Is Cameron now becoming acceptable to the Guardian?
September 10th, 2008
Could this add to Dave’s problems with right-wingers?
The first paragraph of the Guardian’s editorial today is featured above and raises a question that is quite revolutionary for the paper - the idea that a Tory government might not be the worst possible outcome at the general election.
Revolutionary because one of the bedrock certainties of the media and politics is that the Guardian is the most anti-Tory of what used to be called the broad-sheet press. Just recall the near-hysterical coverage of the London Mayoral election only a few months ago when it became obsessed with what would happen if Ken lost.
The editorial goes on: “…Some Labour ministers do think that the Conservative party has changed. In his Guardian article in July, David Miliband criticised Tories for aping Labour’s agenda rather than plotting to overturn it. So the government is trying to persuade voters of two contradictory things: that the Conservative party is made up of unreconstructed rightwingers while at the same time being led, as the foreign secretary put it, by “a politician of the status quo”.
…Labour shudders to hear such talk. It conflicts with everything the left believes to be progressive. But between them, political parties can hold more than one vision of progress. The debate Labour could win is over Tory methods, not Tory motives. A squabble over sincerity will not work.”
Although in circulation terms the paper’s reach is small compared with the red-tops it wields an enormous influence and the apparent readiness to accept that the Tories are “sincere” could have an impact.
The big question is how traditional Tories, those who cut their teeth in the Thatcher era, are going to take such talk. The Guardian represents everything they loathe and detest and such a piece might add further to their suspicion of Cameron.
The very idea that their party is developing a policy portfolio that won’t upset the Guardian might be throwing oil on troubled waters.
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What serious evidence is there of a large “unreconstructed” right wing that is capable of causing a lot of trouble?
Mike, realistically this can only be positive for Cameron’s attempt to reach swing voters. The idea that dyed-in-the-wool Tories would react to the ramblings of the left-wing press is a little wild I think. Cameron has thrown enough red meat to them on such things as taxation, education and so on for them to be well-content. They will only be put off if Cameron fails to deliver on issues such as IHT, Europe and so on but that is all post-election concerns.
1-I wish there was!
Cameron has really made an effort to reach as many voters as possible - be they old Conservative, new Conservative, Lib Dem and, to a lesser extent, New Labour.
It does seem to be working, as the last three sets of local election results show (together with the by-elections and London Mayor election).
Hopefully this year’s conference and next years locals/Euros will be the icing on the cake, and will “seal the deal” with the electorate. Public and press reaction to both Labour and Conservative conferences will be crucial.
Mike, it doesn’t change what we think and suspect about him one jot.
Those of us who dislike the current tone and direction of the party are forced to tolerate him and will continue to have to do so by necessity in the short and probably medium term, because we want ‘our’ party back.
There’s no point charging the guns and getting wiped out at present in a battle we can’t possibly win.
When the polls eventually turn against him, whenever that might be, whether in Government or opposition there will be an internal uprising against him. It’s as simple as that and hardly a secret. He knows it, we all know it.
It’s actually one of the biggest reasons why Brown should have gone to the Country last year whilst DC was still under pressure.
1 & 3 Hope that helps !
5 - so, no serious evidence then…
Just a few lone rangers trying to relieve their youth in the nineties.
If the Guardian wanted to cause trouble they should have done it when Dave was weak. By now the right wing has made up their mind about him (one way or the other) and the Guardian is not going to change that.
Personally I reject the notion that Conservative tradition starts with those that ‘cut their teeth in the Thatcher era’. The Conservative tradition is a hell of a lot older than that, indeed during the Thatcher era there were so called traditionalists who whinged about her. The fact is that the times move on, it took too many Conservatives far too long to realise that the whole point of a political philosophy is to adapt it to the tenor of the times. In fact within politics I think that ‘traditionalist’ is the kind label given to those in a political party who are too old or too stupid to get that. In 20-30 years there will be Cameroons who will fail to recognise that the world will have moved on.
In my experience, and I am not alone, there are quite a few Tory MPs still prepared to look over their glasses, wink and say “you know we’re still real right-wing Conservatives”. No doubt some Tories here would say that’s a good thing. I would argue so long as Dave looks like he’s a winner, he will have no real problem before the election.
After the election could be quite different. Cameron is the new Heath.
8. That is of course the other possible explanation for this article - the Guardian doing their masters’ bidding and trying to rile as many supposed angry “real” Conservatives as possible. After all, it was only recently that Labour’s strategy to fight the Conservatives was leaked.
7 - why do you assume they’re trying to cause trouble?
9 - the fact of their existence does not mean that they will be able to cause serious trouble. Every govt in history has had minorities who do not like, or even strongly oppose, what they are doing. The amount of trouble they have been able to cause has almost always been totally dependent on their ability to shift votes in the House of Commons on their own.
10 - why do you assume they’re trying to cause trouble?
This is the Guardian we are talking about, and the Conservative Party.
O/T but this is one of the funniest things i’ve seen in a long time (apologies if already posted). From Guido’s site and after Brown’s quoting verbatim of Mein Kampf
http://www.order-order.com/2008/09/gordon-browns-downfall-prequel.html
Parental advisory - explicit lyrics but WATCH THIS it’s hilarious
No, I don’t think this will weaken Cameron.
What this leader really shows (as if we didn’t know by now) is the extent to which Brown and co have lost control over the media agenda. Just days after No 10 settles on the “right wing wolves in sheep’s clothing” line of attack, up pops the Guardian to say well no actually, maybe that lot aren’t so bad and deserve a chance.
Pathetic, inept, useless etc.
13 Not that again…
Pouring oil on troubled waters calms them down - you probably mean something like “pouring petrol on the flames”
This editorial could cause problems for all three main parties, and of the three the Conservatives are the ones for whom I would think it would cause the fewest problems. It rather sabotages the leaked Labour attack line before it even gets started. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems have always seen themselves as the default choice of the progressive voter who is disaffected with Labour and if the arguments put forward in this editorial take hold, this will hamper their chances of doing so again.
David Cameron has nothing to fear from this while he’s riding high. We have already seen on this thread that those who disapprove of his methods will lay low while he’s getting the votes in.
Jonathan has pipe dreams at 9 if he thinks that will change immediately after an election victory also, especially with what will have been a massive new intake. If the Tories win the next election, they will have a minimum of 130 new MPs and if they win big, they will have something like 200 new MPs - more than they currently have.
No one would really have got the measure of the balance of that intake’s views, and if the Wintertons and Edward Leigh launched a trench charge, they might find themselves gunned down from all sides, providing David Cameron with that Clause 4 moment that he has yearned for for so long.
By the time that the measure had been taken of that new intake, David Cameron would have a record to be judged against. In those circumstances, I really can’t see the Guardian’s views (whether pro or anti David Cameron) as being particularly interesting to the average Tory.
Reading lab home is great fun now - like ferrets in a sack - they haven’g got a clue:)))
Semi off topic, Nick Clegg wrote what I thought was a rather good article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/09/nhs.nickclegg
only for the response from comment is free posters to be a giant raspberry. If the mood of those posters is representative of the muesli-eating classes, the Conservatives are going to waltz into power.
9. Cameron is the new Heath.
Call Cameron, the new Heath but in doing look silly. It is not like me calling Nick Clegg like Neil Kinnock as I outlined how there early leadership styles and impact were similar as well as there mistakes!
19. Sorry should say Heath cost Labour seats - Cameron will gain seats for the Tories over there “normal trajectory”!
19 & 20. Bloody hell! Sorry should say Heath cost the Tories seats in 1970- Cameron will gain seats for the Tories over there “normal trajectory”!
Hope the lazer machine goes better than my posting!
19, 20, 21 - I’m glad to see that you didn’t take to heart the strictures about “their”, “there” and “they’re” that were dished out the other day.
6 Memorable typo alert:
“a few lone rangers trying to relieve their youth”
That would be more of a story than if they were to relive their youth, I think. “Hello, is that the News of the World? I have a handy story for you…”
22. No! It’s early in thy morning! Thought I better get up before *AM before we are all sucked into a void!
16. Very good post, especially bringing the Lib Dems conundrum into the debate. My guess would be that at the moment the Guardian’s readership contains as many Lib Dems as Labour supporters. Probably, few of these would consider voting Tory - in many cases, they will be voting Lib Dem as a protest against both other parties and so they can later say, “well, *I* didn’t vote for them”. Even so, the Guardian’s softer appraisal of the Tory Party may help to reduce their fear of the Tories, as set against their feeling of betrayal towards Labour.
