Is Labour about to clamp-down on the blogsphere?
December 19th, 2008
Could bloggers be made more vulnerable to libel?
I’ve just received some information that could have major consequences for bloggers.
My understanding is that a green paper will be published in the New Year setting out plans to make it easier for people to sue for defamation. The idea is to cut down the disproportionate costs of bringing a libel action and there’s even a suggestion that there could be a small claims court for libel.
The move is bound to be seen as a way of dealing with government irritants such as Guido and to a lesser extent Iain Dale.
It could have serious consequences for PB as well. The ability for people to publish comments instantly is one of the things that makes this site. If everything had to be moderated before going out then PB could not exist in the form that we know at the moment.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
The ZaNuLabour tag seems less barking than it did yesterday.
This is outrageous. The last thing we need is stricter libel laws. As things stand its too easy to sue. The shit keeps piling up with these guys. Just when you think you’re out of the woods.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7791172.stm
Off topic. Consumer confidence up sharply - still low but up sharply.
Retail sales up.
Petrol prices down.
Pound recovering slightly against a Euro now under pressure because of upcoming cuts in Eurozone interest rates.
…
First?
This is madness - I thought we lived in a country where freedom of speech is one of the underlining principles of our democracy. Shouldn’t a confident, thoughtful government be welcoming of a diverse online commentary? It could also see bloggers from all political persuasions “gang up” against the government.
Surely dissenters will simply base their servers off shore, or be driven underground?
It really is 1984, but with some nastier twists that even the communists in East Germany couldn’t come close to achieving. The lives of others eh?
One little hope. If it was only a Green paper to be published, could that mean that there wouldn’t be enough time for it to come into law before the next GE?
More Mugabe/Putin impersonations from Labour.
3. Stop posting such utter crap. From your own link -
‘The consumer confidence index from market research group GFK NOP rose by two points to -33 in December. However, it remains near all-time lows.’
Two points is not a ’sharp’ increase, it is a barely discernable one - despite the positive factors you note.
8. Fair’s fair. I should not of used the word sharp. Apologies.
3 Bobajob. phew , its all over. recession cancelled. spend spend spend. we’re ok really. break out the champers (bought on the 5th credit card)
lol
9. 8. Fair’s fair. I should not have used the word sharp. Apologies.
If we’re honest wouldnt we all love to see guido get sued!
Not Iain Dale though, he is reasonable and acts in what I consider good faith. Guidos site is full of homophobic, racist, mysogynistic tosh.
10. I did not say that did I? Just noting some good news for a change.
I wouldn’t be surprised. Labour’s attacks on free speech are getting quite brazen; they clearly don’t value it.
On a separate but related note, I am absolutely horrifed by stories like this one in the Telegraph today:
http://tinyurl.com/3fasat
South Wales Police sergeant Simon Merrick said: “The content of promotional material which has been distributed in the area has been brought to our attention as being potentially inflammatory and offensive.
“The distributor has been appropriately advised and instructed to withdraw the leaflets from circulation.”
It’s the word ‘instructed’ which is so appalling. What the hell are the police doing instructing anyone about jokes on a leaflet? The ‘police state’ tag doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
We need to get rid of this government ASAP.
The libel law in the UK is not very good, it enables rich folk to stifle perfectly legitimate debate (if you want more on this topic read Private Eye), quite what the green paper will propose we shall have to wait and see (it is very unlikely that any ideas could be turned into legislation this side of an election) but I am dubious that tinkering at the edges would make it better.
Last night we had the village carol service. The first lesson was the one about Adam & Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden for eating the apple. I was irresistably reminded of recent events in the Commons with Speaker Martin cast in the role of Adam blaming the Woman for tempting him. The part of the Woman obviously played by the Sergeant at Arms and the role of the Serpent being taken by Inspector Knacker. Presumably this type of thought is anathema to Gord and Friends and would be banned if they can find a way to do it. Role on 1984!
12. Guido should be sent down simply for being a callow, simpering passive-aggressive snarf of neither backbone nor principle.
3. Undoubtedly Labour would like to clamp down on the blogosphere. New Labour is all about control and the area they have less control over our lives is the internet.
Of course, they can’t come out and say they are going to censor the internet, like China does. But, they will use backdoor methods of doing so if they can get away with it and they will do it piece by piece. Just as they are the Party of stealth taxes, so they are also the Party of stealth censorshipm and erosion of our freedoms and civil rights.
They have already put the first building blocks of internet censorship in place by passing the law that allows prosecution and years in jail for visiting a website that displays what they label as extrem p0rnography. There were no levels that they would not stoop to in order to pass a law which can put you inside for being in possession of an image of consensual acts between adults. The spurious arguments and justifications for passing this nasty piece of legislation included arguing that it was to protect children. This is a red herring, but an effective red herring because “everyone cares about the protection of our children don’t they”?
They could not get away with blatant censorship of blogs, but they can frighten people from hosting such sites by making it too financially risky to do so.
16 Is that libellous?!?
I do love to see the lefties frothing about Guido simply because he is effective at taking the p*ss out of the scum we have running the country.
16 Say it how you see it! Or is it simply that he irritates HMG and Labour generally? If you don’t like what he or posters on his website write, then don’t visit!
Guido is good and i’m glad the government hate it. Anything they hate, there must be a reason for us to like!
PS When do we think the Gordon Brown Rocking Horse photo will come out - middle of a general election campaign maybe?
18 re 16 I think in a court of law you could quite easily prove every word of that.
And with that PB’ers I will bid you fairwell for today.
This is going to become a thread of rantings rather than analysis now
22. It’s an urban myth.
14 I hope you are suggesting that anyone interfere with the Police’s ‘Operational Independence’ ?
Does suggest at least three officers obviously have too much time on their hands and should perhaps be pointed towards investigating something the people who pay their wages consider criminal.
Shame that we can’t elect the members of Police Authorities who could call the policeman’s bosses to account for wasting ratepayers cash on such stupidity - but that would be against |Operational Independence” wouldn’t it?
Some people are incredibly over reacting. We already have libel laws covering newspapers and televisions and we still have free speech.
Libel laws are not morally equivalent to the oppression done to the zimbabwean people by Mugabe. Grow up.
16. How many hits does your blog get ? What is it about Labourites and envy - it’s their raison d’etre…
24 Or is it?
Despicable authoritarianism - par for the course with ZanuLabour.
Mascara Man (Andy Burnham) raised this vaguely some time ago on QT. They just can’t handle freedom of speech, which is why people are now arrested for reading the names of the dead at the cenotaph and we have to ask permission to protest outside Parliament.
Good Day at 12:
“Guidos site is full of homophobic, racist, mysogynistic tosh.”
Good Day at 23:
“This is going to become a thread of rantings rather than analysis now”
Pot, kettle, black?
Libel laws are already too strict in the UK. Making them stricter would benefit only politicians and B-list celebrities, not the general public.
14 Well done to that police force. Crime in South Wales must be down to zero if they can spare wooden tops to deal with Mr Singh and his dodgy jokes. I’m sure the good people of that region can now look forward to a reduction in their taxes, as unneeded police officers are laid off.
“I should not of used the word sharp.”
Bobajob
You should not HAVE used the word OF.
Typical Labour product of state-controlled education.
12-A suitable follow up to this week’s, “let’s ban Martin” party. Intolerant of intolerance and all that.
But, not surprised, with so many followers of Uncle Joe and similar on this site and in parlaiment. Why not pack off Guido to the Gulag for re-education fo course. And for the good of socialism.
Oh yes, and homos are over represented in the kiddy fiddling community.
Now ban me, and send me to Siberia. Cattle wagons on demand.
One more step to making this a Labour controlled police state.
16. I’ve worked out why Guido Fawkes appeared in the dark on newsnight.
It’s because he looks like a slightly overweight IT technician from Slough.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uAo8d8eZ8Ow
maybe the rocking horse photo is real…….
16 bobajob, perhaps you would like to demonstrate your courage and put up your real name and address and take the flak that guido does. Or are you simply a callow, simpering passive-aggressive snarf of neither backbone nor principle.
Alistair (35): I misread your comment as “One more step to making this a Labour controlled police site.”
I was very worried for a second…
Time for David Davis to resign again?
Any MP’s who post on here supportive of this suggestion….
40. Doubtless Commissar Palmer will be.
26 Why waste time on such legislation? Why do we have politicians and mandarins in Whitehall spending time addressing this “problem”? Aren’t there more pressing issues for government to be worried about and why are they wasting OUR (tax payers) money on such issues.
Less time spent on legislation and more time spent on getting the machinery/agencies of government to deliver more effect law and order, addressing real crime, that damages lives might even be electorally popular.
i like Guido’s site, but i wouldn’t want to be on the end of one of his less concrete (i.e. fabricated to fill blog space) allegations.
I wonder which of the spineless, ever-so-pompous, completely lacking in sense of humour Nu-Liebour hierarchy is really leading the push for this in the background?
The ability to throw abuse at our politicians as one small price they pay for wanting the ability to set our laws is set in British history. Hell, even the comments on Guido don’t come close to some of the abuse they would have got in the 17th or 18th centuries.
Everyone who goes to Guido knows what it’s like. It’s an adult (some would say juvenile but then they’re probably humourless socialists anyway) decision to enter the site and the comments section and to take part in whatever level of debate resides therein. If you don’t like the conversation for whatever reason, or if it offends you, don’t go in.
If you’re a politician and you can’t take or laugh off personal abuse (or better still put it down with a smart retort) then you’re in the wrong job - and, yes, I mean you Gordon Brown, Ed Balls, Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears to name but a very few of the hopeless, hapless and humourless in the current administration.
6 is relevant - a Green Paper is a consultation document, nowhere near legislation. If people can restrain the mouth-foaming, I don’t mind taking up specific concerns, as probably one of the most active Labour bloggers. Some quick thoughts:
- I do think there is a problem with ‘minor’ libel. If the Daily Express claims you’re a Chinese spy with six mistresses, it’s worth the trouble and expense of going to Carter & Ruck and suing them for a million quid. But if they merely say you’re corrupt, and explain that they mean it in some metaphorical sense, you are probably best off shrugging it off. Effectively the system is only geared to mega-trials with enormously high stakes on both sides. So a small claims court process for ordinary people who’ve been unfairly depicted and want a bit of satisfaction seems a good idea to me.
- I’m not sure that free speech really means that any anonymous poster should be able to say anything about anyone. But it’s clearly unfair that *Mike* can be sued if I post a wild claim that X is a paedophile. If the law is being revised, I’d want to see a ‘reasonable effort’ clause saying that if a host moderates a libellous claim within a short space of time, he avoids liability. An alternative defence could be if hosts ask for private registration, so they know who is posting even though it’s not made public - then, if X falsely calls Y a paedophile, the host can on a court order inform Y who has libelled him, and that would absolve the host.
This is a worrying development. I think it would really hurt PB.
The libel laws in this country are already too strict. They discourage investigative journalism, of which there is too little, but do nothing to discourage silly tittle tattle, of which there is too much.
35. And this is what authoritarians rely on - “I was only obeying orders.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7791278.stm
If it used against bloggers critical of the government or other notable figures then it will cause severe harm to our rights. This is after all how the Singaporean ruling party deals with opposition - use the libel laws to bankrupt its critics, have them tossed in jail when they can’t pay and then they’re barred from running for office.
And before Nick Palmer and his cohorts start complaining that people are exaggerating, it’s not that any one government is going to lurch into authoritarianism it’s that these sorts of laws rarely get reversed but can keep creeping up on us. Only an idiot won’t think about where we might be in 10-20 years time.
14. THREE police officers?
Obviously nowt to do, then.
45. Is that a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer…
censorship is a funny thing. it does raise interesting questions.
David Icke has made what some would see as the most loathsome allegations about people over very recent years, including that members of the Royal Family indulge in ritual child sacrifice, and openly accusing members of the Bush administration of being paedophiles. Yet no one has sued him… funny old world.
As requested last night:
Leeds North West
LD 4/6
Cons 5/2
Lab 7/2
@45:
Libel law already has safe harbour provisions for blog owners and such like. That’s why, for example, I have observed much sympathy for Alex Hilton recently.
I can’t foresee any reasonable grounds for changing that, because it’s fine as it is.
As it happens, the ludicrous cost of libel lawsuits effectively makes it possible for the wealthy to use Libel as a way to suppress legitimate criticism by those less well off than them.
Making libel easier and more affordable, whilst preserving existing safe harbour provisions, could have the counterintuitive effect of strengthening free speech, rather than weakening it.
I’m giving the government the benefit of the doubt on this one.
Gordon Brown has said a “can-do attitude” will help the British economy get through the current downturn and prepare for future recovery.
In his final press conference of 2008, Mr Brown said he regretted the fact that the UK had not been “unaffected” by the global downturn.
But promising investment in key industries, Mr Brown said the UK must be “a beacon of hope and opportunity”.
He added that there had been “no promise of support” for Jaguar.
54. now he’s talking about x-factor. serious times
49. Clearly a lack of innocent people to fit up for murders at present.
From my good friend and trusted colleague “Old Holborn”
Ferrari have bucked the global economic crisis squeezing Formula One by agreeing a sponsorship deal with Indian carmaker Tata.
“For the first time an Indian brand will appear on the Ferrari,” president Luca di Montezemolo told Italian media. “It’s historic.”
A Ferrari spokesman confirmed a deal had been reached and said the details and duration would be announced shortly.
Tata and Ferrari’s parent company Fiat have a joint venture in the Indian state of Maharashtra to produce cars.
Right. Tata has so much money, they can sponsor Ferrari in F1
YET
Jaguar Land Rover, owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, wants a £1 billion bailout and Vauxhall, owned by General Motors, is also asking for financial aid.
Surely it is possible to sue for libel today re anything on a blog?
I don’t like the proposed move, but even if it was made easier to sue for libel, would it really make a massive difference?
@James A:
In order for a libel suit to prevail, one requirement is that a ‘reasonable person’ might believe the allegations.
This does not apply to David Icke.
I like Guido. Some of the comment threads get a little too much, so I - wait for it - close the window!!!! Yes that’s right,when something offends me I IGNORE IT. I don’t try to get the person put in prison. How weird am I? But for the most part I enjoy the cathartic bilious rantings, it makes me realise that there are others who hate the government as much as I do.
51. one of those cases where if you sue, people then might ask “do you have something to hide”
whereas if you just ignore the loon, then everyone just laughs it off as David icke being a nut and no one takes it seriously.
18.
To be honest, if this legislation just ends up as a way of silencing guido. Then all that would happen is guido would become a martyr, he’d get plenty of free publicity and his hit count would go up. It’s be the most inept attempt at censorship.
@58:
It’s possible to sue, that doesn’t mean you’ll win.
