Does this suggest a very low turnout on June 4th?
May 6th, 2009
What will it do to the campaign if the EU is not an issue?
We are just four weeks and two days from the final national election test ahead of the general election - and hardly anybody seems to have noticed. The one betting market - on whether or not Labour’s share will drop below 20% - says it all. That’s all that the media, pundits and punters seem to be interested in.
For the political narrative is almost totally dominated by Gordon and the June 4th elections are simply looked at as another hurdle for the occupant of Number 10 to have to jump over. A very low Labour share, and Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun has been talking of 17%, and that might impact on the PM’s retirement plans.
In broad public terms the EU itself hardly registers when pollsters ask people to list their concerns. Just look at the chart above from MORI with the latest numbers and look how concern EU-linked issues has touched a new low.
I always like this poll. For almost every month for getting on for three decades MORI has asked its “most important issues facing the country” questions in exactly the same format. Two points are put, both completely unprompted. Firstly they are asked which is the “most important issue” then they are asked to name, without a limit on numbers “other important issues”.
In 2004 Tony Blair went to great lengths to try to avoid Labour humiliation in the last Euro elections. The local and London elections were switched to the same day, he promised a referendum on the EU constitution to take away Michael Howard’s key campaign point, Ken Livingston was allowed back into the party so at least Labour would have some good news from the day, and large parts of England voted in an all-postal ballot for the first time boosting turnout in those places by 5% and helping the Labour shares.
By contrast Brown appears to have done nothing. There’s no big issue to put the Tories on the spot, the public are not interested, and it’s likely that the national turnout level could fall maybe to below 30%.
The danger is that the vote will turn into a referendum on Gordon himself and provide a platform for the BNP.
The only consolation is that Labour’s starting point - the 22.6% of 2004 - is very low so getting within three or four points could be seen as a sort of victory.
In the betting I’ve got a fair whack on the Labour share being below 20%. The price has now tightened from evens to 8/11 and I’m not so sure whether that offers good value. Hopefully we will see other markets emerge - but as long as the public don’t seem interested I don’t expect the bookies to do much.
Mike Smithson
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First!
On topic, there will be a very low turnout because very few people care about the European Parliament - those who care about the EU realise the Parliament is irrelevant.
Off topic, reposted from the end of the last thread:
Johann Hari spouting crap again:
Margaret Thatcher never won over a majority of the British people. At every single election where she was leader, 56 per cent of us voted for parties committed to higher taxes and higher public spending. She won because the centre-left majority was divided and at war with itself – and because of our lousy electoral system.
Need we recall?
Thatcher, 1979: 43.9%
Thatcher, 1983: 42.4%
Thatcher, 1987: 42.2%
Blair, 1997: 43.2%
Blair, 2001: 40.7%
Blair, 2005: 35.3%
But he’s right- the centre left have been in the majority during all those elections.
Still a stupid point though, as it’s the centre-left’s fault for not being able to get their act together.
“What will it do to the campaign if the EU is not an issue?”
It will become a pure vote on the performance of Gordon Brown (cos: “… the political narrative is almost totally dominated by Gordon…”).
Ouch!
Mid-teens, here they come.
re 2. Even Labour in its 1945 landslide failed to get 50% of the vote.
I would imagine that the vast majority of those who said the EU is one of their concerns are Eurosceptics and therefore probably in the Tory or UKIP camps. Some people feel very strongly about the EU and the broken referendum promise.
The implication is surely that most of those who will bother to drag their arses down to the local primary school to vote in the Euro elections will not be in the Labour or Lib Dem camps. (Especially so if this is a Euro only vote and doesn’t conincide with a local election).
Yes we’ll see a low turnout here (but will get a massive one at the GE) and the result will be very blue. The usual UKIP EU protest vote will be there. Labour could well be heading for 3rd or 4th place even - what will motivate their remaining apologists to bother?
For Brown this will therefore be very ugly.
Incidentally, what party should I vote for to accentuate Labour’s low vote share if I want Brown out? Tory I imagine?
‘Peer to be investigated over expenses’
SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP, who had called on both the House authorities and Metropolitan police to investigate whether an offence has been committed, said: “A formal probe into these allegations was unavoidable, and I welcome confirmation that the Clerk of Parliament is set to investigate.
“That somebody can claim an allegedly unfurnished and unoccupied flat is their main residence beggars belief, and we need full and frank answers from Baroness Uddin.”
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2506294.0.Peer_to_be_investigated_over_expenses.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8034828.stm
It was the SNP’s Angus MacNeil MP who first brought the ‘Cash for Honours’ affair to the publics’ attention in early 2006:
Suspicion was aroused by some that the peerages were a quid pro quo for the loans, and the incident was referred to the Metropolitan Police by Scottish National Party MP Angus MacNeil as a breach of the law against selling honours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_for_Honours
Dirty Labour are going down.
re 6. How blue is “very blue” Patrick? Could the Tories also get a lowish share as voters go to the fringe parties?
NOTE - an odd message is coming up when you submit comments. It does not seem to impact on your ability to post.
2 & 5.
The Scottish Unionist Party (pre-1965 predecessor of the modern Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), together with their Liberal Unionist allies, got over 50% of the Scottish national vote at the 1955 UK GE.
I would imagine that the three-party share in 2004 was already close to being as low as it could go. Disillusioned Labour voters will surely predominantly switch to the stay at home party, which obviously won’t favour any of the other parties.
I’d be fairly surprised if Labour ends up third and shocked if they finish fourth.
Best guess: Con 33, Lab 20, LD 15, UKIP 14, BNP 8, Grn 5, Nat 3, Oth 2.
11. … and National Liberal allies too.
2/3
The forced choice Labour/Conservative question produced an even split in Lib-Dem voters in a February 2009 YouGov poll
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/02/27/is-this-nick-cleggs-dilemma/
Who knows what a similar poll of Liberals or SDP voters would have produced in elections gone by?
7 NU. A vote for any party other than Labour will increase the total vote by one and the Labour vote by zero - so makes no difference. Thinking tactically for the GE removal of Brown, only the Tories represent an alternative government - so voting Tory at the Euros will damage Brown most.
At the GE itself it depends wholly on which constituency you are in. Generally I’d advise voting Tory unles you are in a Lab / Lib marginal with Tories a distant 3rd - in which case vote Lib Dem tactically.
‘Independence the next step: Salmond’
Mr Salmond said: “Ten years ago, Scotland changed for the better - and forever.”
He said the new Parliament found its confidence, and contributed to “a new sense of confidence among the people of Scotland.
“Families and business in Scotland are better off for having our own parliament,” said Mr Salmond.
“At the start of devolution, the Scottish unemployment rate was some 25% higher than the UK as a whole.
“Now, Scotland is outperforming the rest of the UK in these tough times - with unemployment 25% lower, and higher employment levels than south of the border.”
http://www.carricktoday.co.uk/latest-scottish-news/Independence-the-next-step-Salmond.5237493.jp
What is the lowest share of the vote that a governing party has achieved in a national/widespread local election? I seem to have in mind that it was Labour, but also that it was around 24%. If so, 17% is a massive shift in “how low can you go?”.
You have to wonder, when naturally inclined Labour voters like NU are considering how best to vote to send a message that Brown has to go, whether this really will be a hideously one-sided vote to reflect “What do we want? Brown out! When do we want it? Now!”. After all, it’s only the Euros, what the hell, use them to send a message that I’m lost to Labour at the General ELection unless they change their ways - starting with their leader.
Also, Brown’s refusal to hold the Euro-Constitution Referendum will now better feed into voter’s image of the Dark Side of his character, of which they might previously have been unaware - or at least, prepared to forgive as he was doing such a fine job with the economy… Now there is just a great big target painted on Brown’s arse, and it reads “European elections: kick me hard”.
2
If you’re comparing Blair/Thatcher elections, turnout is even more stark.
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/turnout.htm
1997, 2001, and 2005 are the three lowest turnouts since WW2.
How long will the new Unionist Grand Alliance last in the Basque Parliament?
‘Conservative allies could sink new Basque socialist leader’
López’s additional discomforts derive from his insecure mandate. His majority in the Basque parliament depends entirely on a Faustian bargain with the conservative Partido Popular (PP) – a deal he repeatedly said he would never do while campaigning for election in March.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0506/1224245993455.html
Not long.
A lesson for Gray, Goldie and Scott?
9 Mike. For me ‘very blue’ would be a share of the Euro votes in excess of current polling (say in the 45% to 50%+ range) - as that would create an ‘ooh, didn’t Dave do well’ media narrative and further weaken Brown.
You are right, however, that many very Eurosceptic people who will undoubtedly vote Tory at the GE may well go UKIP for the Euros, in many cases simply to reinforce with the Tories that there are limits to the Tory EU appeasement before they too will lose core votes. Given the overwhelming ‘Brown out’ feel to British politics now I don’t expect too much of this though. The best way to hurt Brown now is to vote for Dave - and everyone knows it.
18 Dave B. The New Labour years were nothing more than a Tory voter strike. They will be back in numbers at the next GE - turnout will be very high and so will the Tory vote share.
NOTE FROM ROBERT
I am currently playing with the template, and there may be a few glitches this morning.
7 NU, to send a message, vote for what you most despise. That might be Tory in your case. But imagine if Labour were to poll less than the BNP? I simply do not believe Labour could allow Brown to continue in office having brought about that state of affairs. More to the point, it might be what it takes for Brown himself to realise what he has wrought, and pick up the glass of whisky and the revolver.
21
I’m thinking/hoping the same thing.
24 I raised this issue with OGH recently - I think a specific thread on the issue of TOTAL vote numbers and the Tory voter strike being over is in the offing (certainly hope so).
3 - bit of a push to claim that the Labour Party in 1983 was “centre-left”.
All true Labour supporters should be voting Tory in these Local Elections.
Last chance to remove Brown!!!
25 - “Tory voter strike” is a myth.
23
Regardless of the ratios, if the BNP win any MEP seats, EU funding could enable the BNP to be a much bigger threat to Labour in the general election. Perhaps that would provoke an autumn 2009 election?
29k - not necessarrily. Often the best way to reduce BNP support is to have them being elected.
21 Patrick, my experience was the Tory voter strike was most prevalent amongst those in their 30’s and 40’s. Not the retired, who Rod Crosby always reminds us will have died off in considerable numbers in the intervening years. These former striking Tories are now in their 50’s, early 60’s - people for whom retirement and pensions and savings and inheritence tax are now the big issues. That - and a more general sense of unease that this is not the Britain they have worked all their lives to create. A sense that Britan - more importantly, England - has been lost; or worse, actively stamped upon by this Government. Their concerns are all issues that Labour have handled very badly, Brown simply being someone they can now readily transfer their anger onto.
The Lost Tories are back. And they are pissed.
30
Nobody sees MEPs, or their works. It’s the EU money to fund a party machine that I think would be a factor.
31. Marquee Mark.
If that’s true, seat projections from notional swing are likely to fail completely. I’m trying to come up with a decent model to use, but no joy yet.
Oh Lord, the Government have given us a “Swine Flu Tsar”.
And we know how well things end for Tsars, don’t we…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8035121.stm
We were canvassing last week, with only the Euros coming up here. Positive response to us (LD) as a party, but no real enthusiasm for the elections, even among the canvassers. I’d expect a rock bottom turnout, dependent on the weather more than anything else. Labour aren’t dying on their feet, and may well hit the 20% mark, but their main spin the day after may be the low score for the Tories if the vote is split between many parties, they can argue it shows Cameron still hasn’t sealed the deal etc.
28 alex. The Tory and Labour absolute vote numbers (in millions)were:
Year Con Lab
1987 13.8 10.0
1992 14.1 11.56
1997 9.6 13.5
2001 8.4 10.7
2005 8.8 9.6
During the Thatcher / Major years the Tories were getting 13 or 14 million. Since Bambi 8s and 9s. There’s not nearly so much variation in the Labour vote. The Tories have 5 million missing votes - and this correspons well with the reduced turnouts for the New Labour victorious elections.
I contend that these missing voters have had it with Brown and Labour and will, Terminator style (for the porridge monkey) ‘Be Back’.
Surely there’s another hypothesis: that, broadly speaking, general election turnout will continue to decline. A large chunk stopped voting Conserative in 1997, and another large chunk will stop voting Labour in 2010, and on the whole they will never be recovered.
33 LS, for English seats held by Labour, start by doing the current swing on past votes - and then stick (best guess) an extra 2,500 Tory votes on in each seat (3,000 for a constituency with a bigger electorate, 2,000 for a smaller one).
37. General Election turnout will almost definitely be up.
Regards your editorial, Mike. Local elections have again, as in 2004, been switched to Euro Day.
First UKIP roadside board spotted here in East Devon a couple of days ago. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago - we Lib Dems have put out a combined Euro / County Council tabloid newspaper. Other than that, your comments re “nobody’s noticed” is about right!
Stuart - do you have a confident prediction for Edinburgh South please?
The betting has it:
1 LibDems
2 Con
3 Lab
4 SNP
Yet Baxter has Labour narrowly winning this seat
37 Colin. That’s a valid hypothesis but I think it will prove worng. Every now and then we get ‘we need change’ election. 1997 was such - over 25 million votes. 2010 will be such. Labour will not increase their 2005 vote - so should get under 10 million votes. Dave will entice the strikers back to turf Brown out and will get 13 or 14 million. Normal service resumed.
It is this TOTAL vote picture which interests me so much. Polls only ever seem to look at percentages.
Or put it this way: What happened to those 5 million who voted Tory before? Are they dead? Are they alive? Are they happy with Gordon? A quick spin at the UK’s demographics shows that they are mostly still around (in their middle / old age) and likely to have come off worst fronm the decade of New Labour. Dwell on that.
19-Prior to the elections it was obvious PSOE would govern with PP if they had enough seats. This inconvenient marriage was no surprise to anyone.
2. A typially weak argument from Hari. No political party has won more than 50% since 1935.
Specifically, polling suggested that the Conservatives were preferred to Labour by Alliance supporters in the 1980s. A Labour/Alliance coalition (assuming such a thing had ever been created) would have polled fewer votes than the Conservatives.
Mike / Robert - the edit function hasn’t worked for days. Assume you are aware.
I was considering a bet on Labour to poll less than 20 % at 8/11, having missed the Evens. Mike says he’s not sure that 8/11 is still value so I will probably leave it.
FTPT. Talking of value, yesterday I took some 4/1 on Johnson to be next Labour leader. I agree that this doesn’t feel like value at all and I am rather regretting the bet. But not having Johnson amongst my rather large list of bets on the next Labour leader, yesterday it felt like a forced choice to include Johnson.
Henry G was very bold in his judgment of Johnson’s chances and has indicated he will be more expansive in a future post on Johnson’s prospects. Henry is well connected within the Labour Party and a straight guy. Having said that, I would have more confidence in the bet if Johnson was limbering up for the best of 5 sets at Wimbledon rather than competing in the pin stickers guide that is The Next Permanent Labour Leader Handicap Chase.
I am starting to feel that Richard Nabavi may well be right, that this market is one for the mugs.
Local elections in the UK normally average about 30-35% so I would expect European turnout to be similar in the counties. I cannot believe someone would turn out for the locals and not bother for the Europeans. On the other hand, discount for the met regions, London, Scotland and Wales. So maybe a 28-32% range? Not controversial I think.
stjohn, perhaps you could entertain us with the list of Next Labour Leader bets you have placed - in rising order of “Buyers Remorse”?!
The parties have gone to great lengths to make the EU boring and invisible. It appears that they have succeeded. To me, that is very irresponsible. The EU issues are there, from wheelie bins to Royal Mail to ID cards, but the EU link has been buried.
36 - Well obviously there has been less variation in the Labour vote because their loss of voters has been compensated by increase in voters from other parties!
The reality is:
Large number of voters have abandoned Labour in their heartlands.
Large number of voters have abandoned the Tories, a fair proportion of which have deserted to Labour or the LibDems.
As i’ve quoted before: in 1997 the absolute Labour vote in seats which they held was, on average, static (although obviously lower, therefore a decline, in safer seats). In Tory held seats the average absolute Labour vote rose by around 10%. That is clear evidence that, in 1997 at least, the pattern stated above was followed. The safer the Conservative majority, the larger the increase in absolute voters for Labour, and vice versa.
Now the reality is that the above provides a lot of ammunition for arguing that the Tories could significantly outperform the uniform swing models because Labour’s supremacy is massively dependent on floating voters in marginal seats, but its not because of a mythical Tory voter “strike”.
Jacqui Smith to be sued by some right wing shock jock in the US.
48. Marquee Mark. I will work on that!
From one of the newspaper reviews last night: reportedly Jacqui Smith is definitely going in a reshuffle and Hazel Blears is likely to be on her way out too. Apparently Gordon “saw Red” when he read the flame haired minister’s article at the weekend.
