Is it time to be betting on Jacqui’s departure?
December 2nd, 2008
What about William Hill’s 6/4 price?
I have just got a bet on with William Hill at 6/4 that Jacqui Smith will “will cease to be Home Secretary before the next General Election takes place”. The bookie only allowed me £80 although I wanted to put on £1000 - because these seem great odds.
Even if Smith survives the current “Green-gate” affair Labour Home Secretaries have a record of not lasting very long and something else, surely, could come along before the election takes place.
As is often the case with William Hill a bet is announced by the press office, details are circulated, but when you try to bet nobody seems to know about it. Be persistent and quote the Graham Sharpe email from the press office timed at 12.21pm.
Our cartoon, biting as ever, is by Marf of LondonSketchbook.com.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
1
I don’t honestly believe she will walk over this
The past 11 years have shown us clearly that they are experts at passing the buck.
Why all this fuss about being first. Take your time to read the article first.
I couldn’t find a market enough liquidity on Betfair for Q4 2008. If she doesn’t go now, she doesn’t go.
Those odds seem quite good. She is shaking over this and though the odds are she will survive, she will be damaged. Even then, there are probably 18 months and one reshuffle to go.
Hills really are a shower.
4. Of course she could be promoted to Foreign Secretary, Chancellor or Prime Minister.
7 - She has a majority as thin as Harriet Harman’s intellect, so the third would be bit of a stretch I think.
I’d say 6/4 is about right but not generous - if she’s still there in January she’ll be there for the GE.
Well Reid didn’t go of his own will. If Smith goes, they won’t have many people left for the Cabinet jobs, unless they started bringing back to life corpses like Blunkett or Clarke
3 - Indeed. Can we ban these rather tiresome “first” comments? We never used to have them; they seem to be a recent innovation around these parts.
8. Lovely … “Where were you for Smith ?” May 2010.
Police got away with murder again I see in the de Menezes case
Reported on BBC London lunchtime news that Andy Hayman (who he, ed.) is criticising Boris for interference in police operations. Hayman = Gabble?
re 11 our genial host specifically asked for them.
11. in their place we always used to have Stuart Dickson going immediately off-topic to report that the outcome of a scottish subsample of 3 people points to full independence within a year.
ah, the good old days
I think it unlikely unless a smoking gun can be found (such as it is proved that she did actually collude with the police over Greengate) or there is some catastrophic failure by the Home Office (not totally out of the bounds of possibility). Brown gave her the poison chalice and I expect she is expected to carry it until the next election.
That said my view is that her departure is long overdue!
13. Heartening to see that no-one is ‘above the law’, isn’t it?
16 - LOL!
Neil Collins in the evening standard - grim.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23595631-details/My+warning+to+Gordon+and+his+friend+Alistair/article.do
Boulton reporting that “The Tory raid video WILL be released today… although we hear it may not shed much light on things.”
Why should she go?
Compared to most of the Front Bench she has actually performed a very difficult job tolerably indifferently.
Can anyone seriously think that Milliband would do better?
PFP from the previous thread - I also have some positions on Spreadfair and have tried phoning to close them down a couple of times. Both times got through to main number fine, but upon being put through to traders, the line rang out for a while then went dead!? So maybe not THAT easy to close out just at the moment!…
22, if Brown thinks the Home Office will ruin Miliband’s already feeble dreams of premiership it increases the chances of him moving there.
22. agree - most of the trouble she has got into has been caused by highly unpopular policies she was saddled with from the start. the current thing sounds like senior police incompetence more than anything.
21. Surely it will show some rozzers entering an office and searching it.
There must be a limit to how exciting that will be ?
I the words of Simon Carr following the 42 day vote, I don’t think she gives ‘a t*ss’.
The clip on last night’s ITV news was dire. Snappy, rude, red in the face.
She looked like she was about to burst into cry or explode with rage.
Made GO’s press conference over Deripaska look like a waltz.
Jack was at her side looking like an anxious uncle.
The trouble was she kept avoiding answering if she knew there was an police investigation into an opposition MP and persisted in confining her answers to the arrest itself.
The press have spotted the problem. Will it trip her up?
She will not go unless she has to. Her future lies with the support of Labour MPs. Brown isn’t strong enough to resist really strong calls for her to go. But Labour MPs are supine and some are apparently quite happy with what has happened.
. And that depends on Labou
13 Not much of a surprise. I may be incorrect, but I seem to recollect that when this all kicked off, a large number of armed police stated that they would hand in their weapons were any of their number to be placed on trial - can anyone else remember this?
I’ve always wondered if this had any influence over our political masters, uncomfortable at the thought of losing their close protection.
26 - If we’re particularly fortunate they might say “Ello Ello what’s all this then”, “‘E fell dahn the stairs, Guv” etc.
25
“senior police incompetence” looks to be far too widespread..
I blame Boris J. for undermining the police by getting rid of Sir iIn Blair who was the very epitome of competence as he ensured innocent civilains are not wrongfully arrested only to be released after a humiliating apology to the individual concerned.
Instead he avoided the apology …by having them shot. Dead.
(in poor taste. Apolgies)
28. Refer you to my post at 18.
22. McNulty would be a better pick as he has a bit more of a tough attitude. The next election is likely to be fought not just on the economy and having McNulty would counteract Grieve well I feel.
30. it is a pretty difficult job. if you think about this particular arrest, and the calls of “noone should be above the law” (whether you really agree with that or not it is a valid point of view), the police were damned if they did, damned if they did not. being extremely clumsy operationally did not help, of course.
32. for the featherweight championship of the world?
27 ‘Jack was at her side looking like an anxious uncle.’
It does look a bit odd, Creepy Jack the Demon Headmaster hovering next to Jackboots all the time. What’s going on there? Is he acting as minder, or simply making sure that the Justice Department keeps out of the sh1t?
Brave bet Mike. Jacqui Smith’s hopes of saving her seat rely a lot on her remaining Home Secretary…
33. But the calls of “noone should be above the law” have come after the arrest…
FPT:
468. Am I being more attacked? I have always been subject of the tiresome passive aggressive barbs from the likes of Runnymede, but no more than usual since Darm or Major Fault started their tour of duty.
I also find many, many Tory posters to be thoroughly decent folk – such as Morris D, the two Martins and the fragrant Sally C. Even SeanT is a chap deep down.
My honest view is that any newbie who fails to support the Tory orthodoxy on here is immediately assumed to be an astroturfer. Yet no Tory supporter, as I can recall, has ever been accused of the crime.
Jacqui looks even more like a barmaid on that cartoon than she does in real life. I suspect Marf fancies her.
If no-one is above the law, will someone please arrest our current PM for his use of leaks?
33. No-one should be above the law - not even the police.
23…that’s worrying.
Wasn’t Denham a former Home Office Minister? He comes across okay, hasn’t had any big embarrassments to speak of and then there is the issue of Iraq. He seems a man of principle, not a careerist, which if Jacqui has to go might be what the public are lookin for.
Re: The inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes
This bit from the BBC report beggars belief!
“Jurors were also asked to consider which of a number of factors contributed to the Brazilian’s death.
Among those were: . . .
The innocent behaviour of Mr de Menezes increasing suspicion
. . . ”
So presumably, if he had been wearing a zorro mask, striped jersey and carrying a bag marked “swag” over his shoulder, then he would not have aroused suspicion!
She is a Brown favourite, being completely useless doesn’t seem to have affected her before. Her interview with Marr was barely credible (like most of her interviews) and the rest of her defense makes her look either incompetant or disinterested.
37. sure, but totally inevitable nonetheless.
just as explosive (if not more so) for the police would be a revelation that they had halted an investigation for fear of having to enter the houses of parliament.
34. Well I’d like Balls to get the job just so the press could use puns for him being great or being crap. Where have all the political heavyweights gone;)?
38. Stick with it BBJ - we need some Labour types round here to lighten the mood - and prop up the 2009 GE price on betfair
38
Even SeanT is a chap deep down.
What are you suggesting?
28 Yes they threatened to hand in their ticket as a fire trained officers.
Since they volunteer if they all went through with it, the capital city of the Great Britain could be without Police armed response.
However I am sure officers would be drafted in from other areas, or the authorities would have utilise the Army.
The Police have always had a lot of power to control politicians look how they got the last conservative government to back of the Sheehey report, even Ken Clarke laid off.
They are the last public dinasour left to face major reform.
It might be on its way, with a new conservative administration.
20. Neil Collins certainly is grim, He never has a good word to say about anything, and should be widely mocked purely for being the spitting image of that Catherine Tate character that says “how very dare you”. Cruel, but fair.
http://www.catherinetateshow.co.uk/images/characters/18.jpg
26 Don’t know, some clever editing, a soundtrack “With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal” would be apposite, then perhaps clip of Jacqui rapping about her innocence?
38, probably because lots of new Labourites spout utter nonsense. Not all do, of course, but the fact that Draper’s rapid bullsh*t team is well-known about can make it genuinely hard to tell.
38 ‘Yet no Tory supporter, as I can recall, has ever been accused of the crime.’
Then you have missed the delights of Mark Senior.
41. And yet…the police can brutally assassinate an innocent man and thereafter smear the said individual and attempt to obscure the circumstances of his death - but no-one is arrested or charged.
Meanwhile an MP is arrested for simply doing his job under a make-believe law which appears to be a dead letter.
So who is, in fact, above the law?
49.
O/T
A very depressing article regarding non-contributors to the economy.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7746174.stm
Elizabeth Malcolm, 43, has never had a job. She lives in a two-bedroom council flat in Glasgow with her three children, one grandchild, two cats and a hamster.
Neither of her two working-age children have a job.
The family is what the statistics gatherers call a “workless household” - one of three million in the country.
54. Mark is a TORY supporter??? I always thought he was a leftie.
I just got through to Spreadfair to find out whether it was worth closing my position or not.
They currently do not have any positions for the general election seats market and suggested I call back tomorrow when they may have a price. Pointed out was slightly mad to email out when you don’t actually have what you’ve asked people to call for
Suggested they might usefully set up an email list to avoid lots of calls today, and then all the same people ringing back, or failing that post them on here. They didn’t go for it.
Hopeless.
20
This is the most important piece in the Standard.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23595744-details/Return+of+the+100%2C000+home/article.do
About time too.
Bobajob is Labour?
I think he is frequently the Devil’s advocate [without the horns and the bonfires].