Alex Hilton is being sued at the moment for an anonymous comment on LabourHome. He should easily prevail, only he’s finding it difficult to meet court costs.
Case in point, I suppose.
re 45. I think that there’s a lot in what you say.
I endeavour to take down dubious content as soon as I find out about it. But PB operates 24/7 - my body doesn’t.
20. I never had a strong opinion until I saw the newsnight tape the Gabble posted up a few days ago. What a pathetic individual that man is.
27. 1. I do not have a blog.
2. I am not a Labourite!
66. Guido that is, not Gabble!
runnymede - The important things is to solve crimes. The result yeasterday means that many more crimes have been solved and the proportion of solved crimes improves. It is of course a shame that some of the crimes would have been committed but that is not the polices fault, their job is to clear up crimes that have been committed.
It is like getting rid of the village bobby because there are never any crimes committed on his patch.
As regards the thread, it’s hardly worth commenting on. It’s the policy of a government who cannot enforce its will and would not be able to do so on the internet, it may even make the situation worse as thousand upon thousand start to create merry hell as a response. It would be the same with ID cards if they blunder into that one, something we can bring down in next to no tine should they dare to try it.
On a more important issue, someone mentioned the BNP on the last thread and they haven’t been factored into the economic situation in the way they should be. They have the sort of policies which, if people knew about them, would attract those who want the sort of state led solutions that some seem to be clinging to labour for. They also have the benefit of not being seen to have screwed things up royally when the situation starts to become clearer in the minds of the population at large.
If the election is in 2010 the BNP will benefit greatly, if it’s now then less so.
The proposed Green Paper is typical of a Government and a Party whise first instinct is always to curtail freedom and impose regulations, rules and control. Hopefully there will be a change of Government and the proposals in the Green Paper will never become law.
O/T I have been looking through the Ladbrokes odds on individual constituencies and I note that in the case of both Bolton West and Winchester two of the three major parties are odds on. In Bolton West Conservative and Labour are both 6/5 on and in Winchester both the Conservative and Liberal Democrats are both 6/5 on. I appreciate that overall the oddswill be overround but to have both the main contenders odds on seems to me to be rather greedy on the part of the bookie.
66. Again - how many hits does your blog get ?
i also like the anger and vitriol in guido , and yes i also turn it off when it gets too much. but i love the fact that people get really steamed up - i think it scares the government - good.
45. Thanks Nick P - however free speech is free speech , trying to mould it into some definition of what Labour want it to be is demonstrative of Labour’s contempt for freedom, but we do get the message from Labour:
‘We are watching and if we don’t like what we read, be afraid, BE VERY AFRAID!’
It’s a shame but if this goes through then the blogosphere will become as redundant as the workforce in Britain is becoming under Labour.
A green paper is just a tentative step, opening up discussion on a subject. It could be years before any bill is proposed, if at all, and years more before the law is changed. Labour will probably be no longer in power by that time…
66. I think he does a job though that is welcome, and I would hope that if there was a change in Government then a left wing attack dog blog was there to expose idiots in power.
my biggest criticism of Guido is his cartoons are terrible. A million miles from Marf who gets better and better.
sorry ..would not have been committed…
A beacon of hope and opportunity… also reported on BBC site.
Well that should soon be reflected in global investors pouring their money back in to the currency safe haven of sterling…
Oh hang on a minute…
45. Sorry Nick, you can dress it up any way you like, but the end result if this went through would be to make people more fearful of posting on the internet.
It’s not that 99.99% of the posts they would have made would not have led to them being sued, it’s the fear and nagging dount that will make them fearful. That is what your gevernement does, censorship by fear.
To get back to my hobby-horse of the extrem p0rnography laws coming into effect next month. It’s not that there are going to be thousands of people brought to court. It’s not that if they ARE brought to caught that there will be a high percentage of prosecutions. It’s the fear factor that will stop people visting perfectly legal websites that will not fall under the jurisdiction of this nasty and vaguely defined piece of odious legislation. Fear of having their lives turned upside down and their marriages ruined and their jobs lost. Your next door neoighbour will see police removing things in black plastic bags and you will be tarred, whether guily or innocent. Even if you are prosecuted under this law and are found to be innocent, the mud will stick, and the general view of the public when they see someone charged under pornography laws is paedophile.
Censorship through fear is the tool of your government and these latest proposals are all to do with that and very little to do with giveing the ordinary individual the cost effective means of seeking legal redress.
@jsfl:
I’m a libertarian. But even I know that free speech doesn’t mean the freedom to say what you want, to and about whom you want, when you want, with no expectation of consequences.
Libel is based on an historic compromise between free expression and a person’s right not to have his good name and character unjustly ruined. Unfortunately, due the nature of the judicial system, that compromise has been biased immensely in favour of the wealthy.
What we see here is a modest proposal to try to address this imbalance.
17 “Of course, they can’t come out and say they are going to censor the internet, like China does.”
The infrastructure for censoring the internet like China does already exists in this country. The recent case of the Internet Watch Foundation adding a Wikipedia page to their block list exposed a lot of it. At the moment it’s only (supposed to be) aimed at child pr0n, but given that most of the ISPs involved lied to their customers by returning faked error messages rather than a ‘This has been censored’ message means that you can never be sure whether the reason you can’t see something online is a legitimate one, or censorship.
If every one who posted on here, or on other blogs, had to give their ID card number, that would save Mike a lot of bother tracing who had left the offensive comment.
33. I noticed that immediately and thought about reposting an erratum but thought I might give someone the sweet opportunity of bashing comprehensive education. I know how many on here enjoy it - and it is Christmas after all!
45 - If the insult is minor (as pretty well by definition it is on a blog), it would be better if the insultee grew a thicker skin. Strangling one of the most vibrant parts of the media is insane.
It is also questionable whether a further extension of the law of libel would be compatible with the right to free speech under the European Convention on Human Rights and set out in the Human Rights Act.
American society seems to get by just fine with the idea that libel can only be actionable if it is malicious. With the emergence of a law of privacy over the last few years in this country, we would do well to do the same.
150 years ago, George Eliot wrote: “Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker.” If more people adopted this approach, we would all have a healthier attitude to the media.
69. Icarus - I am baffled by that post.
45. Very sensible Nick P. It must be right that it should be the person who made the post and not the site owner who gets sued (as long as the site owner deletes the comment within reasonable time).
I would think if legislation was passed without sensible protection of site owners, it would not just affect PB.C. Presumably far larger operators like Facebook etc would be very severely impacted.
66 & 68 -It read fine the first time.
78. One beacon of hope is that the semi state controlled RBS is err… at an all time low price today - down 9% on the day.
Rejoice as another company enters the happy fellowship of state control.
It’s got all-party support anyhow, and covers a lot of angles, some enhancing freedom of speech…
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42679&c=1
New Thread please, Mike…
“If every one who posted on here, or on other blogs, had to give their ID card number, that would save Mike a lot of bother tracing who had left the offensive comment.”
Steps back. Wait’s for explosion…
76… yes I’m not advocating banning him nor even installing this law. I just think he is a take-my-ball-home type. Don’t like those much. Who cares if faceless bloggers choose to attack others without revealing their own identities? We would all be on dodgy ground were we to advocate such a ruling!
Err, waits not wait’s (horribly egregious use of apostrophe and lack of proofreading).
87.
79. Agreed. It’s an awful law. It’s open to so much interpretation and, even worse, the convictions will lead to people being put on the sex offenders’ register and being forced to register with the police. That would become even more terrifying if people get the right to find out if a child abuser lives in the area. That’s on top of the fact that it makes it illegal for 2 adults to photograph themselves doing something legal. Madness, pure madness.
RBS to be fully nationalised before Christmas - everyone bailing out of the shares it seems.
More on the proposals…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/18/mps-demand-reform-of-libel-laws
Still waiting for you to put up or shut up bobajob. Name, address and show some spine.
89
“New Thread please, Mike…”
not trying to stifle debate again are you Rod?
90. You joke, but it may well come.
“This is madness - I thought we lived in a country where freedom of speech is one of the underlining principles of our democracy”
Then, you thought wrong. I don’t actually think that the bulk of criticism should be directed at Labour in this instance, but rather, at our legal establishment. For many judges, shielding eminent people from embarassment is a principle that far outweighs freedom of expression. That’s why “libel tourism” (getting judgements in English courts against foreign publications) has become such an international embarassment for this country.
Our libel laws are already heavily weighted against the publisher. If libel fails, we now have a developing privacy law that tilts the playing field still further against the publisher.
While there may be some superifical appeal in saying, let’s extend the same protection to ordinary people that we extend towards the rich and powerful, the impact will be to stifle free expression further.
82 - And what a boring world we would live in. Except for the fear of being arrested for thought crime when someone stole or faked our ID details.
59, 64: thanks, Martin. Glad to hear blog hosts are already protected, in principle at least. But yes, the point that Alex Hilton is struggling to find the legal cost for a well-based defence is what I had in mind. I’d like to see it become easier for people to bring and resolve low-level disputes about alleged libel without any lawyers and minimal costs, while harder for people to get monstrous damages by employing a libel specialist.
And while we tend to think of political contexts, I should think the majority of cases are actually non-political. The idea that consulting on whether the current law is optimal is some sort of Stalinist plot is frankly OTT.
FAO Martin from last night. Toynbee Hall, good choice. I am mulling my choice…
runnymede I was merely trying to highlight that the police figures for percentage of serious crimes solved are now higher as a result allowing Napper to carry on. Daft but then targets produce odd results
Come on Cameron - tell us you’ll support freedom of speach….
98. Explain?
82, that sounds like a good idea. I mean there is no way anybody will be able to find the id card number of someone else and use it. A fantastic defence of the issuing of id cards.
105 “freedom of speach”
Or speech even (and the right to soft fruit too!)
This site would really benefit from a poof-reading facility….
Id - Faking an Id card or stealing our details. Dont worry, that would not be possible.
104. Aha I understand now, thanks. Indeed, I imagine some box-ticker in the Home Office is probably quite satisfied.
47, Milgram’s quite cool. But when it comes to probably unethical but fascinating psych experiments you cannot beat the Stanford prison experiment (htink that’s the right name for it).
You get X volunteers and half of them become guards and half prisoners in a mock up of jail. What happened was that the guards become tyrannical authoritarian psychos in a few days.
57, quite so. They should be told to bugger off.
109 am I missing some irony due to this being a written medium? Or are you seriously deluded enough to believe that your ID card and number will not be able to be cloned?
Nick - I am surprised that you are not aware that the House of Commons exists as a make-work scheme for lawyers - You will not get a scheme that would “resolve low-level disputes about alleged libel without any lawyers” though parliament. How many lawyers are there on the green benches compared to shop or car workers?
To answer the question - almost undoubtedly “Yes”. Perhaps Hopi Sen can enlighten us as he was listed as being present at Draper’s meeting this morning.
Going back to the previous thread can we please stop this nonsense about the impossibility of winter elections because of a low turnout. Looking at the turnout of elections since 1945 there is no correlation whatsoever between turnout and day of he year the election was held (r squared of 0.02). The 6 elections with the lowest turnout were held on
7th June, 5th Mat, 1st May, 18th Jun, 5th Jul (all summer time elections)
and the 6 elections with the highest turnout were held on
23rd Feb, 25th Oct, 28th Feb, 8th Oct, 9th Apr, 15th Oct (3 of those were winter time elections)
Don - Yes you are missing something ironic in my post. - Nick is about and he is in favour of ID cards. I was trying to get him to bite!
[108] - In true laissez-faire style, the site helps you to help yourself do that by not interfering in any way…
80. What we see here is a modest proposal to try to address this imbalance
From little acorns Martin…….
Slowly but surely Labour are tightening their stranglehold on this country to ensure they cannot be held to account. The list of legislation implemented and contemplated is endless. The doozy is the mooted executive control clause.
But if you can’t see it that’s up to you! For fear of being sued I will not speculate on why that is but what I do know is blogs like this will become increasingly arduous to use and tame and poor old Mike will eventually lose his livelihood. It won’t just be Guido or Dale that this will happen on, it will be everywhere where people take offence at each other’s views.
I only hope for your sake that you don’t write something innapropriate should this come in, although considering your tone it seems you’ve already got the message!
115 thanks for that , not always easy to pick up irony when it’s written, my apologies.
36. Accusing Guido of being from Slough is surely more offensive than anything I’ve read on his site
On a more serious note, the Labour Party may wish to make easier to deal with Guido et al, but that would surely be counter-productive, opening them up to claims of censorship and ironically promoting the said sites so more traffic goes their way.
109 It was ironic and I’m not Icarus
So what does the law say?
“Under the Defamation Act 1996, a website host will have a defence to a claimfor libel if he can show that (i) he was not the author, editor or publisher of the statement complained of, (ii) he took reasonable care in relation to its publication, and (iii) he did not know and had no reason to believe that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of the defamatory statement. The defence under the E-commerce Regulations is expressed in similar terms.
I don’t publish comments, Blogger does. The author of those comments does.
I see an important argument being that if someone sprays “Gordon is a cock” up your garage wall, you would remove it but you are not liable for libel merely by the fact you have a garage wall.
In fact, if you pre moderate your comments, you are in greater danger of being sued, because you are acting as an editor. Take note Mike
Labour , blogging, offensive..
http://www.prweek.com/uk/home/article/861732/labour-starts-work-blogging-offensive/
However, there was confusion when it emerged earlier this week that McMenam was behind a recently-created anti-Tory attack blog called toryparty.net and that he also runs another blog called hatemytory, on which you can express, on a range of one to ten, just how much you despise any Tory politician.
PRWeek understands that Draper did not sanction the two blogs and that he has had no involvement in either. Nevertheless members of Draper’s blogging council were unimpressed by the development. ‘It’s old-fashioned politics: not very transparent and not very positive,’ said one source who attended the meeting. Another Labour blogger described tit as ‘a bit embarrasing’
[114] - “..this nonsense about the impossibility of winter elections because of a low turnout.”
Mike had a thread about this wrt the Glenrothes result too. You could argue that an election held in the dark and miserable winter suits the dour Brown more than one during a sunny day in May.
Surely, for something to be libellous and do the victim damage, it has to be believable and cause the reader to alter the way they act towards the victim. The problem is that the blogosphere is so irresponsible that no-one takes it seriously, so how can you say it caused damage.
94. Actually, it isn’t quite as you suggest. Due to strenuous campaigning, the threat of people being put on the sex offenders register has been removed. A small victory, but of course the p0rnography = paedophile stigma still remains.
Also to correct another small point, it will be a defence to own an image which offends under this law if you can prove that you are one of the people in the image. Of course that then leads to the ludicrous situation that the image is legal to own by the person appearing in it, but the photographer who took the photo can go to jail.
re 82 Icarus stop giving Nick P ideas. Perhaps we will all need card readers into which we insert our ID card before we can use the internet at all.