Does anyone read this story and think, are the government mad? Does anyone really think that claimed “support” for ID cards in opinion polls will result in people voluntarily handing over £60 to give someone their fingerprints and have their picture taken?
It may well have sounded good to some in the planning stage, but you just have to write it down in stark terms and think…
53-Isn’t that what NPMP claims?
49 What is the status of Lisbon ratification now? Dave will give us the referendum if it is not yet completed. I think the Irish are supposed to do what they’re told this time but either can’t afford the hassle or will again vote No. Since we seem to be only 12 months away from Hague becoming Foreign Secretary I am starting to look at Lisbon as being a bit dead in the water (hence all the activity to implement pieceme-l through the back door - don’t you love the EU!).
If a ’son of Lisbon’ must be drafted, negotiated and signed I suspect all pre0existing bets are off with respect to the UK. I could see some sort of associate membership becoming a real possibility. One can but live in hope.
50. Yes, I was thinking much the same myself but didn’t have the facts to back it up.
In 1997, the most significant part of the Conservative coalition that left it was the floating voter (and it had not returned by 2005, which left the Tories on almost the same percentage and with fewer votes). Since, and including, 1997, the most significant part of the Labour coalition to have left it has been previously core votes: that is much more dangerous.
55 - Irish are having a referendum in the Autumn, I think. Not sure what the legal status is of UK having already signed Lisbon. Can they withdraw their signature in isolation, or do they effectively have to withdraw from the EU to do so.
I’m not sure why the Irish ratification makes any difference, legally, to the UK’s.
55
I think Germany and the Czech Republic have also not yet ratified Lisbon.
57 Yikes! Can we have our GE before the Autumn please.
50, 56 - If that happens, then after the general election we can expect Rod Crosby to be telling us confidently that the system now has an in-built systemic bias to the Tories.
56,60 - Quite. Labour’s entire current voter distribution is heavily dependent on a reasonably close election. Lose the floating marginal voters and they have created the conditions for catastrophe.
Of course it may be that total catastrophe is averted by a reasonable recovery in Labour turnout in safer seats on the back of an overall higher turnout, which will in turn give the impression of pro-Labour bias in the electoral system reducing.
This is the paradox at the heart of theories about turnout. All other things being equal, higher turnout helps Labour because their voters are generally less likely to vote. However under our electoral system, what higher turnout does is reduce Labour’s advantage under “vote share-seat share” models thereby giving the impression of higher vote share assisting the Conservatives. As shown in 2001 and, especially, 2005, low turnout massively accentuates a Labour “bias” under FPTP.
50 56. All very interesting. I hope someone somewhere has a really good analysis. In any event I am pretty sure that 2010 will get a good turnout and the result won’t be to Gord’s liking. Whether the result can be characterised as Tory strikers returning or floaters swinging or Labour core going on strike won’t affect the outcome - but would be fascinating to us anoraks.
53 - Sounds like the Poll Tax - sounded good at the planning stage, but when it came to actually putting it into action…
“The Lost Tories are back. And they are pissed.”
Can you imagine having to attend that homecoming party.
Cabaret featuring Jim Davidson and a Lloyd Webber soundtrack.
46. I’m reasonably confident that Labour will poll sub-20%. Why? In addition to the obvious factors like a 15%+ Tory lead in the national polls:
- Their baseline is already close to it: their GB score in 2004 was 22.6%. If they lose a touch over one vote in nine, they’ll drop into the teens. At the time, Labour was polling in the mid-thirties. They’re now down around a flat 30%.
- Some of the Labour national share had drifted to the Lib Dems (they were polling about 5% better in 2004 than they are now) but the Lib Dems finished fourth with just 14.9%. Even though Labour has probably pulled some of their national support back from the Lib Dems, that won’t help much with the Euros. There may be a few votes to pull back from the Greens and Respect but it’s small change.
- The big losers at this election are likely to be UKIP who polled 16.2% in 2004. It’s difficult to see why many of their votes would go to Labour. Many would be naturally Tory anyway and even those that might have started as Labour surely still have at least as much reason to protest one way or another at the not particularly important Euroelection.
- County council elections take place simultaneously in a lot of the areas where the Tories (and Lib Dems outside Scotland and Wales) are strongest. Tory turnout is likely to be boosted by that and Labour turnout depressed.
- In 2004, all-postal voting in four English regions boosted turnout there. These regions were among the strongest in England for Labour. That all-postal will not be there this time. As postal voting has most impact on the 4-7 out of 10 likely to vote, and as Labour voters are less inclined to vote at the moment, Labour’s support at the election will be hit by these abstentions.
- Labour finished first in Scotland by 7% and first in Wales by 13% in 2004. A repeat looks unlikely in either.
57
“I’m not sure why the Irish ratification makes any difference, legally, to the UK’s.”
Lisbon revises the EU treaties, it has to be unanimous to come into effect.
alex @ 53 re ID cards for £60. Yes, the government is mad.
Imminent elections, and what better time to remind civil liberties voters why they should vote for the other lot? Any other lot. Quite mad!
57. The UK can withdraw its instrument of ratification without any implications beyond annoying some other members of the EU providing that the treaty hasn’t come into force. In those circumstances, the status quo applies.
If the Lisbon Treaty has come into force, it would be difficult to withdraw from that without leaving the EU as a whole. At the minimum, renegotiation would be on the cards.
66 - Yes obviously the UK isn’t bound to the treaty’s provisions until it is fully ratified.
However, what i am asking is whether the UK signature (as opposed to the legislation passed) has any significant status such that it is difficult to withdraw it?
stjohn @ 52 re reshuffle. Forgive my cynicism but demoted for opposing the noble Lord Mandelson?
67 - Will you refuse to renew your passport John?
On topic. Not sure that it suggests by itself a very low turnout (there are too many other factors in play) but it does point to a poor poll for UKIP. If the European Question isn’t exercising voters’ minds, the natural instrument of protest is likely to receive little support.
Looking at where UKIP did best in 2004 (E Mids, SW, SE, East), I’d guess that the likely effect of their decline will be to boost Tory and Lib Dem shares.
71 — my passport expired a decade ago, tim.
On the Lisbon ratification thing, there’s some stuff about countries that haven’t yet ratified here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon#Ireland
Looks like Poland and the Czech Republic would probably ratify the thing if Ireland did but they’ve been using the Irish no as an excuse to kick it into the long grass. You could just about imagine a situation where if Cameron got in before the Irish had voted and said he wanted out, one of them would use that as cover to delay ratification until the situation had been clarified or whatever. But this seems a bit unlikely because:
1) The whole thing will probably be done and dusted by the time Cameron gets in
2) Cameron isn’t going to want to do anything that will stop ratification and lumber him with the task of negotiating Version III of the treaty and getting it past his backbenchers…
If the turnout in a month’s time is very low, won’t Gordon and his parasites spin the results as being ‘meaningless’?
Speculation that Labour’s might be as low as 17 seems fanciful to me. Wishful thinking on these lines just serves to lower expectations and allow Labour sympathisers to present disatrous results in the low 20s in a better light.
76. They have done that for the past couple of years in the local elections, with doomsday projections on seat losses to soften the reality. Unfortunately for Labour the actual results were always much worse!
75. Yes, but no-one will be listening (and besides, ‘your votes don’t count’ is not the best of messages to the electorate).
76. Your reasons? I suggest several at [65] as to why it’s very much on the cards that Labour will end sub-20%.
If turnout is very low, who does this favour? The Euro-obsessive voters of all sides will presumably cast their votes anyway and I wonder whether UKIP might do better than some are expecting as a result. Nick Palmer made an interesting observation that there are some voters who will vote for UKIP by name alone (rather like buying a bottle of House of Commons wine, if I recall his analogy correctly).
While obviously completely unscientific, this Iain Dale voodoo poll does show how this might work to UKIP’s advantage and against the interests of the Tories:
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=3549026211782608171
I seriously doubt the impact will be a swing of this size, but UKIP’s fall could easily be rather less than anticipated. Tory posters on here should also note that some potential BNP voters at least appear to come from their ranks.
Similarly, the Lib Dems might benefit from the Europhiles’ vote share being concentrated.
Anyway, if voters who aren’t particularly interested in the Euro-elections do sit on their hands, Labour and the Tories will both be hit to some extent as a result, I suspect. The estimate given in the Sun the other day of 17% for the Labour vote sounds quite achievable.
8-11 on a sub-20% result for Labour may yet be value (evens was better and I’m glad that for once I was alert enough to see that in time, thanks to the pb early warning system), but I’m not in a hurry to top up on these odds just yet.
70 - lol Tim. Under the Manchester scheme you have to produce a valid passport (+£60) to get one!
I’d like to see a seats market open, ie how many seats a party will get accross the country.
79. I agree that the Tories will poll below their present national share as well. I’d anticipate something like 38/18/15 for the three main parties.
I doubt the Lib Dems’ Europhile share will improve much. They already have much of that vote and aren’t doing much to make the case which may be a tactical error - there are more Europhiles out there than there are Lib Dems, even if they’re in a minority on the debate. It is a problem though that some of the strongest Eurosceptic areas also have heavy Lib Dem representation.
You’re right to say that some BNP support comes from (ex-)Tories as well as (ex-)Labour and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that happen in June. Labour is likely to be worse affected though.
74
“Cameron isn’t going to want to do anything that will stop ratification”
I’d disagree with that. If it’s gone through he has to develop his ‘we wouldn’t leave it there’ strategy, and that’s not going to be easy.
for Chris Whiteside @ 9.50pm last night (a couple of threads ago):
I’m not disagreeing that it will be close, and I’m not disagreeing that the level of LibDem presence is “disappointing”, but I still think that Jamie will just get a few more votes than you will. Where I think you might suffer is the fear which will be generated about “Tory cuts” to upcoming projects.
The hospital, infrastructure, and the whole Engery Coast thing will be put at being “at risk”, with the resultant impact n jobs, will be what is used to get the Labour vote to the polling stations. But you are smart enough to know that already, and will be preparing things to counter those arguments.
On the ‘missing conservative voters’ issue, it’s worth looking at the London Mayor results last year and in 2004 for comparisons. The Conservatives got an average of 7,500 extra votes *per parliamentary constituency* last year. Admittedly the Labour vote went up as well.
Not content with having already destroyed Personal Pensions it seems that now Gordon’s Legacy will be to make us work until we are 70, Of course you will need to have a job first. We can only hope that Gordon is forced to take early retirement(with no pension) after the Euro’s have been an utter disaster.
79. antifrank, I agree that the party that wil benefit most from a low turnout will be UKIP - their supporters care most about the whole set of issues around the EU/Europe and will turn out in the drizzle in disproportionate numbers.
But what about Scotland? Will a low turnout benefit the SNP; are their supporters more likely to vote, as this is another chance to give the unionist parties a kicking? I would have thought the SNP are strong odds on to top the vote share in Scotland.
I’ve only just caught up with Martin Kettle’s piece on commentisfree.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/05/hazel-blears-margaret-thatcher
One more for the stalking Shetland pony, it seems.
What wonderful irony:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8034027.stm
85. Voting went up in London last May because their were two candidates of of more than usual charisma fighting the election out.
Yes I include Ken as well as Boris in this, even though I hate Livingstones guts.
#16 [ by Stuart Dickson May 6th, 2009 at 6:15 am ]
Now, Scotland is outperforming the rest of the UK in these tough times - with unemployment 25% lower, and higher employment levels than south of the border.
That is due to your excess of public-sector employment. This cannot persist sans Union.
#20 [ by Patrick May 6th, 2009 at 6:20 am ]
For me ‘very blue’ would be a share of the Euro votes in excess of current polling (say in the 45% to 50%+ range)….
Unlikely that the Tories will top 45%. Whilst I would support the Tories in a national election, on Europe I am an English Democrat. [ NU, you are free to support us!
]
#42 [ by Patrick May 6th, 2009 at 7:04 am ]
It is this TOTAL vote picture which interests me so much. Polls only ever seem to look at percentages.
In Lewisham - why did the Scottish tw@t choose our borough to gurn on - we have a hung-council. [Labour l@rd-@rse mayor holds the casting vote.]
Bridget Prentice has struggled to get-out-the-vote. [The Lewisham-West wollah is already marked as a rebel.] Demographics have changed, but Lewisham-East and Lewisham-West & Penge are seats that could become Tory marginals next year.
Whilst UKIP are dead, there is hope for smaller parties like the EDP and LibDems. One hopes that it is not the BNP that benefits!
On that note, nice to see tyson back….
88 Bonkers. Utterly.
First the Government looses the plot. Then its supporters.
Surely the reason why the turnout for the Euro Elections is so low and also why minority parties often obtain an unexpectedly high share of the vote is that nowadays most voters cannot see any connection between their vote and what happens at Brussels.
To voters it would appear that MEPs have very little effect on the Brussels bureaucracy and the new regulations/laws that are continually being imposed on a suffering UK population and are gold-plated by HMG (in contrast to other EU countries).
If the issue of the Referendum being refused by Labour (after being promised in their manifesto) and this refusal being quietly supported by the LibDems is well publicised before this election, then both could suffer and UKIP could maintain their seats - or even improve its standing?
BrianSJ: “The EU issues are there, from wheelie bins to Royal Mail to ID cards, but the EU link has been buried.”
Brian, let me help you out. The Westminster government decides whether we have ID Cards and whether the Royal Mail is privatised. Your local council decides whether you have wheelie bins.
I don’t mean to do down the importance of Europe as an issue, but you are clearly a lunatic.
We have been denied a GE and this is at least an opportunity to go into a polling booth and put a cross against GB and the Labour Party. I wouldn’t miss it for the world - there must be many other Conservatives who perhaps would not bother with the Euros who feel the same.I hope and expect that this will massively skew the “likelihood to vote” figures, very different from the usual polling numbers.
82. David Herdson:
You’re right to say that some BNP support comes from (ex-)Tories as well as (ex-)Labour and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that happen in June. Labour is likely to be worse affected though.
Morning Dave, I think BMP will gain more than usual in the EU poll, even gaining a seat.
I had a discussion with a few people near where I live and that party was mentioned by some who I would thought very adverse to the idea of voting BNP. Seems revenge is in the air.
92 - I don’t think that it’s as bonkers as all that. Hazel Blears is much underestimated and has been poorly used by Gordon Brown. That rumour has it today that he is going to sack her shows how poorly he marshals his resources.
Where Martin Kettle’s thesis falls down is that she doesn’t have any real base in the party and the Blairites would identify at least five candidates to support before they backed her (I think the Blairites are making a mistake in that judgement, but that is their mistake to make).
Desperation leads men to cast around wildly. If the article shows anything, it shows that Alan Johnson’s procession to the throne is not going to be smooth.
76. Labour’s share will be very low, but I had a similar thought to “Northman” -
When Trevor K in the Sun talked about a 17% Labour share, he actually ascribed that thought to nervous Labour ministers. You have to ask yourself what the ministers who told him this were playing at. One possibility is that the ministers were playing expectations management with the aim of making a share of, say 20% look better. The other possiblity is that they think Labour will do better in the general election if Brown goes.
Don’t forget that the 2004 Euro election was a year after the invasion of Iraq, and Labour took a heavy hit that year because of it. Probably not quite as heavy as they will take this time from the recession and all the other signs of sleaze and incompetence, but still bad. Some degree of “Iraq unwind” may mean that the drop in Labour support is not quite as great as some people are expecting, and may also check the forward progress made by the Lib/Dems.
The expenses business will probably hit all the main three parties to some extent, and might also hit UKIP as those who follow such things - which probably includes a chunk of 2004 UKIP voters - may be aware that now that there are a group of UKIP MEPs they also have their share of expenses scandals.
UKIP also now has to contend with the fact that they are not going to get the same level of celebrity endorsement and media interest, will not have as much of a novelty factor, and are competing with the BNP for the “most anti EU” niche.
I suspect we will see the vote splintered all over the place. The Conservatives will do well in the county elections, and should improve on our 2004 Euro share, but there are still people who would vote Conservative for Westminster and UKIP for Europe and this will have an impact.
One of the safest predictions about the June 4th election is that whatever the Conservative share is, on June 5th there will be posts on this website arguing that the Conservative vote was too low for Cameron to be able to win a general election!
53, this Government is simply thick as hell.
Recession time, we can’t afford Gurkhas! Then a few days later they roll out a £20bn ID card scheme no-one wants.
“Times are hard. Now give us £60 to scan your identity and put it on a piece of plastic and the sort of database which would’ve given Stalin tented trousers!”
I’m moving to Manchester in September. Will I be getting an ID Card? Will I heck!
On Hari’s article: the thing is that even in PR situations it is a *general* convention in most countries that the party with the most votes gets the first crack at forming a government. It’s felt that if the smaller parties did not declare themselves to be allied in the campaign, it’s kinda bad form to gang up after the election to try and oust the party that got over 40% of the vote.
