Does dropping out of the 40s safety zone matter?
November 28th, 2009
What does it mean for the election outcome?
I’m not sure whether there’ll be any new polls in the Sunday papers and it would be really good to see a new ICM survey.
For the big trend in the past few few weeks has been the decline of the Tory share into the 30s so that now only ICM is showing a figure above that threshold. Polls tend to move in step changes and that might be what we have been seeing.
But does it matter? Are not the gap over Labour and what’s going on the the key marginals the really important indicators?
I’m not so sure.
Mike Smithosn
MessageSpace Advertising
first ?
“Are not the gap over Labour and what’s going on the the key marginals the really important indicators? ”
Those are the two key indcicators.
Not until Labour gets into the 30’s - and demonstrates it can stay there.
And nothing matters whilstever the Labour election slogan is
“Gordon Brown - 5 More Years!”
Mike,
When you say you’re not so sure, are you refering to whether being in the 40’s matters, or whether the gap matters.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s the gap that’s most important. However, that gap is likely to be larger if we are in the 40’s
Any sustained drop in the polls is bad news for any party, and there is evidence that the Tories are now at about 39% whereas they were recently 41-42%. But then again better for the Tories if it was Con,Lab,Lib, 38,28,26 than 41,36,19.
REMINDER: Our Glorious Leader on R5 being interviewed by John Pienaar as we speak.
One of the best journalists in this country, Martin Bright, has always been of the view that the Tories have a real lack of talent and depth and will struggle to form a credible Govt, I agree with that.
I think the public are beginning to clock that and the front bench team is for the most part a serious turn off.
However, with Brown in charge I can’t see Labour getting above 31% so it may not matter.
6
They should have put it on during “Up all night”.
One for the insomniacs.
6 Can you go there for us, so we don’t have to?
6 Thanx wibbler, just tuned in - I am basking in a hat-tip from Delingpole right now
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018236/climategate-the-conservative-backlash-begins/
The drop in the Tory vote share seems to be almost entirely a function of the rise of the minor Parties. It is not as though Labour or the Lib Dems have rocketed in the polls.
Maybe it will get them to sharpen up their act, though I doubt it.
In too many policy areas the Tories are beginning to pick the side that is contrary to the feelings of many of their natural supporters. The figures are starting to reflect this IMO.
Look, Dave. You want to win? Then stop listening to the pointy-heads in the backroom and listen to the voters instead.
BTW - you’ve probably lost my vote already.
Labour getting to-and staying >30% (just)is do-able.
2009 Q4 GDP figures on January 29th,even if only just positive,will surely bring a fanfare of media attention-and fair or not put a few more points on the Labour score.
The election could be a hell of a lot closer than many on here have predicted.
(Brown has already stated he would not stay a full term if re-elected-not that I would bet on that..yet (largest in a hung parliamnet may yet just prove possible for Labour)
Game on!
Down, down, down go the Tories in the polls!
And quite right too.
7 - do share with us the depth of talant Labour has.
How many non elected cabinet members are you up to now?
As long as the gap is 10% or more I think being on 39% doesn’t matter too much.
I just wish coward Brown would call an election so all this nonsense and hysteria regarding the polls would stop!
I think Brown has succeeded in one respect - he has ground down the public and some anti-Labour sentiment - not because he is a political genius, far from it, but because he’s a gutless sham.
People are just bored now, and the relentless bad headlines for Brown have subsided.
5. I was wrong. I have been playing around with ‘electoral calculus’ and even 38,28,24 would not secure a Tory majority and 38,27,21 a rather slim majority. It would be very difficult for the Tories to win a majority with 38% of the vote unless there is a tactical voting swing in their favour and/or a big vote for the minor parties. 40%+ would make Cameron sleep easier.
Delingpole and his swivel eyed friends are going to war with Cameron.