An important role.
58. Mr Senior is a Lib Dem (anti-Tory division)
Jacqui Smith’s credibility is completely shot to pieces - she has too much honesty to lie convincingly and not enough integrity to tell the truth. My take is that she is safe in her role in the very short term because the Prime Minister has endorsed (insisted upon?) her defence of the Government’s position.
In the longer term, it’s hard to see how she can recover, even if she gets past the current crisis, which is far from certain yet. If there isn’t a 2009 election, I expect we’ll have a pre-election reshuffle: at present, I’d expect her to be a favourite to spend more time with her constituency then, if she survives that long. 6-4 looks excellent value on that basis.
58, he’s one of those Lib Dems who hate the Tories and dreams of snuggling up with Labour.
Dear me. Only six months ago Ms Smith made the speech of the century over 42 days and was tipped to be Brown’s successor:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2008/06/premier_perform.html
Where did it all go wrong?
54 Sallyc thought Mark Senior was a lib dem and a decent fighter of his ground one at that.
54 That’s my point. Every Tory is a troll to Mark and that’s if he is feeling generous.
58
Mark S does sometimes give the impression he believes Pb.com is the homepage used by denizens of CCHQ to converse and keep in touch.
61. Thank you Sally. I am in fact a floating voter (although not one who will float that much I’m afraid, despite your barely resistible charms)
Whose fault was the house price bubble in the first place?
70. Evil Bankers, the Bullingdon Club, George Bush and Jim Davidson ?
67. Oh I see – OK, fair enough. Maybe it’s just the Labour posters who are averse to accusing people of astroturfing then.
“Where did it all go wrong?”
What, apart from the Lords throwing out 42 days by one of the biggest majorities ever, you mean?
65, Nick “mmm, Gordon, you so sexy” Robinson seems to have no brain at all. I recall posting at the time that it’s staggering anyone could believe she was brilliant in private yet utterly incoherent in public.
71 — Don’t forget the lizard people!
She’ll survive because one of labour’s mantras was not to follow the Major government and have ministers hounded out of office by the press. So instead they hang on, well passed their sell-by dates.
70 Mrs Trellis of North Wales I believe started it all.
72. It’s always embarassing to be found out.
54.
Astroturf, though not a natural product of Englnd’s green and pleasant land, has its uses. The Martins and Ave ‘t are more like waterlogged cinders.
Is there some support on here now for the Police not getting their pay settlement in full ?
Or is it just the ones who investigate Conservative politicians.?
Those who invstigate Labour ones to get a bonus?
How about a market on next Home Sec. As I said above my choice would be John Denham a former Home Office Minister and Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, where his reputation was not as a supine supporter of Blair. He looks like a straight man.
The choice would make sense to me, but then it would be the PM’s decision and he doesn’t tend to see things the way I do.
44. Can a juror in such circumstances refuse to follow the Coroner’s instruction?
Either by refusing to give a verdict or stepping down?
It seems to me, that the Coroner is unjustifiably circumscribing the possible verdicts despite what the evidence indicates.
And what it indicates is pretty damning, whether it be against individuals or a group of individuals who think they can do what they like and get away with it.
Sounds like the now notorious case of the chap who was killed for carrying a table leg on the grounds it was thought to be a gun.
78. What have you found out oh Runny one? Please do tell!
81, good choice, but likewise, I don’t think it’ll happen. Probably be good for Labour (and indeed the country) if it did though.
81. I still say McNulty or Blunkett.
67.
“Every Tory is a troll to Mark”
The one who was garcious enough to accept my proposal of marriage is more like a cuddly hobbit.
66 The point being made was about the lack of insults aimed at Tories. Mark fills that gap. ‘Admirably’
The fact he takes on SeanT shows he is up for a fight and the fact that Seant wipes the floor with him every time shows a certain courage
He is a BIG step up on the likes of the Major and Barmy Darmy. He seems real. I understand that in fact, he is real. He is an irritant to Tories but the fact the he is such an aggressive insulting poster dissuades a person from sharing with him thoughts which would no doubt delight him.
81. Denham is a class act. Very independent thinker and a very bright bloke.
71 Prigs and Fops?
71
I’m glad you mentioned Jim Davidson, I must get his latest DVD for Xmas now there’s a, ‘Real Tory’ for you.
90. I thought I was saving your typing fingers by bringing him up - think of it as an early Xmas gift.
77 Ha ha. Mornington Crescent.
85, McNulty is entirely likely, even if he is a tedious turd.
Merger talks announced between BA and Quantas
I think I have just managed to close my Spreadfair General Election seats positions over the phone at midpoints of Labour 232.5 and SNP 13.5. Tel 02078947500
“Sounds like the now notorious case of the chap who was killed for carrying a table leg on the grounds it was thought to be a gun.”
What you’re forgetting is that he was alleged (falsely, as it turned out) to have an Irish accent — clearly aggravating circumstances, yer Lordship…
93. Yes he’s from the John Reid school of “hands across the chamber”.
carnage on spread betting positions as spreadfair closes!!
Coroners have a rough time.
Consider this. You conduct a case and at the end of it someone threatens to sue. Your employers, the Local Authority says ‘you are on your own mate’. [True story]
What Coroner wants to end up in the appeals court?
94 - Oh god, no. Now I’ll get even more tedious self justifying garbage through the post from Virgin whining on about how everyone else is out to get them, how it’s not fair and that they are going to go and sit in the garden and eat worms.
95stjohn - I’ve just emailed you re this!
90 Does Jim still do Army, Police and Conservative gigs or is he persona non grata ?
14 - ‘Mr Hayman, 48, Britain’s most senior anti-terror police officer announced he is to step down, after reports that he was facing an investigation into his expenses claims and following criticism over his role in the aftermath of the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005. A report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) found his actions “led to inaccurate or misleading information being released” by the police regarding the Brazilian.’(Times 6 Dec 2007).
Exactly the impeccable credentials you would expect from a source quoted by the BBC.
Listening to Any Questions on Friday evening I was shocked at the line Geoff Hoon was taking - no contrition but instead a disingenuous argument against the evil of leaks. The audience could hardly bear to listen to it, as it seemed to me. I couldn’t believe Labour weren’t just closing the issue down by agreeing with everyone else that it’s a worrying thing for an MP to be arrested, etc etc.
Have they closed it down yet? Certainly not, and I think it still needs Brown to come out with a human, decent, non-partisan comment. Many people have said that his obsessive partisanship will be his undoing, and it’s an attractive thesis.
Magisterial piece by Stanislav in responses
http://www.order-order.com/2008/12/cmon-comres.html
Something else to look forward to, our future PM!
Meanwhile, a former classmate of Mr Galley told how he had ‘always wanted to be Prime Minister’.
She said: ‘He was always very interested in politics. He used to say that one day he would be Prime Minister. Everyone laughed at him when he said it. But a few years later he stood for the local council as a Tory, and then I thought he must really want to do this.’
Mr Galley’s family, who live in the village of Hetton-le-Hole in County Durham, said they could not believe he was caught up in the scandal.
His uncle Kevin Galley said: ‘He was always into politics, even from an early age. He never had very many friends, but he loved politics and I think he was a member of the Conservative Youth.
Hmmm could have blotted his CV, then again……
99. Please explain. How can a Coroner be sued over his handling of the proceedings at an inquest?
How is he in a different position to a judge and a Crown Court case?
A disputed verdict and an appeal are not the same as being sued.
I am slightly saddened that no-one has picked up on my revelation that Evening Standard grumbleweed Neil Collins and Catherine Tate character Derek “How Very Dare You” Faye are, in fact, the same person.
Neil Collins:
http://www.catherinetateshow.co.uk/images/characters/18.jpg
Derek Faye:
http://img.thisismoney.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04/NeilCollins_203×150.jpg
104, Hoon has plummeted in my estimation (an achievement as he was Defence Secretayr when we invaded Iraq) since his QT performance when he stated anyone not supporting the communications database wanted “Terrorists to kill us all.”
His AQ piece was very nearly as bad. The man’s an utter t*sspot.
Incidentally, I saw a Sky ticker earlier with Brown parroting the Smith line.
106. Did Galley advocate hanging Nelson Mandela? That policy position was once a prerequisite for membership IIRC.
82: “Sounds like the now notorious case of the chap who was killed for carrying a table leg on the grounds it was thought to be a gun”
At least that’s (scarcely) credible, while the de Menezes case beggars belief the more you look at it. Somehow none of the police noticed the guy was white rather than Pakistani - not the surveillance team outside, not the guy sitting on the bus a few metres away from him, not the people in the subway station, not the guy holding the subway door open, and not the guys who did the shooting. Were they all completely blind?
Pictures of de Menezes and Osman:
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/08/17/menezes_osman_wideweb__430×253.jpg
Unreal.
That’s even before considering the laughable lack of communication in the operation, the instant spin reaction to smear him and invent all sorts of crap to muddy the media waters, the photo manipulation to make the victim and the suicide bomber look more similar, etc etc etc etc.
104. I think that one of the saddest things about this has been the PM’s attitude. He could have taken a strong lead either way, supporting the police action as appropriate given the circumstances or said that this was a worrying breach of parliamentary privilege. Instead he has ducked the issue and made only two very brief (and largely irrelevant) comments on the affair. He has left Jacqui Smith dangling rather and seemed to allow Harman and, to a lesser extent, Straw tak their own positions. Government direction seems to be coming from Harriet Harman on this issue rather than the PM.
This is symptomatic of Mr Brown’s failings as a rounded politician and leader; his inability to judge a situation correctly and find the appropriate response. I do think this will become apparent in any General Election campaign.
110. Not it wasn’t, as has been mentioned a hundred times a few people wore t-shirts in the 80’s with it on. Roger kept saying Osborne was one of them, but as he had no proof and in fact went to uni AFTER the incidents it was incredibly unlikely.
107 A Coroner is not in the same position as a judge.
A judge is effectively an officer of the court.
The Coroner is employed by the local authority who in this case deemed he was in breach of is contract if he was appealed successfully.
Who knows how it would have come out if a suit had taken place?
The legalities are messy.
But it’s unnerving for them for there employer to try and wash their hands of them regardless.
105 Stanislavs English has definitely improved during his time in the UK.
112 - Maybe in the GE campaign he will do the same. Send out the troops and organise from the bunker (other than the odd piece to camera about making the right long term decisions), and by doing so duck any difficult situations.