In situations like 1983 and 1987, I think it’s fairly clear Thatcher would still have been Prime Minister. She might have been forced to make a few concessions to the Alliance or the Nats, and I strongly assume she wouldn’t have been quite as radical, but I think there is little doubt that even under a different electoral system, Maggie would still have been in charge because it would look ‘bad’ otherwise. There’s a lot of pragmatism in politics. Remember recently in Germany how Schroeder wanted to continue to be Chancellor in an SDP-CDU/CSU coalition, even though he had polled fewer votes (though admittedly close). It was considered a silly idea; more of the German public had voted for Merkel to be their Chancellor and hence their wishes should be respected.
#98 [ by Chris Whiteside May 6th, 2009 at 8:47 am ]
One of the safest predictions about the June 4th election is that whatever the Conservative share is, on June 5th there will be posts on this website arguing that the Conservative vote was too low for Cameron to be able to win a general election!
Chirs! Euro results will be presented on June 6th. Please do keep up!
[Please report to Headmaster Dale for punishment!]
97. Hazel Blears is a typical Blairite minister who talks in Government speak - occasionally punctuated with a bit real English and bizzarly pursed lips.
I grant you she is better than many Gordon has.
84 Ian, you are dead right about the Labour strategy in Copeland, and that is exactly the line Jamie and his people are already using.
Of course, Labour cuts in spending are also likely to hit those things even before the election. Given that Copeland voters do have a strong sense of self interest, the interesting questions will be
1) If there were a Labour government, is there any chance that they would be able to avoid also making massive cuts, and
2) Since even people who would otherwise be inclined to support Labour will probably not expect the present government is very likely to be re-elected, which candidate would have the best chance of persuading David Cameron to keep the local hospital, site a new nuclear power station in West Cumbria, etc?
Apart from the nuclear power angle, Copeland is probably not the only place where people will be asking those sorts of questions.
101 There will be posts along those lines on June 5th based on local election results and on polling projections, and on June 7th based on actual european election results !
Apologies, accidental double post
81 I’d like to see a seats market open, ie how many seats a party will get accross the country
Tontoon - isn’t this what Betfair’s Party Seats Line provides? if not what exactly do you mean?
Surely this poll is evidence that the conservatives should drop the issue of Europe as a policy, and stop letting it divide them.
Its pretty apparent no-one really gives a sod unless theyre actually asked/told that the EU is even there, and if the Tories could keep it out of the news it would cease to be an issue.
I cant understand why the conservatives keep plugging it (especially those with differing views - im thinking Ken Clarke). If the conservatives were passive towards the EU would it really lose them a single vote?
Has anyone seen these BNP pound coin stickers. Story about it here.
http://www.thestar.co.uk/headlines/Shock-at-BNP-coin-sticker.5232211.jp
Surely that’s illegal on both the defacing of the coin and lack of imprint.
12,65,98.
Prediction Con 34%,Lab 18%,Lib 13%,UKIP,12%,BNP 12%,Oth 11%
A very close contest for third place.Pretty sure BNP will erode UKIP share,and that LD will poll lower share than 2004 in line with their lower natinal opinion poll ratings.
Are there any other beeting opprtunities avaialable aprt from Labour < 20%.
rogerh
107 - Possibly not, but there are other considerations.
Happy St George’s Day!!!
To all our Bulgarian lurkers out there! Hat-tip: Wikipedia.
109 - UKIP and BNP will do better than 12% unfortunately. Tories will not do as well as some on here expect. Lib Dems to do better than expected. As for Labour, god knows.
107. David M: Surely this poll is evidence that the conservatives should drop the issue of Europe as a policy, and stop letting it divide them.
They’re not (significantly) divided on Europe.
107. The problem is that the EU goes to the heart of two core features of modern day Conservative Party policy - the free market and national sovereignty and identity.
Unfortunately, it means the party can be split; because those that feel the free market is more important are more likely to be pro-EU and those that feel that national sovereignty is more important are more likely to be anti-EU.
However, I think it’s fairly clear that whilst the Europhile wing is still there, it is radically smaller and much less angsty than it ever was in the late 80s and early 90s. Also, after the election, the makeup of the parliamentary party is likely to be strongly Eurosceptic, so I don’t think Europe will ever be the issue it once was. It might surface now and again, but I doubt it has the propensity to tear the party apart. The Eurosceptics won. For the foreseeable future, they are the majority.
112. MB: BNP will do better than 12% unfortunately.
That’s a truly scary prediction, and reminds me I must make sure my (Estonian) GF is registered to vote. For anyone other than the racist thugs who’d send her “home”, of course.
“conservatives are not doing as well as Tony Blair did in blah blah blah, william hague did better in blah blah blah, and we went on to win the next general election” Can someone send this to the chipmunk so she doesnt have to think it up herself on the evening of the count?
If there is no credible fourth party shock in the Euros, i.e. like there was with UKIP in 2004, would it be acceptable to start comparing Labour’s performance (which, who knows, could be their Tories-in-1995-style nadir) with the Conservatives’ performance in 1994, when they came “a poor second” wih 28%?
Clearly, given the UKIP shock of 2004, it would be unfair to read too much into the popularity of the parties, especially given how Labour won the general election a year later, but if it looks like the three main parties dominate, could we start reading into how bad it is for Labour if they crash?
(and fingers crossed it won’t be the BNP that provides, if any, the fourth party shock)
114. They are those of us, who see the EU as a protectionist little club which impedes our trade with the rest of the world.
116 - I’m sure she already has it committed to memory. I bet that even when they go down to a crushing general election defeat they will try to say that it is bad for the Conservatives because they haven’t got x, y or z type seats.
It’s 4 weeks to polling date and I see no momentum behind UKIP or the BNP at the moment. I was more concerned about these 3 months ago than I am now. With having the locals on the same day, I don’t think they’ll gain the kind of traction that some on here are predicting.
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/05/guardian-readers-for-harriet.html
Shocking turnaround from when I voted. Excellent news though.
I hope that these findings get publicised more readily. They lay bare just how much of a mess we are in thanks to Gordon….
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3591056/humanising-the-numbers.thtml
It is interesting that UKIP still polls as well as they do. Maybe, as many suggested before they were just seen as a protest vote, or even an extreme right wing party that are now about to be eclipsed by a blateantly extreme right wing party, ie the BNP. If this poll is accurate then expect UKIP to have a very poor showing
http://www.politicshome.com/Landing.aspx?Blog=7547&perma=link#7547
House prices down 17.7% year on year, 1.7% in April, says Halifax
No green shoots, then.
re Conservatives and Europe, there is no split. The Conservative Party is a Euro-Sceptic/Euro-Realist party, under the Cameron/Hague axis. There is no serious Europhile wing among MPs.
The “problem” (and this isn’t a very big problem) the Conservatives have is that while their activist base is, if anything, more sceptical than the leadership, the soft supporters of the Conservative party, i.e. the City, Big Business, are more Europhilic. Therefore, Cameron/Hague tread a careful line, trying neither to upset the City/Big Business nor their activists.
The more Europe recedes as an issue (and it will recede further when Lisbon is officially killed…), the more it benefits the Conservative Party, if only by preventing the more sceptical from going to UKIP.
107. i agree. pushing either line (sceptic or phile) strongly is enough to guarantee that a lot of people won’t vote for you - otherwise europe is a non-issue.
120: The BNP momentum would be more grass-roots and come in under the radar I would think. I hope it doesn’t happen, but we could be in for a nasty shock if they can do better motivating their people to vote than labour can.
113/4.
Perhaps they are not so divided now, but you would imagine that with the way things are going in 13 months or less the Tory party will emerge with 125+ new MPs, each with their own views on Europe.
Once the party get into power, once senior mps begin chatting with pro-europe civil servants and the like, there is the potential for a pro-europe grouping to emerge.
My issue was, IF there is talk of doing something drastic over the Lisbon Treaty once in power its effects could be threefold:
1) a division in the party between pragmatists and hardliners
2) Seriously irritating the rest of Europe
3) Causing the British people to love them, yet gaining not a single vote in the long term
So thus why not drop the issue (like Labour and their various “socialist” contradictions - papered over)
(i agree this is completely hypothetical)
It is also possible that with the Conservative Party no longer banging on and on about Europe then it no longer features in many voters thinking, except the headbangers who are UKIP members
115. LS. Your Estonian is more than likely to be far to the right of the BNP. Estonians (and other Baltics) welcomed the Nazis like blood brothers in 1941.
great tip last night on the royal mail vote by the way, i see mr. power has taken it down which is a good sign i think
128, given the German president has suspended its ratification and if Ireland stands up for itself and tells the EU to sod off again then it could be a very good issue for the Tories. Grant a referendum, EU told to go to hell, hurrah!
Damn this lying Labour Government. The Lib Dems were bloody complicit in the electoral deceit as well.
128: David M
The scars of the 90s are well remembered by the (upcoming) class of 2010. There will be no split over Europe, and there will be no splits over Europe.
The only possibility of a split over Europe would be a decade out *if* the Eurozone economies were to significantly outperform the non-Euro members.
114. Numbertwelve - I think it’s been quite a long time since there were many Tories who favoured the EU on the basis that it would ‘promote free markets’. Over the last twenty years most Tory Europhiles have tended to be decidedly ‘wet’ in economic terms.
130. they weren’t exactly spoilt for choice
123
Why do you call the BNP ‘right wing’? The New Statesman describes them as ‘to the left of Labour’.
http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2009/04/bnp-european-party-british
Sorry, the first paragraph of that was meant to read:
“The scars of the 90s are well remembered by the (upcoming) class of 2010. There will be no split over Europe, and there will be no push towards deeper integration following the voters’ repeated rejection of European constitutions.”
44. Sean Fear - you may be right, although it would depend on what kind of Tory party was facing a Labour-Alliance coalition and what such a coalition would have done to the Labour Party. Weren’t quite a lot of Alliance voters Brocklebank Fowler-type Tories who couldn’t stomach Mrs. T?
Hari is also taking a massive liberty to suggest that the Liberal Party in 1979 was “committed to higher taxes and higher public spending”. IIRC John Pardoe had put in place quite a radical tax reform package (albeit one I’m not sure I’d agree with).
130: if I had been repeatedly terrorized by Stalin and some German chaps came, offering to drive the Russians out, I might welcome them with open arms too…
On topic: No one has mentioned Libertas. Has it already sunk without trace?
133. that is easy to say in opposition - but in govt. the party will have to take positions, and they are bound to upset people
6. if the country is so eurosceptic (particularly those who really care about the issue), i would like to hear the following question answered: howcome eurosceptic parties never win half the UK vote in total, even on the pitifully low turnouts we get for EU elections, and despite generating lots of noise on the issue?
101 - the Tory vote fell in copeland at the last election by 6 points - why was that?
139. “I might welcome them with open arms too…” And help them ship the local jews off to concentration camps too?
“Will you refuse to renew your passport John?”
Why should any Mancunian who’s *already* paid for a passport have to pay *another* sixty pounds for an ID card? A card which won’t entitle them to anything the passport doesn’t already!
Why should any pilot who’s *already* been through thorough identity and security vetting be *forced* to carry an ID card? A card which won’t represent any higher level of clearance than what they’ve already been through!
Go back to counting your carrier bag and excrement collection, tim.
142 - It is rude to ask people questions that they have already answered. Check previous threads.
139. I suppose helping the Nazis to round up and kill the Jews was part of their joy too.
140 - Libertas = Veritas = Dignitas
128. It’s not completely hypothetical, it’s complete bollocks.
The next Tory government will be the most eurosceptic Britain has ever had, by a mile. It will change our relationship with Brussels - we just don’t know how, yet. For the very good reason that our relationship with Brussels is right now in flux, as Lisbon is still unratified.
You only have to read the statements of senior Tories to see that they are calmly but clearly committed to this policy: Hague, Osborne, Cameron, Fox - they are all sceptics. It’s not a lie. Or some devious attempt to deceive the people. They mean it.
I think some europhiles are in a state of wishful thinking, presuming that the next Tory government will - like so many previous Tory governments - revert to europhilia when in government.
It won’t happen, not least because if it did Cameron’s determination to offer a new honest politics would be shot from day one. And his party would be in revolt.
I suspect, whether Lisbon ratifies or not, the Tories will offer some kind of referendum on Europe (”do you want to integrate further etc etc”), and they will also pass laws ensuring future referendums must be held if sovereignty is handed over - thus binding, to a certain extent, their successors..
Re the thread. If Labour go below 20% Brown is in serious trouble. Not sure they will though.
145, not defending or attacking the Baltic conduct during the war, but I don’t think it’s legitimate to state that a country and its people today must be like their forefathers of sixty years ago.
Will you be moving to Manchester and paying £60 for an ID card, tim? You might have to go there for a holiday if the pilots go on strike about being *forced* to have one.
O/T, but how fick are Al-Beeb…?
As the Royal Navy prepares to celebrate 100 years since the establishment of the Fleet Air Arm, the BBC has taken a look at a Hawk fighter jet.
[Src: Al-Beeb]
Where is Coldstone…? Should he not be saying that we should scrap the Tornado, Typhoon and Lightening II? Geesh we have all these couple of wings of Hawk Trainers!
If I were an average Estonian, who had seen my country invaded by Stalin, seen the appropriate Red Purges, and seen forced Soviet-ization of the country (with associated Russian immigration), you would be keen on *anyone* who kicked out the Communists.
Not to mention the obvious issue that how on hell would the average Estonian know about the “final solution”. If it wasn’t publicised in the West (and was in fact actively witheld from the population), why do you think Pravda would have been explaining it to the population?
141. If the British people are actually europhile, as your typically asinine post suggests, how come even Tony Blair - an arch europhile - was too scared to consult the British people - on the euro? Or the Euro constitution?
If you smelly little europhiles think the British are in favour of your disgusting treachery, just give us a referendum, amd we’ll find out once and for all.
Oh, what a surprise, no referendum. Who’d a thunk it. &c.
Actually, what’s most shocking about “weathercock” is that he wouldn’t dream of accusing Germans of today of being Nazis, but that he thinks it’s OK to make the same accusation of Estonians.
148. Unfortunately not correct. Many of the main political parties in Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are fascist or pro fascist in nature.
There is also a burning anti-semitism in these populations, brought up and educated by a notoriously rabid Catholic Church.
It depends whether Camerons idea of turning this election into a referendum on Gordon Brown actually catches on. If it does, then it may just motivate more people than usual to come out and give Gord one final kick in the ballots.
I’ve already warned my friends that I will disown them if they get an ID card. I will also rap at them in the street in a humiliating fashion.
150 - on one interpretation they are be correct. Two-seat Hawks are used for pilot training, but they can also be equipped with Sidewinder air to air missiles and are the first line of reserve in any conflict.
On this day in a years time the most atrocious government in modern history will be booted out of office! What a happy day that will be for the vast majority!
130-I am not convinced that when the BNP talks about “foreigners” that they mean blond (or white haired!
) Estonians or even assorted East Europeans (have they gone back anyway?). I think their real target are the usual suspects: Somali asylum seekers, Jamaican gangsters, East European gypsies, Pakistani illegal immigrants, “Muslim” terrorists, etc. That the mainstream media equates foreigners with East Europeans does not convince me they are whom the BNP have in mind.
Nick Griffin did not get sent to a kangaroo court in Leeds for talking about the effect Polish immigrants brought into local communities.
3. I hate Labour but in 2005 I voted for them. Why? Because I was in Brent East and it was a Lab/LD marginal. Voting Labour kept it that way, so that in 2010, Labour and the LibDems will squander campaigning resources fighting for a seat which has no bearing on the main outcome.
So presumably I’m one of Johann Hari’s centre-left voters then. Does Johann remember how many people voted against Labour and against the LibDems etc in those elections? And how does he know?
Eg in 1983 ISTR that 72% of the electorate voted against LAbour and 75% voted against the SDP alliance. So where does that leave his theory?
Why should we have a referendum on an issue that nobody except eurosceptic loons care about? Let the government get on with it, I couldn’t care less if we’re signed up to some meaningless treaty or not.
weathercock: the two leading political parties at the last Estonia election were Eesti Reformierakond and Eesti Keskerakond, each of which got a little over 25% of the vote.
Would you like to produce some evidence that either of them is (a) anti-semitic, or (b) fascist/proto-fascist?
I’m just asking, ’cause you seem mostly to be in the business of talking rubbish and then making wild, ballsy, and factually inaccurate statements.
153. Wrong Robert. There are many unreconstructed Nazis living in Germany today. The Stasi (my how they rhyme!) were just the flip side.
Your side Roger?
158, not necessarily. A skewed electoral system and postal voting could see it returned.
158. Yeah, I just noticed that myself. May 6th will almost certainly be election day, which mean this time next year Brown (or whoever is PM by then) will be brown bread.
Oh how the next year of going to drag!
159: my mate Kwasi Karteng does not thank you…
160, old-fashioned idea, but is the answer that all three main parties promised it in their manifestos?