FPT (tim)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100018236/climategate-the-conservative-backlash-begins/
And Plato gets a namecheck
490 - Have you noticed that Grayling has chosen this week to adopt the pathfinder label and pin it on Boris.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/27/boris-johnson-elected-commissioner-police
by tim November 28th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
No sign of Plato and we’re already nearly 20 posts in this thread - perhaps she has feinted at the attention.
6 MTF I love UAN. Rhod is great, Dotun is much more self regarding [like Dick Bacon but not to obvious]
I must listen to about 3/4 of the show each night - love the Zambia stuff and yawn at the train spotters - I thought it’d be a one off but NO! Every night I hope to hear from Peter Bose or the daffy Cash - yet no - more train-spotters!!!
ARGHHHHH
One can be all things to all men for a short while, B, but in the long run you have to define yourself. That is what Cameron is only just discovering.
So he loses your vote because he is not Conservative enough; and he loses mine (not that he ever had it) because he is not, when all is said and done, either liberal or democratic.
17. One thing is (almost) completely sure - Brown isn’t going to spin this out quite as long as the torture John Major put us through. The 1992-97 parliament lasted for almost five years and one month - and of course that was the second five-year parliament in a row, also due to Mr Major.
13. Dunno about that.
What was the game-changer last Christmas? Woolies.
Well, a retail spokes-group has this week predicted that while after last Christmas 22 High St names went down the flusher, in the coming New Year they expect 23 to go. That probably doesn’t include those like Thresher and Borders who couldn’t even manage to survive that long.
The Guv shouting about how wonderful the economic climate is will have no effect when people see shops closing all around them.
What does it mean for the electoral outcome?
A moot point this far out from a GE; plenty of time to improve things or for the gap to narrow further. The Tories have had some poor press coverage over the past month although polling in the midland and northern regions are looking rather good.
One should never underestimate Gordon Brown’s ability to make a pig’s ear out of a silk purse.
13 “(largest in a hung parliamnet may yet just prove possible for Labour)”
Hang on, you’re getting a bit carried away with this statement. It’s gone from a dead cert hung parliamnet to Labour having the most seats? Don’t be silly. Next it’ll be a Labour sweeping majority.
The hysteria continues…..
R5L: first 10 minutes of Brown spent wishful thinking on Afghanistan, Pienaar playing softball with him.
How is Brown going to cope when the public gets their teeth into him at a general election when his spin docs can’t set terms of questioning?
Did I imagine it, or was there a recent PB article criticising the suggestion that the Tories were “struggling to break through 40%?”
Does it matter? Yes it matters. When the economy has positive growth and Brown can say we would still be in recession if they had followed Tory their advice. Remember, the Tories would not have spent one additional pound to help Britain out of recession. Brown is bad, but the Tories don’t have a clue and it is not difficult to imagine the gap closing enough to deprive Cameron of a majority.
The trouble with the Tories is that whilst the relentless bad news for Labour continues, we’re bored of it.
We know they’ve screwed up the economy. We know they’re screwing up in Afghanistan. We know Gordon has sold us out on Europe. All of that isn’t new.
What is new is bad news for Cameron. Bad news for the Conservatives is OK if it allows Cameron to do a Clause 4 style thing - but bad news for him personally - the memorial photographer, the referendum pledge, bad Mumsnet interview, etc. is toxic because the Conservatives are still largely a one man band.
YouGov change from one year ago:
Con -1
Lab -7
LD +5
It’s the difference between the two parties that counts and where the votes are concentrated.
Remember the big Conservative win in the June local elections?
The Conservatives only got 35% that day but it didn’t matter that their total vote was so disappointing because Labour only got 21% and also the Conservatives did best where it mattered most.
Do you mean the Euro elections, Richard?
Obviously, most people did not take those seriously.
agreed 27.
I think Nick robinson summed it all up beautifully when he said all the election comes down to is who people want to wake up and find either Cameron or Brown as PM.
That’s why Labour are stuffed, despite a very small narrowing of the polls. Brown brings out the very worst in people.