Mike posted comparative figures for Mori a few threads ago, between the current position and that of several months ago. It’s worth noting that the Lib Dems had increased their support. I wonder how much of that is centre-left voters drifting away from Labour because they feel safe to be able to vote against Labour, even at the risk of letting the Tories in - something that will still have been a factor in 2005 with Michael Howard’s Conservatives.
On the new Tory intake in 2010, most are likely to be post-Thatcher politicians. If the average age of the new MPs is 35, then most will have been at school when she was ousted from power. Anyone who was an adult through her mid-80s heyday will now be well into their forties or beyond. Most of the class of 2010 will have cut their political teeth during the ‘years of exile’ or at most John Major’s administration. As such, the memories of the divisions and unpopularity of the 1992-2005 years are likely to have a large impact on how they behave.
Dear Diary,
Was woken by a bright light being shone into the bed chamber. On further investigation, this proved to be a sighting of that mythical entity, the sun. My spirits being lifted mightily as a consequence, I divined that it must be the work of our illustrious Prime Minister, summoned forth by his exultations that life would indeed improve for all, from pauper to prince. As a consequence of his great works, I am resolved to vote Labour!
26. My word Brown is Busy this morning turning that machine on in France/Swiss border and getting the sun to shine!
27, reminds me, the world’s about to explode. Damnit, I was going to ask for tips on England/Croatia. On the plus side, we won’t lose again AND the Labour government will last even less time than expected.
28.
Dear Diary,
The visitation of the sun having proven to be but a fleeting moment - the vista being again swathed in a heavy cloak of the deepest grey - my former opinions return: our Prime Minister is but a charlatan, a bowl of night soil. As a consequence of his great failures, I am resolved to vote Conservative!
Gardez-loo!
Ah, yes, this business about atomic particles. I remember when I could get a large hadron. In recent years, however, :O(
9. “After the election could be quite different. Cameron is the new Heath”.
I would be relieved if he had as many convictions as Heath. Cameron has positioned himself where Steve Hilton has told him he needs to be at this time. I haven’t the slightest doubt he would bring back hanging and flogging if that would further his career.
Don’t worry Tory Boy. He’s the modern day Wooden Horse of Troy. Anyone who joined the Tory Party when Thatch was beating up the miners and blowing up Argies isn’t a ‘compassinate Conservative’.
And if Alan Rusbridge or anyone else thinks Labour are so bad that the Tories couldn’t be worse I ask them to imagine a cabinet full of Andrew Lansleys.
28 - As long as the PM hasn’t wished the scientists luck I think we should be ok!
Morning all
As a non-Conservative, I don’t especially relish the prospect of a Cameron Government but it’s long been clear that the current Labour “administration” is well past the point of no return. I think there are as wide a set of expectations from the next Conservative Government as there are people preapred to vote for them and given such a broad coalition it’s inevitable some elements will get disappointed/disillusioned quicker than others.
As for Heath, the 1970 manifesto on which he won was far more radical than the 1979 Thatcher Manifesto. It seems to me that Heath has been damned by some Tories for a) getting us into the then Common Market though that was widely supported by most Conservatives at the time and b) failing to face down the unions - to be fair, no Government was able to do that until after the Winter of Discontent and the economic recession.
32. Of course Brown gets his ideas from Cameron - IHT last October, Benifit reforms and of course Cabinet meetings outside London!
Mudflats reporting this morning the GOP gotten her a “truth Squad” to protect her from all the attacks from the media and the blogosphere:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/
Mudflats reporting this morning the GOP gotten her a “truth Squad” to protect her from all the attacks from the media and the blogosphere:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com/
32 - You might have missed this news then from earlier this summer:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/2059048/Tories-lose-Steve-Hilton-to-America.html
34 - I think a lot of the angst with Heath is running on one manifesto and then governing on a completely different one.
32, you seem confused.
“blowing up Argies”
You may recall that they attacked us, not vice versa. Nice to hear that Brown supporting lefties would’ve adopted their customary solid stance had the Falklands occurred on their watch.
33 ……. that’s a serious possibility, you know.
Re: 18 - I’ve read Nick Clegg’s article. To be fair, the same could be said of local Government where Councils are hamstrung by CPA assessments, JARs and a range of other checks/inspections/audits but this all dates back to the 1990s when there was a sense in which no one knew or could reliably measure how the public sector was performing.
The whole mechanism of measurement appeals to centralisers in BOTH the Conservative and Labour parties as an apparatus for control. The NHS for example isn’t about measuring health, it’s about measuring sickness.
25 - Thank you for your kind words. Your point about the relative decline in antipathy to the Tories is neatly illustrated by stodge at post 34. We might well see an unwinding of the tactical anti-Tory vote at the next general election and no doubt psephologists can identify the potential impact on the result.
re 32. Just to cheer you up even more Roger see this from Martin Kettle
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/sep/09/conservatives.past
Every single point he makes has been highlighted on PB in recent months.
Re: 39 - As I recall, James, Heath did govern on his strongly anti-union manifesto until 1972-3 but ran into trouble over the Industrial Relations Act and the jailing of militant strikers.
I also think the untimely death of Iain MacLeod left a huge philosophical gap which was never filled. Strange how so few Tories seem to remember what a blow that was.
According to an online survey of Lib Dem party members by LDVoice, 84% of them think they are getting 50 or more MPs after the next GE. Much more optimistic than the betting markets. 46% predict they will make net gains. No mention of how many people participated in the private vote.
If the LDs did get under 50 MPs then this survey would indicate that it would be a massive shock to their party.
http://tinyurl.com/5utr5y
The Guardian article is a consequence of the unrelenting, unmitigated awfulness of this current Government. Folks aren’t stupid and however they might have voted in the past and however strong their tribal affiliation to one party or another, they can all see this Government of all the Trabants has driven off the road and into a ditch.
There is nothing worse than seeing a Government you voted for descending into farce, an embarrassment hanging out there as an ongoing reminder of your folly at the polling station. These folks just want an opportunity to atone. The General Election can’t come round soon enough to allow them to atone.
Scottish Labour Leader latest from ladbrokes.
Jamieson 11/8 (from 2/1)
Gray 6/4 (from Evs)
Kerr 3/1
That means that each candidate has been favourite at some point. Some newly opened accounts in Scotland seem to think it’s going to be Jamieson. Result on Saturday.
43 - Have the nationals approached you to get their material first-hand? They’d get the same analysis as their star journalists provide, except weeks earlier and with more depth.
re 45. Clearly they are not backing up their forecasts with hard cash. The latest spread prices are on the LDs are 45-48 seats. So if you bought at 48 and put £50 on you would make £500 if they got 58.
What I’d like to know is whether the party’s CEO, Chris Rennard, is betting.
re 48. Alas no.
Part of this reaction by the “Guardian” is because despite a massive increase in government spending and an impressive if stealthy transfer of state resources to the poor, social mobility is worse and significant groups of young people drift into gangs alienated from their families and the rest of the community.
We touched on some of these issues yesterday evening. Cameron’s social agenda at least appears to offer a fresh way of addressing the problem: finding ways of strengthening families, encouraging self-help groups and involving the wider community. In ten year’s time we’ll probably find that this is not the complete answer either, but at least it is alternative path and if he’s genuine there is a great deal of good which can come from this.
‘Socialism ? its what the Tory Party does’
Hello its gone very very dark! Does anybody know whats going on?
O/T - bad luck for anyone with money on Obama. Jonah Brown has given him his backing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2713430/Gordon-Brown-triggers-row-with-John-McCain-by-backing-Barack-Obama.html
Re: 49 - To be fair, Mike, no LD MP is going to publically say that he or she expects the party to lose seats at the next election in the same way that no Tory is going to say they won’t win and no Labour MP is going to say they will lose - it’s called politics.
What I find fascinating about the Cameron Conservatives is they have constructed a Party where every policy position can be accommodated.
If you are worried about climate change, you can vote Tory but if you’re sceptical, you can also vote Tory.
On the US election, the Tories won’t endorse one candidate, they’ll endorse them both (and probably Nader too if you asked). It’s odd to see Hague criticising Gordon Brown for overt support of Obama when you remember how much “help” the Conservative Government gave the Bush Administration and the Republicans in 1992 and the damage this did to Anglo-American relations when Clinton won.