102 & 113 - Yet the quality of laws passed since Nu-Liebour came to power has decreased in line with the increase in quantity. They produce bad legislation that very soon slips beyond what we were told was its actual purpose to be used in ways that are foreseen by many but disregarded in the rush to be seen to do something by those in power. Take RIPA law abuses by councils re rubbish bins or distances live from schools.
When you add up the number of times this has happened, you either have to conclude that it IS part of a Stalinist control plan or that your own government, Nick Palmer, are a bunch of hapless bufoons who need to learn how to draw up legislation properly.
With humble apologies to Icarus, I was trying to make a point at 120 about stealing ID’s.
I’m sure the R & D is well advanced on a device that does not allow access to the internet, until an ID card has been swiped. Not long now.
125, only for a while. Once we all have our foreheads tattooed with barcodes we’d simply need to scan our heads to prove our identity.
117. one of the first laws on that list of legislation was the freedom of information act
128 Even more apologies to Icarus as I hit the send button early. The following was from me EdP
‘With humble apologies to Icarus, I was trying to make a point at 120 about stealing ID’s.
I’m sure the R & D is well advanced on a device that does not allow access to the internet, until an ID card has been swiped. Not long now.’
re 112 yes irony missed totally I’m afraid.
84 antifrank - Good to see you back. Have you de-flounced?
120 - could you use the defence that you cannot afford to have the garage wall professionally cleaned as an excuse to keep the offensive (but many would say in this instance very true) slogan on the wall?
“Surely, for something to be libellous and do the victim damage, it has to be believable and cause the reader to alter the way they act towards the victim”
In fact, no. Contrary to what many people believe, stuff that is abusive can be defamatory, even if unbelievable, and even if there is no evidence that the victim has been harmed.
Mr Smithson to avoid further confusion please can you delete/amend posts 120, 128 & 131. I was trying to make a point, and ended up looking stupid. Posting and working do not mix
Apologies again to Icarus.
132 So, for example, David Icke, could certainly be sued successfully by those he labels lizard people. The fact is, they can’t be bothered to take him seriously.
126. Half the time I think they deliberately draw up laws loosely and make them as vague as possible in order to control by fear.
If you know exactly where the line is, you can stay on the right side of it. If the line is fuzzy, then most people will err on the side of caution and by using fear as a weapon of censorship, people will actually self-censor and go far further in censoring themselves than they actually need to, to comply with the law.
124. Well my tail’s between my legs now. Nevertheless, it’s a dreadful intrusion.
128. No it wasn’t! Given that ever since the Government has done much to subvert and obstruct it ever since it is hardly an example to bring up.
I think we should wait for the Green Paper before rushing to judgement. I agree libel law in the UK is too strict. But some counterpoints to the foaming:
1. It appears a key aim of the Green Paper will be to eliminate “libel tourism” which can only be a good thing for free speech.
2. Reducing costs for claimants also probably means reducing cost for defendants. At the moment, not only do poor claimants have little redress, but a rich claimant can essentially blackmail a poorer defendant by saying they risk crippling fees. This actually acts against bloggers.
3. Instinctively, a small claims track for libel feels right and is part of training down expectations of big payouts for claimants. Reputations aren’t worth nearly as much as some of the ludicrous payouts suggest. The local standing of a little known citizen really isn’t worth the hassle and expense of a libel trial by jury. But should they not have some recompense (maybe a few hundred pounds) faced with some vicious and unfounded rumour propagated by a malicious individual?
137. just pointing out the obvious flaw at the start of your argument
138. in many cases i am sure that money isn’t even wanted - but the ability to say “it was wrong of him to say that about me - and i have the certificate to prove it” sounds good
52 - thank you Shadsy
114, the r squared is only meaningful if you’re looking at a linear relationship, and that can instantly be ruled out for election date. A linear relationship would mean turnout increasing or decreasing consistently over time, day after day, year after year, which is absurd. If there’s a relationship it will clearly be periodic, so a straightforward linear regression analysis is meaningless. More sophistication is required.
The first step should probably be a multivariate analysis, using both day length and poll lead. See how much variation can be attributed to each factor, with what significance level. Hours of sunlight might be better than day length, but is harder to look up, and either way, you’ve got something where a linear relationship is not unreasonable.
You can also try the same analysis with local elections instead. While they have lower turnout overall, they should have a similar response to time of year, and they give you more data to work with.
136. Sorry Thomas, I wasn’t trying to show you up. I was just putting the record straight.
In fact I am pleased that you took such an interest in the legislation in the first place to know that the sex offenders register was originally proposed for offenders.
If its only at green paper stage its pretty unlikely that they could bring in the primary legislation before the next election. Please /od they’ll be out of power from then
re 132 reminds me of a funny story told by the vicar of my ex who shortly after he arrived at the new parish got up for morning prayer one morning to find “Mr X is a wanker” spray painted on the church wall. So outraged was he by this that whilst waiting for the cleaners to arrive he took a brush crossed out the offending “Mr” and amended it to “Fr”.
135
Laws were drawn up loosely - and there were fewer laws - so that people with half an ounce of common sense could implement them for the good of all.
Now common sense is forbidden.
132 - No, you’re wrong there Sean.
It’s very well established that gratuitous abuse isn’t libellous. It has to be an inaccurate statement of fact that lowers people in the minds of right thinking members of society generally. And there has to be damage of some kind to sustain damages.
Icke could probably be sued. His stuff is nonsense of course but it is meant to be believed and some people might believe it. But the damages wouldn’t be huge - nowhere near as large as if a serious broadcaster said something less unpleasant but more likely to be believed.
re 135 Penny the ne proposed prostitution law sums up this attitude perfectly. Afetr all with new Labour innocence is no defence.
146 - i.e. going back to the earlier example, “Gordon is a cock” just isn’t libellous. The literal meaning clearly isn’t intended, and the metaphorical meaning is mere gratuitous abuse and certainly not libellous.
If a poster on this site were to say something potentially libellous about another poster, would there really be a libel, as only Mike knows the true identity of the person the libel is aimed at.
My brain is starting to ache after typing that!
re 142 Fair enough. But how about the nice and simple - the 6 postwar elections with the lowest turnout were all held under BST, the 3 elections with the highest turnout were all held under GMT.
Well I told you so. Not here - first time here, hello all - but at CommentIsFree and Guido’s I’ve been banging on for years that this government would build on it’s already disgreaceful record re free speech by legislating to control the blogoshere - I expected something in the Queen’s speech and even had a bet on that… bastards are not only fascists, they also lost me my bet!
To control the streets, they need to control the media - in the mainstream that’s near 100%. The BBC are their poodle. But online, dissent reigns, so it’s the natural target.
As others have said, you can already sue for libel online. As with the extreme porn outrage, they’re plain lying in saying there are legal loopholes here - there is no need for additional legislation to prevent criminal libel online.
What they want to do is chill - limit debate, instill fear. That’s their chief weapon now - fear. What do you call a government whose chief weapon is fear? How do you respond to it?
Frank
139. The obvious ‘flaw’ was the way in which the FOI legislation was drafted that has allowed the Government to repeatedly vacillate and obfuscate often very successfully over it’s use.
148. You wouldn’t happen to work in the legal profession would you?
142. that in turn is a needless overcomplication. the r squared stuff is b.s. but his original final statement, showing high turnouts in winter and low ones in summer, is on the money.
the key question for many people is not really “how many hours of daylight are there” but “will it be dark before/after work when i might go and vote”. for which the season of the year is a reasonable substitute.
149 - Maybe we can create virtual libel whereby the e-feelings of your online self can be determined to have been hurt to a certain value of worthless e-money.
150. yep exactly. maybe there is a flip side - perhaps the elections where nothing was at stake and noone cares were held in summer in the hope of increasing turnout?
149 - You cannot generally libel somebody in a letter to them personally but there is an old case where it was foreseeable that the housekeeper would read it as indeed she did, and that was libel. Similarly an e-mail to a shared e-mail address or which will be read by a PA is probably subject to libel.
As our housekeeper, it would probably technically be libel if you said something untrue and damaging about me and Mike could identify me. Similarly, there may be people on this site who know me personally and know what handle I go by on the site. But damages are likely to be trivial (even derisory) as it is not clear what I suffer if Mike thinks the less of me.
152 - For my sins.
Mugabe taunts the world: “come and ‘ave a go if you think yer ‘ard enuff!”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7791574.stm
Chris A, that’s enough to establish that poll date isn’t the sole determinant of turnout, but that hypothesis wasn’t on the table anyway. factors such as the perceived closeness of the election and the general level of discontent with the government clearly matter.
The question is, all else being equal, do winter polls have significantly lower turnouts? If they do, that’s one of the factors that needs to be considered by a PM choosing an election date, not the only factor, but not something that can be ignored either. They have to weigh the advantage of waiting for a time that will give them the best turnout against the risk of countervailing factors cancelling out that advantage.
This sounds like the start of a typical Labour authoritarian bill. First get as much all party support as possible i.e useful idiots Gove and Lamb. Thereby try and quash any party political debate. Also note whiny Mcshane who has suddenly become a libertarian in the past year having been authoritarian for the rest of his career(maybe he has seen the light but I can’t see it). Next claim it is going to help the poor i.e give it a moral dimension. Next consultation (i.e we asked all interested parties honest gov) finally come out with something that looks nothing like it started out as or something that has lots of hidden clauses or something that allows it to extend itself. For the end result that web opposition becomes a thing of the past. See numerous examples over the last 11 years of this tactic being used over and over again.
157. Well your on to a loser defending it then because one thing is clear, such legislation will potentially give you guys more business (as much of Labour’s legislation does), much of it no doubt initially at least being spurious.
In fact just as we have ambulance-chasers we might even see the creation of a new phenomenon of blog-chasers?
So you defending it whether it is fair comment or not cannot escape perceptions of self-interest.
[155] - Even if that were the case, it still shows that there are more important factors that determine turnout [perceived importance of election, perceived closeness of the contest, etc] than whether it is dark, or indeed, wet.
Just compare the by-elections that elected Hilary Benn on 10 June 1999 [turnout was 19.9%, had been 54.7% at the 97GE] and Lindsay Roy on 6 November 2008 [turnout was 52.4%, had been 56.1% at the 05GE]
I find it hard to believe that the weather/day length is anywhere close to being a dominant factor, and one that should be considered when deciding upon a date for an election.
147. Seems to be a recurrent theme in legislation regarding sexual matters. It used to be for the prosecution to prove you are guilty. With the proposed law you refer to and parts of the one I was referring to earlier, the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence.
162. who are you arguing against? i don’t think anyone disagrees fundamentally
This story on here -
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/themole,,clampdown-on-libellous-blogs-but-bloggers-likely-to-get-lobby-passes,64462
You can also libel someone by mistake. Exactly 100 years ago, there was a famous case of someone writing a story about an unsavoury character named Artemus Jones.
Unfortunately, there just happened to be a barrister of the same name…
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9901E6D9113EE033A2575AC2A9679D946997D6CF
166, that be most unlucky.
I wonder, if I were to accuse Gordon Blair of hosting secret midnight events with Tony Brown, would I be entirely innocent of any libel?
God help the politician who puts their name to this bill. Uniting the entire blogosphere, left and right, in hatred and annoyance.
I wouldn’t sponsor that bill unless my financial, sexual, narcotic, familial and business histories were utterly spotless. To be prepared to act as such a conduit for personal scrutiny would be very brave indeed.
In fact, even as a politician with a truly faultless background, I would be very cautious. The blogosphere isn’t client media, and has less of a problem pubishing the embarassing details than the Dead Tree Press. They only keep in any semblance of order for fear of being prosecuted under our too-strict libel laws.
Under the doctrine of ‘might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb’, it makes little difference if your exclusive scandal is clearly true (and defensible under the old regime) because it just got easier to sue you for it. If the rules are made that tight, you will be suffocated eventually, so why not go out fighting? I wouldn’t risk the wrath of the suffocating blogosphere for all the money in the Exchequer. Your name would, in truth or falsehood, be linked to such depravity and scandal that it would be signing the death warrant on a political career.
Would the minister with a spotless history, and brave enough to endure this, please stand up?
167. You could be crossing the line there but I think if you took this approach!
I was told by someone that someone else met with another someone at sometime to discuss something
[162] - Consider, what is the absolute tops that it could increase turnout by? Five percentage points? ie 60% in the depths of winter compared to 65% in spring.
Even if you are sure this will include disproportionately more of your supporters than those of your opponent, how much is it going to affect the final percentages?
Suppose the 60% turnout would see a 35%-35% result, but the extra 5% would split 50%-20% in your favour [beyond the extreme of likelihood imo].
Party A = (.35*.6 + .2*.05) / .65 = 33.8%
Party B = (.35*.6 + .5*.05) / .65 = 36.2%
ie a swing of 1.2%
And to be honest that is based on heroic assumptions that would exaggerate the effect.
We’ve already seen vast swings in the opinion polling in response to political events, over the past few months/years, that dwarf such a trifling movement.
er 172 is for 170 not 167
“It could have serious consequences for PB as well. The ability for people to publish comments instantly is one of the things that makes this site. If everything had to be moderated before going out then PB could not exist in the form that we know at the moment.”
Not surprised to hear this, and its a sign of how powerful the blogsphere and sites like this have become.
And totally in keeping with the behaviour of this government, if you embarrass them they will resort to bullying and intimidating behaviour. They have done it to their own colleagues, members of the public who speak out and criticise them, and Damian Green was arrested for doing just that.
I see that Moses Brown is at it again.
Brown warns on volatile oil price
161 - Firstly, I’m not in private practice and not a libel lawyer so no direct interest.
Secondly, although you’re right to be healthily sceptical, this sort of argument can get rather absurd. Even if I was a senior defamation QC, expressing a view one way or another on this forum is hardly likely to affect my fees for the upcoming period. Also, by your approach, we wouldn’t consult structural engineers about building regulations for example. It gets a bit ridiculous if you say that nobody who knows anything about it gets to have their view taken seriously!
Re: jsfl December 19th, 2008 at 1:36 pm [not using the post number because they keep changing]
We’d have to invent some sort of codename system. Like cockney rhyming slang, but more civilised.
Moron Down, for example. Lonely Hair, Dick Hegg etc etc.
180 - Meant for 167 rather than 161.
This is puzzling. I thought this activity of ours went largely unnoticed in the eyes of Mirror and Sun readers and the millions who think what AussieMan Rupert Murdoch wants them to think. We’re just a fringe of obsessed nutters, are we not? I know most comments everywhere are very anti-Labour, even on the BBC, but this suggests that either that The Chosen One’s minions take this hostility serious [unnecessarily, probably] or that they’re worried that it’s affecting the way people might vote in the future.