What does this say about the idea that Cameron in the media is good for the Tories?
Starting with his Marr interview at the Conference he aint been great, and any interviewer seems to be able to stiff him on Europe or Inheritance Tax.
I think the public would be far happier with Cameron if the people he were surrounded by weren’t either reminders of the Tory past (Hague,Clarke) or dullards (Grayling)
27. wibbler
Cameron isn’t even a particularly skillful politician.
That hasn’t mattered so far as instead he has been something even better than skillful, he’s been lucky.
Cameron says that Scottish devolution has been a great success. That must’ve knocked at least a couple of points off his poll ratings in England.
29 - I think the fact that he said June LOCAL elections would suggest he wasn’t talking about the Euros.
This time last year there was a narrowing of the Tory lead into single figures for no particular reason (and there was a Comres poll showing only a 1% gap on the 30 Nov 2008 with the two previous polls having shown a 15 and 11 point lead, respectively). Maybe the same factors are coming into play at the moment. There is also the PBR coming up and that will remind the public just how bad the public finances are.
19 And your point is? Exposing scientific misdeeds and data fabrication seems fair game to me.
All politicians are rabbits in headlights as 98% have no idea of the issues such as data fabrication/manipulation.
Until they twig, it’d be like me saying that I would be a size 4 instead of a size 8 by chosing a different temperature point.
Does that make sense?
19. That’s fantastic news for Labour.
Unsurprisingly the Tory grassroots are disappearing up the sewage pipe of climate change denial!
Delingpole is lacking a lot of self awareness it seems. He is a massive danger to the skin-deep Tory detoxification exercise!
Keep it up James!
33 Stuart Dickson
I doubt many English Conservatives on PB noticed a difference in the Conservative stance on Calman - let alone peopke in the country at large.
27. Wibbler is right. Cameron hasn’t had a very good last couple of weeks, although the issues mentioned will be most forgotten in the New Year.
I also agree that some in his shadow cabinet need to get their act together. Some are not good and many seem to be anonymous….. but then again when you compare them to Gordon’s lot….
32 As Napoleon said that is all that counts. But surely you would say that it took considerable skill in 2007 to panic Brown from going to the polls with the media totally with Brown.
31 What a load of complete rubbish, beginning to end that post is just nonsense.
I think the Tories will do better in the marginals so that they will probably have a small majority where national figures would suggest they were simply the largest party in a hung parliament. My best bet at the moment would be a Tory majority of 10-40 and figures something like Tory 42, Labour 30, Liberal 18.
28. Curious
No the 35:21 vote split was for the local elections.
I think the Euro elections was Con 28 Lab 16.
Because the coverage of the local elections focused on the Conservative gains from Labour in the midlands and north and from the LibDems in the south-west it was easy to miss how poorly the Conservatives did in many of their strongholds.
19. No need to repeat tim’s posts for him (”re-bleating” is I think the technical term). you have thought of something boring, petty and malignant to say for yourself in your final paragraph - start working on whole posts like this.
I’m in the gap being important grouping. I was looking back at the 2007-2008 period polls and what is interesting is that Tory support since Brown bottled the election is that it’s increases have been sudden spikes whereas the declines have been more gradual. Labour are showing the opposite pattern. Expenses broke this rule, but I think that was such a unique one-off effect.
In the post-expenses world the levels of both parties have tended to move up and down in the same direction (even if to slightly different figures). This is the first time that we have seen several polls (ARS excluded) that have shown the two main parties moving in different directions. The LibDems seem to move serenely on at the 20%ish mark. Plus we still have a high level of support for the Others. They (to me) remain key on the election front. Some of them will be committed (BNP,UKIP,Green) so aren’t going to move. Some will be anti-big 3 party voters. Where do they go? Well some of them may come back, some may continue to vote for the minor parties and some may just not bother if they don’t think they can win, which will depress turnout.