28.
all my yoghurt’s gone off, and there’s what appears to be a dead postman in the garden. can i sue?
The Lib Dems’ strategy might be perhaps to think long-term and plan accordingly? In the short term they’re gonna get squeezed by the Conservatives, as they got squeezed by Labour in 1997, but in the future they may well be in a better position than Labour to take seats off a Conservative government in 2014.
Could this explain Clegg’s recent movements - which look from the outside like he’s pretending to attack Labour but in reality is moving heaven and earth to be Tory-Lite?
54 - You mean like this?
http://current.com/items/88809065_david_cameron_admires_obama_s_attitude
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/899426/mccain-and-cameron-close-for-now.thtml
Hello campers !!
Overnight reports that contrary to some indications August was record breaking funding month for Obama :
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/09/obama_broke_money_record.html
We’re a broad church.
Not too broad, mind.
55, you can, but due to the time-bending effects of the black hole you have to commence proceedings twelve hours ago.
What exactly are Cameron’s ‘problems’ with his right wing? I haven’t noticed any.
In fact, this Guardian article confirms what I said yesterday - it is Labour that has got problems with its traditional supporters, both the cloth cap sort and the luvvies. Just like 1979, but worse for Labour because the working class group is smaller than then, and the middle class swing voters - which Labour has lost completely - are bigger.
@53:
“The endorsement of a prime minister as troubled as Mr Brown was of dubious value”
HAHAHAHA.
Re: 61 - As we saw from 1995-97, when a party is doing well, any potential members of the “awkward squad” will stay silent.
Any “problems” will start when (not if) the Cameron Government runs into trouble.
@61:
Look, let’s do nothing to dissuade the Labour faithful from their desperate belief that Dave’s government will immediately implode in 2010 under a far-right onslaught.
It’s the only delusion they have left. Take that away and they may start self harming.
[9] “Cameron is the new Heath” says Jonathan.
Is that a prediction that he’s going to lead his Party into four General Elections and lose three of them?
I wonder if the Hadron Collider will be able to be a bit more specific on the colour of “dark matter”? I suspect that when they do get their colour charts out, they will discover that we have all been floating around for six billion years in the Brown Matter….
JM back above 2.50 on betfair
OB 1.69
Looks like the post conference price bounce is over and the flip flop as far away as ever.
It’s odd to see Hague criticising Gordon Brown for overt support of Obama when you remember how much “help” the Conservative Government gave the Bush Administration and the Republicans in 1992 and the damage this did to Anglo-American relations when Clinton won.
Maybe that’s pricesly why Hague has said that, the Tories do indeed have contacts in both camps. Brown as PM has been very reckless in writing a piece so overtly supportive of Obama. It’s the sort of mistake Brown makes, Labour were told what a useless idoit Brown was and all we got twas he is a champion strategist lalalalla.
What is it with Brown and writing books and stupid articles? The bloke is needs to concentrate on doing the job, not offending 50% of the US! Or annoying most of the UK electorate with his time & money wasting gimmicks.
38. antifrank. Thanks very much. I had missed it.
53. Here’s the McCain response
http://www.johnmccain.com/mccainreport/Read.aspx?guid=d7eb6c0b-d3c1-48b8-84cc-917f5faaa67f#
63. The awkward squad is vastly deminished, they have either died, retired or defected! I should imagine Nick Winterton will be offered a peerage eve of the next GE, freeing up a safe seat.
Harperson restarts the class war !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2712372/Harriet-Harman-Social-class-is-still-most-important-divide-in-Britain.html
63. Sure - but that doesn’t invalidate my point that the thread is based on a false premise - i.e. that such ‘problems’ exist now.
But perhaps Mr.Coxall is right and we shouldn’t be depriving the left of their last crumb of comfort. Reading Roger’s increasingly mournful posts I almost feel sorry for him.
72, niece of a countess starts class war? White person wants anti-white legislation? She’s a nutter.
@70:
Good old Gordon, trotting the globe making enemies on our behalf.
71
Redwood!! within two years of Dave taking over, most of the posters on this site, will be scraming, Betrayer’ lets get Redwood in.
‘Deadwwod out, Redwood in’ will be their battlecry!
errr!! Screaming not scraming.
72. Yes, I had seen that - What a stupid cow! Given her family background it is a stupid thing to do!
It really annoys me as in my last job the regional manager used to do stupid impressions of me in front of many people because he thought I was well spoken and from a “Posh family” as he would say. F*cking Prick! No need for it!
I would have a very good case at an employment tribuneral against that cnut. Classism is as bad as racism in my opinion and it is not something you can easily opt out of.
re 71 I see we’re still all here then.
Well if the Tories really do want to repel people and give them a reason to not vote Tory it’ll be by elevating the odious Wintertons to the peerage, for more troughs to plunder.
76 - Does Mrs. Coldstone (poor dear) know of your deeply unnatural obsession with John Redwood? I think she should be told.
32 Roger, rather than “blowing up Argies”, perhaps you would like to express an opinion on “blowing up Iraqis”? Something which John Major did with a certain restraint, to turf an invader out of Kuwait - whereas NewLabour seems to have taken to it with great relish for its own illegal bloodsport. Perhaps they should have kept fox-hunting instead?
Interested in your views….
79. I think those two are pretty unpleasant - but what % of the voters do you think have even heard of them? 1%?
82, I concur with your assessment of the Wintertons. However, Balls and Cooper are odious also, and they’re both bloody ministers.
The unions have given Labour £30M since the last election..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/2714193/Labour-gets-30-million-in-donations-from-trade-unions.html
P.S. The Wintertons - are they the blue family that live next door to the Pontipines ?
79. Well if the Tories made the Lords 100% elected, the Wintertons would have a perric victory!
Especially as the legislation could exclude new peers or peers appointed from a certain date getting any payoff!
I think this is just fatalism from the Guardian. “Oh, they’re going to win anyway so we might as well vote Tory.” Miserable sods. If they really don’t believe in Labour at the moment, they should be asking everyone to vote Lib Dem to shake up the system, not vote Tory in the vague hope of something a bit better but that is basically the status quo.
80
Well! the way he puts it around I could be in with a chance!!
Unfortunately his taste seems to run to topless models (retd)
87. Would you wish to recieve, give or 50/50?
76. Your obsessed! I haven’t seen a single person here ever utter those words, but you keep saying they do!
88. You’re on to something here - the strange obsession with the Tory candidate for mid-Dorset also points strongly towards a repressed inclination.
80 John O. Star Trek does remain deeply popular in Wokingham !!
antifrank. I’ve just looked up the story. A bit salacious but nonetheless interesting.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article696213.ece
89
Your keeping it under wraps!!
90
I’ll have you know sir, that I’m a happily married man of almost 40 years, none of that stuff with, (not homphobic though, some of my best friends are poo…errrr gay) me.
92. Who is the equivent in the labour party to Hilton Roger?
Can I just say that I think that Redwood has a very fine mind - but costs the Tories about three or four seats every time voters are reminded he is still alive. His time has been and gone. Like some ancient anchoress, he should be given the last rites, and bricked up in some academic establishment, leaving a small slot through which to pass food and the Daily Telegraph.
I cant understand the fuss. The Guardian has backed Labour through all its right wing weirdo phases. ie PFI war in Iraq etc. Now we are forced to contemplate the horrific prospect of a conservative government we are left with the idea it wont actually be any different to what we have had.
So what would have happend if we had had a tory government for the last 11 years.
Would still have had a war in Iraq, PFI, the banks would still have got greedy and landed us all in the smelly stuff,utility and rail companies still ripping us off, still be a lack of affordable housing, tax would have increased for those under average earnings, still have the council tax at similar levels no doubt.Still have stupid “market” notions applied to schools and the NHS, lots of talk but no action on the environment etc
Less money would have been spent on the NHS and education, no devolution, less equality for gay people, could still hunt foxes, hmm thats about it.
So why would the guardian be upset with cameron given his mouthing the green platitudes etc? Reality remains there is really very little differenc ebetween the two parties on the issues of substance.
88
Ahem! i before e except after c!!