159 - Johann Hari is a moron, I would recommend him to Morris Dancer to be fired at speed from his cannon.
weathercock: and there are many people living in the UK today who believe in an imminent Islamo-fascist takeover. Fortunately, in neither country are these people in power.
163. Nothing can save Labour now. They are DOOMED. DOOMED at he next election!
It does make me laugh when I hear Conservatives talk about a “skewed electoral system”. FPTP is by definition a skewed system; get over it!
154. The vast majority of Estonians who profess a religion are Lutheran or Orthodox. Stop posting such ignorant rubbish.
162. Sorry Roger = Robert
147.
Thats what i like to hear. Clearly my views are being warped by being pro-Europe, but then so are yours methinks
Cameron’s not an idiot, he wont do what you say
The extent to which our Civil Service is integrated with the European system is phenomenal. Not only would changing this completely screw with our legislative system but the Civil Servants will not be happy breaking this given the fun little trips and power plays they can go on when they take trips to Europe. If Cameron and co. do decide to go on the offensive against Europe, they will find an intransigent and highly pissed off CS; and one that is already fuming given the cuts that will have to be made.
They cant pull out, i cant see Cameron being the man who wants to be remembered as the man who finally ruined Britain’s status as an influence in the world. What are we meant to do on our own. Who’s going to be scared of our pathetic little army and navy, and given Browns recent actions, our collapsing economy. If we leave Europe we turn into Canada overnight, and who gives a toss about them.
PS The British public are not europhile, they are massively eurosceptic; but only when asked. Otherwise they dont care
Johann Hari:
At every single election where she was leader, 56 per cent of us voted for parties committed to higher taxes and higher public spending.
“Us”? Surely Hari isn’t old enough to have voted in an election involving Thatcher. “56 per cent of some of you”, he should’ve said.
15 Patrick (further to my 159) - surely Tories in Lab / LD marginals should vote for whoever’s lagging behind, to make the seat look more like a contestable marginal to both of them?
167, already on.
154-Only the Lithuanians are Catholic. There was never a large Jewish population in Estonia.
163 - I suspect they are too incompetent to successfully rig an election.
159 John R - Yes, it’s a ludicrous proposition to say that everyone would have voted in the same way under a different electoral system. Anyway more people voted against Blair than against Thatcher, but he omits to mention that.
178, I disagree. If there’s only one thing Brown is competent at its rigging systems.
#170 [ by Tabman May 6th, 2009 at 9:50 am ]
on one interpretation they are be correct. Two-seat Hawks are used for pilot training, but they can also be equipped with Sidewinder air to air missiles and are the first line of reserve in any conflict.
My car could probably support an M2 0.5″ Browning machine-gun. But it’s primary purpose is a car. [Are you being serious or pedantic...?]
176 - Jolly Good. I thought you would have take a sensible anti-Hari line.
173-So, Labour place men in the Civil Service? What a surprise. Sack them! Repopulate the CS with politicised Tories. It’s what Labour did.
160: Maybe the reason being that we feel so cut-off and powerless over the ‘European project’ that people either don’t care or are resigned to it. Given more invovlement, and a say over the direction and extent of the EU, then I dare say people would feel more invested in it, and give it greater importance.
167. Isn’t one of the Indy’s problems that too many of its commentators are lefty loons? Aside from Steve Richards and Michael Brown, there’s no one I’d turn to the Indy for. Certainly its comment pages compare poorly with the Times, Guardian and FT - for all the faults of these newspapers.
171. I stand corrected about the dissapearing Estonians regarding releigion, but not the others.
160. That post is either depressingly stupid, or merely a bit of juvenile trolling.
STATUS: IGNORED.
181-In the days of Tony’s ethical foreign policy (remember it? Blink and you missed it) wasn’t there some stink about Hawks we were selling Indonesia as they had an offensive capability?
181 - I am being serious. The Hawk is a very agile (though not particularly fast) aircraft - a true fighter in that sense (as opposed to the long-range missile platforms that currently occupy the role). It can also be equipped with a centre-line mounted cannon.
Hawk single-seaters can, and have been, sold to foreign Air Forces as fighters. There was a scandal involving our government and, IIRC Indonesia, some years back on this very issue.
188 - great minds!
185 - Bruce Anderson is by no means left wing!
185 - I think its bigger problem is that it is largely just crap.
173. the most reliable evidence we have is the results of past EU elections, where eurosceptic parties have generally got 40-50% of the vote in total (with most of that going to the most moderate option), and europhile parties roughly 50%
all on very low turnout.
doesn’t that suggest that the public is split down the middle? with low enthusiasm for the topic in general?
anyone claiming otherwise will have to explain why this is not the case better than they have to date.
191. Ah yes, I forgot old Bruce.
#188 [ by Рeter2' May 6th, 2009 at 10:00 am ]
Ok! Let’s clarify. UK Hawks are Advanced trainers and this includes limited weapon ordinance. The Hawk 100/200 are multi-purpose attack-trainers.
One would not consider the Shorts Tucana a fighter, yet they have a potential to carry Sidewinders and ground-offence ordinance. [Apropos the JetProvost/Strikemaster they replaced.]
Yet they do not have AtA radar, laser range-finders, etc. They may have made reasonable light-fighters in the ‘Sixties (as the Gnat proved in Indian service), but they are not fighters in the 4.5G sense.
Rant over!
193 - I really don’t think you can draw conclusions from the Euro elections like that. If the euro elections weren’t on the same day as locals I wouldn’t bother with them but I’m as passionately Eurosceptic as they come.
173. Interesting post at 173. It’s quite an accurate depiction of the real situation, at least at the upper reaches of certain parts of the civil service, most notably the FO.
But I’m struggling to work out whether the author of the post thinks it is a good thing or not that an unelected and self-interested elite can frustrate the democratic will of the people in the way he suggests may happen.
I know many europhiles do think it is a good thing, as a post-democratic, ‘technocratic’ and transnational form of government is their aim - perhaps the author can enlighten us?
193: That generally sums up all politics. Not just Europe.
175 John. Never, ever, ever vote Labour under any circumstances. It will pollute your soul. It is the willingness of so many in this country to betray us by voting socialists into power that makes us weak and our future uncertain. If the LDs blew Labour away and became a strong and vocal oppostition to Dave I for one would be delighted.
ReBrandedHorse petition…!
“Ah yes, I forgot old Bruce.”
I wish *I* could, the NeoCon loon.
199 - The danger then is that if they then won an election they would change the voting system and let Labour off the leash again.
196. surely you could be more passionately eurosceptic by bothering with them?…
197. joking aside it is a good thing that there is an element of stability regardless of the most immediate election results. few would argue that what we have is perfect though.
For 2 nights running now I have had a dream about watching teh general election results. last night the first 15 seats to declare were all Lib Dem gains or holds
I need to see a doctor…
On topic, low turnout for sure, even Radio 5’s day at the EU parliament failed to pique my interest at all. I will vote only if it’s a nice day, as it’s over a mile round trip walk despite living in a sizeable town(???how rubbish) Otherwise I doubt I will be bothered.
I always enjoy the EU threads. It’s like wandering into a bar at 10.30 in the evening when you’ve just come straight from work.
88. The parallel is not as crazy as it sounds. Think about the comparisons. First and most obviously there’s the gender issue. Yes, they are both women.
Something tells me Martin was having trouble reaching his minimum word count on this piece.
203 - But by bothering with them I’m endorsing their legitimacy and as a Eurosceptic I don’t believe that the European Parliament is a body with much legitimacy.
149 ‘Will you be moving to Manchester and paying £60 for an ID card, tim? You might have to go there for a holiday if the pilots go on strike about being *forced* to have one.’
A couple of evenings ago, it was suggested that tim is already there, and is a member of the Labour party in Manchester. I look forward to the day he ventures forth from the Fantasy Farm bedsit, and is subjected to the indignity of being forced to hand his ID card over to the local police on the street like a common criminal. ‘Papers please citizen Timmy’.
Thanks, 200, but I’m already a paid-up member of No2ID who has donated, signed petitions and written plenty of letters against ID cards. All that remains is to vote Labour out of office, which I’m looking forward to doing.
Seriously, though, does anybody here:
1) Live in Manchester,
2) Already own a passport, and
3) Want to pay *another* £60 for an ID card?!
Is anybody here a pilot, airport worker, or mmber of a union against the ID scheme?
207. That was always Alan Sked’s argument. The counter-argument was that by not taking part, Europhiles would be elected who would add to the pressure for integration.
210 - It is a tricky one.
I wonder how much we are paying this Swine Flu Tsar….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8035121.stm
209
I was at an event recently with a shadow minister. He was asked:
Q - Are you going to get rid of ID Cards?
A - Yes
Goodbye ID Cards. No need for councilhousetory to go to prison for being a refusenik.
204. Lib Dems gain Sunderland Central - “this is going to be a bad night for the Conservatives”!
210. Surely given the danger of the BNP winning seats, even the most hardened eurosceptic should vote this time around?
A quick question which those better schooled in D’Hondt might be able to help me with. Are there any circumstance in which a marginal extra vote for a party other than the BNP might increase the chance of the BNP winning a seat? Eg by increasing the quota, it might prevent another party from reaching the quota, and thereby enable the BNP to gain a seat via largest remainders? Obviously it would be impossible to predict whether this circumstance would arise, but I’d be interested to know if it was theoretically possible.
211. The experience of UKIP MEPs behaving like fools and knaves has strengthened Sked’s argument.
Personally I always preferred the option of having a cross-party anti-EU movement stand in European elections. I think it would be unworkable though as the major parties wouldn’t allow it.
204 No more cheese for you before bedtime!
“last night the first 15 seats to declare were all Lib Dem gains or holds”
So Glasgow and Sunderland and Newcastle went LD, Torbay a hold…that’s not a dream, that is a fully-fledged nightmare! Cold sweats and everything…
207,210. complete nonsense. worse than those that claim they are making a stand by not voting in other elections.
vote for UKIP or one of the other anti-europe splinter groups if you don’t want to give legitimacy to europhiles.
the fact is that very few people do. i wonder why that is?
209 10-21
I used to live in M/C (a long time ago)and a lot of my family still do. The answer from them and me is a resounding NO. Passports are enough. Though I dare say there are a few trendy’s who would obtain one just to flash it about in poseurish style.
215 - Probably.
193/7
i wouldnt really take euro elections as a good guide. Turnout is normally depressingly low, and even if theyre linked with the locals turnout is still depressingly low. The only exception i can see is the 2004 elections, but at 45%ish turnout even that is hardly representative. If theyre linked in with locals, you cant prevent people from voting on domestic issues, and if theyre standalone, itll be die-hard europhiles and absolutely raving eurosceptics that turnout.
Re runnymede: controversial. I think there needs to be a balance, you shouldnt politicise the civil service (i know it is but it shouldnt be) but not should you technocratise the economy. The obvious recent example we have of a technocrat society is Chile under Pinochet, which did not work out too well!. I think in Europe the balance is too much to the civil servant, and i think in this country the balance is too much to Parliament
I like SkyNews but sometimes they can be silly.
Banned Shock Jock: Home Sec Is A Lunatic
Thankfully this is one of their better presentations…!
3 - “But he’s right- the centre left have been in the majority during all those elections.”
This is garbage. It presupposes people who protest vote for the LibDems are always left. It presupposes that the centre are always left leaning rather than right leaning.
It presupposes if the libdems did not exist that -
a - their vote would always go labour.
b - that the left party (labour) could coexist as a coalition with all the lefty libdems taking an active part.
This reminds me when I watched the 2001 GE election results whist in Denmark, after a few too many drinks, and thought the Tories had done really really badly and the the Lib Dems amazingly fanstically (I couldn’t tell the difference between the yellow and blue graphics).
210: I would be a bit more Europhilic myself if there was a representative body that reflected most nations’ sceptical populations. By not voting you ensure that you end up with the wrong representatives (who still manage a better job of calling the commission to account than do national governments.)
223 - There is only one party that has since the advent of Universal suffrage got more than 50% of the vote and nearly matched it in the post war period. Hint, it isn’t a party of the left.
216. I’ve wondered whether UKIP, or a similar grouping, would be better placed if they gave a manifesto pledge not to take up their seats in the Euro parliament. They would then be more of a “none of the above” protest vote for those who want nothing to do with the EU. Plus, by not taking up their seats they would save a great wedge of tax payers cash on salaries and expenses.
222. Who will pay her legal bill ? Will she have to sell the Habitat sink on ebay ?
221. sounds like a good guide to me. few people care, and those that do are evenly split.
223. those are not unreasonable assumptions to make though. you also miss the point - he is not arguing that (a) or (b) as you state them are true
226. and it has failed to do so on every other occasion. what’s your point?
From Al-Beeb:
LATEST:
Chief executive of speed camera firm Serco pleads guilty to speeding at more than 100mph
Ave It [™ Ave It '09]. What a hoon!
We had the Brown media relaunch No?? yesterday, and today its Ed Balls turn to try and repair his credibility. He did not impress this morning on Sky, its looking like he has managed to totally screw the Education issue for Labour in double quick time. All he had to do, was stay on top of his brief and deliver a basic level of competence. Instead, he has managed to take what he saw as a nice and easy leadership parking space in Education and turn it into a full sized disaster area for them turning out one bad headline after another. Did he really think that he could be Labour’s David Cameron without some genuine charisma or charm?
Gordon tried to ride to the rescue yesterday in an attempt to neuter the bad publicity with some headline grabbing spin in the shape of a supposed new initiative, what a car crash!
Joey Jones at Sky news reporting that Ed Balls publicly attacking Labour dissenters, that will make a nice change….
230 - Well no other party has come close in modern politics. Also the Conservative party has always won majorities with more than 40%. I wasn’t making a point just an observation.
231 - Priceless
David Cameron’s bike has been thieved again..
http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2009/05/cams-bike-stolen-again.html
Morning all and on thread, I would be surprised if the national Euro poll is much above 35% even with the English county council elections being held on the same day.
In Scotland I would be really surprised if more than 30% of the electorate bothers to vote. The SNP should easily top the poll, Labour will be at a historic low and I expect the Tory vote to be well ahead of the SLD. The SNP are guaranteed to see their 2 MEPs returned but with only 6 rather than the 7 of last time, anything other than Labour 2, Tory 1, LibDem 1 in addition will be a victory for either the Tory or SNP (assuming we Tories keep our second MEP or the SNP get 3). Last time the 2nd Tory was the 7th elected, hence the reason we can only expect 1 MEP.
Nationally, in the absence of the 4 all postal votes in Labour heartland areas like last time, I would not be surprised to see the Tories the clear winners with the LibDems squeaking 2nd place (due to a higher LibDem presence in the shires than the cities) with Labour fighting the UKIP/BNP etc fringe for 3rd place.
As Stuart Dickson said the last time any party achieved 50+% of the popular vote was the Scottish Tory grouping in 1955 which won both a majority of seats and the popular vote. I am hoping we achieve half that at the GE because if we do poll between 20 and 25% then the Scottish results will look very interesting indeed!
I also suspect a great many LibDem voters (as opposed to party activists) would see themselves as centre/centre-right and not left wing. Equally in Scotland there are a great many SNP voters who are definitely centre-right but want independence (hence the fact pre 2007 the overwhelming majority of SNP gains were at the expense of the Scottish Tory Party).
Surely Manchester Labour MPs should be the first to fork out an extra £60 for a card?
221. David M - I feel you are trying to sidestep the issue here a little. I think arguing this from an abstract constitutional balance perspective is rather missing the point.
The reality is that part of the civil service has been deeply politicised by becoming almost fanatically pro-EU integration - as you yourself noted earlier. I think this is a bad thing, in the same way as the packing of the CS with Labour partisans has been. The notion of a disinterested, impartial CS restraining the wilder excesses of politicians is a bit of a fantasy.
Ed Balls. Indeed he does have a face you could just punch all day long. Watching that hoon’s political dreams come to nought is one of the consolation prizes of the disaster that is Britain today.
Does he know he’s got no prospects whatever? If ‘no’ then I shall buy popcorn and sit back for the day it dawns on him. If ‘yes’ then I shall buy popcorn and sit back to enjoy the day he and the rest of his evil gang get bumped.
234.If I was the government, I place Cameron and Boris’s bikes on a 24 hour police watch to prevent this type of priceless publicity. Just a thought..
@234 (James Burdett)
LOL. I know I shouldn’t laugh but I find it hilarious.
Why is it that we only hear about Conservatives having bikes stolen? Hasn’t Boris’ bike been nicked loads of times too?
Here we go again,
RBS deputy gets £500,000 pension
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8035539.stm
It is actually £517,000 a year. I hope none of it is found to be discretionary or could have been withheld. Wonder if Lord Myners has stayed clear this time?
240 - I dunno.