102
I believe that Jim was driven from these shores,(Dubai) by the left wing dominated media, who hated his patriotism.
Jim (the 20th century’s greatest comic genius) did return for a reality TV show, but was kicked off when he subjected a homosexual to a torrent of homophobic abuse,the leftwing dominated media obviously have no sense of humour.
The lack of work, a tragedy I think you’ll all agree, has forced Jim into bankrupcy, oh that and payments to his numerous wives. Jim is of course a firm believer in family values.
We shall not see his like again: how sad!
So, the latest tory tactic is to use their squalid little campaign to overshadow the State opening of Parliament.
This is yet another example of their all-consuming arrogance and shows a complete but typical lack of respect for everbody outside their immediate gang, including our Queen (God, I love that woman).
One nation under the Bullingdon brogue.
118 Is that irony?
118 - I burst out laughing at your parenthetical patriotic outburst. I pictured you standing up to type that paragraph.
Everyone here should read the story linked at 20, which is the most important issue of the day, indeed of the decade - the collapsing economy.
It explains neatly and unarguably how grim it is going to get - and why the current government is making things WORSE.
I would love to print it out and give it to every fool who responded “Labour” to ComRes.
119: It all makes sense now…..
Gabble = Paul Dacre!
118. Nice try at spoofing but more practice needed I think.
114. You still haven’t explained. Just responded with a further assertion.
I genuinely want to understand.
How is a Coroner NOT an officer of the court?
38. I have. Although I was accused of astroturfing for Labour when I had the temerity to suggest that the recession was good for Gordon.
121
You are being naive.
I have lived through 3 recessions: they are a fact of economic life. All parties are involved.
They change nothing.
Of course, it’s all Labour’s fault… not because it really is but because they denied recessions would happen again..
You can fool some of the people all of the time : it’s a fact of life.
117 Davidson was on R4 Stop the Week or whatever it is now a couple of weeks ago - self depreciating and funny, so be warned he’s planning a comeback.
113. Cuddles! I was pushing the envelope… thought that was obvious… still the web amplifies dismay and mutes irony.
110. Pointless Roger-esque lie.
106. The real shock is that someone from Sunderland is a lifelong Tory supporter. They are rarer than teddy bear poo in those parts.
Oracle (116) On the previous thread you poured scorn on the Treasury, Osborne, Cable and the press for failing to notice the GDP growth howler that Guido has chosen to stake his reputation on today.
Unsurprisingly, as I point out (at 2.32pm on GF), the Treasury are correct (because annual growth is calculated as the average of the annual growth in each of the four quarters of the year). Not only that, but Osborne and Cable know they are correct, which is why they haven’t raised the issue.
Of the contributors to GF only the lone voice of “Will” pointed this out. The lesson from this is that it isn’t only the contributors to GF who can get things wrong. To his credit GF has posted an “Update II” that appears to concede this point.
129
Don’t be unfair to Roger.
His investment tip Barclays rose nearly 50% last week. That is wonderful stock picking#. I wish I was as good.
# the fact he tipped it at £6.00 and it rose from a low of 117p to 170p is irrelevant.
118.
117. God, I’d forgotten about Davidson, what a car crash of a man he is.
128. After hearing Roger and others state it as a fact without a trace of irony more than a few times you can understand my reply.
Just who is Gabble’s scriptwriter? He was almost making sensible comments a few days ago but he must have been re-educated!
105. Quite brilliant. You won’t find a better commentator in the broadsheets, and always worth looking for on Guido’s site.
131 - Fair enough, care to explain, I am genuinely interested.
Gabble — not familiar with that saying about patriotism and scoundrels, are you?
127
I’m in heaven on hearing that news, my cup runneth over!
127. What do you mean a comeback? I hear his gigs on Lowestoft pier have been going down a storm.
This board was dismissive of the idea that the public would support the police in their operational independence and would also support the notion of ‘nobody is above the law’. I think the ComRes poll should, at least, cause them to re-assess.
It will be the same over the hijacking of the day the Queen visits Parliament. You tories just don’t get it!
128
Cuddles don’t get irony, he/she is a civil servant soon to be an extinct species, ‘when Dave gets in, the cull begins’
124 and 114 et al.
OK, I’ve found this: “Today, of course, the local authority is bound to indemnify the coroner (see para 2 above).”
Para 2: ” There can be no doubt that the court has jurisdiction to make an order for costs against a coroner, whether or not he takes part in the proceedings. On an application made under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988, the jurisdiction is conferred by section 13(2)(b) of that Act. On an application for judicial review the jurisdiction stems from section 51(1) of the Supreme Court Act 1981. Any uncertainty that previously existed as to a local council’s willingness to indemnify a coroner in respect of an order for costs made against him was removed by section 104(1) of the Access to Justice Act 1999 which inserted a new section 27A into the Coroners Act 1988. Section 27A(1) provides the requisite indemnity except in cases where a coroner initiates proceedings himself. These cases are covered by section 27A(2), which obliges a coroner to obtain an express indemnity before the proceedings begin.”
From here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/coroners/unreported/davies_costs.html
So, unless there’s a later ruling, as far as I can see a Local Authority is bound to indemnify a Coroner against costs in any appeal brought against his verdict. Unless he (or her) brings the appeal themselves.
So your “Consider this. You conduct a case and at the end of it someone threatens to sue. Your employers, the Local Authority says ‘you are on your own mate’. [True story]” either predates this Court of Appeal Judgement or is simply untrue.
“I think the ComRes poll should, at least, cause them to re-assess.”
It won’t when the poll is revealed to be as much bull as your ordurous outpourings.
131 - Fair enough, care to explain, I am genuinely interested.
I should have said I understand the mistake Guido / contributor has made. However am failing to see how we are going to get to 0.75% growth overall having had 0.3%, 0%, -0.5% and expected to be -x.x% for Q4.
124 To be honest I have to be careful what I say plus I don’t understand the legal position fully.
I just know from personal experience that that is what happened to a someone and it seems quite widely known and it is not questioned by people who know more about it than me including lawyers and barristers who appear before him. The questions which came up were related to whether the Local Authority could distance themselves legally.
I found the whole situation bizarre.
137 The ‘explanation’ is in 131, and on GF, but if you want it here as well:
2008 Annual Growth = 1/4 * ((Q1 08/Q1 07)+(Q2 08/Q2 07)+(Q3 08/Q3 07) + (Q4 08/Q4 07)-4)
I got lazy with the brackets on GF but it down’t make much difference to the answer.
Don’t ask me why it is done this way, but it is.
140
Weymouth Pavilion,(soon to be demolished) is the, ‘end of the pier show’ once there the career has reached, ‘rock bottom’ Jim’s pal Paul Daniels and the lovely Debbie were there last year.
81. Denham would be a better bet than McNulty IMO but he won’t get the job if Smith gets the boot.
147 - Presumably it is done that way so that we can see the average of 2007 v the average of 2008, rather than the year ends of both. Otherwise a year could look artificially better or worse than it really was because of anomalous data in the final quarter of the preceding or current year.
147 Adam - i.e. The 2008 growth figure includes a large chunk of the 2007 growth. Further evidence (if any were needed) that economists are bonkers.
The corollary presumably is that the headline growth figure for 2009 will be even more dire than the reality.
145 The maths is on GF, but the explanation in words is that growth in each of the last eight quarters is used to calculate growth for the year, with weightings 1/20,1/10,3/20,1/5,1/5,3/20,2/20,1/10 so the better growth in 2007 helps to keep the annual figure for 2008 up. The opposite will occur if and when the recession ends.
118 - brilliant - nice to see you’ve got your nose firmly into Mandy’s briefs so early in the afternoon. Trouble is, he writes so much better English than you do, so it is obvious when you cut and paste. A few more spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, please, then we’ll know it’s really gobble.
142. Coldstone, I know you find yourself hilarious, but your continued interest in my employment is rather odd. I am a civil servant, but I didn’t realise we somehow don’t get irony? Is it a general opinion, or have you just assumed it so you can try and be seen as witty?
147 - Couple of questions. Q1 08 / Q1 07 is what exactly? Q1 08 of what? What is it -4 at the end for, any idea or is that a typo?
Have been up for too many hours straight so brain hardly functioning. thank you.
Too slow on the keyboard, thanks for the explanation.
155 Q1 08 is the GDP index. -4 is to convert this into a growth rate.
118.
“use their squalid little campaign to overshadow the State opening of Parliament. ”
I thought the state opening of Parliament IS a squalid little campaign - a squalid little campaign to persuade the hoi polloi that a regal endorsement of the tripe trotted out in the Quin’s Bitch in some way made it seem decent and excuses the way in which both sets of politicians rip the people off while playing their pathetic word games with each other.
Next question, why is it valid to use 07 figures as part of your calculation of growth for 08?
147 Always like trying examples - is this correct?
Its to provide an annualisation of GDP growth so if GDP is 100, 101, 102, 103 by quarter in year zero its counted as 101.5 for the year rather than the 103 reached at year end, so in following year if it went 104, 103, 102, 101 (recession in three quarters) the GDP would be 102,5 (growth 1) even though growth quarter on quarter is +1, -1,-1,-1.
Ignore 159, I get it now. Can tell I haven’t slept for 2 days.
159. GDP calculations
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2008/12/misunderstanding-gdp-forecasts.html
Someone on Guido’s blog has an interesting theory about the ComRes poll that I don’t believe had occurred to any of the regulars here:
“ComRes have a new methodology. They take account of postal votes and ballots cast collectively by ‘community leaders’.”
159 I said I couldn’t justify it. I merely know how it is done. Antifrank has a possible justification at 150.
160 Ted Looks about right, but you’ll get a slightly different answer if you treat each quarter separately (as you should) rather than lump them into a single figure for the year (as you did, and I did on GF)
154.
“your continued interest in my employment is rather odd. ”
Perhaps he wants to groom you? Part of his green agenda.
“so the better growth in 2007 helps to keep the annual figure for 2008 up. The opposite will occur if and when the recession ends.”
Thus making the claim of 1.5-2% growth in 2010 even more “unlikely” to hold, as it isn’t simply 2% growth over 2010, it will basically have to be much greater than that given that we will still be in negative growth for at the very least part of 2009.
“Tory lead in polls just 1%”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/12/02/tory-lead-in-polls-just-1-115875-20940703/
…like the plural!