93. Well you’re in denial, of course. Given your age and background, that’s not surprising. But it’s never too late…
97. Thanks! I am not the worlds best at spelling!
96. Earth calling Wales - fox hunting still continues and has more adherents than ever before.
100. Indeed, I wonder if Blair will join his local hunt now he has his mansion?
My commentary on developments in OPEC and the oil markets:
http://aloadofoldstodge.blogspot.com/2008/09/opec-and-oil.html
Something to watch closely through the upcoming winter.
93. Or your having a ‘moment’, I wonder which is more likely. Redwood is a liability, he will never be PM.
101. Only if he thinks he might get a free holiday out of it.
92. Sorry meant to say ‘while looking up the story’!
98
No thanks! I’d have to start collecting Judy Garland records and liking musicals, and all that chintz, and can’t f***ing stand Yorkshire terriers: am I being a bit stereotypical here?
106. Homophobe !
106. No more so than normal.
I’d vote for a Tory Party consisting entirely of Tebbit and Widdecombe clones just so long as they pledged to scrap ID cards.
103
Redwood a true prophet, you should read his website, fascinating!
John Denham on the BBC News is like a ‘pig in shit’ trying to get the swiss/french success to rub off him and his discredited brand.
Onk onk onk! Snout snort snort!
111 — pigs are offended by that comparison.
106. You would have to say ’shut that door’ and get that strange breath gay people have that you can smell 10 feet away!
Revolting smell!
I suppose The Guardian is resigned to Cameron winning now, so they’ve just got to try and make the best of it?
81. Marquee Mark. “Interested in your views…”
LOL!
The Guardian have belatedly realised that renewal whilst in government is an impossibility. Doesn’t matter if you change the PM, it’s still the same party and the same team in the background.
Better to get out of it and have a proper renewal whilst in opposition.
Yes, Cameron has the mad element who will help to vote him in this time but he doesn’t need to listen to them when in power.
109 - In those circumstances you could always vote Lib Dem.
It’s funny, people always said that John Redwood would be like Adolf Hitler as PM but Brown looks like him and indeed quotes sections from Mein Kampf: strange world!
After a damp summer and with sea temps cold we could be in for a cold winter causing not only problems for the poor and elderly in keeping warm and paying fuel bills but a greater occurence of flu and general sickness . The NHS may be tested in a way it has not been for some time . Throw in a few public sector worker strikes , rising unemployment and repossessions and it looks like we dont have much to look forward to . But at least we will have Gordon to lead us through this dark period and remind us regularly that he is getting on with the job
@113:
What the hell are you talking about?
Anyway, I’m a gay, and I hate Yorkshire Terriers. Whiny little attention-seeking yappy shits. They’re the Liberal Democrats of the dog world.
106
I met him in a pub in Nuneaton, (not that sort) he was really charming.
120. John Inman!
The breath thing is something I have noticed with gay people, seriously maybe it is an irresistable mating smell to gay people but straight people are repelled? Please don’t take that as offensive comments! My cousin is an Ike!
The Guardian/Observer group is run by an independent trust and they are scared that the conservatives will threaten this. Mr Fawkes rants constantly about the cons’ intention to “get” the Guardian and I don’t think that this is just his personal crusade.
So the Guardian is trying (pathetically) to appease the tories, or maybe force Dave into a definite statement that he won’t make any changes to media ownership law that will threaten their position. He should be asked about it, now.
@122:
Wait, you’re being serious? You think that all gay men have breath that smells different, and only you’ve noticed it? What?
123. Yes - the Cons plan to set up a website to advertise govt jobs - will bankrupt the Guardian but save the taxpayer millions.
A win-win policy
120 - to be honest, had you down as more of a cat person, Martin. Are there any dog breeds you do like?
123. Cameron has too good a sense of humour to want to deprive us of the Guardian - the BBC is another matter altogether.
124. Why do people call others faggot breath then?
@126:
I like Jack Russells, for they are made of doggie win. I do have a cat, but he’s a miserable bastard.
124 - Since he’s confused John Inman and Larry Grayson, I’m not sure that his penetration of the inner circle of homosexuality is that deep.
@128:
Gay men’s breath doesn’t smell any different from anybody else’s breath. If you believe it does, it speaks more about your mental state than anything else.
117, not if I live in a Tory/Labour marginal, I can’t.
125/127 So clearly there is a hidden agenda, then.
I see Citigroup are predicting that the budget defecit in 2010 will be 90bn! So thats the first 5 years of a Tory government buggered then.
135. a “clear” “hidden” agenda ?
131. It’s a possibility! As I say don’t take offence!
No breath checking with your hand!
102
I expect oil may fall as low as $83… note the “may”.
Except if Israel bomb Iran.. then $150+
128 they don’t - it’s just you; once in a while the personality you have created for PB veers off in a particularly stupid direction - don’t let this be one of those times.
136 Nah - we can solve that by abolishing the NHS and the welfare state, and introducing complusory euthanasia for those on public sector pensions over the age of 70. Easy.
141 sshhhh dont tell anyone about that til after the election…….
135 - I would have thought that it was the position of all good left-wingers that if a job can be done more cheaply and efficiently by the public sector that it should be done there. Or is that principle modified when the private sector business under threat is one particularly dear to the hearts of left-wingers?
EC now predicting Spain, Germany and UK will be in recession this year and cut UK growth forecasts for 2008 to 1.1% (which suggests we are in negative territory this quarter)
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 48.5% .. Obama 48% .. Others 3.5%
The PISSED Jack W Index with added SOAMES BIG MAC weighting shows :
McCain 185 .. Obama 243 .. Toss Up 110
Changes Since Last Projection - Colorado moves from Toss Up McCain to Toss Up Obama. Montana and North Dakota move from Toss Up McCain to Likely McCain.
Toss Up - Up to 5% .. Likely - 5%-10% .. Safe - Over 10%
Eliminate Toss Up States - 270 required for an Electoral College majority.
McCain 265 .. Obama 273
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
The recession has started..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7606940.stm
143. Is destruction of the Guardian official conservative policy? Enlighten me please.
144
Typical rubbish then.
Actual H1 2008 0.3% growth
So EC forecast is 0.8% growth H2? Gives 1.1% for year.
Absolute rubbish.
re 124 I see Martin D has started early on the bottle today.
147
yes.
Switch all Government job advertising to the internet from Guardian.
Saves £ millions.
147 - I’m not a Conservative, and may well not vote for them at the next election. However, if the advertising of public sector jobs can be done more cheaply and efficiently through an online public sector site than through the Guardian, I would be all in favour of such a cost-saving policy.
Looks like the energy deal will be a load wonga of transfered from one bloated entity to another with the outcome being slightly cheaper insulation.
Not much help for yer granny there..
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2074046/the-energy-deal-revealed.thtml
148 Now you mention it that doesnt make much sense does it. I just saw it roll across Sky news. Given the revisions down already to 2008 growth the 1.1% looks a touch high……mmmmm
What’s the Guardian up to?
I don’t think they are politically astute enough to cause fractures in the Tory Party, at least until Dave’s third term.
This is about self-defence.
The Guardian lost *a lot* of money last year, hidden by the fact that it sold 49% of Auto-Trader. Much of its revenue comes from the advertising of Public Sector jobs - the Guardian website is first port of call for hundreds of thousands of public sector jobseekers.
George Osborne has said that he would consider a Public Sector Jobs Website, costing about £5m, to advertise all PS jobs, eliminating the need for Government and Local Councils to pay exorbitant sums to a left-leaning paper.
Were this to happen under the next Tory government, the Guardian would suffer a very serious loss in revenue, with knock on effect on sales (to PS jobseekers), with a knock on effect on regular advertising. It might not kill off the Guardian, but it would be forced to seriously cut costs - losing expensive members of the Commentariat at risk of losing more readers?
The Guardian knows which side its bread is buttered. They don’t want a Tory government, they can’t stomach a Labour government, but if Cameron’s victory is inevitable, then why not claim to have given a helping hand by assuaging the guilt of Guardian-readers by allowing them to vote Lib Dem with a clear conscience.
148. I’m afraid your arithmetic is faulty there. Year-on-year growth in 2008H1 was 1.8%. To get 1.1% for the year you need year-on-year growth in the second half of around 0.5% - which implies quarterly growth of around zero in Q3 and Q4.
Sorry - was interrupted typing, and by the time I had published my comment, you had already discussed all of this!