If there is a crackdown, I plan an endless tirade of libellous comments directed at The Chosen One and would encourage everyone else to help out in this fashion.
181
Gravid Maccaroon?
174. I think if the ‘blogosphere’ attempted to manufacture a scandal about an elected MP. The backlash would be greater against the blogosphere than the MP.
179. Had to happen. Opec cutting supply clearly indicates they want the price to rise. It can be hardly worth their while producing it at the moment.
Energy prices will start rising in readiness for next winter’s futures. It happened last year it’ll happen again. Only question is when.
179, wasn’t Gordon running around claiming the kudos for telling the nasty Arabs to drop the price of oil not long ago, when in reality it was just the market doing what it continues to do now.
166. Good post that one.
171. Carrot and stick in evidence there - a clear attempt to extend control.
180. I agree, but absurd or not, it is a cheap and easy way to undermine an argument!
Hint for the future. If you don’t want to get caught in such a trap don’t be honest. Be like Labour, vacillate, prevaricate, obfuscate and when all else fails just lie!
It’s called politics!
;o)
186. The Saudis still make a profit at $10/bbl; their production costs are next to nothing. It is the Alberta oilsands producers who will be cancelling the Christmas party. Plus all of the talked about coal to liquids projects will be shelved, yet again.
186.I have been waiting over the last week for Brown to make his latest announcement on oil prices. When will a journalist call him on this cynical wee bit of spin?
181. hahahahaha
Dick!
hahahahahaha
179….i have 35 years experience of World commodity markets. i understand how they work. the Prime Minister does not. simple!
23 - the ‘Gordon Brown horse’ reference meant nothing at all to me, but googling those four words proved most interesting!
I even found a picture:
[link]
I can’t see it myself. I’ve always viewed Brown as completely as**ual, t*rned on only by neo-classical endongenous growth theory, or whatever it was, and not anything vaguely k!nky to the rest of us mortals.
191, probably when they remember we’re in recession, with a trillion pounds of debt and predicted to fall behind Italy by 2011, according to the government’s own optimistic forecasts.
Damn good thing ye olde interwebbe exists, much better than most established media.
[without asterisks etc]
I can’t see it myself. I’ve always viewed Brown as completely asexual, turned on only by neo-classical endongenous growth theory, or whatever it was, and not anything vaguely kinky to the rest of us mortals.
[Obviously the URL linking to the "picture" is already banned by this site. Or the government..]
196, how dare you?! He’s obviously perfectly normal in terms of that sort of thihng, as evidenced by his longstanding relationship with Female Colleague Number One.
These ZanuLieboar crooks will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. Bastards. And they call it “Promoting Content Standards”. Crooks.
195, It appears the times are underwhelmed with Gordons economy, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article5367651.ece
197…who is FCN One?
190. I don’t deny they will be making some money out of it but am I right in thinking they are making what a tenth of what they were making in the summer and will be making less than they have for many years? It may well still seem hardly worth it?
As you say it will put some energy businesses in trouble and stop R&D. This will in turn further secure the market for the major players.
It doesn’t change my view that prices will rise at some point in the near to medium future.
200, Madame Brown: the Supreme Wife, of course.
Here’s some fantastic Christmas present ideas handmade by a man called Gordon Brown.
http://tinyurl.com/3qgvxj
202…ah,the odd couple.
Ladbrokes have shortened their odds against a February ‘09 election to just 6/1, whilst their quote is 16/1 for each of the months March ‘09, April ‘09 and May ‘09.
191
I try to get my news from the BBC Radio (I prefer the pictures), just like most of the public.
Brown’s words are not broadcast in whole; everything is moderated through the media.
Spin is delivered as the ‘real deal’. If you want to see behind the curtain, you have to know the curtain is there and you have to want to look.
I note that SeanT has not posted on this thread. Do you think he read it and booked himself on the next flight to Rio?
;0)
193.”179….i have 35 years experience of World commodity markets. i understand how they work. the Prime Minister does not. simple!”
But he is not above using something he has no control over to make it sound like that he can move the markets - hence the Moses dig.
197
You have to admire his iron self-control as he shook hands with FC1 at the LabourP Conference.
Such restraint from ‘Heathcliffe’
201. Yes, indeed, their profits are only a tiny fraction of what they were a few months ago. The same is true for Russia, and their economy is really feeling the squeeze as a result.
As a major importer, the US ought to be benefitting.
209, a firm yet fair handshake is an entirely appropriate and normal way for a Supreme Leader to greet his Supreme Wife.
208…i did pick up on the Moses dig.
206.Just remember how dire Brown and Darling were when interviewed for the evening news during the Banking Crisis, it really was getting embarrassing. They started editing a longer interview into a couple of sound bite because Brown kept repeating them over and over.
Getting on with the job, making the tough decisions, getting on with the job, making the the tough decisions etc.
210. But given the Governments massive tax take from fuel it dilutes any benefits for the UK?
1 - I’m afraid that tag hasn’t been “barking” for a while now.
[214] - We don’t import as much as the US yet [I think].
203 - brilliant. Is that a spoof site, or for real?
Some highlights for me:
“How I make my horses
….
…This is because it is much easier to maneuver … and is the most difficult part that requires frequent turning to work on both sides.
…The lower extremities of the legs are also rough shaped before attaching as it is much easier than working around the other legs.
…The horse is now … left to dry.
…A thorough sanding is then done to ready the horse…
….The horse in now ready to have the real horsehair mane and tail fitted along with a real leather saddle and bridle and to be mounted to its swing stand or bow rocker. ……….Gord Brown”
To be fair, that last bit almost gave me the horn…
213…. Brown is going to make Britain a beacon of hope. this has shades of Palestine two thousand years ago.
ID cards, looser libel standards… you guys had better all just shut up now and steer clear of trouble.
All praise the Labour Party! Huzzah!
219…Deep Throat lives!!
214/216 - Don’t forget the massive tax take the government gets from the profits of BP, Shell, etc. When the oil price falls, this tax revenue falls alongside the lower VAT take from petrol sales.
Our petrol prices at the pump are much less volatile than those in the US, since a bif chunk of the price is a fixed tax not related to the price of oil. The US pay way less per gallon, but the percentage increase they had when the crude price rocketed was huge.
On oil: OPEC have said Brown must be ‘confused’ and should take another look at his own taxation policy before he comments [5Live].
218
He’s going to set light to the place.
“Take courage, Master Ridley,. Today we shall light such a fire in England as shall never be extinguished.”
I linked this article by John Redwood yesterday, but worth doing it again.
The next bubble - government borrowing
This is the kind of smoke and mirrors accounting that Brown does so well.
“I worried preamturely that the government’s wish to borrow so much would cause strains in the government debt market. Indeed, I underestimated their intelligence in this respect.
Forecasting a huge surge in government borrowing from the £43 billion for 2007-8 heralded in the Budget to around £120 billion, I discovered that the government now thinks the true figure is an eye watering £157 billion for this year, or more than 10% of National Income. (The government has of course got away with telling people half the story, with most journalists and commentators using the £78 billion figure they wanted them to believe). This could have been more than markets would willingly lend, creating new strains on our currency and long term interest rates.
Instead, the worry today is that despite the huge increase in government debt we will witness a further increase in the size of the government debt bubble. Government debt prices have been rising. How can this be?
The government has taken strong steps to ensure lots of buyers for their debt.
They are instructing the banks to buy lots of gilts (government debt) to “increase their liquidity”. Much of the money the government has put into the banks to “strengthen” them will be lent back to the government at a loss!
They preside over a pensions regulatory system which will force many more companies to increase their pension contributions, and will encourage Actuaries and other advisers to insist this new money is stashed in gilts.
Taking interest rates down to very low levels will undermine the returns of most savers in normal deposits. Some of them will be tempted into government debt through National Savings and related products.
Injecting huge quantities of money into the system through the Bank of England will also create large amounts of liquidity to let institutions buy government stocks. They are creating a huge money go round, where the Bank of England bloats its balance sheet, to create the cash to power the government debt bubble.
In the short term the government has designed a system which will allow it to borrow collosal sums at low rates of interest. At some point this will have to be unwound. Just as the property bubble burst and the commodity bubble burst, so one day the government debt bubble will burst. In the meantime, enjoy the show.”
the Gordon Brown Rocking Horse scandal / photo may or may not be true. No one knows. A serious blog such as this shouldnt really spend too much time discussing it. Fun to remind people of it though.
However, like other posters, more hints of censorship - Blears was outrageous the other month - and i will be first in the line to spread all manner of unpleasant comment about Gordon Brown around the web and so will an army of others who despise, loathe him with a passion.
220 Unfortunately, you posted that on the day that Deep Throat died!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7791146.stm
134 - Just passing through, I’m afraid. I didn’t leave in a flounce, but through pressure of work. Given the toll that the festive season had taken on me this morning, posting was a no more unproductive use of my time than any other. Season’s greetings to all.
225. it is pretty easy to tell if it is true or not: the “rumours” only seem to surface when other Con party spin lines aren’t working.
they are a last resort of the desperate.
Just before they knock on the door… one more time:
Nick Palmer is a RIDICULOUS BUCKET OF PUKE
Alright officer, I’ll come quietly.
224. Another excellent article from Redwood - he really has been one of the most incisive and articulate commentators on the Krunch. He does need to get rid of those photos from his site though; the ones in his garden look they came from a particularly tragic match.com entry.
227.”Season’s greetings to all.”
Good to see you posting antifrank, you have been missed.
228 bitter bitter….. no smoke without fire.
Furthermore, now the deaths of actor Sam Bottoms (’Apocalypse Now’)and Watergate’s ‘Deep Throat’ have been announced — I mean, what are the odds of 2 people with names like that both passing simultaneously?!
anecdote alert!
just went to buy a xmas present. at the counter the guy goes it should be 19.99 but cos of the vat cut it is now 19.78, my response was to go “woohoo” in a sarcastic way, his response was “yeah fat lot of good that’s done”
If I have any dutch friends in advertising I shall also report back on any conversations we have.
225
I suspect he is as equally loathed by other European leaders after his “lectures” to them.
229 — well said!
228. There are other far worse rumours.
226..i was aware that the great man had died.
Each day it just gets worse and worse doesn’t it? Browns a deranged fruitcake and he’s making his government and party act more and more loopy as well. How long must we be forced to tolerate this rabble?
what are the other, far worse rumours about Brown , then?
“If I have any dutch friends in advertising I shall also report back on any conversations we have.”
My New York friend knows nothing about VAT but says he wouldn’t pee on Palin if she were on fire. Does that help any, or is it just the kind of meaningless, anecdotal sniping so beloved by Roger?
The Church, The Germans - and now the sheiks..
Gordon Brown has been criticised by the head of Opec for warning about the danger of volatile oil prices and told that he is “confused” about the issue.
Abdalla Salem El-Badri of oil producers body Opec said the PM should focus more on cutting UK petrol taxes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7791985.stm
232, 237. the rocking horse thing would be considered unduly childish if it was screamed by a 5 year old after a particularly disappointing game of conkers in the playground.
for some reason it gets traction amongst Guido’s commenters during times of bad Con party polling (only). they are normally such a reasonable bunch.
MODERATED
I’d love to wheel in my Shaun Woodward gossip at this point, but I can’t. But then again who cares if they’re gonna ban us we might as well say what we like when we can so, here goes: apparently he was caugh-
No!
Oh but I really want to and it’s so deliciously outrageous and
NO.
But but bu-
NO!!
Oh, OK then.
237. oh don’t tell me - the rumours are so explosive that they can’t even be alluded to until some unspecified future date?
better to let the man carry on as PM and make scathing comments about his 1990s economic policy speeches.
243 ed - Isn’t it the case that the stories are more about the braying mob hounding a man who is seen as a loser (and therefore less prevalent now)? I bow to your detailed knowledge of Guido’s commenters, but I had the impression that rumours about Brown were much more prevalent during the ‘hiding in his holiday bunker’ period last August.
242. If the Saudi Government don’t do something to prop up the oil price, I’m sure they’ll face the wrath of their electorate at the next general election….
so he had a clinch with Mandelson?! saucy!
What about Shaun Woodward….
244..you are a literary genius.you should write a book.
244. I’m sure if you were to google “MI6 meacher gordon brown Stephen Dorril” you would find something.
Oh dear, it seems there is still something of a suicidal tendency among the government ranks.
226 - Are you sure your video machine didn’t just swallow it?
I need to get random slurs out of the way today
Sean T is a gerbil-licking cretin.
Just taking me chances before this attack on liberty comes in.
[242] - I found this article interesting:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/19/europe-globalrecession
Merkel admitted her government would be forced to borrow more money to meet “extraordinary challenges”.
Doesn’t sound a million miles away from what Brown is doing, and whatever you think about the wisdom of Brown’s actions, it does make the Germans look a bit silly to have a go at Brown for deficit spending… and then do something very similar [though they are reducing income tax not VAT].
250 found it. shocking!
James Forsyth at the Coffee House Blog on A question of priorities
“At his press conference this morning, Gordon Brown said that he would reply to David Cameron’s letter about meeting with the civil service in due course. It is an improvement on a spokesman’s answer last weekend that, “The prime minister is in Afghanistan, so it is not top of his list of priorities” But it is still ridiculous and petty that the Prime Minister won’t sign off on these meetings that play an important role in ensuring the smooth transfer of power when the governing party loses an election, something that we can surely all agree is in the national interest.
It says something about Brown’s priorities that he has the time to write to the mother of the X-Factor winner but not to the leader of the opposition about this important constitutional process.”
255. I note the words Hague and Coe also appear in the same article.
[250] - Er, blimey, you do find some odd things on t’internet.
I see the French government is predicting negative growth, in France, of -0.8% for Q4 2008.
That’s a vicious downturn - and they are meant to be one of the better-placed European economies. We are meant to be WORSE off than them.
What the hell are our quarterly growth figures gonna be like? -1%? 1.25%? And what if the downturn steepens in 2009, as many expect??
We could see -3% annual growth or even -4%. Like Ireland. That would be the worst year since the Second World War, I believe. Maybe longer.
254. Dur. There is a difference between being forced to borrow more as tax receipts are down to borrowing even more than that to fund a VAT stimulus.
Grade = E- (must do better)
248. You only have to think back on why Woodward defected to get some idea…
Who’s the biggest Ponzi fraudster - Madoff or Brown ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/comment/iancowie/3849604/The-biggest-Ponzi-scheme-Bernard-Madoffs-or-the-British-Governments.html
243 on previous thread (URW) - “Take the matter up with our host.He was prepared to Sell the SNP to me at 10.0 and I don’t think he was wrong.
How many Seats to you think the SNP will get at the next GE ?”