154
Just concerned about your welfare, afterall to some Tories the Civil Service is a necessary evil, but most Tories don’t bother with the word necessary.
re 44 bear in mind as well that not one of the members of the public corroborated the police version of events as well and it really does beggar belief.
The plural is a lie — something which you’re familiar with, Gabble.
167. talking of innumeracy… should read: Tory lead in POLL is one POINT
170. Bit harsh in tone for this site.
169 - I wonder whether the jury might decide to take its own view on the range of verdicts that it may or may not deliver.
I’d rather be harsh than stupid — as in, “There has been no boom and there will be no bust.”
146. I presume you read me @ 143?
174 - I rather get the impression that Gabble, like Jack W, is a collective. We have one of the more amusing members of the collective today. Either that, or the happy pills have kicked in.
171. That reminds me.
The tory lead, with ComRes, has been reduced by 91% in the last couple of weeks.
The tories can’t win from here.
177 Quite right, Gabble. So if you’d like to use your influence to get the General Election called in the next couple of months, by extrapolation Labour will win it handsomely.
They can if ComRes is wrong.
And the Tory lead will suddenly grow again once ComRes sort out their methodology
Gabble - you really do know how to p!ss people off with your inane rambling
167.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/11/23/2009-election-ruled-out-as-tories-lead-by-11-points-115875-20918941/
The Mirror. Consistent it aint.
Gabble is Dirty European Socialist’s slighly more linguistically-gifted older brother.
177. But it’s up a whopping 266% with Ipsos Mori!
CON GAIN GABBLE?
173
The jury can simply refuse to return a verdict.
126
This is not just another common or garden recession though. If you think it is, it is you who is being naive IMHO.
You are of course right in implying that the tories would not have avoided a recession, no-one could, but this government has to take a lot of the blame for making it as bad as it is. Some of their decisions have been stupendously bad, and what really annoys me is that even if we are being extremely charitable and absolve them of blame for what has gone before, the decisions they are taking NOW are dreadful, and will make it worse.
For what it’s worth, they are surely not to be absolved of blame, since the government borrowing in the good years, the lack of structural reform of public services, the high and complicated taxes and the micro-managing of the economy, not to mention the total lack of action to stop a gigantic credit bubble have ALL contributed very significantly to the recession being worse than necessary, and taken together are reason enough to vote them out of office.
178 - Surely if you extrapolate a 91% reduction in the Tory lead every couple of weeks, Labour won’t win handsomely - the Tories will win by a vanishingly small margin (in votes anyway)?
Here to help… but in a highly pedantic way.
ComRes methods havent changed.
184
Agree not a common or garden recession.
Going to be historic one..worst since 1929
185. The current ComRes poll gives Labour a 10 seat majority.
126. 184.
If you believe some Tory posters on here, you’d think we were headed into another Great Depression. But then if you believed some Tory posters on here, you’d think that a depreciated pound is bad for the economy, when the reverse is true…
Nationwide have today announced that from 1 December they will no longer allow any new borrowing by either existing or new customers on their Standard Variable Rate, which they call Base Mortgage Rate (BMR). The only situation in which they will issue a new mortgage offer on BMR is if a Nationwide customer with some or all of their mortgage on BMR is moving home and wishes to port the amount on BMR to the new property. However, any additional borrowing will have to be on a fixed or tracker rate.
Thus less than a month after the breakfast meeting rolling out the Brown/Darling master plan to intimidate the major lenders into passing on the full 1.5% November Bank Rate cut in their SVRs the one with the lowest SVR and by far the largest proportion of its lending on SVR pulls the plug for all new lending on that rate.
Not only did the master plan not last for life, it didn’t even last until Christmas.
http://www.charcol.co.uk/knowledge-resources/ray-boulgers-blog/article/view/brown-and-darling-achieve-a-great-pyrrhic-victory/2847/
185 Good point James. (After all, if you can’t be pedantic on PB.com, where can you be pedantic?)
Gabble - better call that election sooner rather than later, or else you’ll lose momentum!
185. In fact, if the projection continues the Tories will win the popular vote by a fraction of a single vote.
189. Good point.
They also think that houses being affordable is bad.
187. In terms of output losses it’s going to look like the one in the early 1980s, I suspect, which was itself the worst since the 1930s - but not remotely as bad.
ComRes may not have changed their methodology - but their sampling for this particular poll is clearly flawed.
The fact that it has swung so massively since their last poll should have raised alarm bells.
PM locking up facebook users now. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/facebook-user-pokes-pm-and-gets-locked-up-1047867.html
Meanwhile in France a former PM is being put on trial. How come Sarkozy isn’t getting the same flak that Brown gets when he tries to lock-up political opponents?
184. I totally agree- this is recession is going to bite hard and we’ll be lucky to be out of it whatever happens by the end of 2009. The make or break moment in the parliamentary cycle in my opinion will be the next budget, whether or not Darling sticks to his guns or tinkers more, hes dammed both ways.
Oxford does strange things to people.
Perhaps Gabble would like to explain what Ed Balls is doing in this picture? Hold on! You don’t think it’s the Major, do you?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1062940/I-obeying-orders—Schools-Secretary-Eddie-Balls-dressed-German-officer.html
190. Good job we’ve got GLOBAL action on the Brown masterplan
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2008/12/labour-lemmings.html
Oops
196 - The crimes that French politicians get accused of are generally a bit more high-end than leaking documents.
196 Because his wife is hot;). How he bagged her God only knows, I would pay money to know his techniques;).
200 Yes, there’s more artistry in it. I think they call it ‘fabrication artisanale’
198. I’ve posted my less than flattering views of Ed Balls before. However, I think his handling of the Baby P tragedy and the subsequent enquiries has been good.
201. What is it about the man that regulates all of France’s nuclear power, vast army, mammoth vineyards, gigantic fashion industry and glamorous ski resorts that Carla Bruni fins attractive?
201. What is it about the man that regulates all of France’s nuclear power, vast army, mammoth vineyards, gigantic fashion industry and glamorous ski resorts that Carla Bruni finds attractive?
189. “you’d think that a depreciated pound is bad for the economy, when the reverse is true…”
This is the most unutterably simplistic nonsense. A depreciated pound can be both good and bad for the economy. It all depends.
A depreciated pound is most certainly bad for imports since it makes them more expensive. Now that may be a good thing if imports can be substituted by home produced products. That is not the case, for instance, in case of commodities especially oil.
As for exports, it certainly should make them more competitive but if our export goods are deemed weaker in quality, design reliability etc, then no amount of price-cutting can help.
What is surely incontrovertibly true is that a depreciated pound makes it more difficult to borrow overseas, since lenders fear that the repayment may be in further devalued currency some years hence. And since we are going to need to persuade international lenders to stump up £1 trillion that becomes rather significant. There are signs that lenders are becoming more reluctant to lend to the UK government.
So, there’s a rough with the smooth argument here. But it’s certainly not true that continued devaluation is a panacea otherwise Zimbabwe, for instance, would now be a paradise floated on its devalued currency.
202. Is that similar to Crime Passionale, where you get a commuted sentence for murder because the person you shot shagged your wife?
Rumours of an ‘imminent’ MORI poll showing a 19% Tory lead… anyone else got anything on this?
This rumour is rubbish
MS
208:
Yes, Mike emailed Mori earlier. The rumour is tosh.
Aah - cheers Robusticus
206. Obviously there are limits – but there were many people on here who believed that the pound falling from $2 to $1.50 (or so) was bad news for the UK economy. In fact, the reverse is true.
But saying that is the equivalent of setting off a cluster bomb on here, because many (but by no means all) Tory posters see the pound’s price on the markets as a virility symbol, yet were strangely quiet about how great a nation we were in the spring when it was worth $2.
208. Tenacious rumour, this.
208. Yet another Guido Fawkes rumour - no truth in it whatsoever.
208 Like the rumours of Comres with 23 points yesterday? What’s your source or are you playing the market?
203 - He made one major mistake: he let his boss speak on the subject before he’d briefed him. That apart, I’d agree with you.
Probably 19% or -1%. Never can tell these days.
193
Lower house prices are good for most people - I agree with Gabble!
What is NOT good for anybody is a massive bubble followed by a massive crash. But to avoid that we’d need a time machine, so the point is moot.
We are where we are, and there is no course of action open to any party which will avoid recession, and a bad one at that. There are however, different places we could find oursleves economically in say 18 months to 2 years (after the election - don’t expect politicians to care then…), depending on how much debt we want to get UK plc into.
I think the govt is steering us onto some nasty economic rocks just because it judges the waters on the way are slightly less choppy. IMHO they are badly wrong.
Oil is traded in dollars
Ive just closed virtually all my positions with Spreadfair and I would suggest others consider doing likewise as the prices they offered me seemed very fair, including a sell of SNP GE Seats at 13.5 seats - eat your heart out Mike Smithson!
I suspect they are matching their positions with IG and Sporting, since the only one I couldn’t close immediately was Dec 2008 House Price Index, which they will attempt to match, before it expires in a month’s time. Neither of the other firms offer this market, whereas on another of my positions, I heard the guy referring to Sporting’s equivalent prices.
‘What is NOT good for anybody is a massive bubble followed by a massive crash’
That depends on your trading positions, surely?
211 Wrong - I was very happy with a $2 pound as were all those others who flew to New York for the sales, bought (unfortunately for them ) villas in Florida and otherwise flaunted their greater purchasing power. It made my holidays in African countries where the US dollar is the preferred choice a lot cheaper. Stopped the oil price hitting UK as hard as it could (until it went mad), made imports cheaper.
It was great - shame about the bill.
Do not disagree about the benefits of a lower pound, only the best time for that. Going into recession with export markets also doing so I think we suffer the pain of higher import prices and higher government borrowing costs a lot more than we would if devaluation happened as we leave when exports could pick up.
More important today is continued availability of purchasers of UK bonds - falling pound makes those harder to shift and that will hurt further down the line.
The falling pound will make domestically produced goods more attractive. That’s good in a recession.
seanT scoffed at people not being able to afford BMWs, French wine and olives.
…but there are British produced cars, British produced wine and thanks to global warming we now have British olives. Problem solved!
http://www.physorg.com/news70549351.html
217 SBS, its a bit like that card game (which of Bruce’s shows had it?) where you have to guess if next one will be higher or lower.