Mike, I think that for once you are allowing your party allegiances to distort your normally excellent judgement. The world has moved on. Many of the new intake of Conservative MPs will be in their thirties. The people who will vote for them will in large measure be too young to remember Margaret Thatcher, let alone Heath. The policy positions which Cameron has taken on matters such as the environment, social justice, gay rights, etc are completely unremarkable to anyone under 40. Looking for dissent and conspiracies and right-wing plots is just nonsense. There is none to speak of, and as time goes by Cameron’s position will be stronger, not weaker, as the younger members of the party gain more influence. He is well past the point where he needed to be careful of the right wing of the party - the danger is over.
Of course there are traditionalists and right-wingers in the Conservative party, just as there were unreconstructed left-wing extremists muttering under their breath in Blair’s New Labour coalition. But their influence is insignificant, and declining. Many of those who voted for the more traditional David Davis have now changed their mind (and not only because of the by-election business). Cameron’s standing is higher, not lower, than it was a few months ago.
Both Labour and LibDem supporters still seem to be in denial about this. They seem to think that it’s some of conjuring trick. There’s no trick. There’s no army of right-wing zombies who are going suddenly to emerge and take over the party. What you see is what there is: a modern, centre-right party, socially liberal, moderate, well-run, with some radical but pragmatic policies, free of extremism.
154 - On the other hand, the Guardian may feel that it is not likely to swing an election either way and it needs to reflect the views of its readership to keep them. It is probably the case that many Guardian readers are rather less warm towards Labour and rather more relaxed with the Tories than they were a year ago.
In other words, yes papers are interested in which government would be best for their own interests. But they also need to avoid alienating readers.
They may also feel that, if a Tory government is likely, they should not burn bridges and hope to persuade them to continue using press advertising for at least some public sector jobs.
Obama lawsuit latest
http://www.americasright.com/
150. This is the hard line – it’s about a deliberate attempt to destroy the Guardian
154. This is the soft line – it’s just about a jobs website, that might have a side-effect of taking some of the Guardian’s revenue.
So which do we believe? Would George Osborne really introduce a new public sector quango?!
Sound like hypocrisy to me.
Osborne destroying the Guardian: has the man learned nothing from November’s election that never was?
Don’t upset journalists!
Advertising government and local authority posts on a website will be cheaper. It will also make it easier for job hunters to search, sort and find the jobs they need.
Whether or not it affects the advertising revenues of the Guardian is incidental. No doubt they will survive like other newspapers which don’t rely on this source.
re 159. Fair point Rod yet this does not seem to be being picked up by the US media. If it was being given substantial coverage by “serious” news outlets then I would take it more seriously.
From a betting standpoint I stand to make a lot more if Obama does not “come second or first” in the election because of the way SportingIndex’s market operates.
159 - What a load of old sh1te. Apart from anything, I don’t have a clue what their locus is meant to be. Even if it was discovered Obama was born in Aberystwyth (or whatever) it doesn’t prevent him from STANDING for the US Presidency. The issue of eligibility only arises after November 4th (and almost certainly not at all).
164 - Barack Obama is Welsh!!!
Re: 157 - Maybe, but we’ll see what happens when things get difficult.
166. Yep I predict some issues in 2020 or so…
164 - True in terms of the Constitution and Federal Law.
That said, an ineligible candidate is not allowed to run in many states according to state law. If it were discovered he really was born in Aberystwyth tomorrow, several states would be forced to remove him from the ballot.
Croatia at 2.52 v England tonight are better value than McCain at the same price on betfair.
160. i don’t believe all this public sector jobs nonsense. i have only ever heard it brought up by people who seem to have an axe to grind with the paper’s editorial lines.
how can unemployed people searching for jobs possibly be propping up the guardian? the numbers don’t seem to stack up. the point about Osborne and public sector quangos seems spot on as well.
168. I’ve heard the expression ‘born yesterday’ before, but never ‘born tomorrow’.
That Morus, he thinks all Tories were born tomorrow!
re 165. Sadly not Morus. The argument is that he was actually born in Kenya before independence so technically, I suppose, he could be a British citizen.
Wow! He could come here, get a seat, and become leader of the Labour party. What a thought?
169 - Also everyone will be able to view the Presidential Election, which alas is not true for the football.
61. hmmmm. “broad church” - a phrase normally only used by the CofE to excuse itself for being so divided.
170. See
http://www.order-order.com/2008/07/bankrupting-guardian.html
And now for something completely different. SeanT isn’t around, so today’s dose of virulent Euroscepticism comes from (drum roll)…
http://euobserver.com/9/26714
Roman Herzog, the former German president, former president of the German Federal Constitutional Court and chairman of the committee that drafted the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
time test
and
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2006/12/vote_tory_and_b.html
The Guardian gets £790 MILLION for ads from local and national government.
172 - Yes and he’d be seen as about as British as Greg Rusedski.
So far the litigant, Mr. Berg, has not got very far with his case -
http://www.timesherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20095084&BRD=1672&PAG=461&dept_id=33380&rfi=6
166 stodge - Things got extremely difficult for Blair after Iraq. I don’t remember the far left emerging to take over the Labour government. It’s a fallacy to think that when things get tough, governments or parties automatically veer away from the centre.
Time test - I’m adjusting the server clock so some posts might be out of time sequence for a few minutes.
I would reference posts, but the numbers come out even wronger than usual today.
Anyway, Martin Day, please please stop it, you are so offensive on so many levels, grammatically, intellectually, and now deeply offensive about homosexuals. What is wrong with you?
For pity’s sake, see a shrink or doctor. Seriously.
170. ed, the Guardian relies on the advertising revenue from its job ads; that’s a simple fact of life. Not all its advertisers are public sector, but many are, and without them it would not be able to afford the same pagination and certainly not to pay its editor quite so much.
So, the paper would be hit quite hard in the wallet, but it does not mean it will collapse. MSM circulation and ad revenues are falling steadily anyway, so the future of the Guardian will look very different to its present, whatever the state of its public sector jobs ads.
As for a public sector quango… why? If Osborne wanted, he could quite happily put out a tender for a national public sector jobs website. Why does it have to be publicly run or owned? Of course, if it were run by EDS or Capita it might cost slightly more than planned.
Suggested name for this website? Parasite.
[For all you lefties out there, that's what's known as a joke. Not a good one, maybe, but it should not be taken to imply that I believe all public sector employees are parasites. Don't be ridiculous. It can't be more than half.]
181 - In fairness though, parties in trouble do tend to become more fractious and begin to pull in all directions at the same time. It happened to Labour in the 80’s, the Conservatives in the 90’s and now Labour again.
170
It’s the advertising revenue…
test
172. Why would Obama want to do such a crazy thing? Surely he has some ambitions.
182 re time test. Use ntp. That’s what it’s for. It keeps servers’ clocks synchronised with authoritative time sources across the internet, and it’s free.
175, 178. can you find any mention of this that is not from a right-wing source? a £790m to £5m saving sounds too good to be true…
O/T Two other tips for tonight (betfair)
N.I. @ 5.3s (vs Cze - NI have beaten Sweden, Spain and England at home recently)
Kazakstah @ 7s (vs Ukraine. Ukraine scraped a 93rd minute winner at home vs Belarus on Saturday and were awful. Lay Ukraine at 1.63 to cover the draw if conservative).
Small stakes but good odds.
170 - I don’t understand your point. I have no particular axe to grind with the Guardian, but revenue from PS jobs advertised (paid for by local and central Government) runs into the tens of millions of pounds. If the Tories blocked that money, there would be a massive loss of revenue to the Guardian.
The knock on would be that the rest of the jobs website on the Guardian would be less attractive for those placing adverts, and there would be a drop in readers looking for PS jobs (most of them employed but looking for a change). This would hit non-employment-related advertising.
171 - That dangling modifier! Should have been “If, tomorrow, we discovered that…”!
172 - Obama as Labour PM would be fine, but I’m still disappointed that he can’t play Scrum Half for Wales…
184. have EDS ever done a project that only cost _slightly_ more than planned?
178 re £780 million in job adverts. Erm, surely that is across all media and not just The Guardian.
191, cheers:)
192. they do need to advertise the jobs somewhere though - the idea that removing them from the guardian (which presumably won the right to get them in the first place somehow?) saves all the money is flawed.
the only difference would be taking the role from a charity to either a quango or a profit-making organisation, with inevitable teething problems and upheaval.
i suppose Osborne is probably plotting to freeze public sector recruitment anyway.