Mike actually went further than that and claimed the SNP could lose seats, and I can assure you one or two of us did take that up with him at the time. As Grandstander pointed out, the SNP have been polling in the 29-34% range in Scottish sub-samples over recent days, meaning they are still on course for their best ever general election result (previous best was 30% in October 1974, and the previous second-best was 22% in February 1974, 1992, and 1997).
So contrary to the narrative that has built up over recent weeks, the SNP’s support is still running at a historically very high level (the local by-elections last week provided further evidence of that). What is true however, is that Labour have recovered in Scotland in much the same way as they have recovered across the rest of the UK, and the fact that most seats in Scotland are Labour-held obviously means that will make it much harder for the SNP to make big gains, and so it’s not unreasonable to suppose that they might end up with 7-10 seats. What is completely unreasonable to suggest is that they might lose seats they won in 2005 - on a 17.66% share of the vote!
Also, nobody knows what effect the collapse of the Lib Dem vote could have in individual constituencies - it could well put unexpected constituencies like Aberdeen North and Argyll & Bute into play for the SNP.
259- Things are bad all over. It was shocking to see Toyota is expecting their first ever annual loss since they started reporting annual profit figures in MARCH 1941! So apparently B-29’s raining incendiary bombs on their factories couldn’t halt profitability but this economy can.
Big 3 have been bailed out by Bush : $18Bn loan..
MODERATED
[260] - You obviously didn’t read the article [U - ungraded]
Germany is borrowing more to fund a stimulus package [tax cuts and extra spending], not just because tax receipts are down.
I’m not arguing that this makes Brown look magnificent or anything, just that it makes the Germans look a little silly following the spat earlier.
264. Although during the war the army would have been buying everything Toyota could produce.
259. dare we even mention the possibility that other countries fare considerably worse than the UK, and that the Con party’s gleeful spin operation of the summer suggesting otherwise might in fact have been incorrect?
Benedict Brogan now reporting that Brown gives Tories access to Civil Service
“How’s this for action? I asked the Prime Minister during his press conference whether he had any plans to allow the Tories to approach the Civil Service from January 1st. David Cameron submitted a formal request a while back, but as Gus O’Donnell confirmed a few days ago, he has been waiting for a reply. Mr Brown’s response, like much of his press conference, was uninformative: “I’ll be replying in due course. I can’t remember when that letter arrived.”
Barely two hours later and the fax machine in Mr Cameron’s office has whirred out a letter from the Prime Minister confirming that yes indeed, those meetings can go ahead as agreed by Tony Blair in 2006. So from January 1st, Conservative front benchers will be free to open talks with senior officials about implementing the Conservative manifesto in 2010, assuming it ever comes to that.”
267- That’s true. Maybe it will take World War III to propel us all back to profitability and prosperity again.
267. Merkel said in a newspaper interview that any extra spending would be destined for infrastructure projects
Is the VAT cut and “infrastructure project” ??
Big 3 have been bailed out by Bush : $18Bn
oh dear i was moderated. sorry for being a troublemaker!
266. Not entirely - the Germans’ real point was that Brown was planning to make an already huge budget deficit even bigger, risking financial stability.
Germany, by contrast is starting from a position of budget balance and can afford to allow borrowing to expand with little risk of negative side effects.
To give you a flavour of how the market views this, you now have to pay 120 basis points to protect against UK government debt, up from 20 basis points a couple of months ago. German default spreads are half this level, around 60 basis points.
[271] - ..it would also comprise lower income tax bands..
So it also includes income tax cuts. Fess up, you made a mistake. It is a different tax to VAT, as I said originally, but it is clearly a fiscal stimulus and a change in German policy.
273. Me too, James. lol. Shall we stand in the naughty corner together? I’ll swap my favourite ballbearing for your catapult.
269- All hail Prime Minister Brown! May his wisdom and magnanimity ever grace us! [see, the libel and ID card rules need not stop one from participating on PB]
276. Income tax cuts are an incentive to work - VAT cuts are an incentive to spend/borrow - which one is “crass” at this point in time ?
ironic but perhaps inevitable really in a thread about censorship!
274. so until 2 months ago, germany had treble the risk premium? presumably they had a big trade deficit back then, and we had a gloriously balanced budget?
[274] - I agree that the German economy and public finances look in better shape than our own. That isn’t the point I was making though.
I did think that the Germans were arguing against making too large a fiscal stimulus. And now they have massively increased the size of their fiscal stimulus. Forgive me, but I think it looks as though German policy has changed.
256 He not only managed to find time to write to the winner’s mum but to all the other finalists… and somehow he said managed to watch a bit of the final on Saturday (amazing as he was in New Delhi having just flown in from Afghanistan - did he have someone tape it and transmit it to HM High Commission?).
But signing off a standard request for access means playing politics again…more important things to do.
[278] - Oh, I agree, I would much prefer a cut in income tax, but that wasn’t the point I was making.
282. Helloooo ! They were arguing against too much borrowing relative to our GDP - which is what we are doing.
Jeez !
[280] - No… presumably the latest phase of the crunch has increased the risk premium for all government bonds, and Germany’s were previously lower than 60.
280 Err no Ed - Germany’s risk premium has gone up too, but by less.
[284] - Fair enough, why did you go on about all the other rubbish then?
228. Er - welcome to PB
288. Tim do you also post on the cricket 24-7 forum ?
282.Playing politics with the X factor one week, and our troops the next week…
Gordon likes to be in the headlines rather than on the spot being scrutinised one to one. He was always more insecure, and therefore more of a media tart in that way than Blair ever was.
290. “Gordon likes to be in the headlines rather than on the spot being scrutinised one to one. He was always more insecure, and therefore more of a media tart in that way than Blair ever was.”
To be fair, he’s yet to appear in a “do I look bovvered” sketch with Catherine Tate.
Could one of the posters on here versed in labour speak explain what this quote from GB’s press conference is supposed to mean.”We face problems, many of which we have not control over,” he said. “We are placed perhaps better than we were in the past to face problems we have no control over.”
X factor - Gordon Brown is ridiculous. Maybe he’ll enter with Mandy next year and they’ll sing a duet?
Is it time to start drinking yet?
nearly . Black Friday, the ambulance crews call it, because of all the smashed people wandering around, drinking themselves to death in the depression that is Brown’s Britain. Cheers!
294 - I need a drink as a matter of some urgency
293. Under Pressure by Queen?
Covers all the bases there…
re 294. Provided you are over the age of 18 Sean and can prove it.
293. Perhaps a little Barry Manilow number:
oh Mandy
Well, you came and you gave without takin’
But I sent you away, oh Mandy
Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shakin’
And I need you today
293. Well blow me down, that would be something.
Berg and Co. are not giving up..
Full page adverts in the Chicagao Tribune and Washington Times
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R-l1iejogZw/STTPTiwOS9I/AAAAAAAABqI/BaaRCGMxZdM/s1600-h/We+The+People+Obama+Letter+Ad.bmp
Fresh injunctions..
http://www.americasright.com/2008/12/berg-to-file-emergency-injunction-today.html
268. You can mention the possibility that the earth is flat but I doubt many other than the rest of your motley crew will believe you!
292.
”We face problems, many of which we have not control over,” = “We’re f*cked.”
“We are placed perhaps better than we were in the past to face problems we have no control over.” = “Despite being f*cked, we think the polls are moving our way.”
excellent!
294&296. Its Christmas!
297- Surely “I want to Break Free”? He and other Labour ministers could recreate the music video.
yes, Gordon Brown in a leather miniskirt. A vision of hell if ever there was one…..
Meanwhile more evidence of Labour’s dodgy dealings have come to light:
http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2441&pg=15&cat=58
292 - “it’s all someone else’s fault and while I’m here I’ll do a bit more Tory-bashing”
293. What will they sing ‘ We’re Going Down with Gordon Brown?’
303. I always thought the purpose of electing a Government was to wield power on behalf of the people and not stand around wittering ‘We’re powerless, We’re powerless’.
For those who don’t know ‘Going Down with Gordon Brown’
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ilgJq5bEZYQ
It think it needs an update.
291.Blair was funny, but yet again it showed how relaxed he was in any situation. He would do the difficult interviews as we saw in 2005.
Brown is not only hopeless in that area, he cannot do the off script political jousting that so many good politicians can.
He knows this, and it does feed into his insecurity, a media tart of the first order.
Even when he was hiding in the No11 bunker over the years, he was always dripping stuff into the media in this way.
you forgot the “its all America’s fault” bit
Brown ‘confused’ over oil prices
C’mon bankers, start pointing out the Banking bail out con.
i think one of the problems Brown has when he blames everyone else is he that he thinks they’re not listening. They are listening, as can be seen by the terse reaction from Opec ,the Germans, Americans, etc to all the witterings about how its all everyone else’s fault . Our list of friends grows shorter and shorter, which is very worrying in this climate.
We’re nearly at the end now. What a year. Crivvens. I intend to start drinking in about 2 hours, and I’m not gonna stop until I touch down in Cape Town on January 1st.
Go chew on that, Mister “Gordon” Brown. You can take away our money and our jobs and our hopes and our sturdy womenfolk, you can destroy our country and our careers and even our beloved currency, but you can never - never - NEVER - take away our advanced liver disease.
Maybe I’ve started drinking already, and just haven’t noticed.
392.”Could one of the posters on here versed in labour speak explain what this quote from GB’s press conference is supposed to mean.”We face problems, many of which we have not control over,” he said. “We are placed perhaps better than we were in the past to face problems we have no control over.””
To keep up the Labour speak, “A weak currency is the sign of a weak economy, which is the sign of a weak government”
311. Only in theory. In practice ‘Government’ is a system of indoor relief for sad inadequates who cling to outdated political dicta, never learn from experience, have no concept of real life but nevertheless consider themselves ideally situated to tell everyone else how to live theirs. They are unemployable in any other function.
It is nearly time to put down the pens for another year and start drinking, indeed. Merry Drinkmas!
What if they make it retrospective legislation? Could open up some interesting opportunities for Labour to settle scores?
I don’t agree with the internet blogs being clamped down on, the responsible blogs usually dellete liable stuff pretty quickly and even those cited have no credibility and often only have juicy tittle-tattle only in the comments sections anyway. Does anybody believe anything in the Guido comments section! The common feature in that site is F*cking, Cnut, B@st@rd and w@nking!
290. Brown has done both this week Writing to the X factor winner and shamelessly using deployed troops as a picture opportunity to ensure his economic incompetence is not exposed!
319. ‘Indoor relief’ - that seems an appropriate expression somehow…
Red Meteor at 263.Here is the brief history.
Once upon a time the SNP were flying high and winning a by-election they had no right to win and it was starting to look as though Labour couldn’t buy a vote let alone a Seat.
At that same time I was utterly scathing of anyone Buying the major Parties because the figures just didn’t scan at a time when the SNP were being bought at 15 Seats and higher.
The dip from 15.8 to 10.0 is what I called ‘a sharp decline’.
I think that now it is not such a crime to Buy the major Party of your choice and particularly if closing off a messy position.
319. Indeed no arguments from me regarding the reality. I have pondered whether there is any corrolary between the closing of mental institutions in this country and the lunatics taking over the asylum that is our Parliament?
Iain Dale asks Will Derek Draper Be “Labour’s Iain Dale”?
“My invite to Derek Draper’s blogging breakfast seems to have got lost in the post. Guido and Harry Phibbs have all the details so I won’t go into inordinate detail. But one thing struck me about the whole event.
Doesn’t it just illustrate the differences between the two philosophies that Labour seems to think it has to coordinate its blogging activities in a collectivist, centralised manner, whereas the Conservatives are happy for right of centre bloggers to plough their own furroughs? And which side has been more successful? I rest my case.”
Is there going to be a pb.com awards this year?
FWIW here are my top posters Tory and Leftie this year,
Tory
1. Morris Dancer. We share a love of Strictly and F1.
2. Martin Coxall - Got off to a bad start when he accused me of being an astroturfer, but a really nice chap and a decent poster.
3.. Sean T. A deranged hooligan. But funny.
4.. Jimbo Jones. Nice chap - good poster.
5. Sally C. The height of blogging glamour. I sometimes wish Sally would whisk me away from all of this.
Leftie
1. Tyson. The oldest and still the best.
2. Roger. Nice to have a posh boy on the side of equality.
3. Gabble. Hard and loud. And needed.
4. Ed. Often disagree but an informed voice.
5. Darmstadium. Bring him back.
Excellent piece from Anthony Wells on UK Polling Report. Punters take note it may influence you’re thinking.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1764
312 Glad you posted that video - I thought you were referring in post 310 to a Frank Zappa song I recalled which had a hero called Brown (and is very explicit but is fun) but checking online I see that’s Going Down with Bobby Brown (there are a couple of verses that fit but the rest obviously has no relationship to our PM, none at all - see censors , no libel - except for Guido’s more excitable posters).
328. What I can’t get over is how prophetic it is the Gordon song is!
Don’t know the Zappa stuff. I’ve only ever listended to the 1st Mothers Album and then only once.
;o)
327
Just finished reading it.
Not pleasant message for Brown.
324. It’s an attractive proposition, though there is a compelling alternative - backed, I would submit, by evidence available from well before care in the community became an official policy. Politicians as a class have been worse than useless for decades. No matter what they do the situation never improves and often gets worse.
Therefore - there is an as yet unrecognised psychological disorder that causes the habitually deluded to form associations that re-inforce these delusions and worse, allows them to impose their delusions onto an unprotected public merely to boost their own already over-inflated self-esteem. It’s probably a variant of Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy.
Sorry for being a SeanT, but the Euro was at 1.47 at one point yesterday against the dollar. It is now around 1.385.
330. Indeed and I think Anthony Wells has written it in a very objective manner.
After reading the UK Polling report which pretty much converges with my opinion:
LABOUR ARE DOOMED AT THE NEXT ELECTION! :SMILE:
327.Yes, agreed jsfl. Excellent piece and underlines the need from Browns point of view, to go fo an early election.
335. BUT WILL HE?
I doubt it!
323. If you want an example of the SNP winning a by-election in a Labour heartland seat they had ‘no right to win’, then look no further than their victory on a 15% swing in the Kilbirnie and Beith ward just eight days ago.
But if you are solely talking about betting markets, the dip in the SNP’s figures is rational, even though the party is currently polling at very high levels. As I pointed out, Labour’s recovery will make it harder for the SNP to make major gains. But - and it’s a big but - if the figure falls much lower than 10, that will no longer be rational, and it will probably be based on the false narrative of “SNP decline” that’s been generated over the last few weeks. As I’ve observed before, I strongly suspect this narrative has been driven by people who don’t want to believe in Labour’s recovery across the UK, and are desperately looking for reasons why it might not be all it appears (ie. the notion that it might be more concentrated in Scotland than elsewhere).