It depends if people want to turnout to give Labour a good kicking. I certainly do, if only because that stupid woman in the Home Office is still determinedly driving flat out towards the cliff edge with her foot flat on the floor with regards to ID cards.
204 jon c did you let Mark Senior make you a cup of coffee or Rod Crosby cook your dinner last night? Tomorrow you will be telling us that your dreams last night (i.e. tonight) included Gordon Brown being hailed a champion as he is re-elected with a Labour majority of 200
173. I don’t think Cameron will pull out. Derrr. Did I ever say that? I believe he will seek a recalibration in our relationship with Europe. More cooperation in some areas (Defence is obvious) much less in others.
But there will be changes. The Tory party is now 90% sceptic, some extremely sceptic. The idea that an incoming Conservative government with this kind attitude will do nothing on this issue (which obsesses their rank and file above all others) just so a few mandarins can eat crepes in Strasbourg is fatuous.
The Civil Service was strongly resistant, I seem to remember, to Margaret Thatcher’s reforms. Fat lot of good it did them.
245. In most cases if the Civil Service is opposed you can be sure the policy is a good one - especially in the case of the FO and Education.
241.
“Hasn’t Boris’ bike been nicked loads of times”
What’s she called?
238 Patrick, imagine what it is like for the 4 little people who call Ed and Yvette “mum and dad”. Poor little sods!!
94. “Brian, let me help you out. The Westminster government decides whether we have ID Cards and whether the Royal Mail is privatised. Your local council decides whether you have wheelie bins.”
Partly right.
All the fuss and palaver over rubbish collection derives from having to comply with the various EU Landfill Directives,
Royal Mail as a government monopoly should be phased out by 2010 according to 3 EU Directives intended to promote cross-border integration of mail services.
ID cards is all Labour’’s own work - though Charles Clarke when he was Home Sec did instigate a big push in the EU for identity databases for all.
It’s all a con really. Westminster pretends it has competence in all sorts of areas, whereas in reality it has little or none - unless it wants to get stuck with fines.
234 - Last time it was nicked they just lifted it off a bollard?
Bloody hell Dave, those locks sure are tricky.
Just seen the story about Jacqui Smith upsetting US radio talk show host Michael Savage, has she managed the incredible feat of taking her domestic bad press truly global?
Paul Waugh tweets “Speculation getting frenzied re Gordon’s reshuffle, now there are claims that it could be next week. Why do it BEFORE Euro elections tho?”
Well, the phasing out of Royal Mail’s monopoly is something all free marketeers (like me) should be in favour of. This is *not* the same as privatisation, and is one of the few things from Europe I’m actively in favour of.
And councils have an *enormous* amount of leeway as far as choosing how to deal with refuse. The fact is that private contractors bid lower if they get to implement wheelie bins.
And ID cards we agree on.
251. Because he might not be there after the Euros?
Wonder how this will impact the election.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8035556.stm
248-Is it an EU directive or is it an EU directive that got “gold plated” by UK mandarins. I can believe that.
251.”Why do it BEFORE Euro elections tho?2
Short term tactic to try and restore some authority and halt the public criticism from dissenters within the party. His team have been briefing about this reshuffle for a while, it was meant to focus minds, prevent embarrassing parliamentary revolts from members of his own government and keep gobs shut until after the Euro’s. It failed.
I see Michael Savage talks about himself in the third person. Always a sign someone’s got their head screwed on.
256 - True but then you can’t really have a blame reshuffle afterwards. It sounds incredible.
256. I’m sure the promotion of a few new sycophantic nobodies will do wonders for Labour’s poll ratings.
254.James, I suspect this is a purely political decision with an eye on the upcoming GE, but also think its a bid to put some clear blue water between Labour and the SNP at the next Holyrood elections too.
Nuclear vs Jobs, and with a recession.
257 - Michael Savage seems to believe the same conspiracy theories that Gaz on here does.
Are they the same person?
235 - I seem to recall that the ‘constituency’ results for the Euros back in 2004 were my first indication that the Lib Dems could retake the Inverness constituency a year later as there was a pretty large uptick in support for them.
Given the changed circumstances (not least the SNP having moved on from Swinney’s leadership and into power), it will be interesting to see if these new results give us any clue as the shifting balance of support for the parties up here.
258&259.Reshuffles at this stage of a Parliament are always used by PM’s to try and shift media focus and relaunch tired looking governments. The fact that Brown is having to do it now, instead of being able to use the timing of it as a classic media distraction the day after bad local/Euro election results, speaks volumes about the hole he is in right now.
re 130 wouldn’t you if you had the Red Army massing on your borders perhaps?
if Hazel gets sacked at the reshuffle - she is hardly going to slink off and be very quiet. No, she will be the leader of the discontented and very possibly a stalking horse candidate - if not really try for the top job herself.
BTW Why should the government lend £5 million to LDV when the owner of the company - who is a close personal friend of the Business Secretary - is still a billionaire?
265. Good chance LDV will be shut just after the elections, methinks…
Treasury Select Committee: Very concerned about state of public finances & Government growth forecasts based on optimistic assumptions.
262.StephenB, good point. In fact its going to be interesting to see how all four parties perform in Scotland at the Euro’s this time around, especially when you compare the polling figures for them all back then with the the current polls. And last time saw Labour/Libdems in coalition government, both the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives are performing much more strongly against both parties.
265, is it the same reason as to why £1.5bn (according to daft estimates) for the Gurkhas is too much but £20bn for ID cards is super duper?
252. Royal Mail needs sorting out - true. There’s no need for it to be a government monopoly any more than was the case with telephones.
The rubbish thing is more complicated, what with restrictions on the number of landfill sites allowed, how much you can put in them and charging for the priviledge of doing so. It was this that kicked off all the separation of stuff for recycling boom. Not a bad thing in itself, except that we can’t recycle most of it, so it gets exported to places like China and nobody gives a damn what they do with it. Though you can bet your little cotton socks that it’s not recycled as we understand the term. Shipping trash halfway round the world in a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t shuffle and then claiming you’re helping the environment is, quite frankly, fraudulent. And it all started because Holland (and I think Denmark) had run out of landfill sites, they pressured Brussels and the result was more problems for everybody else.
ID cards. I had one when I was a youngster and took great delight it tearing it up when they were abandoned. I’ll not have another no matter what threats or inducements they apply. F*ck ‘em.
re 212 it’s small beer compared to the hundreds of millions spent on oseltamivir (Tamiflu). Getting to the loo is a veritable obstacle course around the thousands of boxes upstairs.
Read between the lines of the ID card announcements this week and 2 things are obvious:
The pilots’ union is not only against them but going to initiate legal proceedings against any compulsion to have them. What is Labour going to do — turn trained pilots, members of a union, away at the doors, tell them they can’t report to work because they don’t have ID cards?
Any Mancunians wanting an ID card will *already* have paid for a passport and will have to fork out *another* £60 for the card, a card which will entitle them to *nothing* a passport or driving licence doesn’t already. In a recession, how much uptake is there going to be?
269 - Chris Grayling claimed this morning that the maximimum saving by abandoning ID cards would be £2bn.
Much of the cost is on biometric passports which he was supporting.
239. absolutely not. bike crime is an issue that deserves more airtime
237.
I think youre right. The CS has become rather pro-Labour. I’ve had political discussions with numerous people in the Civil Service and a grand total of one could even be remotely regarded as centre-right. All the others were stereotypical “public sector” workers; apparently though, theres quite a lot of support for the Conservatives on the low rungs (office bees and assistants). I think there are two reasons for this:
- 1) The Thatcher reforms that neutered the service has left a long lasting legacy of mistrust of the Conservatives, which mean that those who are old enough to experience it are often more senior
- 2) Completely apocryphal but of the university graduates who join the service (and are therefore more likely to be higher up) I’d imagine that they are mostly of the left; the right wing going into the private sector.
All I was getting at is that the civil service, despite its entrenched interests, is still a good balance to the politicians; and theres nothing better to do so.
Re: seant should have qualified myself a little, got a little diverted mid-rant; it happens. The Tories wont pull out but if they change Britains relationship/upset the treaties it will still have a major effect. We lack a lot of influence in Europe anyway, and the conservatives must know that if they act in a diehard eurosceptic manner no one will listen
Slightly off-topic but on general ed balls bashing. I was talking to a labour voter about 97 election compared to 2010, and he thought it was remarkable that at least then there were some options as to who would be shadow leader for the conservatives, as compared to now for labour. Ed Balls is a complete waste of space, and the Labour frontbench is desperately short of talent. Their bright sparks who should be acting in an oliver letwin/ Michal gove role (David Miliband the obvious one) have far too strong leader ambitions; and the odds-on replacements are either too old or too insane (or if youre Harman both). We came to the decision that if labour voted in anyone prominent from the front bench they will definitely lose the 2014/15 election
256 That will be both Plymouth seats lost to Labour, then…
273. Re. landfill I agree - this is yet another example of how suboptimal the division of authority between the UK parliament and the EU is. And of course the stupid policy cannot be changed by UK voters, unlike a stupid policy made in Westminster,,,
247. who knows what he will do? you are just guessing.
thing about the EU is that major policy decisions tend to take the form of yes/no decisions about major EU policies, making it difficult for the UK to ever have a really coherent strategy.
Here is the executive summary of the Select Committee report…
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/438/43803.htm
It is clear to us the only real financial discipline on the Chancellor is the opinion of the gilt market on the sustainability of the public finances.
Richard Nabavi, Scott P, etc.
Over recent days, we’ve exchanged ideas as regards the merits of backing the two favourites in individual constituencies, where the combination of a third candidate having only a slight and therefore disregarded prospect of success (being typically priced at between 4/1-5/1), coupled with a disparity between the odds offered by the five bookmakers concerned, mean that a meaningful potential return may be achievable.
The three seats we identified initially were:
Brighton Pavilion
Leeds NW
Poplar & Limehouse
The odds for the various parties are liable to change continually and I haven’t checked whether the earlier odds on these seats are still available.
Having trawled through the odds again this morning, I have identified three further seats providing similar opportunities. At the current odds, these offer potential returns of between 16.7% - 21.9% and As one might expect, generally speaking the higher the potential return, the higher the perceived risk. PBers should be aware that at these rates of potential return, one bet which goes wrong will result the stake money being lost on BOTH the favourites and will therefore swallow up any profits generated by several other similar bets. Having sounded that wealth warning, the three further “dual favourite” bets as I call them are:
Edinburgh South*
LDs 2.38 Ladbrokes
Con 2.50 Ladbrokes
Return 21.9%
Watford
Con 1.91 Paddy Power
LDs 3.00 Sky
Return 16.7%
Norwich South
Lab 1.83 Hills
LDs 3.25 Ladbrokes
Return 17.1%
* Edinburgh South is something of a special case, where the sitting Labour MP is currently priced third in the betting, reflecting the fact that his prospects may have been damaged by recent revelations in The NOTW. Baxter continues to show this as a narrow Labour hold, perhaps not reflecting these recent events.
The potential returns indicated above are based on equalising the profits between the two favourites by betting in proportion to the decimal, i.e. Betfair style odds, shown. Any reduction in the odds achievable will of course reduce the potential returns, resulting in such bets becoming uneconomic.
Hopefully, there may be further such opportunities as additional constituencies are included and more bookmakers become involved.
re: reshuffle I saw Ed Balls in debate in HoC yesterday, one thing is clear..he isn’t ready for prime time. Even on a bill about child welfare he was trying miserably to find ‘dividing lines’, claiming the Tories oppossed all government initiatives to prevent a repeat of the baby P tragedy. Has he no shame? Seems to me that he his vastly over-rated.
On this anniversary of 10 years of devolution, this was posted by someone on on Brian Taylor blog on the BBC website and thought it worth repeating here because it is so relevant to the current debate on independence and why Labour are increasingly unpopular in Scotland and why a return to the days of the Conservative government and a Labour Feeble Fifty should be looked at in horror by the people of Scotland.
06 May 2009, sneckedagain wrote:
#23
An independent Scottish Tory Party would not have allowed the Scottish Steel Industry to be dismantled and reassembled in Tyneside and Wales.
An independent Scottish Labour Party would not have surrendered on this issue (as it very assuredly did).
I well remember addressing a huge meeting in the Great Hall at Westminster convened by the late Scottish Labour MP Allen Adams after the arranged Gartcosh debate for which over 1000 of us had travelled down from Scotland had been abandoned by Labour in favour of a debate on Westland Helicopters.
I put the point to the few representatives of the Feeble Fifty who’d had the courage to face us in that hall that if the Scottish Labour Group merely stood up in Parliament and stated that if Gartcosh was closed they would return to Scotland and set up a Scottish Government all the destruction of the Scottish Steel industry would be instantly halted and reversed.
They had no answer to that because they knew that this was true.
Therein lies a central point of political import. Self government is essential if you wish to protect yourself. That period destroyed the Scottish Tories because, no matter how you care to view things strategically, Thatcher’s reforms were bad for Scotland. I suggest however that the craven behaviour of Scotland’s majority party planted the seeds for the implosion we are about to witness of Scotland’s sub branch of the loyal unionist British Labour party.
There are some on this blog who don’t get it yet and they don’t know they haven’t got it yet and they’re really quite comical.
We must pray for them. Amen.
Complai
re 236. I seem to remember that there was a betting market on whether Dave’s bike would get nicked in 2009. Maybe a punter did it!
276: he is lying. i know the atos guys on the id card team (they all have mock up cards, btw), and the vast bulk of government spending is still to come.
282 - I can see John McFall getting some late night phone calls telling him he’s wrong.
284 - He isn’t even ready for the graveyard shift.
re 276 tim and how many nurses would £2bn pay for?
Here’s a suggestion for YouGov?
“The government needs to cut £2bn from the budget, would you
a) Sack thousands of nurses
b) Scrap ID cards
I doubt a) would even get to 5%.
290.
Ah but OGH would be complaining that the question was just ever so slightly loaded
277. agreed. I tend not to park my bike out of sight for any long period, and if i have to I try to use 2 - 3 strong locks. even then it’s vulnerable. easily the best way to travel though
285.Yawn..
Phil Woolas is on Daily Politics.
It will be very interesting to see what the turnout is in the areas with local elections. I would suspect that the locals will drag up turnout in the Euros. My guess would be 35% in areas with locals and 25% in those without.
I am in the South West where virtually everywhere has local elections so should be a good comparison with London with none (apart from by-elections).
Jackboots sounds positively org*smic about introducing ID cards.
While on the subject of Ed Balls however is it fair to single him out? Who has been the worst performing Minister in the last 12 months??
Darling as Chancellor delivers the most unpopular budget in a generation, Milliband looks uneasy and makes no impact at the Foreign Office, Smith at the home office is a national joke..and Gordon Brown as our 1st Youtube PM…..I suppose on reflection the winner would be Jackie Smith but it’s a close contest.
294, I hope he gets absolutely slaughtered. I want him to be on Question Time with Joanna Lumley.
296, I recall her stating how people kept on begging her for ID cards. She’s just an authoritarian arsehead. Sorry, arseheadette.
There wont be a leak enquiry into smeargate
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a39b78c-39b6-11de-b82d-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Love this quote on why
“On this occasion even Sir Gus decided it would not be worth the candle. Why? Because, it seems, he reckoned that Mr McB was loathed by so many people at Number 10 that the investigators would have had to interview at least 70 suspects – pretty much the entire staff. It would appear that the only person in Number 10 who liked Mr McB was Gordon Brown.”
Will *you* be paying £60 for an ID card, tim? Simple yes/no question which won’t take up too much of your precious progan-day.
How much of an uptake will there be amongst pilots and Mancunians, given the obstacles I mentioned above?
Finally –
Biometric passports =/= ID cards.
Passport database =/= ID card database.
Passport legislation =/= ID card legislation.
Please tear yourself away from your carrier bag and excrement collection just long enough to impress these 3 simple truths upon your dim brain.
290 - A obviously.
I was merely calming down those who think there’s a 20bn saving to be had.
On the bike issue.
If bike locks are too difficult for Dave to work out, perhaps we should resdesign bollards so that leaders of the opposition aren’t fooled into just looping their locks over them.
I can see that the design of the bollard may easily fool some cyclists.
If you had one bullet, and had to choose whether to shoot to Ed Balls or Phil Woolas, I’d struggle to choose.
293
Yes yawn if you like but I guess if you were ex-employee at Gartcosh in the eighties you might be quite interested. The net allows such stories to get out - much to the chagrin of the controlled press and MSM.
300 - No I won’t.
No Party is planning to stop biometric passports are they?
Woolas has just stated the case against mandatory biometric passports as opposed to ID Cards as ‘not all people want passports’.
Couldn’t make it up.
303. Is the Scotsman’s website down?
The LDV deal is good news if it works but it is obviously the “pay back” for Liam Byrne being Brown’s spokesman in recent weeks. It saves his seat potentially so what odds on a LibDem gain?