56 Ref Hague. That’s his point; everyone knows the Conservatives made big mistake in 1992, except Gordon, who has now repeated it.
161 Why would the Conservatives care what the Tory hating Guardian thought?
191, btw, what time are those games?
This is the usual nonsense from the Guardian. In layman’s language
“We might be prepared to believe that the Tories don’t eat live babies. Only the ones that are already dead.”
Utter nonsense, and it goes on:
“The debate Labour could win is over Tory methods, not Tory motives.” Insert a well placed ‘never’ just between ‘could’ and ‘win’ and it’s closer to the truth. The top-down-leftwing-authoritarian-nanyist-”we-know-best” ideology is already morally and intellectually bankrupt.
This piece is the worst exercise in managing expectation.
196 - They need to advertise them, but you can set up such a site for less than £5m, and it costs a lot more than that to put them all in the Guardian (tens of millions).
The reason is that the Guardian is expensive because it has been *the* place to find PS jobs. No-one ever challenged that. But they didn’t *win* a contract to do so through a bid, as far as I know. Recruiters will have handled job advertising, not the OGC.
This is an inefficient legacy relationship, that should be challenged independent of the politics. That said, I think this is being motivated by politics, at least in part.
196 ed - Well, there is also the issue that it is a bit strange that so many Government and quasi-government (eg BBC) jobs are advertised in a newspaper which is so closely aligned with one particular part of the political spectrum. That is a bit troubling.
The idea of advertising public-sector jobs in a cost-effective, politically-neutral way seems very sensible.
US economy - projected US budget deficit for 2009 - US$438 BILLION. (Oh, that doesn’t include Fannie and Freddie…)
Clinton left office in 2000 handing over a budget SURPLUS to Bush.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7607872.stm
I can’t believe this won’t hurt the Repblican ticket in November, whoever is on it and however hard they try to run away from Bush.
198. Kazhik game at 5pm , NIR at 7.45
May search for a double at another bookies
180. Mike, that was the application for an interim ex parte injunction, which are routinely denied. It has no bearing on the final outcome of the case…
O/T Did anyone else feel that the Tatler/Evening Standard ‘10 Tory PPC’s ‘tipped’ for Cabinet jobs one day’ was a massive mistake?
Smug, prissy, rich-types dressed up for a premature congratualtory photoshoot by a society magazine. No denying that one or two are decent-looking, but was this the image Cameron is comfortable presenting to the country, as we enter a recession?
I don’t know if this was planned/approved centrally, but if it was, I think it a huge blunder by CCHQ. If it wasn’t, the candidates should have thought a little more carefully befre accepting any media requests (even if I can understand their desire for the attention as PPCs). I thought it played into the very worst stereotypes of the Party, and was little short of vomit-inducingly cringeworthy.
But that was just my reasoned impression - anyone else?
150
The Guardian receives around £ 10 million per annum for advertising public sector jobs which could & should be switched to the internet with a cost estimated at around £ 50,000.
So if the government subsidy was removed then I guess it would be the end of the paper,maybe a reason for cosying up to Cameron?
201 - Printing jobs were historically always advertised in the Daily Mail (it’s why my parents took it). I don’t see it as particularly troubling that one newspaper should establish a niche of that type. Equally, it seems totally sensible to me that the Government should take advantage of the creative destruction that allows it to bypass previous gatekeepers*.
*antifrank read Wikinomics while on holiday, and the language has rubbed off.
205, only seen the pic. A blunder perhaps, but not a huge one. Women and ethnic minorities are, I suppose, the positives trying to be put across.
Most people won’t have seen it.
re 204. But if this was serious the NYT and the other main US news outlets would be covering it.
205 - What amused me was the precision of the forecasts. ‘Tipped to be environment secretary one day’.
Froth. Zero impact.
205 - I just thought it was the inevitable consequence of the modern cult of celebrity. The pics are great and my only thought was that in the most part I would do unspeakable things to look half as good!
Clarification - by ‘massive mistake’ I meant showing complete lack of judgement, rather than ‘a mistake with massive consequences’.
Agree will have little impact, but really…what were they thinking?
“Smug, prissy rich-types”. Good grief, Morus, it’s only a photo. Do we really take against people because they are reasonably good looking and scrub up well? This is Tatler, how do you expect them to be photographed? In wellies?
And, for good measure, you might read their biographies before dismissing them as prissy rich-types. Few were born with silver spoons in their mouths.
212, daft, not damaging. It might be otherwise, but everyone’s too busy hating Labour to even notice the Tories (until conference, of course).
I imagine the greatest reaction was “PHWOAR! Political totty!”
210 - I thought ‘tipped by whom?’. Incredibly lazy writing - the girl who wrote the piece is a friend of a friend. She should stick to writing about make-up or horses or something…
205 you are right Morus. Maybe the Labour Party could respond with pictures of its 8 most lovely MP’s…….I’ll start you off with;
Bob Ainsworth
Diane Abbott
Vera Baird
Tony McNumpty (dressed in a mankini)
………..etc
Labour could then rightly claim that they were the party of ‘real’ people not media friendly luvvies
213. Better to scrub up and try to better one’s station than be posh and dress down boho-bag lady - see Toynbee, Harperson etc.
215 - Miaow.
Do you think Tone will read this, and think hmmmm?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/7605378.stm
213 - I was thinking, not so much of Shaun Bailey, but more of the one whose father was the editor of a national newspaper, and the one who was a dressage champion. And the word ’smug’ was invented for Mark Clarke - if Guido thinks that Gove has ‘the most punchable face in Parliament’, he should wait and see who wins in Tooting.
218 - Guilty as charged!
209. It’s early days yet. The Washington Times has featured it, as have several Pennsylvania local papers.
Berg thinks the GOP may pick it up in October.
By the admitted facts, Obama has a unique background for a candidate:- non-citizen father and brought up under a dictatorship.
Anyone who is interested in the US Constitution should be interested in the implications of that..
219. I hope so - what a comeback match that would be - Brown v Blair II.
Tone doesn’t need the grief though.
How would that nice Mr Murdoch react to the loss of TES recruitment Revenue?
223, or the paycut. A recession’s coming, you know.
205 - And apparently one of those pretty people is a pbc regular, albeit perhaps a little highly strung for my tastes
OT. Camille Paglia’s latest column on the Palin pick….
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/print.html
UPMYASS continues to narrow:
e-v D 45.4 (nc) R 45.4 (+1.3)
rcp D 45.8 (nc) R 44.2 (+0.2)
538 D 48.9 (-0.6) R 49 (+0.7)
2 party share
e-v D 50 (-0.7) R 50 (+0.7)
rcp D 50.9 (-0.1) R 49.1 (+0.1)
538 D 49.9 (-0.7) R 50.1 (+0.7)
Interesting the “pro-D” 538 has the R ahead, while the “pro-R” rcp has the D’s ahead! In any case, still looks far too close, although there has been a perceptible movement to the Republicans. I don’t think anyone doubts this, rather, will it last?
James at 158 is right IMO - newspapers have political sympathies, but their main interest is making sure that they’re in touch with the drift of readers’ thinking. Guardian readers like to think the paper is balanced, rational and nuanced, so if they’re wondering whether the Tories might be better than they used to be, they’d like to see their newspaper reflecting on that too. They’ve carefully left their options open, and I don’t think they’ll actually endorse the Tories - they are simply saying ‘we are a thoughtful and fair-minded newspaper’.
I’d tend to agree with Tories here who have a good laugh at that self-image - I’ve never been a fan of their perpetual sniping and prefer the Times, despite Murdoch - but that’s the image they want readers to have.
Jonathan - from your various hints about knowing a number of Tory MPs and attending briefings - are you in fact a colleague?
106 – According to ABC figures, The Guardian loses £40 million annually, depriving it of Government advertising revenue would not bankrupt it, as a going concern it already is.
The Guardian ‘news paper’ however is only part of the ‘Guardian Media Group’ it derives it money from flogging second hand cars and yachts through Auto Trader etc and is administered by the Scott trust in perpetuity.
Richard @ 201 hits the nail on the head, imho, use on-line facilities for advertising, good Lord, the Government and the BBC have enough of those, why not use them?
220. No-one would deny Mark Clarke is smug, not even Mark Clarke, but take a look at his and his family’s background before dismissing him as a prissy, rich-type. Oh, and he works bloody hard too. Oh, and if he wins it will be an earthquake in political terms… Tooting FFS!