If, as now seems almost inevitable, the SNP makes significant progress from their 17.7% share of the vote at the last election, they should obviously hold all six seats they won in 2005, and will also take Ochil and South Perthshire. So a minimun of seven. Dundee West looks like a 50/50 chance, because it’s a seat that on a uniform swing the SNP could still gain while being several points behind Labour nationally. Then there’s a whole string of seats in which the SNP have a genuine chance because of the likely collapse of the Lib Dem vote - I mentioned a couple earlier. So I for one still think it’s perfectly possible that the SNP will reach double figures.
And one other point - if Labour’s fortunes are reversed across the UK, and they once again find themselves fifteen or twenty points down, that will feed through in Scotland, and it won’t then be merely possible the SNP will make it into double figures - it will be highly probable. That too needs to be factored into the calculation.
327 - Yes, Anthony Wells has it absolutely spot-on, IMO.
One thing jumped out the page at me:
asked about the current economic situation 76% think it is bad, 15% normal and 9% good – this has been on a steady downwards trend since 2007. When TNS ask how people think the economy will be in 6 months time 45% think it will be worse, 30% the same, 22% better - significantly up from a few months previously. In other words, a majority of people now think we’ve hit the bottom and a significant minority of them think we’ll be on the up in 6 months time. [He goes on to summarise broadly similar data from other pollsters.]
Oh dear me. An awful lot of people are still deluded about this.
327.Fascinating article from Anthony Wells.
327. Splendid article by Anthony - the graph is intriguing.
335 Agree - excellent piece but note sentiment has started downward again. That seems to tie in with latest polls which while showing Conservatives down, don’t show any real advance for Labour. If sentiment falls off a cliff post Christmas then an early election could catch Brown out. Does he really want to lose his majority 17 months early?
337.”Then there’s a whole string of seats in which the SNP have a genuine chance because of the likely collapse of the Lib Dem vote - I mentioned a couple earlier. So I for one still think it’s perfectly possible that the SNP will reach double figures.”
Are you assuming that previous Libdem voters will go for the SNP in a Westminster GE where the fight is between Labour and the Conservatives?
326. very kind old boy, though I am surprised you omitted the intensely likeable Martin Day from you list.
I am not sure if Gabble’s description as ‘needed’ is one that everyone would subscribe to but each to their own!
Presumably, if there is going to be a YouGov poll, it will be released tonight for tomorrow’s Telegraph?
331. Indeed, certainly I think you have a point. Whilst I have no doubt that the disorder you have indentified has existed for a very long time, I believe the event I described has uncovered a new strain of the disorder.
Back in the day, politicians seemed to be very good at concealing the disorder by fine oratory and well-thought through argument. However, these days all that as gone and the apparent symptoms of this disorder are now blatantly obvious.
That said, of course this new phenomenon could all be due to the recently found desire for transparency?
Conservatives given access to Civil Service from 1st January
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/12/brown-gives-tor.html
343. Yes I do have a soft sport for Martin Day - even though it is deeply unfashionable to do so!
342. Christina, if those voters interpreted a general election in the way you’d dearly love them to - as solely a fight between Labour and the Conservatives - they would never have voted Lib Dem in 2005 in the first place.
I think it’s likely former Lib Dem voters will break more toward the SNP than towards Labour, yes. There’s also quite a lot of historical evidence that the SNP poll well when the Lib Dems poll poorly, and vice versa. For instance, in the two 1974 elections the Liberals failed to make the breakthrough in Scotland they were making elsewhere, and the SNP reaped the reward. In the three elections between 1979 and 1987, the SNP collapsed and the Liberals/Alliance polled strongly. In 1992, the fortunes were reversed again, while in 2005 the SNP did much worse than expected as the Lib Dems had their best result in ages. So it does appear that the two parties are in a tug-of-war for the same voters.
O/T - More entertainment in the Minnesota saga:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
I think we are seeing the reductio ad absurdum of governance by court-order.
@326:
Thanks for your vote, Bobajob!
You’d be in my list too, along with SeanT and Gabble and ukpaul and Casino Royale. What makes you think Darmstadtium went away, by the way?
He and Major William Martin are clearly the same person.
332. You should never apologise for “being a SeanT”. After all, I don’t.
@343:
Martin Day is in a ’special’ list.
Way to cry wolf Mike, seriously, you seem to be completely misinterpreting what’s going on. An adjournment debate was held in the Hall this week, with cross party support for consultation on reform of the libel and defamation law, paying specific interest in the effect it has on the internet.
Padraig from Index on Censorship was there, and wrote it up for LC:
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/12/17/libel-progress-at-commons/
If you publish something that’s defamatory, you’re already subject to libel proceedings, making it a small claims court issue would reduce the costs to you, not increase them.
In addition, by allowing free comment without moderation you give yourself an absolute defence under law, as long as you remove defamatory remarks in comments when informed—the poster would naturally still be liable for slander as per Eady’s recent judgement.
If you pre-moderate, then you become liable because you’re actively publishing them.
We need reform to the libel laws as bloggers, and the Govt has said it will implement a full consultation. Otherwise we can expect to see many many repeats of the Usmanov affair and similar.
This sort of inflammatory ill judged post makes it less likely we’ll get the reforms we need. Serioiusly, you’re one of the top blogs online, the consultation would be happy to work with you if you got in touch, as would Index on Censorship and similar (I’ve pointed them here already as it’s much more their field than mine).
341. In the light of Anthony’s piece it’s worth examining the entrails of the GFfK confidence survey which came out today, and is a little more up to date.
The forward looking (next 12 months) question on household finances troughed at -18 in July, recovering to -10 by November. In December it remained at -10.
The forward looking (next 12 months) question on the general economy troughed at -52 in July, recovering to -36 in November. In December it slid back to -41.
These findings would suggest Brown’s bounce could well have peaked. The January survey data will be interesting.
@351:
SeanT: will you please come to the next PBC party, so you can tell me the Sean Woodward story?
It is your duty.
335. Indeed, from a logical perspective it would seem his best chance. Cut and Run.
However, I just don’t believe he will. I don’t think his ego will allow him to. He will want to vindicate himself and the big risk of going early is if the opposition parties can make accusations that Brown’s policies so far have achieved nothing (therefore he is failing) and he’s called an election to save his neck that stick. He won’t take the risk of having his economic prowess destroyed by an election defeat (much as Heath’s position was undermined when he went to the country over the Miners).
From the graph given that people’s hope already seems to be waning and there will now be nearly a month before anything else will happen. He may well have lost his chance in anycase. Such things are all in the timing and I get the feeling this one hasn’t quite lined up.
Incidentally, does anyone know what is the shortest election campaign the PM can set?
I notice that Alex Hilton has been mentioned in dispatches. It wasn’t a comment on his blog that has got him in hot water, but rather a guest post - a completely different kettle of fish. Being as Alex works on the premise that all Tories are evil and has in the past posted falsehoods (Thatcher is dead!), private information (the mobile number of a former Labour PPC who defected to the Tories) and some generally mean-spirited stuff against minor Tories (I’m thinking of my friend Arleen), I think he should stick up for himself.
354- Are polls reliable when taken over Christmas?
355. I promise I’ll come to the party, if I’m in the country and parenthood permits - but the Shaun Woodward story is probably TOO NAUGHTY TO BE EVEN JUST SPOKEN ABOUT.
Heh.
356. 17 days I believe.
352. is that the same list of people to take underground in case of nuclear attack so that we can repopulate the earth with people of appropriate moral fibre
345. Or desperation. There’s a bigger group of the deluded over in Brussels - and they want to be sole arbiters of which daft ideas will be foisted on to the public in future. Naturally, this potential displacement causes distress to the home-grown lot, resulting in frantic though pointless activity in a attempt to deny the new paradigm.
There’s a parallel in biology - when members of the same species compete but daren’t fight, they take out their frustrations on the scenery instead. It’s called displacement activity. Unfortunately, in this instance you, me and every other poor b*gger are the scenery.
@357:
It may, or may not, be a different kettle of fish, depending on whether Hilton ‘published’ the post.
He did, however, remove the post when asked and issued an apology. Possibly or possibly not promptly. The point is, however, he really can’t afford to defend himself.
The proposed reforms would make it easier and cheaper for bloggers like Hilton and Mike to defend themselves in such cases, and this is a Good Thing.
(Also: Alex Hilton is good friends with some Tories I know. Odd behaviour from somebody who starts from the assumption that all Tories are evil, wouldn’t you say?)
358. There’s some theoretical ideas about the makeup of people at home being different, but I don’t think there’s any solid evidnce that they aren’t.
@361:
I’m not f*cking Martin Day even if it is for the good of the species.
@359:
What about miming it?
366. I’d need nude extras.
365. rofl
Stuff like this should never be censored:-
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d4FtPWTTOOk
Not as good however as the Mexican Council chamber punch-up, which unfortunately I can’t find on YouTube.
355- Why not just post it on a newsgroup?
You know, the dismissal of lib dems by the labour party and posters here isn’t exactly a good tactic.
As for calling us the liberal party, well…
It’s as though they aren’t interested in support after the next election.
Now Martin Coxall upthread (350) seems to be actively doing the groundwork for coalition!
As for posters, Jack W’s very quiet at the moment but kudos to teh old bugger for nearly always beating me to the latest US polls. Special mention should also go to all US posters this year too (and there are quite a few so I won’t make the mistake of trying to mention them all).
363 - (Also: Alex Hilton is good friends with some Tories I know. Odd behaviour from somebody who starts from the assumption that all Tories are evil, wouldn’t you say?)
I know Tories who have used him as a conduit for Tory gossip, but none that would call him a friend - Alex is on record as saying this (on 18 Doughty Street), but it’s quite possible this is public posturing and/or heat of the argument bilge - both of which he excels at.
MINNESOTA RECOUNT
Franken currently leads official count by +153 and growing (because CB is cons
note that:
>>>many challenges have been dropped, but this not yet reflected in official count
>>>MN Supreme Court ruled against Coleman effort to ban counting of absentees improperly rejected in original count
>>>Minneapolis Star Tribune projection of final result: +79 for Franken
For streaming screaming live video of thrilling proceedings of MN State Canvassing Board:
http://www.startribune.com/video/?ls1=1&elr=KArks8c7PaP3E77K_3c::D3aDhUxWoW_oD:EaDUiacyKUU
For precise (if not instantly updated) accounting of ballots:
http://senaterecount.startribune.com/ballots/
369- Jesus tapdancing christ, what is that woman on???????
@371:
Oi, I just like your posts that’s all.
I don’t think we’re ready to start picking out curtains together just yet.
362. Indeed. Actually what you describes sounds as if it has considerable similarities to this (particularly those with the Brussels variation)identified condition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
369. The BBC have the South Korean parliament fight.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7789552.stm
348.”342. Christina, if those voters interpreted a general election in the way you’d dearly love them to - as solely a fight between Labour and the Conservatives - they would never have voted Lib Dem in 2005 in the first place.”
No Red Meteor, its you that is assuming that they will follow the path you would dearly love them too. And I am not in the least bit surprised by the Libdem vote in 2005. As I have said numerous times on here before, Howard’s core vote campaign appealed to the Tory heartlands down South while being a turn off elsewhere.
And I wouldn’t dismiss the fact that this is an important Westminster GE in which power could shift from one major party to another. That will be a major factor, as will higher turnout IMHO.
Personally, I think that if the Libdims continue to do badly in Scotland at a GE, then all of the other three parties will benefit. And remember, that Tory vote when somewhere back in the 90’s, and in my area that was mainly to the Libdems. And before you get excited, I am not assuming that it will automatically return to the Tories.
As I said, their vote will splinter among all the other parties, and that will mean a few surprise gains, losses and holds for all the parties. But the SNP will have to accept that they will not be the main focus of this election, and it will make it harder for them.
377. And others.
@372:
Hey, I’m not gonna criticize anyone for heat-of-the-argument bilge. My sophistry knows no bounds when in the vice-like grip of self-righteous indignation.
373. “For streaming screaming live video of thrilling proceedings of MN State Canvassing Board:”
And I thought baseball was dull. Still, if Coleman loses, it’ll be well worth all the tedium.
378.”Libdims” was a typing error rather than a intended insult.
Oh yes. That looks to be pretty close. Apt, too. An awful lot of them have the intelligence of a pot-plant.
And now for something completely different
Thanks Gordon
Telegraph: Sterling slide is worst since 1931
The fall is sharper than the devaluations in 1992, after leaving the Exchange Rate Mechanism, 1976, when the International Monetary Fund was forced to intervene, and 1949, when a host of countries slumped against the dollar. The devaluation is only matched by the moment in 1931 when, under Ramsay MacDonald, the UK was forced to abandon the gold standard, plunging by more than 24pc against the dollar.
383. Indeed. LOL!
378 Christina D/Mike
Conventional wisdom is that Lib Dems if voting for other parties split 2-1 in favour of Labour. It just occurred to me and bearing in mind this ghstly authoritarian Govt, that this might change come a GE. If you were a Lib Dem, would you want to vote for yet more authoritarianism?? I think not.
Matt that is some video. It defies logic that she got elected in the first place.
355. Shaun Woodward is an alien lizard who throws poo at Conservatives - but only when nobody else is looking and he’s out of sight of CCTV cameras.
If the horrid government tries to gag the blogosphere with libel laws, we should just fling dung at them until they promise not to. Then they might learn to be reasonable and open-minded like the rest of us normal people.
378. “But the SNP will have to accept that they will not be the main focus of this election, and it will make it harder for them.”
That’s always the case in a Westminster election, and that’s why the SNP tend to poll a few points lower in voting intention for Westminster than for Holyrood. In spite of that, the polls are still showing that the SNP are on course for at least their second-best ever performance in a Westminster election, and quite possibly the best ever.
The fact that historically the fortunes of the Lib Dems and SNP are linked is not wishful thinking on my part - it’s been repeatedly commented on by academics down the years. When the SNP jumped from 14% to 22% in 1992, where do you think those votes were coming from? For the most part, not from Labour, as they were only down three points. Certainly not from the Tories, as they were up two. I’ll give you a clue - the Lib Dems fell from 19% to 13%. Would it be tactless of me to suggest that if this board had existed in 1992, you’d have been suggesting that the former Alliance voters would not go to the SNP, since everyone knew the election was all about the close battle for power between Labour and the Tories?
“Personally, I think that if the Libdims continue to do badly in Scotland at a GE, then all of the other three parties will benefit.”
In the literal sense that’s obviously true, but are you seriously suggesting former Lib Dem voters in crucial seats like Aberdeen North will not break more towards the SNP than towards Labour? The evidence that they will is there for all to see in the preference patterns of Lib Dem voters in the STV local elections.