Gordon and the Swastika just made the front page of Drudge.
297.You forget that Ed Balls department has been consistently in the news for all the wrong reasons. All he had to do was show a bit of basic competence by managing to stay on top of his brief, he has failed to do so in much the same way Jacqui Smith has. And I single him out, because no matter how deluded, he has obvious leadership ambitions and boss who would like to see him succeed to the top job in age old SLP fashion.
283 - I am very keen on “dual favourites” seats. It seems to me a very sound way of betting on volatile seats. Poplar & Limehouse is a particularly good example, where future events might radically alter the odds between the current front two favourites. In less volatile seats, I prefer to identify the value bet for individual parties.
Watford seems to me a clearly sound proposition. I’m less sure about your other two latest suggested seats.
I’m not convinced that the Tories can be safely ignored in Norwich South. In a landslide, they may sweep past the Lib Dems and Labour. Am I being terribly wet?
There is also the risk that Nigel Griffiths might be replaced as Labour candidate in Edinburgh South before the next election, in which case Labour might look good value in that seat. This is a rare seat where volatility might work against the current front two favourites.
302 Easy answer, get one to stand directly in front of the other then ensure the gun is sufficiently powerful the bullet passes through one and into the other. Now that is what I call recycling!!
311 - Easterross - I love your thinking.
On topic, I see that shadsy was still worried that 8/11 was too generous for Labour polling less than 20% at the EU elections and the odds are now 4-6.
246 Easterross
Maybe tonight I will dream of 15% tory swings and RodCrosby as a pundit saying how it’s just possible they may be the largest party
I wonder if addicted bloggers have noticed a new phenomena. As Brown becomes ever more hated and his mob even more discredited, the Have Your Say blogs have suffered serious damage. A notice states that BBC engineers are trying to right them. This forum has always been notoriously moderated, and so politically correct it is up it’s own a**e. Nick Robinson’s blogs are now thin on the ground too. Is this how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper!
“No Party is planning to stop biometric passports are they?”
JESUS H CHRIST TIM — BIOMETRIC PASSPORTS, THEIR ASSOCIATED DATABASE AND LEGISLATION, HAVE *NOTHING* TO DO WITH THE ID CARD SCHEME, DATABASE AND COMPULSION!!!
If you support ID cards why aren’t you getting one?
Urgent message for David Cameron.
Its the one in the middle you use Dave.
http://www.dumor.com/site-furnishings-images/steel-bollards.jpg
If it helps you to remember, its the one that looks like Andy Marr and Charles Clarke.
311, or you could use an environmentally friendly solar death ray. Inexpensive, highly efficient and with no noxious emissions.
317 - Did I say I support ID cards?
PMQs today anyone?
303.I yawned at the prose used at the end, which is more in keeping with the script of a Starwars epic instead of Scottish politics today.
As one chippy Scot to another, there are other parts of Scotland which have seen a decline under different governments over the years. And remember, its the SNP running Holyrood now….they mustn’t make the mistake of assuming that they will manage to achieve the break up of a 300 year Union in their first flush of parliamentary power, and on the back of an unpopular Labour party or a Conservative government in Westminster.
321 - Yes, 7mins to go.
314 Jon C you are forgetting about the 25% swingback!! You realise if he is proved right, we are all going to have to eat an orchard worth of humble pie
Robinsons’ views on why there won’t be a putsch against GB this year. Interestingly he refers to a group of ministers last year who thought about a mass resignation to force the issue.
Now my memory fails me here but I don’t recall him reporting that little matter last year?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/
Lord Strathclyde is boring.
“Did I say I support ID cards?”
By mendaciously claiming there is no practical, technological or legislative difference between them and a passport — yes, to all intents and purposes you do.
What, for example, would you say about a German citizen who said this in 1932?
“I’m no Nazi, but Herr Hitler is no different to any other politician. They’re all loudmouths, so what? I don’t have a problem with him.”
310 antifrank - thanks for your comments on dual favourite betting and I should have referred to you in my original post as you have previously contributed to our debate on this. I can’t argue with your misgivings in respect of Norwich South and Edinburgh South, although I’ve done all six of these bets.
I have a nasty feeling that I’ll slip up somewhere - hopefully not more than once - and I’ll finish up roughly even. Maybe I should have stuck with my very first such bet which was Poplar and Limehouse! Instead, I’ve now invested quite a large sum of money, probably for a full year, in the hope of winning around £100…..hmm.
Just a thought while we are waiting for PMQs (and I cant face another candidate CV for a few minutes).
It took a ruinous Scottish colony in Central America and the consequent loss of 50% of Scotland’s net assets to force the creation of the GB parliament in 1707. What catachlismic event might be required to undo that 300 year old political marriage, one of the oldest in the western world?
327 - Well done.
Your obsession plus Godwins.
COngratulations.
322
Your answer is a little bit strange. It does address what was a very important point of the post namely:
“I put the point to the few representatives of the Feeble Fifty who’d had the courage to face us in that hall that if the Scottish Labour Group merely stood up in Parliament and stated that if Gartcosh was closed they would return to Scotland and set up a Scottish Government all the destruction of the Scottish Steel industry would be instantly halted and reversed.
They had no answer to that because they knew that this was true.
Therein lies a central point of political import. Self government is essential if you wish to protect yourself.”
326 He used to be as slim and handsome as me. We are the same age
That’s what happens when one inherits one’s grandfather’s peerage!!
319. Not as good as an “NMR” ray!
Julie Kirkbride is starting to look her age. Obviously not using the hair dye.
Godwins Law, as you’ve just proved, is just a way for people to shut down debate when they start getting uncomfortable.
Is it the same shirt and tie combo as last week for the PM?
283, 310 PfP/antifrank:
Thanks Peter for your diligent research. I’m already on Conservatives to win Watford at evens (no longer available), which is v. good value I think. (I have some contacts there.) I’ll think about trading off some of that against the LibDems - thanks for flagging it up.
Edinburgh S is as you say a tricky one to assess, so I think I’ll stay out of that for the moment.
Norwich S does look interesting. As antifrank says, we can’t be sure that the Tories are out of the race there, but if they are doing THAT well then my bets on the national picture would more than cover a loss here. One to think about. But maybe the better bet there is a straight punt on the LibDems?
Great Tin Tin quiff Dave.
Do nothing again lol:)!
Cammo & Gord disagree on the pronunciation of lamentable.
Do you consider the TUC in general and the pilots’ union in particular to also be “obsessed” about ID cards, tim?
Jackiboots Smith pushing ahead with an obscenely expensive, illiberal and discredited scheme in the middle of a recession, and you call *me* obsessed?!
Is David Cameron ruling out a return to Cabinet government under the Conservatives?
“Great Tin Tin quiff Dave.”
Tin Tin has been in continuous publication for 80 years. How many people will even remember Brown, much less sing his praises, in 2089?
DAvid Cameron’s team obviously reads PB.com nokia’s flying around the bunker etc
Cameron calls for a GE!!
Fairly mundane exchanges there.
God, forget a tale of two cities, its a tale of two PMQ’s.
344 - Yep.
Tin Tin meets Maggie Thatcher Fan.
3-1 to Cameron. Nearly a whitewash but Brown came back at the end for a consolation goal.
Blears looked like she knows she’s for the chop.
For once I agree with Gordon Brown. What was the point of that line of questioning?
Good question from Nick Clegg
I wonder if he and Cammo might start to preplan a combined attack. Would be fab.
Oooh wonderful bitch slap by Nick Clegg there.
Jesus the Front Bench looks like Death Row at San Quentin.
Oooh, Clegg - kicking the PM!!!
Go on Clegg! Kick his teeth in!
Clegg again better than Cameron.
301 tim so when the enitre population has to pay £60 for a card that’s £3.6bn in stealth tax. Just becasue that’s is being extorted from the general public doesn’t mean it’s real money. It could be spent on goods and services keeping people in employment. Isn’t that what Gordon wnats us to do? And it’s not a one off cost - you lose your card that’s anoth £60, you change name, another £60, you move address that’s another £60, plus the occasional £1,00 fine for daring not to let Ms Smith know where you live, and so on.
331.”Self government is essential if you wish to protect yourself.”
Why not go the whole hog, and separate the Highlands and Lowlands too?
Clegg is starting to find his feet at last.
seanT @ 348 — Cameron got a draw at best: Clegg did better; Huhne’s overenthusiastic nodding looks silly.
Notice the Speaker does nothing to call order when Clegg is on his feet although you can hardly hear him.
349 Wibbler, PMQs is for the parliamentary troops and anoraks like us, not the general public who couldnt care less.
348 Sean never mind wee Hazel, look at Smith. Fatter and uglier than normal. No wonder Timmins sought refuge in Raw Meat 3!!
Thought Cameron spent two or three too many questions on the leadership/cabinet/division stuff. By sticking only to Brown personally, rather than seguing into policy, he ended up looking a bit lightweight - and geve Brown a good last reply.
Thought the Nokia stuff was too sneering, personal and nasty too. Cameron at best when he goes nice. Though he can probably get away with that, given recent emails…
349. Pure politics: to stir up discontent within Labour, make Brown look a swithering arse, and demoralise the Cabinet further.
It worked.
What’s the point in asking detailed policy questions when Brown NEVER EVER answers them?
Go Cammo.
337 Richard N. Let’s hope some punters keep the Tories as favourites for Watford.
Cameron threw that one.
Stupid line of questioning to make himself look like a shallow twit and bolster Gordon.
Gordon’s last reply was rubbish because it made no attempt to address the question, which was “Why won’t you call an election”?
The Speaker should call the Prime Minister to order and tell him to answer the question.
358. Cameron gave Brown his ritual spanking - he beat the premier but we all expect that, so its no longer surprising.
What IS surprising is the genuine and convincing passion from Clegg. Clocked Gordo a right one. Good.
‘too sneering, personal and nasty too’
Hahaha talk about the Pot calling the Kettle black. You couldn’t make it up.
Nokias again.
“What’s the point in asking detailed policy questions when Brown NEVER EVER answers them?”
Exactly the same applies to tim. Insults are all he really deserves.
Cameron should have hit back with something along the lines of -
‘I would ask the Prime Minister questions about policy and implementation but he never actually answers them’
Clegg was good on his first question but lost it on the second.
344.Easterross, the printer reference is definitely a tribute to the film ‘In the Loop’.
Just got in, anyone care to summarise?
Brown totally humiliated. Ouch ouch ouch
Gordon didn’t like that question one little bit!!
Tory MP’s have been reading PB
LOL, good backbench question about “bullying in the workplace”, Brown looked so angry!
PRICELESS moment on bullying!!!!!!!! youtube moment!
365 badman. It’s not the Speakers job to determine whether or not a member has or has not answered a question.
Brown’s face in reply to that Tory backbencher on bullying was just brilliant!
Liked Clegg’s “at least I say it to his face” line in response to the faux outrage from Labour backbenchers. Nice little line.
What the hell was that answer about Brown’s bullying all about?!? He more or less admitted behaving like a mentalist.
what a fantastic question on work place bullying and GB’s answers summarises everything we come to expect from him… feeble.
Planted minimum wage question- lame.
I predict: Michael White calls it a blistering victory for Brown.
(Repeat every PMQs)
That was total and utter ridicule for Gordon. Can he bear another year of this?
the petition comes up!
361.”Thought the Nokia stuff was too sneering, personal and nasty too.”
Why, because he has been called on in public on that kind of behaviour?
Don’t imagine it’s much fun being on the receiving end of a flying nokia either. Sadly, the contents of those McBride emails and their intended aims make this kind of complaint extremely hollow.
GB is now rattled on the resignation petition - response ‘the tories should be ashamed of the way they are treating the house of commons’.
PATHETIC.
381. He’s not mad, everyone else is.
who is this thick soon to be ex Labour MP?
363 - A point which I have made before is that if turnout is up next time, there will be quite a few constituencies where more than one party genuinely believes that they have enough votes for victory and none will really know. Each party will have a fair idea how many voters it has, but they will only have a vague idea how many voters its opponents will have.
The summation of this is that if turnout is up next time, only limited reliance should be placed on “informed sources” in constituencies.
Brown talks about Tories not asking serious questions.
Next Labour question ‘Didn’t Brighton do well not getting relegated’!!!!
Bloody hell a joke by Gordon.
A good policy on tips.
And all the Tories doing lightweight twit acts.
Normally PMQs is bad for Brown.
Not this one herd boys.
Your side look like a Dormitory in waiting.
Did Brown answer one question today from Cameron or Clegg? I know he doesn’t normally exactly answer them, but normally pulls out tractor stats in the general area, he didn’t even do that today.
With regards to Cameron’s call for an election, really Brown should have a stock answer for that, he must know it is coming. Instead he was wittering on about completely different things, which makes him look like an idiot who can’t answer what for a politician should be an easy question i.e an GE will come within the required time period……
no serious policy questions from the tories claim Brown…very next question rom Labour MP on Brighton Fc in division 1… you couldn’t make it up
Football again- isn’t it a Labour marginal?
Cameron and Clegg ripped Brown a new @rsehole. He was left reeling after that, and most of his front bench looked shell-shocked.
Clegg does seem to be socking it Brown the last week or two. Maybe Labour are doing so badly he senses an opportunity to hit them badly at the election?
Interesting PMQ’s …. Cammy kicks Brown’s arse …. Brown has foot in gob …. Clegg finding his feet …. Truly a political chiropidist’s question time !!
The challenge to Brown’s “vision” should have been easy for him to answer. But he muffed it. The football question was planted and he had a prepared answer, but he couldn’t even read it out properly. He is all over the place.
However, PMQs don’t win or lose elections.
“Normally PMQs is bad for Brown. Not this one herd boys.”
You’d better hope Brown starts doing bloody well because I can’t see Clegg propping him up in a coalition, can you?
384 — what is repeated every PMQs is right wing posters telling us Cameron has knocked it out of the park.
Sometimes they are right but not today.
381 Brown’s face gave the answer and I bet it will make a front page at some time in the next year. Anyone spotted NPMP? His 6′18″ stature doesnt show when he is sitting down.
This is a nasty piece of goods speaking now- Sheridan
393 - not a bad one for Brown - a terrible one
He has one line and sticks to it - badly
There is only one issue that needs resolving and that is when we can get rid of Brown et al.
Brown will have to get used to being asked this time after time after time
393. Didn’t see the joke, tim. I just saw Brown looking like an unexpectedly sodomised moomintroll when accused of bullying. lol.
And do try and come up with a better term than “herd boys”. Repetition. BZZZ.
393. Dream on.
A car crash for Brown, utter carnage!
He can’t even get the planted questions right.
Funny it is all the Labour MPs with dodgy majorities who are asking the planted questions.
Who asked the workplace bullying question?
Clegg’s PMQs again I’d say. Labour backbenches looking devastated. Brown is busted and they know it.
it’s an interesting tactic of not answering a question. essentially it is you didn’t ask me a question I wanted to answer so I won’t answer it. nernerneenerner.
not entirely sure how long it can last
398 - I think Clegg is benefiting from goodwill from the Tory side during and since the Gurkha issue. Normally, the House of Commons is very hostile for a third party leader which makes the performance look worse than it is. Pre-1997, Ashdown used to get a more hostile response from Dennis Skinner right in front of him than from the Government benches.
While the bullying question was quite amusing, I think the Tories have made a serious error by nort raising policy once - when every question is a direct personal attack, it looks petty. It’s not that hard to link policy and personal issues. While the commentariat (and us anoraks) might care about such things, to speak about notihing else than personality stuff is pretty empty.
Since every single Tory so far has discussed only these issues, one has to assume this was a deliberate tactical decision. A bad one.
IDS on gurkhas. His gravitas is hard to ignore.
409 - According to the BBC, Stephen Crabb.
“an unexpectedly sodomised moomintroll”
Damn it, seanT, don’t you just wish Tove Jansson had put that in her stories?
So Brown approach to PMQ’s is now if he doesn’t like the question, “If only I was asked a serious question on ….. I would answer”, surely the Speaker should be asking him to answer any question, not pick and choose, after all it is PMQ’s not PMS (Prime Minster Statements) Time!
405 - But it was 3 - 1 to Cameron, right Sean.
Hysteric.
I thought Mike had banned the term Tory Herd, you Do11ybot
Brown clearly doesn’t intend to recognise the Gurkha vote
Yes, “it’s the economy, stupid”, but the big issue right now is this disintegrating, dead-duck Prime Minister and how we can get rid of him before he does even more harm to the country.
413 - Don’t you think that the capability of the Prime Minister is a fit subject for political discussion?
415 Sorry, never heard of him.
420. Brown stil a sh1t. What a shocker.
IDS asked the best question today, including sneering at the PM in the first half.
Since every single Tory so far has discussed only these issues, one has to assume this was a deliberate tactical decision. A bad one.
Particularly when the people who get called are like Edward Garnier.