In the next few months I suspect both the Tories & Labour will drop in some policy elements that will try and grab the attention of them… I also think watching the behaviour of those parties will be a good guide to what is happening on the ground. If the Tories go into overdrive, then their situation could be a lot worse than the polls are showing. If they carry on, then maybe they are stronger. We are still getting anecdotal evidence from the PPCs on the ground that they are confident of their position. On the contrary we have NPMP saying that he is seeing more willingness to be listened to.
On the economy growth issue, I was reading the Sunday Times last week and it appears that the Republicans are looking at the jobs totals and gearing up with a “Look at all the borrowing and still the unemployment is high” campaign for their mid-terms. I wonder if we will see that here? The slowing of the growth in unemployment was quite unexpected I think but the number of vacancies is still falling which is much more of a portent of where the level of unemployment is going. Any hint that this will be a jobless recovery could be critical in how the expected Labour line will play.
As a question, what did the swing do in the marginals in 1992?
32 – “Cameron isn’t even a particularly skilful politician”
As the old joke goes, you don’t have to out run the charging Lion, just the other guy you are with. Cameron’s advantage has always been that he is up against Gordon Brown who is generally regarded as a repugnant character both physically and morally.
Gordon Brown, five more years! No thanks, time for a change.
It depends how the marginals are behaving vis-a-vis the safe seats. If 37-39% for Tories is coming about because 5-6% of voters in the shires are being flaky and going for UKIP, then it affects the national scene not a jot and the Conservatives are doing fine. Marginals poll yesterday indicates that this could be the case. Also, unlikely to be that high an “others” figure after the intense 3-party publicity of an election.
Both the absolute ffigure and the lead matter, naturally. The problem about a drift in the absolute figure is that it reflects what many here have denied in the past - people are in the mood for change yet not really convinced by the Tories.
That’s a risky position, since it means that in every seat they might win, they’re dependent not on people wanting to vote for them but on tactical voting, differential turnout, and suchlike. I think they would indeed get an overall majority with a 10% lead. But they almost certainly wouldn’t get one with a 6% lead, so they’re only a 2% swing away from a hung parliament.
Now you can argue, as Richard Nabavi has, that things can only get better for them. Is that evident? - the press mood has changed to greater scrutiny (they want a horse-race), the economy is on the mend, and the ‘who has better cuts’ issue is delicate and unpredictable. They’re clearly the favourites but being comfortable relies quite heavily on their winning both the leader debates and the economic argument.
If the Tories are creeping under 40%, that should make a few Lib Dems holds which would have been lost otherwise.
In the Lab - Con marginals it will be all about Brown 5 more years, so not a huge impact there.
40. Punter
Cameron’s conference speech in 2007 was very skillful but he was still lucky that Brown hadn’t called the election a week before during the Labour conference.
Some of the mishaps the Conservatives sufferred in the summer of 2007 can also be laid at Cameron’s door.
OGH has praised Cameron for going to Rwanda while his constituency suffered from floods. That trip might have paid long term dividends (though for all his praise OGH wont be voting Conservative) but at the time it looked crass.
John Pienaar isn’t being particularly tough.
Exactly so, Richard. The Euros and the locals were on the same day. So it is very hard to cite the one and ignore the other, if we are going to use them as a basis for predicting the result of the next general election.
The Tory optimists do this all the time, of course.
“No sign of Plato and we’re already nearly 20 posts in this thread - perhaps she has feinted at the attention.
by ToneyBaloney November 28th, 2009 at 8:48 pm”
I’ve been washing litter trays
*still in smiley hat-tip mode*
TBH, I spend most of my time at AWG sites and it’s wow stuff - it’ll be massive/drop in green stocks if it unravels.
39 Right now Dave has only circa 200 MPs to pick his team from, including quite a number of has-beens. After the GE, there could be an influx of up to 200 new Tory MPs, so the present dearth of talent should prove to be temporary.