371.”As for posters, Jack W’s very quiet at the moment but kudos to teh old bugger for nearly always beating me to the latest US polls.”
Yes very quiet indeed now the American elections are over, he seems to be continuing his self imposed silence on British politics.
369, 387. What does it actually show? I got bored after 10 seconds (and the South Korean parliament having a fight with fire-extinguishers was much more exciting).
Minnesota Recount
now Franken +175 over Coleman, as Day 4 of MN State Canvassing Board review of ballots in mandatory hand recount of US Senate race continues.
yougov in the telegraph tomorrow have 7 point tory lead… looks like Brown’s bounce has reached its limit
369. That bit at 3:29, words fail me!!!
327 First class article.
391 State of MN not responsible for your limited attention span OR your disrespect for fire safety codes . . .
I read the comments as relating to the legal costs being disproportionately high and that there needs to be a constraint on these.
That does not make libel any easier to initiate as it already can be and it can be initiated in the small claims court. However, there should be sensible limits on damages and sensible limits on the costs that can be recovered from the defendant although arguably all of the defendant’s costs should be recoverable.
389.”In the literal sense that’s obviously true, but are you seriously suggesting former Lib Dem voters in crucial seats like Aberdeen North will not break more towards the SNP than towards Labour?”
Red Meteor, as I said up thread the vote will split among all three of the other parties and you immediately jump up with Aberdeen North? It might, but it won’t necessarily do that in other seats. By the way I thought that would be the only seat you might highlight from the North East in this case.
I will be watching Angus, Gordon, Aberdeen South and North, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, and Danny Alexander’s seat in Inverness the most closely on election night.
And I will be watching to see if that higher turnout and lots of tactical voting churn on a possible change of government throws up surprise wins, losses or holds for all the parties.
The SNP are in power in Holyrood right now, and yes I do think that is helping their voting intention in both Parliaments right now with no election in sight.
The most important polling figures will be those taken during the GE campaign.
MFI closes:
http://www.mfi.co.uk/
Minnesota: Franken now +188 over Coleman.
MN State Canvassing Board is reviewing ballots referred by hand counting boards from cities and townships across the state, at the request of observers from both campaigns (but now looking at ones challenged by Coleman) due to questions regarding the intent of the voters, specificially way individual ballots were marked.
Other major issue is status of ballots that were duplicated (onto a blank ballot) by election workers because otherwise they would not have been counted properly (with respect to intent of voter) by machine. Bottom line here is that Coleman campaign maintains some of these were doublecounted. CB position is that this is an issue for the all-but-certain court contest that will be filed by the losing side whatever the end result of the hand recount.
Right now, MN CB is reviewing challenged ballots one-by-one and making its determination after debate by majority vote of the 5 members, chaired MN Secretary of State and including two justices of MN State Supreme Court and two state lower court judges.
398- How the hell has Franken gained so many votes? Is Minnesota the American version of Zimbabwe?
Minnesota: now +220 Franken over Coleman
for better link (at least for me) for streaming coverage of MN State Canvassing Board meeting:
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/schedule.asp
Are Opec getting a little tired of the blustering of Brown?:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3851769/Gordon-Brown-is-to-blame-over-British-fuel-prices-Opec-chief-says.html
396. “Red Meteor, as I said up thread the vote will split among all three of the other parties and you immediately jump up with Aberdeen North? It might, but it won’t necessarily do that in other seats. By the way I thought that would be the only seat you might highlight from the North East in this case”
The only reason I mentioned Aberdeen North was that I brought it up in my original response to URW as one of the unexpected seats the SNP might win because of the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. The point is that it’s a Labour-held seat, but with a high Lib Dem vote. If that vote collapsed and went disproportionately to the SNP, there would be a much higher swing from Labour to the SNP than the national swing would suggest. That’s the point - and that’s the reason for suggesting the Lib Dem collapse could assist the SNP in reaching double figures in terms of seats.
I take it the fact you’ll be watching Angus means you think the Conservatives might gain it - I can only say I think you’re completely wrong. Both the SNP and Tories’ vote is likely to go up, but in my view the SNP’s is likely to go up by more, and consequently they may well increase their majority in Angus. For the record I think the Lib Dem seats the SNP are most likely to take are Argyll & Bute and Inverness. Gordon is a long shot at best.
“The SNP are in power in Holyrood right now, and yes I do think that is helping their voting intention in both Parliaments right now with no election in sight.”
I see no reason why it won’t continue to help them when an election is in sight. At the very least, we’ll be in completely uncharted territory with the SNP fighting a Westminster campaign with the extra credibility of a party of government. It’ll be much harder for the media to treat them as a peripheral curiosity (although undoubtedly they’ll still try).
Unconfirmed report - YouGov has CON 7% ahead
I have had a report which as yet I’ve been unable to confirm that the December YouGov poll in tomorrow’s Telegraph will show the Tories with a 7% lead.
The last YouGov poll had C41-L35-LD15
406 - MOE?
406.
C27-L20-LD44
406
Mike I was just You Gov’d 20 mins ago, lots of questions on the economy get better/ worse etc, and about cheese!!!, but no intention to vote.
One of the questions asked was what was your moment of 2008 (not necessarily all political options IIRC). From the selection offered, Boris Johnson winning the London Mayoralty had to be it.
408. You won’t get Xmas pressies of that sort!
;0)
408 was that a typo Corporeal, did you mean 4.4%
408-Go back to your sofa and prepare for government !
406 my guess is 40 33 17
408- Lib Dem gains Bootle?
411. Coincidentally both results would be within the MoE of my patented secret polling system.
409. I got yougov’d on Mcdonalds. Never had a voting intention one from them yet. But then I said I was a Lib Dem, and Yougov appear to weight based on Martin Day’s ideas of Lib Dem numbers.
405.Red Meteor, the reason that the Libdems have done so well in Scotland over recent years is twofold. Like the rest of the UK, they benefited from the implosion of the Tory vote to core levels, and that remained the case right up until after the 2005 GE.
There was no mood for change, and people had the luxury of voting for the third party if they wished the status quo to remain. Now we have seen the most amazing changes in the political landscape during a relatively short time, especially when you consider that nothing much changed for 10 years.
We saw it first in Scotland when the SNP became the largest party, and in London when Boris beat Livingston. And now we have a very dramatic change in our economic fortunes as well. At this moment for the first time since 92′, we could see the balance of power shifting in Westminster.
When I listed those seats in the North East as the ones I will be watching, I didn’t do it through the prism of where the Tories will do best. I genuinely think that they will tell a story for all the parties in Scotland. And in Aberdeen, much as I would dislike it, I can quite easily see both Doran and Begg holding onto their seats.
(381 - But the last three months have seen you transformed from a self-indicted fat angry poof to pbc’s sweet sugar dumpling. Same thing happened to Tyson (apart from the fat poof bit) from his earliest days here. Must be something Mike puts in the water.)
Rumour has it Mandy is going to appear on stritly come dancing (politics home)
414. Ask Shadsy for the odds ASAP,
391 He’s still counting his US election winnings, Christina.
O/T the Belgian government resigns
If the information is correct, and we’ll just have to wait, it will further add to the notion that the last ComRes poll was an outlier - even though it showed no movement between the two main parties from the previous one.
As I reported earlier in the week I have been trying to get some clarification from ComRes about their past vote weighting methodology which is not very clear. Unless Anthony Wells and UK Polling Report and I are correct then there had been a major change between the latest ComRes and the one at the end of November.
Alas - in spite of our joint request for information ComRes have yet to respond to our question.
Sorry, late contributing but this is a comment on the main article.
I think there are two points here.
As some posters have pointed out, there is a genuine need for tidying up defamation law to cope with the explosive growth of blogging.
However I do think that the Labour Party is paranoid about blogging and I recently heard an official making negative and control-freakish comments about it, which annoyed me.
The party has put a lot of time and effort over the last year or so into its Web-based information system to members called “membersnet” and this includes a blogging function. The party control merchants would dearly like all Labour blogging to go onto Membersnet but the actual quality of discussion is unbelievably boring, and of course it won’t happen.
“Progress” has a website and the remarkable thing about it is that there are hardly any comments after the blog articles. Most “Progress” members are so self-disciplined, one might say tight-arsed, but they would not dream of openly contributing to a discussion. Progress is very right wing, especially on foreign affairs – it has changed slightly under the Brown regime but not much.
“Compass” (not even listed on the Progress blogroll) is more lefty though it is very soft left by historic Labour standards. Compass is learned and New Statesman-like -there are certainly plenty of comments on the articles, but they tend to be long and very, very serious and the participants in true left-wing fashion indulge in feuds and form factions.
LabourHome is potentially the best Labour blog but because MPs and PPCs are (unofficlally) discouraged from posting the quality of the articles and comments is not that brilliant. Some of the Tories who post rants on LabourHome are hugely boring but it is to their credit I suppose that they make the effort; ConservativeHome is equally open to opposition comments but relatively few Labour people bother to contribute.
There’s been much discussion about how conservatives have taken better to blogging and maybe this will resolve itself in time. But if the party attempts to clamp down on open discussion then it will fail.
420.
that too PtP. But he did pop up once or twice briefly recently.
406. Hmm… interesting…. IF confirmed, it does imply that there may be a scintilla of a hint of a rumour that the Brown Bounce may have peaked.
This would accord with Anthony Wells’ fascinating essay, showing the correlation between economic optimism and Labour support. As people are starting to realise just how grim things might be - support for Brown is slipping once more.
Certainly a few more polls like this and we can discount any February election. Brown would need cullions the size of Jupiter’s largest moon (Ganymede) to go to the voters with this kind of polling data. And his cullions are not Jovian.
But there should be no complacency from Tories, either! Do your Christmas detoff, Cammo, and come back refreshed.
The Con lead is 5 or 6 points.
Everything is pretty much in the MOE
421. Again?
[289] - Flashman, no, I don’t - who do you think I am on there then?
The Brown line wrt “problems we have no control over” reminds me of the “unknown unknowns” line of Rumsfeld’s that was ridiculed in the press, but has since been used in scientific seminars and lectures…
I hate the yougov question about what alcoholic brands I’m a satisfied customer of, always takes so bloody long to answer.
425.Seant, it might simple be that YouGov are catching more Tories online mid week?
427- ChristinaD
Yes. This time it’s not linked to Flanders/Wallonia bickering but alleged pressures from the government on courts to speed up the take-over of Fortis bank by BNP Paribas.
426. Or 7
re 428 that Rumsfeld quote always made perfect sense and he was very unfairly ridiculed over it. The Plain English Society should have been proud of his plainness.
re 429 me too - most of them I’ve never heard of and I usually end those surveys just ticking boxes at random.
426. tim, I heartily recommend you read Wells’ essay on Brown’s prospects:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
It’s the best piece of political analysis I’ve seen in a few weeks. Much better than anything in any broadsheet. It’s pretty persuasive. Brown has problems.
430. I dunno, Christina. Having read Wells essay and seen what he says, it makes a lot of sense - and if he is right we should soon start to see an increase, once again, in the Tory lead, as people finally realise how dire things are.
They’ve got used to their mortgage reductions. They’ve enjoyed, and forgotten, the VAT cut. Now millions of them are facing the reality of the drop in sterling, as they plan Xmas breaks, and those hideous unemployment and borrowing figures will have shocked some others.
More people will have noticed Woolies going. That was kind of symbolic. And unnerving.
It could be the end of the Brown Bounce. Who knows. At least its a positive note on which to end the year!
Merry Chrimble, I’m off out for some mulled wine.
because comres messed up and don’t want to admit it.
Very mixed feelings about a small YG increase - I so badly want an election.
431.Thanks Chris.
re 426. How do you know Tim?
[406] - A big difference between 41-34-16 and 39-32-20 though.
It would be reassuring for the Tories to see a share above 40%, which would suggest that the polls are oscillating around a figure either just above or just below 40%, rather than one almost certainly below 40%.
436
Too early for an election.
Why?
Labour win and get another 5 years
or
Labour lose, the Conservatives win and get blamed for the hard decisions needed and the pain
or
Hung Parliament:
(History suggests a shambles: last thing needed.)
436
Too early for an election.
Why?
Labour win and get another 5 years
or
Labour lose, the Conservatives win and get blamed for the hard decisions needed and the pain
or
Hung Parliament:
(History suggests a shambles: last thing needed.)
sorry dual post
[433] - Yes, but then I think the Brown quote also makes sense. You can be well prepared for problems that you have no control of. One form of preparation relevant to the present situation would have been to make sure that the government’s finances were in decent shape…
Minnesota recount: current margin +266 Franken over Coleman.
Much more thrilling than frat boy hijinks in Seoul or souless analyisis of Brit political paralysis!
IF it is a lead of seven points, that would be the largest Tory lead since 28th November.
444- They will be dancing at the HQ of Democratic Farm Labor!
The Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has had a car crash of an interview on BBC Radio Scotland where he basically blurted out that 2010 was Labour’s preferred date for an election was 2010.
“Labour will try and wait until 2010 before calling a general election, the party’s Scottish leader has said.”
He also did a Wendy Alexander where he scored himself 12 out of 12 for performance!!!
You might want to judge for yourself with this video and ask if he is 12 out of 12.
435.Seant, I always rate YouGov for picking up the sudden movements quicker than the other pollsters, and for more easily getting hold of Tories for their fieldwork. I wonder if the other pollsters are all having to fiddle with their weightings more because of this these days? Could the big loser of the next GE in polling terms be the sole reliance on face to face or telephone polling?
Not that I think that there is anything dramatic in this particular poll if those figures are correct.
431 Chris(from Bethesda). Thanks for the explanation concerning the Belgian Government.
Chris, do you know how we should be looking at these frequent government problems in Belgium?
Is it:
a) The country is so fragmented that it is a wonder that they get any government at all
b) The electoral system is at fault
c) It is a bad advert for European co-operation
d) The country needs to be split in some way into two (or more?)
e) Any of dozens of possible alternative explanations.
439. Yougov won’t give LDs 20. If their entire sample answered by drawing bar charts of how much more they supported the LDs than the others they wouldn’t give us 20. Put it at 15/16 and extrapolate accordingly.
C41-L34-LD-16
The last MFI shop has shut up. Even the most dementedly optimistic won’t be able to ignore the “To Let” signs springing up on trading estates for much longer.
448.”I wonder if the other pollsters are all having to fiddle. Oops, that sounds terrible, make that adjust instead, its what I meant.
449.They have to do something, they cannot go like this.
453- Is France and the Netherlands about to grow in size?
Bahhhh, *ARE* France and the Netherlands…
Nick Robinson says the poll momentum is with Brown
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2008/12/the_brown_rolle.html
Another case of premature adulation?