“Brown clearly doesn’t intend to recognise the Gurkha vote”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:
Labour :hearts: ID cards
Labour :hates: Gurkhas
413 - I think it is more strategy than tactics. Sometimes something is strategically sensible if it looks tactically unhelpful.
413 - see 414.
Hopisen and Tim are almost as rattled by Cameron and Clegg’s questions as Brown himself was.
Making Brown himself, his dishonesty, inadequacies, and weirdness, the issue, must be hitting home.
413 - But that’s the trouble with not answering questions isn’t it? If he routinely had a stab at answering, there would be some weight in saying, “they have a chance to ask anything and yet they use it for to recite ludicrous soundbites”. As it is, what is the point asking about the situation in Georgia?
Good to ensure a policy question while keeping in the theme of attacking Brown towards the end.
Even more interesting to see it come from IDS. Brown looks like so much less of a man than IDS does, who would have thought that years ago.
394.”Did Brown answer one question today from Cameron or Clegg? I know he doesn’t normally exactly answer them, but normally pulls out tractor stats in the general area, he didn’t even do that today.”
No, that is why I called it a tale of two PMQ’s, or one of those ’sliding doors’ type film. Brown had his script for today, and he didn’t deviate from it what ever Cameron and Clegg asked him, made it all a bit bizarre to be honest. And on the GE issue, it really hurts him that he didn’t have a leadership contest, and that he bottled that Autumn GE.
418 Tim, since you support Brown so much here is how you can share his success
1) a member of your immediate family loses his/her job receiving only the mimimum statutory redundancy and then finds JobCentre Plus can/will do nothing for him/her
2) a member of your immediate family has his/her home repossessed
3) a male teenage relative is arrested by the police for something he didnt do, has his DNA taken, which is put on the Jacquiboots database and then when he applies for a job in the future, it prevents him getting a job.
418. Seeing as all you can do is trot out the term herd boys, maybe seventeen times a day, I have concluded you have some kind of Tourette’s Syndrome, deriving from your inbred rural background.
You have my sympathy.
im not so sure. I think the tories and lib dems are lining up a vote of no confidence, so need to turn brown into the issue. To do this they need to focus on him.
422, I think it’s a topic that is of little or no interest to voters. Raise it if you want to, but imagine if Labour had spent an entire question time in the middle of a recession talking about Margaret Thatcher’s fondess for the odd gin, or something. It would have been equally irrelevant to voters.
Notice that when IDS raised a proper issue it was much more of a story and far more policy significant. Why did Cameron miss that and go for trivia over Blears?
423 - Me neither. This is what’s on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Crabb
435 - Sean, you’ve forgotten his obsession with Mark Thatcher.
413 Can’t agree with that Hopi. If Cameron had asked “serious” questions the answers would have been the same dividing lines - investment versus cuts, “do nothing Tories”, blah, blah, blah. Brown is losing what credibility he has rapidly and as Antifrank implies it’s not good for the country.
413. Dear oh dear, what lame and transparent spin. Who do you think you are fooling? Only yourself I’m afraid.
Easterross, maybe members of tim’s family could fork out £60 for an ID card on top of their passport? They can’t all be hypocritical wusses like him.
440 - Very silly for the whole dorm to all portray themselve as shallow twits though.
Why does the Speaker insist on always calling empty Public Schoolboys from the Tory benches?
Does he do it on purpose?
Betters backing balls for Home Sec
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3591431/balls-to-be-sent-home.thtml
440. I disagree. IDS asked a proper question and got a proper response. If cameron had done that (and the tory backbenchers had had an pinch of IDS’s gravitas- not a phrase I’d thought I’d ever write!) it would have been a lot better for them.
An end to Punch and Judy…. oh well.
425 Agreed.
That was a really nasty one; rising sharply and delivered a sharp blow to the box (if he was wearing one)
On Dear DP, spending minutes talking about Brown the Bully and Brown the man who is mentally slow on his feet!!!!
If you didn’t know what Brown the man with the worst temper in the west got up to behind closed doors, between Neal and Toenails you do now!
437 - I’d say you’re dead wrong in your assessment of how interested the voters are in Gordon Brown’s capabilities.
Verdict: Cameron won again, fairly easily, but Brown would have been pleased that it didn’t go even worse.
Real Losers: Hazel Blears, who looked utterly mortified as her words were used against the PM, and the Front Bench in general, who need to stop looking like cadavers unhappy at being disinterred.
Real Winners: whoever asked the bullying question - the one truly electric moment (Brown’s face!) - and Clegg, who gave Brown a nasty one in the goolies.
Clegg should do this more often. Anger becomes him.
‘Lamentable’ performance from Cameron however you might want to pronounce the word.
It’s not my job to tell Dave Nice how to do his but if I were advising him I would tell him to be a Headmaster in waiting rather than a put-upon fourth former.
443 - The list of questioners is chosen by weekly lottery, Tim (except the party leaders obviously). You didn’t think the Speakers just says, “hmmm, I haven’t heard from ol’ Stevie Crabb for a while” did you?
451 - But how come so many Tory backbenchers who get called seem to be lightweight posh lads?
They make IDS look serious and substantial
Desperate rear-guard action by the professional left on here. I haven’t seen a PM floundering so much against backbenchers on a host of ’sore points’ in years - John Major must be enjoying it most…
or perhaps Clarke, Field, Byers, Blears, Blair…
I don’t think Brown actually understood the jibe at him about bullying!!
Mozilla is different class to IE7 when it comes to editing ones posts.
Sadly for us, we have a dead-duck Prime Minister now disintegrating daily. Probably the worst Prime Minister, certainly the most despised, in history.
If that’s not a serious issue worthy of debate then I don’t know what is.
Kudos to Clegg today. He showed some genuine fire and is clearly as sick of Brown as the rest of us are.
Turnout betting in Wales….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/betsanpowys/2009/05/karl.html
453. Quite. But it’s understandable that Brown’s semi-deranged personality is not a subject they wish to see given a public airing.
450. Utterly ridiculous. I’ve seen some losing performances from Cammo, that wasn’t one of them.
The trouble is it’s almost too easy for Cammo - duffing up Brown. Cameron aims his punches and The Tractor Git just crouches down and makes his stammery replies about do-nothing Tories, and we are left none the wiser: we know Cameron is a better speaker and debater than Brown, we know Brown just carries on.
Ho hum. So what. As you were.
That’s why the LD and backbench questions are becoming more interesting. The most wounding moment for Brown was the bullying jibe from the Tory ranks, where the PM was openly laughed at (again) and the most passionately critical question came from Clegg.
Intriguing.
I can’t see this going on for another year. I bet every wednesday morning Gordon Brown wakes up, and thinks, “Not another effing PMQ’s”
437. Sen. As an apologist for Smeargate and now seemingly the poster boy for the Vermin Brood you have as little credibility as a Prime Minister whose only defence of his woeful regime is how much money he has thrown at a problem without any perceivable benefit.
Your views are as irrelevant as the Labour Government is damaging to this country.
re 413 hopisen so it’s incresaed Labour majorities all round as a result of a bad tactical decision, is it? I think you’re going to have to console yourself with your chocolate and my grovelling comment, as there’ll be very little else comfort this year or next.
Mentioning petitions, the ‘resign’ one is now comfortably over 52000, putting it above the average attendance at all but three British football clubs. Next up: Celtic, at 57227.
Also one to watch, currently in 28th position, is a petition to allow Ghurkas and their families automatic right of residency.
@458:
Some people on Teh Twitters seem to think that because Gordon is such a broken, loathed, inept, washed up, humourless authority vacuum, that it’s in some way unsporting to attack him.
Maybe Dave should go after a harder target than Gordon. Maybe he could kick a puppy to death or something.
452 -Dunno but we saw that they seem to have their equivalents among the gilded proles of the government backbenches. What are we to conclude from that?
452 - If wikipedia is to be believed, Stephen Crabb was brought up in council housing and went to state schools. Clearly your definition of “posh” gets ever wider.
437: It does prevent him going into Tractor Production mode. Its like a football team which floods the midfield. The way around it is to chip one over the top.
457 Absolutely. Brown is a lunatic, becoming increasingly unrestrained and even deranged. We can’t go on ignoring it any longer.
Where is the best place to watch PMQs again? The BBC says it is there but it actually a live 10 minute rule bill debate.
The parliament web site is useless.
I note that in Sky’s review all they were interested in was the pasting that Brown was given by Cameron and Clegg. They didn’t seem at all interested in the ’substance’ (sic) of Brown’s argument at all.
Another win for Cameron and Clegg.
What a joke Phil Woolas was on today’s DP. The man seriously said that poking fun at Gordon Brown’s smile was tantamount to poking fun at the working classes. What a twat.
455. Thatcher was despised more in many areas of the country (Scotland, Yorkshire, Wales to name 3).
He’s crap but he’s not that hated yet.
461. Chris, It does look that there will at least be one Labour victory in the next few months, eh? I can’t claim to have predicted the disaster that is the Japanese economy though.
460. JSFL, Surnames only? Is this the army or a minor public school?
I think the consesnus is that best question award today goes to IDS, with Clegg’s first a runner up. That kind of underlines that Cameron’s (and the tory backbenchers) tactics were wrong today.
356.
Why not go the whole hog, and separate the Highlands and Lowlands too?
Well that argument is patently absurd and you know it. Politics is derive from the Greek ‘polis’ meaning the polity. That group of people/geographic area that act as a single political entity. The fact is that Scotland is legally ,culturally and historically a seperate polis that at this point chooses to be in TREATY union with another polis namely England/Wales.
It would have been perfectly legal for the Feeeble Fifty mps to leave the London Parliament and reconvene the Scottish Parliament that was merely adjourned in 1707. This could happen at any time and London knows and is terrified of it.
Tom Conti is making a big case for a flat tax. Never would have thought it from a luvvie.
459 - I can!
My reasoning is simple, when Cameron used to beat Brown up and he used to end up a shaking wreck, then he was in trouble. Now, Brown has gone into self deluded mode, he isn’t scared of Cameron or anybody else, he just doesn’t listen to them. Nothing hit home, his Do Nothing / Tory Cuts / Tractor Stats are winning the day in his mind and that is why he didn’t get the bullying jibe, didn’t understand the anger of the Gurkha position, keeps wanting to push ahead with the Post Office Privatisation, etc etc
472:’That kind of underlines that Cameron’s (and the tory backbenchers) tactics were wrong today’
Ummm whats IDS then?
469. It’s not as if questions of so-called ’substance’ (and in my view querying Brown’s fitness to lead is a question of utmost substance)ever get answered.
470 - then John Prescott must be some sort of self-loathing working class man, since he not only mocked it yesterday - he did a (bad) impression of it.
re 459 of course not, he’ll miss quite a few of them. As far as I can tell there are 9 more until our elected representatives get their obviously well deserved 13 week summer holiday ( time to stock up on bath plugs perhaps). Anyone wish to bet that Brown misses at least two of them.
@469:
I like this approach of Dave and his new bum chum Lil’ Cleggy doing a pile-on the OESI.
Dave shouts “Bundle!” and leaps on, and Clegg brings up the rear kicking tractors in the balls as he mounts Dave.
Cameron has, once again, proved himself to be shallow and weak on policy. The difference now is that people are beginning to notice. Wasting all 6 questions on personal attacks will not impress the average voter.
Cameron has to be careful to keep his true nature hidden. He is a far more hateable character than Brown and performances like today’s will only serve to expose this unfortunate fact.
test
437.Hopi, tell Brown to start answering the questions put to him at PMQ’s.
476. A grandee! (I know he’s a backbencher really, but exception/rule proviso applies)
I’ve been called ‘ridiculous’ before.Generally the half-wits who dare, append my username to the charge.
Nonetheless I will reply.
Dave Nice is playing a dangerous an d a half-witted game,given that he has already won the game.
The smartest thing Cameron ever did was to big-up Tony Blair prior to his departure.
In attacking GB in a personal way, not only does he demean himself but hurts his own game chances.
452 - In fairness, a lot of backbench MPs generally are lightweight posh lads. If they weren’t lightweight, they might well be on the front benches. And if by “posh” you mean reasonably well spoken and middle class, then that’s MPs of all parties isn’t it?
481 - So I take it you were horrified when Tony Blair labelled John Major “weak weak weak”. Perhaps Tony Blair was far more hateable than John Major.
A Prime Minister’s abilities are an entirely legitimate subject for debate. You can certainly argue whether David Cameron was effective, but to suggest that the subject is not of acute interest is ridiculous.
481: Gabble….the average voter has never even heard of PMQs, let alone watches it.
Really all the analysis of PMQs is just one for the house and political geeks. Brown gets a kicking every week, but it doesn’t change anything, other than provide more evidence that he is unfit to be PM, which most people know already.
481 - the average voter doesn’t watch PMQs. Why do people not understand this? What will come out of PMQs is more on the narrative of Brown losing authority, losing his temper and losing the support of his party. PMQs is a show, and the idea that - particularly with Brown involved - anything substantial can be done, is a joke.
“Cameron is a far more hateable character than Brown” - Gabble’s worst quote ever?
@481:
So, basically you’re scared of Dave and want him to go easy on Gordon.
Why didn’t you just say so?
478. I know - it made Woolas’s absurd claim even more illogical.
480 - “Bundle!” indeed, Mr Coxall. And, if I might be so bold as to suggest, “all pile on!”
The chorus of huffing and puffing leftie spinners is especially hilarious today.
PS. JSFL, what is the Vermin Brood? Sounds like a biker gang in a mad max sequel.
Sky “Mr Brown tried to get back on the front foot saying that the Conservatives had performed U-turns of their own, telling MPs: “Compassionate conservatism - it’s gone, gone and gone.”
But the Tory leader dismissed his attack, taunting the Prime Minister: “I’m sure that sounded just great in the bunker with mobile phones and printers flying around the room.
What could he mean?
http://tinyurl.com/cwmwbz
397. “Cameron and Clegg ripped Brown a new @rsehole.” He needed one - this is the man who thinks ‘Ghurka’ is a large green pickled German thing with which his backBenchers approached him from behind last week.
It’s Emperor’s new clothes time. For too long Parliament has been avoiding the awful truth, that Gordon Brown is a madman as well as being incompetent, thoroughly dishonest, and poisonous.
Today, Cameron and Clegg lifted the stone and we saw the cockroach beneath.
Michael White having a laugh again - scores GB 3 ‘for effort’, 2 for DC and 3 for Clegg.
What planet is the guy on? Effort?????
Fascinating change of tack by the opposition parties.
After last weeks success they have become a disciplined joint attack strike force, wave after wave of hostile incoming from both directions.
And Brown just cannot cope with it, useless and wholly outclassed yet so unpleasant and truculent that you don’t feel pity for him.
Labour backbenchers must be hating themselves for allowing this living illustration of the Peter principle to happen.
Got to love all this Labourites isn’t Dave being nasty to Gordo. If Team Gordo had done what they have to me, nasty would be the least of it!
Besides, from a tactical perspective, if Cameron and Clegg went through the motions, didn’t seem particularly bothered, the claim would be “well its ok for them posh lads, they had loads of money, safe seats in the HoC’s” etc.
The reality is people in the street are pi##ed, really pi##ed, especially at Brown. I don’t think any floating voter is going to think, hmm, I won’t vote for that Cameron or Clegg they say naughty (but true) things about Brown. Everybody I meet wants him hung drawn and quartered, even the lefties!
498. I think he means that Brown courageously took a lot of blows to the nuts.
I think honest tories would recognise that spending an entire PMQs making personal attacks on the PM may be entertaining for themselves but will ultimately do themselves no favours with voters.
I can see the thought processes behind it. Ride the anti-Brown zeitgeist and push home the advantage. But it just looked and sounded pointless and nasty. True to form.
483. Alright, I will! Seriously, Christina, I’m sure you’re aware of this, but you do know Gordon Brown has absolutely no idea who I am, don’t you? I would hate to leave a false impression of my significance within the Labour party - I’m a nobody and proud to be so!
Nick Robinson’s prediction for what would come up at PMQ’s - he’s good isn’t he?
1200 BBC political editor Nick Robinson says he expects the Royal Mail row to come up - he says the union backlash to the plans is making potential private investors have second thoughts
PMQs may not be watched by the average voter but its a peek of how politicians behave in “real time” - not staged Youtube films.
Labour have to get through 6 weeks of a GE campaign with a man they are too afraid to put in front of real people or live situations. Meanwhile the opposition have 2 personable and able performers - there will be no swingback under these situations - only more swing-away.
470.
“Phil Woolas ..on …working classes”
When will he take some of these classes? What sort of SATS levels will he ask Teddy Balls to give him?