So we had 15% lead, 11% lead then 1%,… I’ll guess higher
222. What is good for oneself is not always good for one and all. Foreign holidays being cheaper than domestic ones and a low dollar keeping Americans from visiting and spending in the UK is bad, bad news for the economy.
The £ it around $1.50 is a good thing.
218 Er…so what? A devalued pound requires more of them to be exchanged for dollars than before devaluation to buy the same quantity of oil. ie it becomes more expensive.
211. Again…”the pound falling from $2 to $1.50 (or so) was bad news for the UK economy. In fact, the reverse is true.” The same assertion and the same error.
It’s not a question of seeing the pound in totemic terms but being aware that there is no gain without pain in devaluation. Any economic gains assumed because of devaluation are more than likely to be squandered by seeing it as the easy way out.
This is what happened when fixed exchange rates were devalued in 1948 and 1968. The so-called impetus on exports was squandered by the disinclination by all concerned (unions and management) to make export goods more attractive.
The point of a floating exchange rate is that it imposes greater discipline and any change is an instant judgement on how we are performing. A slide says things are not so good.
23 downandout & 59 Red Armchair
Re: Spreadfair - both stjohn and I have traded out of our positions earlier and I suggest you call the number stjohn refers to in post #95, i.e. 020 7894 7500.
I had to wait about 5 minutes for someone to answer the phone but once I got through it was OK.
But pollsters such as ComRes adjust their samples to match the population.
They just found that DE and C2 Labour support had increased
223 My olive tree produced one olive… not quite self sufficiency yet.
Gabble makes Pangloss look clinically depressed!
227 I just phoned and got through immediately - they were pretty efficient.
98 “Carnage” - in what sense rightisright?
222. Actually a lower Pound does not make gilts harder to sell - it is the possibility that the Pound will fall further that makes Gilts harder to sell.
A weak Pound may indicate a weaker economy and thus a less attractive place to invest, which again makes Gilts harder to sell. The fact that yesterday the £1 = $2 and today £1 = $1.50 means little in and of itself. However, an incompetent government that looks like it is going to end up on an uncontrolled borrowing binge (eg this one) will find the currency falling and no one willing to buy - if they are not careful.
As for falling house prices, the direct economic effect is somewhat muted - there is no actual economic gain from shifts in asset prices - they are just wealth transfers. However, if asset prices rose and people had assumed it would continue to rise and thus lowered saving and increased spending, the one-off adjustment will be large. This is happening to an extent at the moment.
231 Good for you Richard, I hope you feel you were offered fair prices - having made the decision, I got the impression they just wished to close down their positions as quickly and as smoothly as possible.
225 You claimed no-one had celebrated a high valued pound, that was untrue, lots of people did. Doesn’t mean they were right to do so.
The Noughties were a fun time, people splurged, bought nice cars, second homes, had more foreign holidays, ransacked Europe for houses in the sun, partied, planned hen nights & stag nights in cheap (because pound was up) foreign destinations.
Need the memories to keep us warm through the Years of Famine coming - trouble is I’ll probably have rheumatism and the diseases of old age when the good times come back again.
223: ‘…and thanks to global warming we now have British olives. Problem solved!’
So the new and booming British olive market is going to kickstart the economy. And there was me feeling worried.
233
and if there are already problems with trying to sell gilts on the markets?
splurged - Am i the only person who hates that f*cking expression?
223 Except British cars are rubbish, and the wine until recently was terrible. I dread to think what British olives are like.
BTW Gabble are you feeling alright today? You seem a little ‘different’. Is it a different operator using your persona, or are you having how shall I put it ‘issues’?
218. I have two friends who have “lost” money on their homes in the “crash” – and immediately went and bought a bigger, better one. Those sales are now complete, and they gained because the bigger house had fallen by more in absolute terms than their old house.
But the Daily Mail won’t discuss the up-trading gain paradox much. It prefers to tell people who have only one home, and for whom the interest rate on the mortgage is as much or of if not more important than the actual capital value, that they have “lost” money. Money that they never had, apart from on paper.
But it’s amazing how many innumerate people actually think they have lost money.
236
but imports of vermouth will cost more.
237. Yes, there was a 10 bp increase in coupons last week - 0.1%. It isnt a strike yet, but think of it as a warning shot.
234 PfP - Yes, I actually negotiated one of the prices up a bit in my favour, on the basis of what it was just before the market closed. (It was only a small sum, but it all helps…). And it’s fair enough - after all, it’s them messing us around, not vice versa. Some people must have lost out considerably by not being able to close their positions.
Buono publico - I am finding with that the new gins on the market bursting with their botanicals, you can on occasion manage without the Noilly Prat.
223. “but there are British produced cars”
except that most of the components used to assemble those cars are imported
re 224 I’m afraid that it was “Play your cards right”
244
cheers
244/241 It’s Lillet Blanc nowadays (Kina Lillet no longer being available), vermouth is so 20th Century.
223. Or they may simply eat a snack other than French olives, if the price of French olives is not to their liking.
We had a load of people banging on about out imports-exports deficit, without grasping that changes in price lead to changes in consumer behaviour, and that UK farms already produce fully half of our total food demand, and have been running at under capacity for years – due to a high pound suppressing demand for many domestic goods.
If one outcome of the falling pound is that I no longer have the sickening sight of our supermarkets filling their shelves with cheap water-filled Danish bacon at the expense of decent English dry cure produced to high welfare standards, I for one shall toast depreciation, ideally with an English real ale.
240. They gained? Not really. They bought a new house that was less expensive than it was before. That’s like saying “I made money by buying my car for £1000, yesterday it was priced at £3000″. A meaningless statement.
The correct way of looking at house price losses is:
I have one asset and no income. House today is priced at £100,000.
Tomorrow it is priced at £80,000. I have lost £20,000. But the amount is notional - unless I intend to realise the capital value of the house - the main purpose of the investment is to have somewhere to live.
246 Snob that I am I only recall it from Bruce’s appearance on HIGNFY - never watched the original.
244 You only need to ensure that the shadow of the Vermouth bottle passes over the drink for a proper dry martini. Don’t add the stuff.
239 - I can’t speak for the quality of British olives (and sincerely hope never to have to) but I challenge any here to find a finer white wine than The Paradox from the Bothy Vineyard in Oxfordshire. ‘Tis ambrosial stuff.
233. Indeed, if you believe sterling has overshot and that yields are set to drop due to a deflationary environment, gilts could look very attractive….
249 ‘and that UK farms already produce fully half of our total food demand’
Great news Bobajob - so half of us starve then, whilst we wait for production to increase?
250 – no, they actually gained because the difference in cost between house 1 and house 2 was less than it was before the crash.
254. Yes Brown has gone very quite on the deflation front - think he has been talking it up for partisan purposes i.e the useless VAT tax cut.
255. We are highly unlikely to starve due to food cost hikes as a convenient tandem move to the pound’s fall has been the fall in world food commodity prices. If you really think that household costs will rise sharply in the next 18 months, you’ll be able to get a good price to bet on it online.
256
Unfortunately most consumers are fomd of electronic goods.. and about 95% are imported.
Sony raised prices 25% from 1/1/2009.
256 How have they gained anything? Surely they’ve just spent less? My wife uses the same sleight of hand money conjuring trick when buying shoes in sales.
It’s almost as bad as the Government using words like ‘invest’ instead of spend (or hose).
As an example we are now not producing enough milk in the UK to meet demand - we are importing it from Holland, France and Eire and paying in Euros. Too many farmers have “got out of milk” because of the low price for the last 10 years. Prices are now OK but no one is going to invest in all the kit you need to restart.
In the longer run the skills of running dairy farms are being lost.
256. Eh, no.
Let us imagine that before the crash they completely own a house “worth” £100,000 and cash to trade up to a house worth £200,000.
If the first house is now worth £80,000 and the new one £160,000, they have £20,000 in cash left over. They are still £20,000 down on the deal…
Where is the gain you are claiming?
258 I don’t think we’ll starve (not yet anyway).
255 and just hope that global warming returns so we don’t have a succession of harvest ruined by cold & wet summers.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=3134
An article that may raise blue blood pressure.
261. One of the unfortunate side effects of handing over agricultural policy to a foreign bureaucracy, no? Which the Liberal Democrats enthusiastically favour…
261. I think we only produce about 60% of our food needs if I’m correct. Surely the government can’t ignore a taning pound forever.
No doubt anyone questioning the position of sterling will soon find themselves arrested under Brown’s Patriot Act.
265 — It should raise the blood pressure of anyone with an ounce of non-partisan sense.
256. No. Say yesterday house 1 was costs 100,000 and house 2 costs 200,000.
Today house 1 costs 80,000 and house 2 costs 150,000.
This is the situation you describe. This isnt a situation where you can say I gain 30,000 because the house price has fallen more. This presupposes that the old prices are somehow “correct”. Say on day 3, house 1 costs 120,000 and house 2 costs 150,000, would you say that I had lost 40,000? No. It’s absurd.
267. That should be tanking not taning.
265. How amusing - Dave Spart is a real person after all.
269. Being someone who doesn’t own a home due to the enormous prices, this downturn certainly has an upside for me.
260. “256 How have they gained anything? Surely they’ve just spent less? My wife uses the same sleight of hand money conjuring trick when buying shoes in sales.”
My wife’s trick is to call them a bargain, quietly disregarding the fact that she would never have bought them were they not reduced.
But in my defence, both friends *are* planning families and I guess would have had to move anyway, crash or no crash.
272 Frank, you could probably buy Bobajob’s home and make some money at the same time.
269 - I don’t think blowboy has made his case articulately, but he does have a point, which is the same as Frank Booth’s in essence. The bigger the absolute differential between houses at the top and bottom of the market, the harder it is to climb the property ladder. When prices fall, it becomes easier to climb, because the gaps between the rungs have narrowed. This doesn’t mean that someone trading up has made money, but it does mean that their dream house may well have become more affordable.
6/4 - a value bet.
272. Likewise.
273 Its the same thing as a jumble sale. Have you seen who mental people go over utter rubbish because its only 10p. You are quite right, a bargain is only a bargain if you need the item. If mot you have wasted money not saved it.
On topic, Jacqui has apparently released a letter in which she explicitly denies knowing that Green was under investigation.
273 - Buy two houses, and you gain more.
223 - No, the falling pound makes foreign goods more expensive, so people have to shift to inferior British substitutes. Therefore their standard of living falls, even though the pound in their pocket is worth the same.