35. “There is also the PBR coming up and that will remind the public just how bad the public finances are.”
Spot on. I can’t take any poll seriously at the moment. The PBR has the potential to either seal Labour’s fate or put them back in the running.
21 The trouble with the Lib Dems though is that they have sacrificed any pretense of democracy on the EU alter and that effectively removes any possibility of being Liberal, sure you could talk a good game but if you did ever come to power like labour you would do what the EU told you to.
30 - oh please
56 “The PBR has the potential to either seal Labour’s fate or put them back in the running.”
Only if the magic beans grow….
36. C
The reason the Conservative lead narrowed a year ago was that Brown had apparantly ’saved the world’ though the falling apart of the Conservative ’sharing the proceeds of growth’ strategy didn’t help them.
Does it matter? No, if the % does not continue to decline.
The Tories appear to be a couple % off in the last month or two, this is likely to be due to Lisbon and also things like the flood coverage which might have given a short term fillip to Brown and Labour.
I expect Labour to go backwards after the PBR, the figures are set to be horrific and will attract vicious press coverage.
A possible black swan in the works with Dubai, the Brit Banks are badly exposed. RBS timed its entry in the APS rather neatly, I am not sure how it works exactly but if the taxpayer takes a pounding its bad news for Brown and Labour.
Not sure why anyone thinks coming out of recession will put any votes onto Labour - polling evidence suggests the opposite, the Tories are preferred for a post-recession economic management and now have preferred ratings for recovery also. Why would anyone switch TO Labour for taking us into the longest recession and coming out with years of debt and reduced growth ahead?
John Pienaar isn’t being particularly tough.
by wibbler November 28th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
He’s interviewing his mum - I’d never guess who he was interviewing until you mentioned it. I was fiddling with a gadget and had tuned out completely after a few mins.
and I’m a political geek :O
23 - agreed. Gordon’s tractor stats mean nothing to the vast majority of people.
Job losses and shop shutting are the two big factors which influence public opinion on the economy.
Even if we were to technically get out of recession, it would have little to no impact if people and their friends and relatives kept losing jobs and seeing boarded up High Steets.
10 - People like the Telegraph’s Delingpole and Warner are the sort who could ensure that Cameron loses, if people start to think that they are anywhere close mainstream conservative thought. They are more like their mad American counterparts (the Limbaughs and Bachmanns of this world).
The two things that have worried me about the tories in the last couple of weeks were a) the Sun lettergate debacle and b) that oaf strathclyde going on about how he was going to scupper Queen’s speech bills in the HoL basically just because he could (and he could because his dad could before him). Both frighteningly suggesting that the tories have only been on sabbatical from being the nasty party.
51 The IHT announcement went off with a bang without that. Now imagine it detonating at the start of a campaign at that point as it would have done. As for Rwanda well maybe not. Imagine if he had cancelled what could he have done not being in Government? All the charges now laid at Brown’s door, ditherer, u-turn etc would have been thrown against him. He would have looked weak. He had no choice but to proceed surely.
49 - NPMP - I think Brown’s problem is that he has lost a huge chunk of the economic argument with the deficit and investment-cuts dividing line. I argued last night that both parties are talking about the now. I’ve just passed my 1 year unemployment marker. I never thought it could happen to me. I’m well educated, have been successful in my jobs and worked my way up. I can’t find a reasonable job (and I’m prepared to take a 1/3 pay cut). The reality for too many people is that once unemployed we are finding too difficult to find work again. It’s us, who will make the most noise. You can’t defeat that. So with the public prepared for a cutting agenda (lets be honest, the LibDem’s “Savage Cuts” hasn’t hurt them), it’s who can put the most “sunshine” into the future that will pull in those waverers…
59 - Thanks to this government’s economic policy, there has been growth of 0% in the production of magic beans.
47. “Cameron’s advantage has always been that he is up against Gordon Brown …”
For the first year and a half, he was up against Tony Blair, who had previously seen off no fewer than four Tory leaders - a Labour record.