455.”Kudos to Clegg today. He showed some genuine fire and is clearly as sick of Brown as the rest of us are.”
voxpox, I think that you really hit the nail with that comment. Cameron went on Brown’s leadership, and we know there is no love lost between those too. Again, after the McBride email scandal and the really cowardly way Brown behaved in the aftermath, I am amazed that Cameron can remain civil to him. Then we had the youtube nightmare, but again, that was Brown attempting to bully Clegg and Cameron into accepting his proposals. And if all the reports are correct, Clegg had to call time on what sounded like a very bad tempered meeting between the three leaders over expenses in the aftermath.
And today, never mind what is going on in the Cabinet and PLP, Brown has totally lost the respect of his two leading opponents in the HoC’s, if anything, his behaviour has produced contempt. That is a serious situation IMHO.
The flying Nokia stuff may seem like a cheap shot, but actually its an important point. Sooner of later Browns terrible temper is going to be seen by the public. Or one of these phones, etc… Will end up hitting someone (probably an innocent receptionist or something) and Brown will end up being sued.
I think is the strategy by the Tories and the Lib Dems, is to keep on winding Gordon Brown up to the point where he loses it big style in the House of Commons, such as he ends up wearing his underpants on his head, and sticking two pens up his nose.
Blimey, a ton of posts regarding PMQs.
My take:
best question goes to Tory backbencher asking about bullying.
Clegg did very well with his second question, first a little long, but he’s making a habit of performing well. He’s in danger of becoming credible.
Cameron I think made a slight mistake in not introducing some concrete policy elements but the general principle of attacking the PM’s leadership fits in nicely with party political manoeuvring, the needs of the country, the forthcoming elections and the media Zeitgeist.
503 Hopi - You probably didn’t see it, but I was praising your ‘Blairite defence of Gordon Brown’ yesterday here - indeed, I called it a ‘must-read’ !
(I think it’s complete tosh, of course, but it’s much more convincing than most of the attempts by Labour supporters to defend the indefensible).
When Cameron was taunting Brown about the Blears comments, I only wished that he would simply concede that he is not good on communication and that he would try to improve. It would be the truth and his honesty would be looked on favourably by the voters. He just seems too pig-headed or inflexible to give any ground.
Clegg has got better because he’s calmed down his style and started working in conjunction with Cameron. He’s realised that Brown and Labour are dead in the water and being pumelled from all sides, so his attacking the tories every fine minutes strategy is pointless. Better to gain some seats from the government, rather than try and get some from the tories and be rebuffed like 2005.
509 - I think you may be right, in the same way as Gordo pi##es MP’s off by not answering there questions, people poking fun and not letting him reel of his tractor stats must be driving him madder than he normal is.
They work all night in the bunker coming up with all sorts of clever Brownies, there he is armed and ready, and he doesn’t get the chance to fire on his strongest front economic smokescreens. Instead all he gets is incoming on personal issues that he just can’t deal with.
What results is Brown not being able to fend off the personal attacks and once in a while starting tractor stat production out of nowhere. It just reinforces the stereotypes about him.
502 - weak, weak, weak, Gabble.
It’s a bit much complaining, Gabble and Hopisen.
Your party used just such occasions as this to win power for yourselves, although you may choose to forget about it now the boot is on the other foot.
I cringed and cringed as Blair battererd the hapless John Major “because he is Weak, Weak, Weak” - how I hated being told by Blair that “I lead my party, he follows his” but Blair was spot on - which is why his jibes hurt so much.
Did Blair show mercy? Did he think “hell, we are going to win anyway, lets ease up on the guy?” And what would you have thought of him if he had?
No, of course not. This is politics.
You picked a duffer for leader and you will, I am afraid, have to sup up the consequences.
512. Why do you think Cameron pushed the point, he know’s Brown won’t give way.
513, plus by having the Tories neutral or onside (as Cable had them) he doesn’t have 500 MPs groaning to stifle whatever he’s asking.
Good thinking on his feet by Clegg today, and amusing nerve to essentially call the PM stupid.
481. Cameron is the most hateable leader??? Compared to.. Gordon Brown, who employed a Smear Department whose job was to make up vile lies about the mental health of Opposition MPs’ WIVES?
Gabble, do you ever stop and think when you post? Or does it just come dribbling out, incontinently, from one of your anal glands?
You have a problem. Go see a proctologist. Make sure he doesn’t mistake your face for your rectum, an easy error with lefties.
What the UK needs is a strong PM with a united country behind him.
Step forward Alan Johnson !
Listening to the re run of the highlights of PMQ’s on R5 live.
Game set and match to Cameron and Clegg!
520 - The Country is already united. We all want Brown out.
PMQs shows one policy ishoooo made glaringly obvious today which will please our Labour friends, that the government’s response to every problem is to spend more taxpayers’ money rather than sort it out.
516 Analytical Post of the Day from Marcus.
520 - “What the UK needs is a strong PM” err Post Man?
520: I still think he wouldn’t win the election, but would keep Cameron honest at least. Would be good for the country as well.
Gordo wants to talk about substantive policy issues; like Brighton and Hove Albion FC.
What a plonker.
How f*cking dare anyone out there make fun of Gordon after all she has been through?
She lost her aunt, she went through a divorce.
She had two f*cking kids.
Her husband turned out to be a user, a cheater, and now she’s going through a custody battle. All you people care about is readers and making money off of her.
SHE’S A HUMAN! (ah! ooh!) What you don’t realize is that Gordon is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about her.
She hasn’t performed on stage in years. Her song is called “give me more” for a reason because all you people want is MORE! MORE-MORE, MORE: MORE!.
LEAVE HER ALONE! You are lucky she even performed for you BASTARDS!
LEAVE GORDON ALONE!…..Please.
Perez Hilton talked about professionalism and said if Gordon was a professional she would’ve pulled it off no matter what.
Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash someone who is going through a hard time?
Leave Gordon Alone Please…
Leave Gordon Brown alone…right now…
I mean it!
Anyone that has a problem with her you deal with me, because she is not well right now.
LEAVE HER ALONE!
So, I wonder what Gordo going to do if he finally does a QT special with the public and he doesn’t like the question? Tell them that it is a stupid question and he only answers serious ones? Sounds like a good tactic to me!
Breaking news on R5 - Gordon is going to meet Joanna Lumley this afternoon.
Another U-tube announcement beckons I fear…
520. OMG, URW and his suggestions.
Everything Brown said at the end about the sheer ’shallowness’ of the Tory Boys in parliament mirrors the exact situation on here(pb.com).
I have respect for David Herdson and for all the betting people,but other than that you come across as a totally STUPID herd.
Allow me to expand.You are all so stupid because you haven’t realised that you have already won the next GE.
Why gild the lily ?
503.Hopi, you know what I mean. Brown’s problems in his party right are all self inflicted. He doesn’t listen to his own Cabinet, he briefs against them and plans everything from that inner bunker, not even bothering to tell them before he announces major decisions. He doesn’t listen to his Whips or the PLP, he did that youtube effort totally without any warning to his Cabinet or Cameron and Clegg.
He doesn’t answer or tackle difficult questions at PMQ’s.
It really is a bit pathetic to moan about Cameron’s choice of questions this week, you didn’t like them, and neither did Brown. But they were relevant politically, and they were difficult, and the opposition leaders were doing their job today. They could have demanded a vote of confidence instead, imagine the media focus of that.
273 - Holland’s run out of landfill sites? Holland IS a landfill site, and the North Sea’s nowhere like full yet.
529, “You should be ashamed of the way you are treating this valuable time I have generously offered to spend with you.”
(528 Has Martin been at the Wincarnis Tonic Wine again? What on earth is he on about?)
Gordon Brown has now morphed into Brittany Spears? I can’t really think of anything more disturbing.
Brown should hold a reshuffle this week
Posted by Jane Merrick
* Wednesday, 6 May 2009 at 12:45 pm
It was painful to watch PMQs today. For every Tory MP who jeered Gordon Brown, there was a Labour MP staying silent. Even those MPs who are closest to him looked haunted. Not one of them responded to the shouting.
Cameron’s performance wasn’t especially brilliant - his best lines had been written for him by Hazel Blears - but the Prime Minister now appears to have lost absolutely the will of the Labour MPs who sit behind him. At the weekend, Denis MacShane compared Brown to Rocky. Rocky always wins in the end, but in fact the Prime Minister is on the canvas, the referee has counted to 7. It’s difficult to see how he can get up and fight another round.
The signs that his authority is evaporating were everywhere. In the peers’ gallery above the chamber, an empty bench where Peter Mandelson usually keeps watch. The silence of Labour MPs. As Brown left the chamber at the end of the half hour, only two people patted him on the shoulder. They were Liam Byrne, Cabinet Office minister, and Quentin Davies, the Tory defector. Others moved out of the way or looked to the floor.
Earlier, as Cameron read out Blears’ “YouTube if you want to”, the Communities Secretary - who bravely had turned up - stood at the end of the front bench bristling with embarrassment. Why hadn’t Brown sacked her, Cameron asked.
The Prime Minister is expected to sack her, and Jacqui Smith, in a reshuffle after the June elections. But he could be out for the count by then. He needs to hold one now, this week, to try to regain some authority. Apart from calling an election, it is the only true power he can exercise. Yes, it will look like a panic measure. But he has little time left, and this will show he has at least some fight left.
http://janemerrick.independentminds.livejournal.com/8987.html
530. Will Joanna be searched before entering the bunker?
You know you’ve hit rock bottom, when you get called “A totally stupid herd” by someone other than Tim.
523. Indeed Witan. Labour’s only answer is too spend more of our money. Well it’s time the country was allowed to force the Government off their welfare benefits.
Interesting that Clegg seems to have upped the ante against Brown since the three party leaders had their meeting to sort out expenses. Wonder if Brown going over-the-top mental in his presence finally caused the scales to fall from Clegg’s eyes?
Certainly there is more fire in Clegg’s belly since he has canned equidistance. Maybe he has realised that Labour can be very badly hurt in the coming election and its aftermath - and the Libdems might, just might have a chance to overtake them when the voters inevitably go sour on “hard decisions” Cameron. There will be plenty of time to reposition the field artillery, but for now, the LibDems should be raining down withering fire on the Labour ranks.
516. I don’t actually remember Major being as humiliated in the Commons, on a regular basis, as Gordon Brown is.
Maybe it’s rose-tinted retro-spectacles, but I just remember Major being a bit of a plodder, and Blair being obviously nimbler - and a general sense of Labour knowing they were going to win, so PMQs was more fun for them.
However I do not, for instance, remember such wounding questions aimed at Major as the “bullying” jibe today, nor do I recall Major being overtly ridiculed and laughed-at, in the House, even by his own team.
I am happy to be corrected by pb brainiacs if my memory is on the blink.
532 - I can respect that argument (but you really should know that the correct phrase is “paint the lily”).
523. Agreed. The Conservatives need to make more of this. Every time Gordon and Labour use the word ‘invest’ they have to slam back they mean ‘borrow’. They should reel out figures on government borrowing relentlessly.
532. I agree the election is pretty much won for Cameron now. However, perhaps winning the election isn’t enough. Perhaps Labour need to be pummeled and pummeled until they are as good as dead and out of office for a generation? Its what Nu Labour did the Conservatives 94-97. Its going to take at least two terms of Conservative government to un do the damage Labour has inflicted on this country. If Labour lose badly enough this day next year, that should guarantee Cameron a second term as well.
@536:
Do a search on Youtube for “leave Britney alone”.
“Gabble’s worst quote ever?”
“There has been no ‘boom’ and there will be no ‘bust’.” By a country mile.
Will Gabble be paying £60 for a Manc-card, or is a hypocritical wuss like tim?
IF YOU SUPPORT ID CARDS, GO BLOODY PAY FOR ONE!
Maybe Ms Lumley is going to be made the gurkha tsar & put on a commission which will report….um, after the next election.
516. Marcus Wood
You misunderstand me. It’s right that Cameron attacks Brown - it’s his job.
You cite a couple of memorable quotes from Blair attacking Major. That’s the point - they’re memorable. There was nothing in Cameron’s attacks today that we will be talking about 10 years from now.
Personally, I don’t mind the tory tactics - they only damage themselves. Cameron delivered Labour a small but unexpected gift today. His biggest danger is to be perceived as shallow, opportunistic and clueless on major policy issues. His performance today will have fed into the voters misgivings about him.
@546:
Precisely. We don’t want to just beat Labour, we want to confront, subdue, pummel and extinguish them.
Having watched PMQs, I’m beginning to wonder if Clegg and Cameron have made some kind of deal after the expenses meeting: http://tinyurl.com/cpyajs
536 Augustus, it’s a yoof fing, innit! Emo, or summat….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc
“i thought gordon had a pretty good week” Five live labour MP (and minister, cant remember his name).
@550:
Oh, so you’re okay with Cameron brutally attacking Gordon as long as they’re ‘memorable’?
Only, well, it seemed you were saying something rather different half an hour ago.
552 - Maybe Cameron just gave Clegg the advice that the Lib Dems should be out to ‘kill’ the Labour Party.
544-antifrank.I am resolutely staying with ‘gild’ rather than ‘paint’.
Maybe the Cornish sex Memorist could adjudicate.He is allegedly a ‘man of letters’.
Personally I would go with stjohn.
532. URW - was that post your membership application to join the vermin brood?
“Hit me baby one more time.”
My pleasure, Gordon you moron!
PS: Joanna Lumley has campaigned against ID cards as well — should make for a fun meeting!
The Bunker boys make fun of Lumley (no surprise) but where, I ask them, are the likes of Frank Skinner or Liam Gallagher saying, “Yo kids! Sign up for an ID card, they’re COOL baby!”
549. Wasnt Joanna Lumley actually born in the indian subcontinent? Maybe thats why she has such a personal issue with it.
Press headlines
Telegraph
David Cameron challenges Gordon Brown to call general election
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has challenged Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, to call a general election, warning the Government was in “terminal decline”.
Grauniad
David Cameron challenges Gordon Brown to call general election
Tory leader attacks prime minister’s ‘appalling judgment’ and says the government is in ‘terminal decline’
Sky
David Cameron has attacked Gordon Brown’s leadership at Prime Minister’s Questions and asked why Hazel Blears has not been sacked.
I think Cameron will be reasonably happy with those. I don’t see any that say Cameron lost, or was shallow
538. That gets it exactly right. Cameron wasn’t brilliant, but he didn’t have to be. Brown is a spent force. Punching Brown is like punching a sad old seaside donkey who’s unexpectedly got the horn and is trying to mount an ice cream van.
Brown doesn’t need to be punched, he just needs to be gently led away and… dealt with.
Enough of this grisly spectacle. Labour: call in the knackers.
Have you signed up for an ID card yet, Gabble?
As if things weren’t going badly enough for Brown today, I see the BBC website has “the picture” back up - only 4 times the size of yesterday’s thumbnail…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/8035905.stm
560 Her dad served in 6th Ghurka Rifles.
472 Hopisen it is because it is much simpler than confusing you with his name or the likes of me who is jmsf
This is getting the stage were in 1983 Mrs Thatcher was vetoing an election poster showing someone kicking away Michael Foot’s walking stick. The Tories need to go easy on Brown now & continue attacking the Labour team. The country has reached it’s verdict on Brown, now the Tories must ensure that no-one is under the illusion that Labour has secret hidden talents waiting to be given a chance.
550: Brown does the damage all to himself. What will be memorable? His temper (throwing mobiles), his strange grin, his tractor production figures. His inability to admit fault or say sorry. His shoddy treatment of the Ghurka’s. His ‘We saved the world’. Him wandering off last week in a daze.
Thats what people will remember. What a legacy.
The steven crabb question on bullying in the work place,that really it the mark for me,it made fun of the PM and the reply from brown ,sounded like they is bullying going on,god this man is not up to the job,please call a general election gordon.
539 Will Joanna have Kukhri up her sleeve?
563. ReBrandedHorse: “Have you signed up for an ID card yet, Gabble?”
I already have 2 ID cards ie. a Driving License and a Passport.
I wouldn’t object to a biometric Passport and neither would the tories.
567. There is always Gabble and Tim to present themselves at Number 10’s doorstep.
Is this footage of a typical day in the Bunker? hat-tip LabourList (they really are morons aren’t they!)
Man smashes computer in frustration with Labour candidate’s website
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAUsFzKQxUA
re 544 antifrank thanks - gilding lillies is a pet hate of mine too, as are scorned women being more furious than hell.
Well for all the Bunker boys, the Pravda chosen sound bite
Gordon Brown ‘just not up to the job’ and he should call an election -
David Cameron
Job well done I would think is the thought over lunch at Team Cameron HQ! Daily Politics talking in-depth about Gordo temper tantrums, and main Pravda going with Gordo is a waste of unelected space, call an election.
Although after a call from the Bunker, I’m sure Pravda will find a “better” clip to use.
574 - what’s wrong with “hell hath no fury…”?
Please could you add “A little *knowledge* is an evil thing” whilst you are at it? Thanks
Agree with post 31. I would say the lost Tories are in their 60s now and are minded to get Labour out this time.