Wilson knew he was deceiving the nation; I’m not sure whether Gabble is equally mendacious or whether he has taken pains to deceive himself as well.
279. The resignation comes closer…
279 Interesting, if mildly incredulous.. stand by for the climbdown….
281 most british goods are imported. Savings will be few and far between. We even used to be IIRC a net importer of milk.
280. That’s the only way you really make money in property. I bought two houses in 1996, sold one in 2006 and used the profits to retire the mortgage on the other. Happy days.
When prices bottom in 2011 or so I will buy a second one again and use the eventual profits to top up my pension fund.
277. I thought you said you had an income of 200,000 a year.
What are you spending your money on?
279 - I’d like to see the wording of that letter. If that were true, she could have said so on Sunday morning or in any of the news interviews that she had yesterday rather than dance around the point. Either the minister is being belatedly brave or she is being dextrous.
275. Yes - thanks. It was my use of the word ‘gain’ that snared me. There is no monetary gain of course, just cost saved. See my response to EdP’s excellent shoes argument at 273.
The only difference with the Wife-Shoes-Bargain Paradox is that my friends, whom I mention above, are planning families and would have had to move regardless of what happened.
Of course, the counter to that would be that they would then have bought a slightly less expensive property.
But in generally, I’d contend that thrust of my argument holds, for the reasons Antifrank more eloquently lays down.
286 - I really hope that SeanT doesn’t answer that question. I’m only 41, and I might be led astray.
289 - I really hope that SeanT answers that question. I am only 35 and am hoping to be lead astray.
290 - The generation gap encapsulated.
IMHO Mike will be paid out fairly soon on his wager that Jacqui Spliff will cease to be Home Secretary before the next GE takes place.
I have deep in thought whether to back that situation or the Arsenal youngsters to win at Burnley tonight.
Decisions! Decisions!
286. My income has very recently quintupled since I wrote a thriller. Previously, I was as poor as a church mouse. Well, as poor as a reasonably-well-off fairly lazy church mouse who spent most of his cash on hookers and heroin.
I am now a reformed character (er, sort of (hey, I stopped doing the drugs)), I also work a lot harder - but I have acccumulated zero capital due to my previous life of grandiloquent excess.
Hence my pleasure in the crash. I may at last be able to buy a 3metre square hovel in Fitzrovia.
The statement on the Home office web site is this:
Home Secretary said:
‘I welcome Sir Paul’s appointment of Chief Constable Ian Johnston to conduct a review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s decisions, actions and handling to date of the ongoing investigation into the leaking of Government information.
‘In view of the gravity and sensitivity of this ongoing investigation, I spoke to Sir Paul yesterday to seek his assurance that the investigation was being pursued diligently, sensitively and in a proportionate manner. Sir Paul informed me of his intention to conduct a review of the handling of the case, which I welcomed.
‘I reiterated my support for the police’s operational independence from political interference.
‘No-one should seek to prejudice a police investigation in any way. These are very serious matters, and the police should be free to pursue their investigations without fear or favour.’
Sounds to me like Jacqui Smith interfering in the investigation, Where is your info about a letter from?
282 - Unless the Tories have her on video briefing them before the raid or egging on the police as they knock down Green door or I think she is just going to tough it out to be honest. And even then I’m sure she will have still try to say it is for somebody “independent” to decide if she should be removed from her post.
People don’t do resigning anymore, look at Shoesmith, she is staying put. It looks like they are going to have to get the heavies into physically remove her from her well paid paper pushing, and even then will have to pay the compensation.
281. That’s a very dismissive and deeply unfair view of UK produce, Aaron.
In fact, we produce as good beers, whisky, bacon, cheeses, vegetables and meats as anywhere in the world.
Sadly people chose to buy poorer foreign goods such as the woeful Danish bacon, flavourless Dutch tomatoes and awful Irish sausages and ‘cheddar’ due to an overvalued pound making our goods seem like a luxury product. The supermarkets, with the honourable exception of Waitrose, were complicit in this - by packing their shelves with high margin foreign garbage.
I hope that you will be one who rediscovers UK food in the coming months – and I expect you will be pleasantly surprised at how good much of it is.
289-291. Lol
269. you clearly do gain if you can afford to move to a bigger house that you previously couldn’t afford.
I found a jolly website last night.
http://www.labour-watch.com
It catalogues allsorts of sleaze and incompetence that I had forgotten about
293. £50k a year is hardly poor Sean. Rumbled you.
some details from the letter
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Damian-Green-Arrest-Smith-Denies-Knowledge-Of-Arrest-As-Tories-Release-Pictures-Of-Raid/Article/200812115170791?lpos=Politics_First_Poilitics_Article_Teaser_Regi_0&lid=ARTICLE_15170791_Damian_Green_Arrest%3A_Smith_Denies_Knowledge_Of_Arrest_As_Tories_Release_Pictures_Of_Raid
298. Yes – I think Ken was thinking I meant capital gain. But we’ve now all debunked the Daily Mail’s shrill nonsense about falling house prices being a bad thing.
From recent press reports Clegg and Cameron don`t rate their shadow cabinets.
Looks like both men rate other.
How cute.
294. Ulitimately I want to know what was her reaction to finding out Green had been arrested. I mean it’s a pretty extraordinary thing. Was she shocked? Surprised, at least? the fact she hasn’t said leads me to believe that the arrest was pretty much what she was expecting to happen.
294. The hypocrisy and sanctimony in that letter make you want to vomit.
295. The culture of not-ever-resigning is one of the most odious new aspects of British politics. To be fair I think it started under Major, but Labour gave turned it into a dispiriting art form.
To remove a Labour minister you have to video them frotting the Pope, and doing it WITHOUT the Holy Father’s consent.
300. £40k. “Quintupled”. And that’s before tax. Which I never paid.
301 - Well the line quoted doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Jacqui Smith may not have been aware of any investigation of an MP before Damian Green was arrested but she cannot claim that she has been absolutely clear on the matter. A model of obfuscation would be my preferred description.
Purple evidence gloves? They sound like something one might pick up in sex shop.
“and one policeman, wearing purple evidence gloves, pointing to the door asking him to leave”
I love these details!
307. OK – fair enough. Well, fair is clearly the wrong word, as you didn’t pay your taxes, but you catch my drift.
296 - I am very lucky to have a local proper old style butcher. They in fact own the production whole chain, from the farms which produce the meat to the shop selling / delivery van (haven’t asked about the grim bit :-).
Although in the face of it, for instance the sausages are slightly more expensive (and actually bought as a bulk purchase that isn’t even true), when cooked it is incredible the difference in “shrinkage” when compared to supermarket bought one. This is true of all the meat purchased from this particular outlet.
Thus the few extra pence you pay for the meat is more than made up by the fact firstly they taste better than your every little helps version, but also that when it gets to your plate the amount of meat remaining is far greater. So in reality I find it more economical to purchase a superior butcher produced products.
301 - as a tinyurl http://tinyurl.com/6gjga4
301. I think that image of the ‘raid’ will undermine many of the more over-blown accounts of cowering MPs at the mercy of jack-booted police thugs.
Video of the raid up on the web.
301. That’s a pretty definitive statement. She had absolutely no idea that there was an MP caught up in the leak inquiry.
Question is: why didn’t she say this before? Why all the humming and huh-ing and general equivocating? Weird.
She’d better be sure that no one can contradict her, or she is out. If there is no contradiction, I expect she will survive the scandal - but she is very seriously damaged. How can we now expect her to appoint policemen, etc etc, with the neutrality that is required and expected?
She will be walking wounded.
311. Very true and well said.
If only the rest of the UK public was as educated about food as you. Danish bacon is another classic false economy – because, like cheap bangers, much of it is water.
We need to start selling our meat industry better in this country. But with luck a falling pound my encourage people to reconsider domestic produce.
Michael Howard on BBC News going with “If she didn’t know, why not? Is she not in control of her department?”
315. It’s quite simply an untruth.
Raid footage (if you can call it that).
http://www.conservatives.com/Video/Webcameron.aspx
OT - Who is expected to win the Georgia senate run-off today?
Was the Home Secretary also unaware of the arrest of one of her junior civil servants?
Was she unaware of the recipient of the leaks?
Can she not put two and two together?
SBS to cheer you up there is a rumour on Guido’s that a Labour MP is defecting to the Lib Dems. Whilst rumours on Guidos are not always accurate…
Some there appear to hoping that it is Quentin Davies but I think I know who it is likely to be.
Anyone seen Nick Palmer recently?
320 - one of Mikhail Saakashvili’s cronies?
316 - I am surprised that the industry have done the Beefy adverts etc, but that is always just about taste. A lot of people have the attitude well that cheap stuff is ok, it will do.
Maybe they should concentrate on the “Fairy Liquid” approach of the 80/90’s. I am sure that is why people today lots of people still buy that brand in huge numbers. The image is still with me of a cheap bottle of liquid vs Fairy clearly illustrating the false economy.
322 - What have the Lib Dems done to deserve that? (Davies not Palmer)
317. Perhaps she asked “not to be informed” to have deniability ?
296 - I buy plenty of UK produce. But not UK TVs or cars, for good reason.
“Inferior” in my earlier analysis doesn’t apply to the UK as a whole, it applies to the UK products people turn to when the foreign goods become too expensive. And it doesn’t mean that the actual quality is necessarily lower, but that it offers less value-for-money.
The fact that consumers previously chose to buy an import suggests that they found it superior (at least in value-for-money terms).
319. Hmm…. Could go either way. some will shrug and say “tchuh! it’s not the Gestapo” - and it isn’t.
But some will find it very offensive. This is the House of Commons: the whole point of our parliamentary history is that the Crown can’t just march in and do what it likes - especially if the issue does not relate to National Security.
Can’t see this causing a splash in Swindon. I can see it adding to the sense of anger in Westminster. But the pressure is now, perhaps, more on Speaker Martin than on Smith. He should never have allowed this, without taking it to the Home Sec etc.
322 - this does not cheer me up. It is probably someone from the left. I still remember Brian Sedgemoor. Grrr! Or not true.
317 Scott Now there is a man who answers a direct question.
Also takes full responsibility for his department.
He was a really Liberal Home Secretary.
LIES LIES LIES
Just watch that footage and defend these tory lies:
“Police were described by Tories as ‘aggressive’ as they marched into the House of Commons, an unprecedented act in a leak inquiry.