406 It would seem that the dead cat has stopped bouncing - could this be the time to buy Tory GE seats?
457- I’d wait until the poll is confirmed first, then wait for some more polls, then wait until the election and not bet any money cos you will need it for when the UK declares war on Norway to get its oil cos we are so broke…
The problem with Rumsfeld was that his (in)famous “unknown unknowns” weren’t unknown at all — he’d just chosen to ignore them.
451 I am sure many are shedding tears over those muppets
458. Good idea, we could so take Norway.
456 That being so, it must definitely be the time to but Tory GE seats!
ICM poll showing that there is still a slight public plurality in favour of id cards (although the no side is more fervent than the yes side) but against big databases of information.
Go figure that one out.
456.Fascinating blog post, and when you think of that interesting article from Anthony Wells, it all makes sense. Shame Nick Robinson hasn’t obvious read it, or been privvy to Labour’s private polling, it just might all begin to make sense….
462 but = buy
James Forsyth at the Coffee House Blog reports on Class confusion
“The Daily Mirror is, to put it mildly, obsessed with David Cameron’s social background. But Paul Routledge demonstrates an alarming lack of knowledge when he fumes that:
“Deregulating the City, so bankers could steal the cash and get rich was [Thatcher’s] idea.
Cameron is hard-wired with them. They’re his tribe.
He gets his money from them, mixes with them, married one, and went to school with the b******s.”
Leaving aside that the old aristocracy and those who profited from the big bang and other Thatcherite reforms are actually fairly distinct groups, Samantha Cameron is not and never has been a banker. More broadly, Routledge should decide who his enemy is. Thatcher is one of the British Prime Minsters who can claim to have done most to weaken the class system.”
I have never seen a newspaper so obsessed about a politician in this way, or can anyone think of any other examples?
re 456 Can’t see how Robinson can say that. It was with Brown but has now quite obviously stalled. Interesting to see that the posts show that they’re awaiting moderation. Any chance that they could do that here so that the numbers don’t get all screwed up.
449- Disraeli
- In a time of crisis, flemish separatism could advance even further, its best selling point “Free dynamic flanders from ruinous subsidies to Wallonia” resonating even more in tight budgetary times,
- the electoral system is indeed completely stupid: full PR with 7 main parties is clearly never going to provide solid mandayes for government,
- the problem is that for many years the three main political tendencies (Socialists, Christian democrats and Liberals) had separate regional names but acted together at national level. With the rise of vlaams Belang flemish parties hyped their nationalist credntials and broke this system. Now for example the wallon socialists are in government while flemish socialists are in opposition.
- There is also a clear asynchronization between the regions in terms of political tendencies. in 2007, flemish liberals were trounced while wallon liberals topped the polls in Wallonia. Socialists had the same kind of results (good in Wallonia, bad in Flanders) while the opposite was true for demo-christians…
And the conclusion is? well nobody knows… belgian voters are more and more disgusted by their incredibly inept and corrupt political class but there is no obvious solution.
Separation of Belgium gets more and more support in Flanders but it isn’t supported for the moment by mainstream political parties.
What is more probable is yet another round of devolution with extended powers for the regions.
As for government it is probable that another coalition will be defined but it will be long (it took a year between the elections and the inauguration of Leterme as PM). Due to the fractured Parliament, it will probably include most mainstream parties (5 of the 6 are in the current government).
Fortunately for Belgium, they are used to care-taker governments…
463,
Fairly simple: most people aren’t as geeky as us …
We see the poll and think that the question is “are you in favour of the Government’s proposed Bill on Identity Cards and the National Identity Register”.
Most of the public see the question as “Do you think that it could be a good idea that everyone has a plastic card kind of like a driving license to show whenever someone asks their age”.
For the latter, it’s pretty evenly split but with a slight plurality on the “well, looks like a fairly good idea - could be useful” side.
For the former - the actual proposal - the “big databases of information” question is arguably more relevant. But you can bet that the government will pick the one based on the title (technique copyright Sir H Appleby) and trumpet it as support for their actuall proposal.
re 463 it’s quite easy to figure. Even I’d admit that a nice little plastic card you could keep in your wallet and just flash at a bank to open an account, buy a mobile etc would be handy. Just like the new driving licence is handier than the old one. The database is entirely different matter and they won’t get me in before I’m in my box.
Another Home Office policy (Sex-Offender register) is undermined by the courts! No doubt Labour will carry on regardless at greater cost to the Taxpayer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7792497.stm
“Go figure that one out.”
War, war is stupid, and people are stupid?
“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed”
The more accessible they make the laws of libel the better. Why people should think trashing someone’s good name should be without penalty or even worse something that is only open to the rich I can’t understand. If advertisers put up unsubstantiated crap people would rightly complain. Why shouldn’t the same rules apply?.
462. I wouldn’t. The spreads have been slow to react to polls, and I think the Tories are overstated on the spreads. The spreads have it as something like 40-30-20 and I just don’t see it as realistic.
455- simon9999
France would not be particularly thrilled to get an impoverished post-industrial region like Wallonia. And Flanders does not intend to join the Netherlands. They want to be independent (historically there is very little love between protestant Holland and catholic Flanders). With a bit more than 6 million inhabitants, it would be the 16th most populated country of the EU (ahead of Denmark, Ireland, Finland).
374- If you’re right that Franken will keep his lead, SSI (clearly too early to say, though), this will be the next U.S. Senator from Minnesota:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/09/mccain-snl-tv.html
#471 Suspect the Government is now of the opinion that signing the Human Rights Act wasn’t such a clever idea after all. They seem to fall foul of it with monotonous regularity.
477. Indeed Human Rights and authoritarianism aren’t exactly good bedfellows.
462-I wouldn’t either and I am just about the most bullish about the Tories on this forum.
There must be half a dozen better ways of getting with them than buying Seats.
How about 1.43 Tory ‘Most Seats’ ? Too prosaic ?
399 - I agree - wait until a day or to polling day then we shall see.
re 471 this bit from the Home Office spokesman caused me a hollow laughter given that the police seemingly don’t bother to interview a suspect even when his own mother shops him.
“The UK has one of the most robust systems of managing sex offenders in the world. The notification requirements form an important part of this system.
479. The attraction of the spreads is short term profit. I could see an argument that the polls will go against Brown, but I don’t think this will shift the spreads since they’re so heavily on the Tories side anyway.
I don’t think the collapse Wells suggests will start until next year, maybe until February as serious economic troubles come to the fore and everyone is less optimistic and Christmas feel good factors are gone.
I struggle to see 40-30-20 happening though. Were I on the spreads I’d be selling Tory seats atm.
468 Chris. Many thanks. A very good reply. I think that I understand the problems faced by Belgium better now.
Much appreciated.
corporeal at 482.It now takes a very,very good man to show a short-term profit on the Spreads.It can be done but you have to eat the Spread twice and that is a six point Spread.
I do agree with your other point which is that the Spreads themselves are already bullish about the Tories.
No bet !
479 URW - I wasn’t suggesting buying Tory seats, rather I was asking the question.
I do feel that if/when the tide again turns sharply against Brown, as I expect early in the New Year, that will be that and the only question will be the scale of their defeat.
484. Relatively short term, compared to most seat bets which would well not be settled until mid 2010.
484 I agree with your first point - you really have to think about buying/selling GE seats to hold until maturity - and to think punters used to moan about Spreadfasir’s commision on winning bets only!
Depends where you have your bet,corporeal.You could show a profit before dawn if you catch it right.
I have become a raving Tory fancier,PfP……for any reason you could name except doctrinal reasons.
I don’t do doctrine !
Supper beckons but I am shaping up for an almighty barney with all the Wells fanciers.He is a clever chap but there is a lot more at stake than mere cleverness.
When Brown pumps in £10 billion+ to do a Bitish Leyland and save the motor industry fo about 18 months, how’s he going to explain why he won’t do the same for the other million jobs which will be lost next year.
If Britain can’t export cars profitably at the current bombed-out exchange rate, what long term future does it have - absolutely zilch!
when will the yougov poll be confirmed, bitches?
erm…excuse me! Typos and predictive text are not a good combination!
490 ‘Bitches’?!! Speak for yourself!
watchers, even!
489 Actually, thinking about this further, this could become a major net vote loser for Labour, instead of it being a vote winner. “They saved those jobs in the motor industry, why didn’t they save mine” Coincidentally, a number of car plants happen to be located in marginal seats.
Although not Mike’s favourite, aren’t we also expecting a poll any time now from BPIX?
490, 491, 492,
It may say more about me than anyone else, but I couldn’t stop laughing for nearly a minute
MINNESOTA RECOUNT
State canvasing baord back from lunch, resumed session, official recount now: +279 Franken over Coleman
Having never been asked to take part in a political survey, can someone tell me if the voting intention question usually comes first, or do the ancilliary questions, which could subconciously guide voting intention thinking come first?
Seconds out.Round 4 !
Anthony Wells mugs off the market- makers and punters both,so I feel more than justified in calling him for what he is..’a half-wide mug’.
I should rejoice at his swingometer.As an instrument it is The Highway To Hell and about as useful as the siren call was to the sailors of mythology.
I would give so much to have a bet with Wells&Baxter Ltd.They are clueless !
490 LOL me too when I saw what was on the screen I thought I was channeling Ari Gold from Entourage
I hate phone tying!
490 Posting after the Christmas party? Dangerous - although very funny.
498 - it varies, on some Yougovs the voting intention can come in the middle of the survey.
490 you go girl, keep it real!!!
500 Phone tying? Is that a new exotic sport?
489. Yes I agree, it is like all this guff about helping people through the downturn. The government have done nothing for me and indeed I think that many people will feel the same. The VAT cut was as useful as a pork sasauage at a jewish vegetarian banquet!
The big irony will be if the sales in november is followed by a fall in december - that will look really bad for Brown when the VAT cut was enacted!
The Tory idea on the government underighting business loans etc is a good idea and as HH cost little and will put confidence into the system. The problkem for Brown is this is country to his alleged limited “resurgence”, that he is the man saving jobs etc.
Brown will become victim of his own rhetoric and become known as the deliver nothing leader of a deliver nothing party!
502. Thanks marcia. I am guessing it could have a significant bearing in the voting intention poll if it comes after some questions which are obviously leading questions.
484..i have always said that spread betting is a mug’s game. i know that PtP doesn’t agree but eventually the spread ie “commission” will have you by the bollocks!
I wish I was at a party. Stuck at work and can only use phone for PB.
Interesting green paper. That’s progressive liberal left stuff for ya. They are only liberal and progressive when its in their favour. Everyone else is below contempt.
I am currently nursing some losses on oil after stating that I reckon anything below $40 would make it a buy option. Its still falling but I’m hanging on. $40 is a very very painful number for many oil producers and the slide down below this is probably excessive. I still believe the end of 2009 will see oil higher than it is now but its still a bit of a punch in the mug. I’ll just have to subsidise it with the big profits made backing oil to fall when it hit $146 dollars and just kept backing as it collpased.
Easy come, easy go and a real lesson in the improtance of watching things by the hour when it comes to commodity betting.
508. PB? Personal Bitches?
499, URW,
I think you’re being a touch harsh on Anthony Wells - his market share is the detailed analysis of the polls. The swingometer on his site is an avowed simple UNS swing prediction - because the actual interrelating variables (most of which aren’t even measured by pollsters) that would go into a genuinely accurate seat predictor are a vastly complex problem.
The modelling of votes-to-seats in our system is not at all a trivial problem to solve. And I don’t believe it has yet been solved. Depending on your requirements for accuracy, it may be insoluble without a demographically balanced sample of at least 5000 in every constituency. Which would not be a reasonable proposition.
Baxter’s site is a full-time predictor and he is trying to work out ways of actually solving that intractable problem. His main problem is that genuine data points come along rarely (about every four or five years
) and many variables change unpredictably between these data points.
If people rely on either of these (the Wells UNS swingometer or the Baxter Transition Model) as anything other than an assistance to their own intuition, if they read these models as purporting to be confidently precise, then they are looking at coming unstuck. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t decent modelling attempts and far better than simply guessing, but you have to be aware of their inherent limitations. Which you seem to have figured out in any case
I’ve got my own model, which with my best guesses of marginality unwind and tactical voting unwind, and measuring common-poll-to-common-poll tends to give better figures for the Tories (for example, based on the last ICM, it extrapolates them on more than 300 seats, but short of a majority) but that can be just as flawed as the existing models.
Martin, I read your post yesterday, when you described a recently closed recruitment agency and on enquiring you discovered that the estate agency in the adjacent property was also in the course of closing.
This reminded me of my post 4 or 5 months ago, also about your home town, when I explained that in the large Boots store, there were more members of staff in attendance than paying customers.
You explained this away as being a feature of Sunday trading - remember?
MINNESOTA Recount
State canvassing board has gone through ballots originally challenged by Coleman, and now reviewing additional ballots challenged by Franken.
At one point Franken was +283 ahead in the official count, but now Coleman is starting to pick up votes, particularly as many challenges are being withdrawn by the Franken legal eagles.
Star-Tribune running count (which may be a bit behind) is now Franken +274
New thread: Will there be votes for Labour in this?
100% correct on all counts,Andy Cooke ……..which is more than can be said for Baxter and Wells.
I am a horrible cantankerous old chap and not only do I not suffer fools gladly but still less so those who make fools out of others without having to pay for the privilege.
I want to wring their necks in a financial kind of a way.
507 Correct terminology, please, Graham - ‘…Have you by the orchestra stalls.’
And no my orchestras haven’t been had yet - not by the spread firms anyway. In fact, spread betting has enabled me to take a bit of a rest from politics to focus more on winter cruises brochures. It is generally accepted however that it is a form of betting that’s at the high-risk end of the spectrum.
270 - As much as I loath the man at least he has seen sense on this.
Santiago Township Ballot 52
SOS moves for rejection of challenge and designation of this ballot for Coleman. Motion approved unanimously by state canvassing board.
505 I must have been exceptionally lucky in that case, having won over £15K on spread bets over the past 12 years, principally on GE Seats, including £3K already on the next GE
512. Yes i thought Sunday Trading could of been a possibility (I have been into Huddersfield on a sunday a few years ago when things were boyant and it was not very busy) but I was wrong! I remember your post as well! I think it was the “Hot” weekend?
Peter you were correct and on the money! It is dreadful what is happening and the vaccant signs of offices and building may well rival the occupied in 6 months time! It is bad - really very bad!
519 Like most other forms of betting, you just need to be a little bit smarter than the next guy, not across the board, but just on your own “specialist subject”
Jim Slater wrote a book about this, called The Zulu Principle.
520 Martin - It was indeed the hot weekend, “the” being the operative word - in fact I remember another poster suggesting that everyone bar me was enjoying a BBQ that day!
83. But ID cards will be voluntary…