222
The America’s Right blog has extensive commentary on Berg v Obama.
http://www.americasright.com/
Whether there is anything in it or not time will tell.
228 Peter2. 538 has Obama ahead not McCain, but it’s certainly close presently.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
231 - In fairness, I didn’t say all of them were. It was a general impression of the group as a whole.
As far as local authority jobs are concerned, most of the senior positions are advertised in “trade” magazines such as the Local Government CHronicle. Some very senior posts are recruited via agencies and advertised in The Times and The Guardian and similar - these are the jobs which the councils concerned want filled from the private sectors.
Most Councils advertise jobs online through their own websites and use local newspapers for the lower-grade posts as does the Civil Service. You often see posts for charities featured in the LGC as well.
Mike, this must be worth its own thread today?
http://tinyurl.com/6344mq
By Kevin Maguire.
“YouGov polling guru Peter Kellner reckons could win next General Election” ….. “Kellner says the best punt is on Labour remaining the biggest party in a hung Parliament, Brown losing his overall majority but keeping Cameron in second place.”
re 232. There is, of course, a case going on against McCain’s eligibility because he was not born in the US.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_10328907?source=rss
234. OK, if you’ll agree to blue helmeted peace keepers along the Tooting border, I’ll agree to withdraw to Balham.
Politically o/t but on betting so relevant - tonight’s World Cup qualifiers have some interesting prices as the bookies struggle to interpret the first round of matches:
France v Serbia: I fancy the draw at 13/5 but my work colleague The Shadow (angry Woking supporter) thinks Serbia are worth a punt at 11/2.
Iceland v Scotland - after Saturday’s debacle, Scotland are opposable while Iceland do well on their own patch - Iceland are 9/4 and I’ve had a wager.
Latvia v Greece - I think Latvia at 7/2 is worth a play.
Lithaunia v Austria - Lithaunia won 3-0 in Bucharest and could be on the upgrade so 7/4 looks tempting.
So I’m having an acca on a France/Servia draw (13/5), Iceland (9/4), Latvia (7/2) and Lithaunia (7/4).
I’ll leave Poland at 1/50 to the Double Carpets, Mike Smithsons and other big players…:)
238 - LOL! Agreed.
I’m not generally partisan, but I have to say I’m not Mark Clarke’s biggest fan (disclaimer: I’ve only met him once, very briefly) and of all the Labour MPs, Sadiq Khan strikes me as one of the better ones.
That’s said, I know better than to get mixed up in anything that goes on south of the River!
re 236. Peter Kellner is married to a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet.
I would like to see the original article - not the McGuire report of it - if anybody has a URL could you post it.
200. if the figures really are anything like those stated above, then it should be reviewed. but as you say, it does sound a lot as though political motivations are in play here (both ways) and that causes problems getting to the facts.
201. i agree that is a concern, although noone has raised any issues with the bias of the paper advertising - only with the alleged cost-inefficiency of it.
206. £10m sounds a lot more like it - the £790 million was obviously made up on the spot. now all you need to do is come up with a realistic figure to set up and run a large recruitment website. a clue: £50k is on the low side!
236. Not exactly a neutral piece really, filled with your usual anti-tory mirror bile.
234 - doesn’t your reaction say more about you than about the candidates?
236 - That would be Peter Kellner who is married to the Lady President of the (Privy) Council and the Labour member of the Cabinet most senior in the Order of Precendence?
Re-word the conclusion - “it is not yet guaranteed that the Conservatives will win the next election.”
244 - Yes, absolutely.
240. Very wise to view crossing the border/river with the utmost care. We don’t take too kindly to foreigners down here.
Personally, knowing both gentlemen very well, I wouldn’t want to be Mark’s granny if he were short of cash, but then again I’ve always counted the spoons when Sadiq’s left the house.
236
On that basis the SNP lose out badly from today and Scotland remains a Labour bastion.
It’s the Cameron “shallow” bit I find amusing.
Cameron has been extremely clever and kept his nerve. He has made mistakes and learned from them.
Pity all these right wingers Maguire and others talk about have zero presence… the last one -D Davies - showed how politically savvy they are not…
(pity they tend to ignore that)…
And if you belive the US economy will recover quickly then it’s a possible conclusion that Labour could bounce back.
But as Gordon has denied any change of policy or approach….it is questionable
247 - Hehehe! Khan is held in very high regard by most politicians I speak to - ‘very hard-working’ seems to be a universal note, and I don’t think they mean it as a euphemism for anything.
So, Labour gets to be largest party in a hung parliament. Next, what does Brown do given that Nick Clegg has pledged to go to prison rather than go along with a flagship Labour policy, ID cards?
Blimey, Kellner and the Mirror seem to be clutching at straws.
Re the Peter Kellner story. I have asked him if he would like to do a guest slot for PB. I will keep you posted.
250 - Take his touring Cabinet to Wormwood Scrubs?
49. Interesting development Shadsy. Particular for those of us backing Jamieson:
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/08/21/is-this-the-next-leader-of-scottish-labour/
A general point might be, what makes Labour think the Liberals would automatically want to be in coalition with them?
I think this article would have damaged Cameron a year ago, and I think he came quite close to losing control of the Conservative Party, in the run up to the Conference. Had the Conference gone badly, I doubt if he’d still be leader now.
But, with a 20% lead, I don’t think it’ll do him any harm now, at all. I imagine that the new intake of MPs will be mainly made up of people who wish to cut public spending and taxes as a share of national income, are fairly socially conservative, and are eurosceptic, but will probably give him quite a lot of leeway, in the aftermath of an election win, and will also recognise that fixing the economy will probably be the main priority when we get in.
256 - I think the the Conference season last year is absolutely pivotal and it could have gone badly wrong for Cameron. He suspected that Brown was bluffing and called the bluff. I suspect had Brown gone for an election that the campaign and the outcome would have been pretty messy for all sides. I think that the eve of the Conservative conference was the only time since he became leader that Cameron looked vulnerable.
255. All it needs for the Liberals to bend over and grease up is for the words “We’re considering the case for Proportional Representation” to be whispered in their shell-like.
Of course any consideration will conclude that the answer’s “No”, same as always, but by then the Libs will have sold themselves down the river like a load of plonkers.
You gotta laugh, dontcha?
258, we can only hope the conclusion would be No. Given this government I would not be surprised if they were willing to ruin our electoral system just so they could cling onto power (postal voting as a good example of how ready and willing they are to bugger up the system).
232-I know. I am mereley aggregating state polls to give a composite national picture weighted by regsitered voters!
257 The mood in my association in September 2007 was appalling. I remember also a Yougov poll, at the time, which showed fewer than 50% of Conservative voters (who were down to 33% of the total) approving of Cameron’s record, and Con Home’s monthly survey (which wasn’t actually published till after the conference) showed more people disapproving of Cameron’s record than approving of it, for the first time.
So, yes, the Conference, and in particular, the pledge on IHT, were pivotal.
258, then the Liberals need to demonstrate merely the sense of a common hooker by naming their price before, not after, they open up.
236. No sign of any recent source for the Kellner story. It could just be a re-hash of stuff from months ago. However, I tend to agree with him. Labour only have to get back to 30%, and things get really interesting..
261, Cameron and Osborne played a blinder at the conference. However, you shouldn’t forget to thank a Mister Gordon Brown for scoring a huge own goal by playing politics with British soldiers.
On the subject of the Guardian, I hadn’t bought a copy for years, but I did buy the August 30th edition because I wanted to read the Alastair Darling interview. I was delighted to see that the advent of the spell-checker hasn’t completely destroyed the fine old tradition of Guardian misprints. From ‘Corrections and Clarifications’:
“An article from the Guardian’s archive, first published in August 1889, about certain practices in a Cheadle church, should not have introduced the character Agnes Dei. The original referred to objections to the singing of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) during services (More ritualism at Cheadle, page 30, August 27).”
re 252 and 263. I have just spoken to Peter Kellner and he is letting me have a copy of the original article from which I will produce a post - hopefully sometime today.
257 What a cracker from Brown, Balls and Alexander - “let’s make mischief with the Tory party by threatening to call an election - tee hee hee.” Far and away the best thing they could have done to give the Tories a central reason to close ranks and rally round - and then the springboard for today’s 20% leads.