Several blighted US towns are battling for the right to host Guantanamo Bay terror detainees in their own backyards in an unusual case of reverse “nimbyism”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6679719/Guantanamo-Bay-depressed-US-towns-battle-to-house-detainees-in-Gitmo-North.html
There seems to be an unholy alliance going on between Labour Bloggers and UKIP/Right wing journalists.
Basically by effectively trying to destablize the Tory Party by encouraging The Right Wing to think that Cameron is some sort of ‘closet leftie’, enough of them will put their cross against’UKIP’ and send the Tory vote down toward the mid-thirties.
Hey presto……. hung parliament…. and mayhem come May next year.
59. “Only if the magic beans grow….”
I’m not saying that there is good news to come, recent comments suggest that Darling will have to admit that things have been much worse than predicted, but Labour are likely to throw everything they’ve got in to putting a shine on the mess they’ve made. I think it will require mind control rays or something in the water supply in order to work, but I’ll wait and see rather than make any prediction.
59. The PBR won’t do either.
Most people don’t notice government projections on future (or for that matter, current) deficits. Of those that do, many don’t believe them. Of those that believe them, many don’t understand the implications. Of those who do understand the implications, many will have already made their minds up.
On the PBR I’m not sure it will be a game changer. Most people know the public finances are in a real mess. Unless Darling - who I actually don’t mind after all he is calm and rational whilst working under pressure from next door and seems to be trying to get nearer to doing the right thing - has to drop a new bombshell then I’m not sure it will move much. It is also right in the Christmas period, when the politics get lost in the general business of the season. I suspect that is why it was pushed back…
51 - I agree with Mike on the Rwanda issue, and I know damn well that the Tories pledge on overseas aid was intended to appeal to the sort of swing voter who cares about such things.
In the same way I’m sure the Lib Dem focus groups are showing them that the Tories IHT position allows them the chance to bring those “morals” voters back into the fold, hence the decision by Cable and Huhne to go so hard on that issue.
42. lol. really? Maybe in your universe Brown is a shining paragon of leadership, who invokes a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever his name is mentioned.
In my universe - ie - the real one, Brown invokes feelings of at best pity, at worst, a deep-rooted loathing.
And that’s exactly what Robinson said - a straight choice between two men.
64. The problem for them is that they have somehow convinced themselves that the Conservatives would be on 50% right now if only they told “the truth”, i.e. lies, about climate change and Europe and all the other internet-Tory obsessions. The appeal of one’s own extremism is the fallacy that EVERY party of government makes eventually. Labour did it. The Republicans in the USA are doing it now. It’s obviously not true: if it were, their party would have won in 2005, when Michael Howard was banging on about immigration, an issue ConHome et al just love to whine about.
49 “The problem about a drift in the absolute figure is that it reflects what many here have denied in the past - people are in the mood for change yet not really convinced by the Tories.”
= Straw man, name some names.
“They’re clearly the favourites but being comfortable relies quite heavily on their winning both the leader debates and the economic argument.”
No it doesn’t it relies on effectively reminding people what an absolutely disasterous situation we are in due to Labour incompetence, being credible on it being a tough few years and being credible in offereing a brighter future. Leader Debates etc are already going to be Brown games playing(like Iraq enquiry)
What a fail of an interview by Pienaar. May as well have been a PPB.
73. “Most people don’t notice government projections on future (or for that matter, current) deficits. Of those that do, many don’t believe them. Of those that believe them, many don’t understand the implications. Of those who do understand the implications, many will have already made their minds up.”
You don’t need to understand the figures in order to determine whether the press are showering the government with praise or sh*t in the following week. The PBR could change the mood quite a bit, anyone can understand that.
Curious
As the big 3 parties totalled 57% at the Euro elections but totalled 89% at the local elections held on the same day I think the local elections give a better guide to the next general election than the Euro elections.