They told one senior party figure who was present as they searched Mr Green’s office: ‘You are at the site of a crime scene.’”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090387/Most-shocking-6-hours-life–MP-Damian-Greens-wife-tells-anti-terror-police-raiders-took-love-letters.html
328 - I don’t think it adds anything to be honest. The people who don’t see anything wrong with an MP being arrested over this matter, aren’t going to care about the parliament issue, and the “raid” looks perfectly orderly. Those that do will still think that the government ordered the arrest of an opposition MP.
328 - I’d agree with that. My sense is that unless someone emerges with evidence to contradict her, Smith has done enough to limp on like a partially deflated Zeppelin.
If anyone looks likely to go over this it’s the officials in the HofC who approved it, and maybe, if they lied to get access as seems to have been suggested (stating that the DPP had approved the raid?) senior police.
The problem for Smith now is the home office is a mess, embarrassing mistakes happen on a monthly basis. Previously she has ignored them, this has badly damaged her. There will be more problems for her to deal with before the next election, can she survive them?
331 - Gabble - please supply evidence that Andrew MacKay was the only person to challenge the police in Green’s office. Isn’t it far more likely that someone else challenged them first, and upon being turfed out went off to seek higher authority (MacKay) who returned accompanied by video camera toting accomplice.
The alternative explanation is that MacKay spends his time roaming the corridors of what I assume is Portcullis House accompanied by a sidekick with a video camera. Possible I suppose.
331. Gabble this is a 20 second clip after which Andrew macKay and the cameraman left the office at the police’s request. It doesn’t show the police arriving at the office so it can neither prove nor disprove the claim that the police were aggressive nor whether they said that ‘you are at the site of a crime scene’.
To not see that you are either monumentally stupid or mendacious.
333. Yup. Smith must either be telling the truth about “not knowing an MP was being investigated”; or she has made damn sure that no one can contradict her.
Given the appalling fall-out if the latter were to happen - I could see it threatening the government as well as ruining her career - such is the vehemence of her denial - I suspect the first is true. She didn’t know. Ergo she will survive.
However that still leaves the mystery of her vacillations. Either she’s just a bad politician or she was covering something up, but we just don’t know what. I suspect both of those are true.
311. I am going to boast that I shot my christmas dinner this weekend.
a big fat canada goose, that is going to get eaten approx 200 yards from where it was shot out of the sky.
not much of a carbon footprint there.
331. You’ve lost your mojo Gabble. The problem with crying wolf is eventually people lose interest (and the will to live).
You should maybe try making your posts more witty ?
328.”Can’t see this causing a splash in Swindon. I can see it adding to the sense of anger in Westminster. But the pressure is now, perhaps, more on Speaker Martin than on Smith. He should never have allowed this, without taking it to the Home Sec etc.”
Seant nails it, the release of this footage has more to do with Westminster than Joe public watching at home.
327. “And it doesn’t mean that the actual quality is necessarily lower, but that it offers less value-for-money.”
Well quite. That’s the big problem with having a overvalued pound. Some foreign goods *are* better value for money…
“But not UK TVs or cars, for good reason.”
Is it even possible to buy a UK made TV?
As for cars, are you telling me that Nissan, Toyota and Honda cars made in the UK are rubbish? As far as I was aware the Nissan factory in Sunderland has faster production rate than their Japanese equivalents while the quality remains high. All three have worldwide reputations for build quality and reliability, and if I can’t imagine they would let them slip in the UK. Would have a Toyota or a Honda over pretty much any other mid price car on the market.
106 / 110 Hardly, when Galley was only about 8 years old when Mandela was released!
Apparently the Conservative party has found that it is harbouring former IRA members.
That’ll please the Ulster Unionists!
God bless social workers…
The serious Case Review into death of Baby P cites “good practice” by Haringey Council and describes toddler as “clumsy and with a high pain threshold”.
345 - OMFG
331, Well Aneurin Bevan made a speech calling the “Tories lower than vermin.”
So Lies is quite mild from you I suppose.
On the defection - there must be several possible categories of Labour MPs.
1) Those in Lib/Lab marginals, who think defecting could help them to hold on to their seat.
2) Those almost certain to lose next time, who might aswell do it anyway.
3) Someone who has cut a deal with the Lib Dems to get a safe seat at the next election.
4) An MP who is standing down.
5) Someone acting purely out of principle.
Another interest quirk from the latest BBC News interview with a lawyer who says “Jacqui Smith should not ask or know about the investigation”. Fair enough. The question now though is why did she know all about the investigation until an MP was involved, at which point she stopped knowing. Either she should know, or she shouldn’t…
345. Link
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/3542488/Baby-P-Haringey-Council-described-victim-as-clumsy-child-with-high-pain-threshold.html
345. A truly terrifying and grotesque sentence. Whoeever wrote it has surely resigned?
Do you have a link?
I told you - Nick fits 2 and 5!
More police-hate spin from tory Paul Waugh:
“A police officer, with his face pixellated to protect his identity. furiously confronts the Tories who took the photograph.
A Scotland Yard officer points angrily at a Tory official filming the raid on MP Damian Green’s Commons office.
The pair dashed over to Mr Green’s office as soon as they were tipped off that Scotland Yard were on their way.”
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1091293/Video-moment-anti-terror-police-raided-Tory-MP-Damian-Greens-Commons-office.html
351.
but in the case of Baby P the review was led by Sharon Shoesmith, who has now been suspended as Haringey’s director of children’s services.
I thought the reports of Baby P case had to remain private? Wasn’t there all that stuff about Balls not even wanting to show his opposite numbers in the commons? Another leak or a change of mind publication?
A Labour MP with principles?
does such a thing exist anymore?
355. News this morning said a “summary” would be released - I guess this is from the summary.
If we are back on Baby P, this is bad news
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090702/Baby-P-council-faces-fresh-probe-ANOTHER-abused-child.html
356 - Kate Hoey
354. I still don’t quite understand where that horrible phrase comes from. Is it in the government review of the case? Or the internal Haringey inquiry? Or what?
I am being a little dim, but the article isn’t clear.
342. Yes, my understanding of the motor industry here (and it is very limited unlike my knowledge of the food industry) is that Nissan in Sunderland is a very productive and indeed high quality plant.
***Green arrest video released***
Its here http://www.conservatives.com/Video/Webcameron.aspx
This is a PR blunder by the Tories I reckon - its a pathetic video!! I can’t believe they have released this, what a joke!
I thought we’d have a juicy action-packed clip to get our teeth into but THIS! and a poorly delivered commentary from Dominic Grieve which was so boring I can remember nothing of it already!
It actually looks like hopeless party political opportunism, having a video camera hauled in.
343. That still gave him eight years.
Was that Dominic Grieve? - I thought it was John Major!
348. I like how number 5 was at the bottom of your list…
362 - Bit late on the draw there
Does look that way, I reckon they would have been better not saying anything and let the media run wild with stories about what the police got up to.
360.
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/scr_executive_summary_a_-_final.pdf
Quoting the mother I think..
362 - It’s not Die Hard II, that much is true.
But I think commenters above are right when they say it’s intended for a Westminster audience… lots of MPs who will think ‘Cripes, that could be my office with rozzers pawing my stuff’.
362. Johnny Fiston-Hewes = Gabble = The Dharma Project = Major Minor and the Majors = Still not funny ?
361. The problem though is that the parts are imported. The car I drive was “manufactured” in the midlands by one of the best established British motor companies still trading. It is fabulous quality and mechanically superb. Almost all of it arrived in boxes from Germany…
331. Gabble - I’ve been biting my tongue on saying this for wweeks, but I can do so no longer.
Where did you learn how to be such a complete and utter twat?
I’m sure Freud would have something interesting to say on your unconscious mind expressing how you secretly perceive yourself.
Which might be why you picked “Gabble” as your online pseudonym:
(from the free online dictionary)
Gab.ble
gab·bled, gab·bling, gab·bles
v.intr.
1. To speak rapidly or incoherently; jabber.
2. To make rapid, low muttering or quacking sounds, as a goose or duck.
v.tr.
To utter rapidly or incoherently.
n.
1. Rapid, incoherent, or meaningless speech.
2. The low muttering sound of a goose or duck.
That’s you through and through.
Your posts on pb.com: Rapid, low muttering or quacking sounds, as a goose or duck.
348
1 - no, PPCs too well entrenched
2 - possible
3 - safe seat available for LD? No! All taken.
4, 5 - very likely
And more likely, a load of tosh.
What about Bob Marshall Andrews defecting to the Lib Dems? I see he is standing down next time.
368 - Yes but I’m sure the grapevine of what happened has well and truly been running hot regarding the gossip of the rozzers in there. From a PR angle for the public to see that, they may even say he got off lightly. I’m sure suspected every day criminals probably get a more “Die Hard” action when they raided.
374 - Well, that’ll lose the Tories the criminal vote, then. Well, other than Archer and Aitken, obviously.
362. You agree with the government a lot don’t you Johnny?
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&hs=ByE&q=Johnny+Fiston-Hewes&start=10&sa=N
319 etc. This is biggest and most sodden of damp squibs. I am not sure why Cammo has released this as, for my money, it utterly destroys a Tory spin line that it was the march of Stalinist Stazi. Unless there is more later, I think this could be an example of the Tories snatching a molehill from the jaws of a mountain.
371. “Where did you learn how to be such a complete and utter twat?”
What a nasty post. Sadly, by writing that, some might say the bell tolls for thee.
371. Time to cook it’s goose I think!
Yep as usual dusk falls and out come the Brown Borg drones….
Resistance is futile You WILL be assimilated
I suppose Brown does have to let them out to feed them once a day…
376. lol. Very good. Excellent sleuthing.
378. But Gabble IS a twat. The only problem with Casino’s post is that he is pointing out the blindingly obvious. Saying Gabble is an obnoxious lying twat is like saying “I’ve noticed the traffic in London gets somewhat heavier around 6pm”.
377 Bobajob - Of course they released it. If they hadn’t, they would have been accused of covering something up. It’s much as one would expect, I think, but serves to emphasize that private correspondence between an MP and his constituents was being confiscated by the police from within Parliament.
370 - I haven’t looked recently and I am no expert, but the last time I did, UK made Toyota’s were build with 70-80% UK made parts. That may have now changed as it was a quite few years ago when I last looked at this. Be interested to know.