If they had only kept schtum, they might well have launched a surprise election - for which the Tories would have been psychologically ill-prepared. The decontamination of Brand Tory has almost exclusively happened in that intervening period.
Brown has been extremely poorly served by his closest advisors since becoming Prime Minister. But he has chosen them, which also speaks volumes.
Priceless.
267. brown chose them, promoted them and gladly used their schemes. All his own fault basically.
264 - I think that the Brown PR stunt was peripheral and had the Conservatives spent 5 days killing each other (metaphorically) it would probably have played a lot differently.
168 - If Obama were to be born in Aberystwith tomorrow, then this could be due to a hole in the space-time continuum caused by the CERN thingy…..
267, I disagree vis-a-vis contamination.
However, it’s blatantly clear that the strategy to promote the rumour of a snap election was stupid. Perhaps even more so was the double mistake Brown made in not going ahead. Firstly, he announced he wasn’t doing it, rather than letting the idea fade. Secondly, he invited around a friendly masseur, sorry, hardhitting professional journalist, for a chat.
269, I concur Tory infighting would’ve spelt certain doom (and ID cards…) but I maintain Brown’s actions got the whole media aginst him just as the Tories were unveiling a very popular policu and public show of unity.
After Brown’s dreadful speech at the labour conference things began to turn, not much, but just enough. Then as the tory conference got underway, and we had the IHT announcement then Brown put his foot in it with the troops. This was swiftly followed up by Cameron’s excellent speech, and the foreign dom mess by the government. The tories announced new taxes for foreign dom’s, then when the government claimed their figures were wrong, the tories revealed that the government had been denying they had any figures on the numbers of foreign doms for months beforehand. The odd fact that they suddenly appeared when the government needed them didn’t help their credibility much.
Here in France, the French press seem to have written off tonights match against Serbia - and so have the public, with only 45,000 tickets being sold and the third tier of SdF will be closed.
Well worth a punt on Serbia
272, aye, I recall Ian Hislop giving the Labour representative on QT a verbal beating for that piece of deceit.
262. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? After all I’ve seen stickers for both groups? professions? pests? stuck up in telephone boxes. But it seems the girls on the game have a much firmer grasp of successful business strategies than the Libs do.
Lost all respect for Kellner when he threw a hissy fit at the Tories’ sending a bagpiper to follow Gordon Brown.
273, are Serbia really good enough to beat la France?
273, btw, Betfair has £4 at 19/1 for Serbia to win both halves.
274. It may not have been a big thing, but it made the labour attack on the policy look shifty. I remember Hislops beatdown, he was genuinely angry. Private eye had been trying to get those figures too and had been told the same as Osborne, ‘they don’t exist’. This turned the audience mostly against the labour represensitive from then on (cant remember who it was).
273 Is Domenech still in charge of France? If he is than Serbia should be odds on. The man is a complete joke, imagine what England would be like if McClaren was still in charge.
267/271 - It was a wobble and morale in the Conservative Party was low, but even without Brown’s help it would have passed. Cameron has nerves of steel, and he would not have been deflected. I believe Mike S. has said that he thinks Brown would have lost the election if he had called it last Autumn, and I think that may well be right. The scrutiny of an election campaign would not have been favourable to Brown.
281. Can you imagine Brown on QT back then, he became a mess during PMQ’s over the coming months, but watching him fall apart under scrutiny on QT would have been disturbing.
229 - Nick, Jonathan would have been a colleague had he managed in 2005 to obtain a paltry 21% swing to Labour in the Socialist heartland of Chichester (twinned with Bolsover). But we don’t hold his lamentable failure against him here.
282, he may have to do the leader’s special, pre-GE.
Off thread. I got a call from a market research company yesterday called RPI (or RGI - I couldn’t quite remember). They’re not MRS registered and as they asked some very interesting political questions about local politicians and the like (I live in Richmond Park constituency), I can only assume it’s one of Zac Goldsmith’s jolly ruses to find out how people are voting.
Which led me to think - just how much money is Goldsmith Junior throwing at Richmond Park? Given he had to hand £7k back when he wasn’t on the electoral register - on top of the £90k he donated when he was. Could his be the most expensive campaign in UK history? And how many £s will he spend per vote? Given the most votes he could expect to get is 30,000 - if he’s spending £90k a year, plus employing market researchers and his own HQ separate from the Tories, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say he’s already spending substantially over six figures a year.
Half a million to try and win an election campaign - you read it here first…
“Time” looks at the ground game of both McCain and Obama and in particular in Virginia :
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1840141,00.html
285, so, just 1/5,400 what Brown spent trying to win C&N. And it’s not taxpayers’ money:p
272: ‘…the government claimed their figures were wrong’
Not only that, remember that the non-doms proposal was to be the Tories’ new Black Wednesday, discrediting them as a political force for a generation:
‘Brown Central is convinced that George Osborne has given them all the ammunition they need for a protracted demolition campaign centred on the “fantasy” costings behind his tax cut proposals. Some are even seeing it as a Black Wednesday moment that will prove to be as disastrous for the credibility of the Cameron/Osborne generation as 1992 was for John Major and his lot.’
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2007/10/there-wont-be-a.html
Hilarious, eh?
284. That’s what I mean, imagine him answering questions from a hostile audience. His gradual loss of control during subsequent PMQ’s would have been squashed into one tv show.
284 - He’ll probably bottle it!
269 Very wrong. That stunt of going into Iraq to try and trump the Tory Conference in the news cycle was instantly picked up - not just by the media but also by the public - as being shabby and not worthy of a Prime Minister, especially one who had just a few weeks earlier come into office trumpeting how he was a new spin-free type of leader. “Not flash, just Gordon”. Yeah, right.
It was the moment when those who had vague concerns about him had those doubts instantly crystallised. Now there was something very definite they could put their finger on as to why they didn’t trust the guy. And it has just gone downhill from there. At that time there was still the grudging acknowledgment that he was responsible for financial growth and general economic stability. Now that has gone too.
Re; 281 - I think that had the election been held last year, it would have resulted in a Hung Parliament with the Conservatives the largest party.
The REAL shock for everyone would then have been the deal struck by Cameron with Sir Menzies Campbell for a Con-LD Coalition.
Lights touch paper, retires to safe distance for luncheon
291, plus Major’s intervention helped draw the contrast between a decent sort of chap, and Brown.
291 - Yes but had the Conservative conference been carnage then I doubt it would have been picked up. Indeed I suspect that that was the calculation in Downing St that they could safely go to Iraq that week because the Conservatives would be self-immolating.
292 - That would certainly have been interesting…
292 - Wouldn’t have shocked me in the slightest.
296 nor me. The Tories have been love bombing Cleggie for months,
Nick Robinson has the low down on the new new labour strategy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/
298, strategy’s a bit strong, isn’t it?
Harman’s a lunatic with delusions of sanity.
298. Not exactly a strategy, more a vague series of objectives followed by some more insults thrown at the tories. They’ve been in power for 11 years, yet social mobility has collapsed and poverty increased. Now we get some more promises that they’ll sort it, and the tories wouldn’t if they were in power. I’m amazed by Harman’s complete lack of any political nouse.
300, I’m more amazed she won the deputy leadership over Alan Johnson.
New PPP poll for North Carolina :
McCain 48% .. Obama 44%
Note - Polled yesterday. McCain +1 from last poll.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_910.pdf
New thread - Is Crewe the answer to Maguire and Kellner?
294 Yes, that was the problem. Brown’s strategy depended on the Conservative Conference going badly wrong.
The sensible thing would have been to suppress election speculation, and then call a snap election if things had turned out badly for the Conservatives.
@292:
In the unlikely event of hung parliament, a Lib-Con coalition would be the only acceptable outcome. Any attempt to prop up Labour would be met with swift and powerful retribution from the people.
226.”205 - And apparently one of those pretty people is a pbc regular, albeit perhaps a little highly strung for my tastes”
JohnO, who could you possible be referring too with that clue?
256.”Had the Conference gone badly, I doubt if he’d still be leader now.”
I disagree Sean, it wasn’t just Cameron and Osborne who needed to prove themselves up for the job at that Conference, the whole party was on probation during that period. A fact that is often forgotten.
IMHO, the party would have done itself some very long term damage if they had knifed yet another leader in the back at the first hint of serious political strife, and I think that those higher up knew that full well.