have introduced is at the point the sales-person faces the customer.
HIPS are useless: An institution is not going to lend Hundreds of thousands of pounds secured on a building provided by the Vendour. An institution will always want to make sure they are not open to fraud - the rest of the HIPS pack is useless, irrelevant Information.
322. Nonsense and drivel. The housing market was widely overvalued regardless of those policies. Of course the market was going to fall at some point.
Labour have done a lot of very terrible things, but the housing market is beyond their control. Thinking otherwise is a dim Tory response to something no party could control.
Incidently, the idea that there is overburdened regulation is equally laughable. It’s the lack of regulation which was responsible for poor lending practices, and poor estate agent behaviour. Believe me, I work in this area, and it is completely free from any real form of regulation. (BTW, I am not arguing for more regulation, merely pointing out that it creates a cyclical motion and this is reason for our current presence at the lower end of the cycle, and also why I have very little to do at the moment.)
Ed - or it forces local people to elect a local council who will deliver a tax regime that strikes the right balance between drawing companies in (mix of LST/business rates) and raising enough revenue. But it is all hypothetical anyway, as I really can’t see the Conservatives wanting to touch anything so potentially toxic (a new poll tax!) when they’re doing so well in the opinion polls at the moment. Why risk it?
347. agree strongly
346. largely agree, don’t quite see your point though
348. but local councils vary hugely in how much money they need to spend and the incomes/spending power of people that live there. any sort of LIT or LVAT is going to ensure that poor areas (which usually have a lot of necessary outgoings and not a lot of “local income” or natural local spending) can’t afford to be “competitive” on tax rates, so anyone that can afford it will leave.
anywhere that is already nice and leafy with low outgoings can afford to cut and cut and cut taxes with increasing returns in the case of LVAT as anyone with a car makes a beeline for their shopping centre.
News is just coming out on Browns relaunch: pt2 The Energy Crunch
After yesterday’s package to prop up the ailing housing market, its understood that Gordon Brown is concerned that the 30-40% annual rises in energy costs may be stabilising, and is to bring forward a raft of measures to kick-start the energy market
There is a fundamental reason why the housing market in Scotland should not slump in the way that of England has. House prices in Scotland, whilst too high have not quite entered the silly money territory of those across most regions of England. In addition far fewer Scots have taken salary multiples of 4-10 x salary compared to England and also generally savings in Scotland have tended to remain higher whereas most people in England now have no savings but lots of credit card debts.
Among other radical things the SNP has done, they have reduced business rates for small businesses to secure Tory support for their budget last year(when did Labour do that)and they want to reduce corporation tax to encourage businesses from England and other EU countries to relocate to Scotland.
#294. Sounds a bit like sour grapes there. I am one of the 20% who will likely pay more , already paying £2400 council Tax as well. But happy with SNP and happy to pay more as I expect most people will be.
Another bad story for Brown, the usual suspects but still more bad press.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7596493.stm
I’m afraid I - like most of the posters - don’t agree with Mike’s analysis. Everything we know about Brown, other than perhaps his inclination to avoid facing up to his own failures, suggests he will cling on to the grim death. The most important issue that raises is the future of the Labour party, and, more narrowly, the careers of the current PLP.
I think that a quick election defeat, a new leader, and a thorough clearing of the decks would make Labour serious contendors in 2013/14. A slow and painful death under Brown raises the very serious risk of much worse, and the reality that much of the current PLP will never again be in power. I find it astounding therefore that the parliamentary party, esp. the younger, more talented ministers do not appear to be serious about getting Brown out as soon as possible. Without such action, they have no future.