The local election figure is 38:23:28 as per the BBC/wikipedia but the 35:21 I gave earlier come from somewhere else.
The bottom line is that the Conservatives did better than expected in gains of councillors and councils but worse than expected in total votes.
It’s not how many votes you get that matters but where you get them.
68 - they have though been very good at increasing the amount of smears and inacurate statistics in politics.
They have been very successful in breaking the military coveneant and of course are moving us swiftly down the table of states providing the best education.
We do of course have lots more forms to fill in, but the form filling is more important than the result, so if people die, hey ho, the right boxes were ticked so alls good.
We have a highly ethical foreign policy, Iraq and Libya being 2 shining examples.
Need I go on? (the depressing thing is I could, for a long time yet)
63 . But unemployment has not been rising rapidly recently - it’s been slowing down for months and the most recent ILO figures did actually show a fall of 10,000 from 2.47 million to 2.46 million. We are a long way from the 3 million being confidently predicted a year ago!
Alistair Darling in new clash with Gordon Brown over spending cuts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/gordon-brown/6678337/Alistair-Darling-in-new-clash-with-Gordon-Brown-over-spending-cuts.html
71 - The right wing blogosphere in the UK *do* Cameron is too liberal. That he is doing so much better than his recent predecessors because of this doesn’t enter their purist little skulls.
Maybe they think that either they can force him not to be in power or that he can be replaced, I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, they aren’t thinking with their brains as we are nowhere near close enough to next May for them to be able to make their views widespread without repercussions (i.e. another labour government).
65. The lettergate scandal was the Sun’s doing and the Tories wisely kept their mouths shut.
Agreed, Strathclyde should have kept his trap shut. Most of legislation mentioned in the Queen’s Speech won’t hav enough time to get through but my suggesting that Tory Peers would sabotageit was crass.
Yes more checks (criminal), now on 16 to 18 yr olds
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/6677985/Criminal-checks-for-all-sixth-formers.html
Should read - “*do* think Cameron is too liberal”
Heres a delicious story breaking for the Tories.
Inheritance, Non Doms, offshore tax havens adultery the whole bit.
Plus climate.
ZAC GOLDSMITH, the green adviser to David Cameron and prospective Tory MP, has admitted that he claims non-domicile tax status, enabling him to avoid huge sums of tax on his estimated £200m fortune.
We’re all in this together
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936364.ece
51. I don’t think going to Rwanda was seen as crass - more unlucky - and I think it was a PMQ type issue in being massively more important to the anorak than to the voting public as a whole.
In fact Brown may have been unlucky with the 2007 floods. There is no doubt the man gives good flood, but we now know that so that the reaction to Cockermouth is, yes, shame he’s so useless at everything else, rather than a blinding revelation.
89 - Oh, and Eton too.
At this stage the change in the Tory share is not significant. While they are regularly polling 38-39% they can easily get back to 40% or even a little above.
Now if the Conservatives regularly start dropping to 35-36% then that will be very significant.
My guess is Labour supporters who are pinning all their hopes in this apparent minor drop in Tory support are going to be disappointed as we move into January, just like they were at the start of this year.
One thing is certain - if Brown remains as Labour leader Labour will not gain an overall majority. He has simply alienated too many people (rather like the Tories did back in 1997). However there is little public confidence in Cameron - Peter from Putney made a good observation earlier this week in that Cameron is constantly avoiding challeging Brown on the economy at PMQ. He must do this asap or the public might reasonably conclude Brown can’t be doing a lot wrong or that we will simply see more of the same with Cameron. Recently Clegg previously described as Cameron-lite has noticeably raised his game and in some areas eg on cancelling the Queen’s speech has seized the initiative from Cameron. I sense also Labour have upped their game recently albeit quite probably out of desperation.
Perhaps Cameron is keeping his powder dry for next year but I’d be slightly nervous if I was a Tory tonight. There is not much room for error and just maybe the public are quite happy to live with a hung parliament.