However doesn’t surprise me about the German parts. Was speaking to a designer at Jag and he told me that Bosch were superior to pretty much every other company out there for making parts and tooling.
What did you expect the video to contain? They couldn’t interfere, that would be illegal and look dreadful.
383 - Some shooters being waved at the very least
331. Laughable.
The police were full of pseudo politeness and aggression.
“This is a crime scene” - since they only had/have suspicions it most certainly is not a crime scene. Even if the supposed chrages are brought and successfully prosecuted, there would still be considerable doubt as to the fact that any offence was committed in DG’s office.
And all this accompanied by the sneering tone in the word “Sir.”
I’ve never yet heard a Police Officer or almost anyone else in authority use that form of address with any semblance of sincerity. It’s always delivered from behind a curled lip with the unspoken threat of “I’ll numb you in the nuts if you don’t do as you’re told.”
385. GeoffH
The police did not say it was a ‘crime scene’.
On the Beeb site now, obviously cut the Grieve bit out, so looks even more limp.
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/12/02/is-it-time-to-be-betting-on-jacquis-departure/#comment-867539
386.
Listen again. They did.
383 - Doors being kicked open, two detectives leaping into the room, covering each other, papers being strewn, shouting, a secretary cowering in the corner motioning with her eyes behind a curtain.
388. They even describe the sites of car accidents as ‘crime scenes’ these days.
362 Johnny Fiston-Hewes has been busy on Coffee House as well.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3059361/footage-of-the-police-searching-damian-greens-office.thtml#comments
(There’s no need to follow the link unless you have a specialised interest).
It was indeed aggressive behaviour. To have a police officer walk towards you like that demands a physical response, but it is a police officer, so you have to retreat. It is physical intimidation, and fairly described as ‘aggressive’, particularly when accompanied by refusing to respond to a question. There was no sense that the police were respectful of the place and the person addressing them.
No he says it is “currently a scene which we are going to search…” not a crime scene
381. The video is mildly disappointing, though. The Tories slightly overplayed it. I was expecting to see Dominic Grieve being rendered non ano intacta by a helmeted robocop.
As it happens, I don’t think it matters either way. I don’t think Greengate has registered with average voter at all. Some voters may have said: Tory arrested, so he did something wrong so what, some others may have said: Bullying government - like we didn’t know - told you so. But most will have barely noticed.
What Greengate has done is anger lots and lots of journalists, and damaged the Home Secretary, and undermined the moral confidence of Labourites and lefties.
The latter point is crucial. I think, deep down, lefties no longer believe they are the good guys (and rightly so, they aren’t). This makes them deeply uncomfortable - though they try to hide it. The loss of moral self-esteem in the British left will have profound longterm implications, for all of us.
389 antifrank - That will be in the Hollywood remake.
“Hints of a carefully choreographed climbdown by Brown and Smith”
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/themole,,hints-of-a-carefully-choreographed-climbdown-by-brown-and-smith,59787
389. If you thought that was what the Tories meant by aggressive then I think your imagination ran a little wild!
389 - ‘Get dahn on the floor, you slaaaag’
388. I’ve listened again. Perhaps you could either post the precise time he says it or, alternatively, apologise for perpetuating this particular tory lie.
Maybe it was clever use of language from the plod, “currently a scene”, can easily be misheard in the heat of the moment as “crime scene”. Obviously been on the government backed training scheme, run by (Prof) Mandelson. You thought you heard one thing, but they actually said another.
391
Ya this kind of opportunism annoys me so I why not mention that in more than one forum? Seems sensible to me!
396 Me - If this is ‘carefully choreographed’, what would a chaotic U-turn be like?
I think the impact with journalists is far larger than we can imagine. No amount of free lunches, exclusives, off-the-record briefings etc are going to cut it with some. And as a government the last thing you want is the journo’s having a go day in day out, and it isn’t like they don’t have enough material to pick from.
395 - I can’t see the aspiring Hollywood actors queuing up to play the part of Dominic Grieve.
John Craig - Sky :Backbench Tories will put forward a motion of no confidence in the speaker if Speaker blocks a debate.
403 - Yes, every journalist and every MP who sees that video will be thinking ‘that could be my office’. And many journalists and MPs are likely to have stuff which has been leaked to them or which they don’t want the police trawling over.
348 373 Yes, Bob Marshall Andrews fits into 2, 4 and 5
And he certainly has principles. Unfortunately is almost unique in the Labour Party
402-Richard-lol! I can’t imagine. If with Mandelson and co they are doing this mess, without them I don’t know how it would look like.
405 - I wonder if one of the “backbench Tories” is a silver haired bloke with an oft-broken nose.
When the officer said, “this is currently a scene”,
I think the reply would have been
“certainly is officer, your on camera raiding the houses of parliament, something which is unprecedented in modern history, or maybe you are too thick to know about this or the small matter of parliamentary privilege. Have you considered the PR element of the scene that you are causing, and the deep running damage you might be doing to the democratic process. And by the way can I get my marker pen I left it in here earlier. Oh and thats my mug, I wondered where I left that. Actually could you pass me the post-it notes, I’m out…”.
But then I might have still been helping the rozzers with their enquiries now.
395. The mole has it exactly right on Smith - “she’s looked out of her depth” in this constitutional scandal. Like the overpromoted primary school headmistress she is.
I hate to say it, but there is a leitmotif of womanly incompetence in many recent events. Check out the guilty parties in Baby P - nearly all women.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1090702/Baby-P-council-faces-fresh-probe-ANOTHER-abused-child.html
And in Greengate we have Jacqui Smith and Jill Pay as the main culprits - though their fault may simply be ineptitude rather than malice. But then, they are just girls. We should never have given them the vote.
410 - Or possibly you might have been shot a number of times in the head.
re 331 Gabble just watch the video the police clearly say “This is a scene we want to search”> Police only ever talk of “crime scenes”. They hardly’d burst in for the view had they? Why do you intersperse your occasional sensible posts with this moronic partisan drivel?
Are as some have suspected more than 1 person?
410 - If the officer said “this is currently a scene”, could this be interpreted in any other way than referring to a crime scene?
414 - Mandelson and co have made a career out of “incorrect” interpretations. Be careful, be very careful, when comparing what you thought you heard, what you want to hear and what was actually said.
414 If they did say ‘crime scene’, then clearly they were prejudging the inquiry.
320 - Chambliss (R), Martin (D) has led in no polls since the election.
409. Indeed I suspect he will be at the forefront.
Did you see him this morning on Sky swat the annoying Anna ‘birdbrain’ Botting aside when she was trying to allude that journalists did’nt have such privileges and he pointed out that Lawyers and Journalists did have those very privileges under PACE?
Quite Amusing…..
BMA is a great MP. In many way he is liberal. He is also a socialist. No thanks.
Also in senate news Franken (D) appears to have overtaken Coleman (R) by 4000 without anyone noticing.
http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/SenateRecount.asp
re 416 the police prejudge matters all the time. How did the Birmingham Six end up behind bars for years? How did Mr de Menezes end up dead? How was my father once assaulted by the police on his bus?
Re Gorbals Mick. If he was forced to stand down would he revert to being an MP or what?
197 - tres
“Meanwhile in France a former PM is being put on trial. How come Sarkozy isn’t getting the same flak that Brown gets when he tries to lock-up political opponents?”
Dominique de Villepin (PM 2005-2007)is being put to trial following an inquiry regarding the so-called “Affaire Clearstream”.
In short, he is accused to have supported the use by Justice of a forged list of French VIPs having secret foreign bank accounts, because Nicolas Sarkozy (his hated rival) was on this list.
He is more precisely accused of supporting judicial action based on this list AFTER he knew that it was a forgery.
Whatever the context was (the end of the Chirac presidency and the failed attempts of Villepin to become a presidential candfdate against Sarkozy), this appears to be a potential crime deserving to be investigated.
After a two years-long inquiry the investigating judge has decided that he has enough evidence to put Villepin to trial.
Big differences with Greengate:
- The alleged crime is a serious abuse of power from the PM at the time of the events
- Villepin was interrogated by the judge twice but never arrested
- He has been charged (AFAIK Green has not)
- Villepin was not the first target pf the investigation in the “affaire Clearstream”, his actions were only investigated after the judge’s investigations of the initial defendants (Lahoud, Gergorin, Rondot). Elements in their statements to the judge lead to believe Villepin had a part in this scandal.
- The investigation started before Sarkozy became President
So I think that you cannot seriously say that the two cases are comparable.
419 I think he is the most rebellious MP in the House at the moment. But he wouldn’t really be at home in any of the other parties
420 - n.b. heavy dem areas appear to have been in that 91% already recounted. Still neck and neck apparently.
re I don’t think there’s any precedence for an ex-Speaker reverting to being a party MP. Another Glasgow by election anyone?
New thread, by the way.
426 - so he long as he does not want to sit with the LDs…
309.
“They sound like something one might pick up in sex shop.”
One hesitates to contemplate what, precisely, you might be picking up in a sex shop.
386.
“The police did not say it was a ‘crime scene’”
Whether they were lying depends on the boundaries to which they were referring.
Certainly, the House of Commons was a scene of the most disgusting conspiracy to mass murder between Tony Blair both sets of Conservative front benches.
I’ve read a few times about why our Prime Minister isn’t too keen on making public comments on the Green furore butthis does help to clarify matters a little. Apologies if it’s ben posted before.
Cack handed html. Sorry. This is what I was trying to link to.
420 http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ now says Coleman favorite to retain seat - yuck - a week ago Franken was favorite to win the seat - this one will go down to the wire - and will we actually have it decided by January 6 who knows !!!!!
Never say Minnesota is dull - the Twin Cities may be the coldest large metro area in the continental USA and called America’s Siberia - but we make up for that with our political shenanigans
Aloha, poor shivering peeps of the Interminable Socialist Republic of Britain! Looks like people have finally woken up to the PBR small print - “Stout yeomen of the Home Counties, take out a Labour Party membership, and get a ten year tax holiday!!” For it is the only explanation as to why more than one in four Tories have deserted them overnight!
Just sort it out, please, by the time I get back in two weeks time. Anyway, I’m off on set now (I shall resist the overwhelming urge to name drop, but if you Google Julie Taymor The Tempest, you may see several interesting names here on this small Hawaiian island - include a certain gentleman recently all over the news!!).
A hui hou kakou!