Personally I don’t think the PBR borrowing figures will change much.
I’ve always suspected that Darling gave deliberatley high numbers at the budget in the belief that they would be undershot so allowing ‘economy better than expected’ claims.
In reality the recession has been worse than expected thus causing the pesimistic prediction to be proved accurate.
It’s easy to forget just how terrible the budget borrowing figures were - £700bn borrowing over just 5 years. That’s over £30,000 for every private sector worker in the country.
94 see 66.
81 You are quite correct richard , the actual vote shares in the CC elections were 35-21-25 with Others on 19 as opposed to the notional BBC and/or R&T figures which redistribute some of the Others votes to the 3 main parties .
89/91 agreed: a corker.
On Zac Goldsmith.
His tax status drew criticism from opposition politicians. Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: “Cameron must sack Zac Goldsmith as a candidate now. He’s not fit to sit in parliament, when he’s claimed non-dom status all his life to keep his offshore hundreds of millions free of income, capital gains or inheritance tax. He must pay the millions he’s dodged to the British taxman.”
Zac will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Tory Tax policy, when he brings his assets onshore.
He’ll also get a married couples allowance despite living with his mistress.
We’re all in this together.
85. Reminds me after Labour got trounced in the 1983 GE that some Union Leaders and certain MPs on the left of The Labour Party stated that the reason for the defeat was that the Party’s Manifesto wasn’t left wing enough.
Blair was bright enough to know that he had to get ‘Mondeo Man ‘ into the fold so Labour Policy softened. To win a General Election you need to a) appeal to a broad part of the political spectrum and that means courting people with Centrist views b) hoping that your opposition is in disarray. Blair got both….. and a landslide.
84. johnno
Thanks.
I take it all back Darling plans on telling the truth — unless Gordon/Mandy can stop him.
“Alistair Darling will use his Pre Budget Report to paint a grim picture of severe spending cutbacks over the next four years – setting up a pre-election clash with Gordon Brown.”
Five more years?
98. “We’re all in this together.”
How in this are you tim? Aren’t you a wealthy farmer? What cutbacks have you made?
A quick post before bed.
In answer to Punter onthe last thread, yes Jim Murphy will be toast at the GE. East Renfrewshire is finally resorting to type. I would not be surprised to see Richard Cooke achieve the largest Tory majority in Scotland at the GE and in 2011 at Hoyrood the seat will have a very handsome Tory majority because it loses Barrhead the main Labour voting area.
I cannot see Murphy taking over at Holyrood from Gray because as Stuart Dickson said it is Jack McConnell who is coming back to the fore having annoucned his intention to seek re-election. Clearly his appointment as High Commissioner to Malawi is no longer a runner.
I dont particularly worry about the Tories being at 38-39% in the polls at present. In the run up to Christmas, most people are focused on spending cash.
In January, I expect Labour to start to slip again. Many employers want to get Christmas over with before handing out redundancies. I have one client who gave all his staff redundancy notices last week and two others for whom I have prepared them ready to be handed out in January.
The Labour v SNP poll ratings in Scotland from February onwards are going to be very interesting as trench warfare breaks out between the parties. Everyone outside the Labour party expects the public sector in Scotland to be culled next year and with potentially thousands of redundancies in the lead up to the GE, Labour at Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood will be blaming one another like mad.
83. justin
Unemployement rose at the fastest rate on record in the first months of the year the recent stabilisation coincided with a reduction in announcements of large scale redundancies. Those announcements have now started again.
Expect a big surge in unemployment in the new year.
22:
Don’t forget John Major won the most votes in history in 1992 - 14.1 million.
Also, in 1997 he managed to win 31.4% which was only 4.8% less than Blair won in 2005. Brown has no chance of matching that 31.4% score next May.
89 Clearly he will have much in common with his new constituents then.
98 lol, IHT is such a crap tax. The Tories should go full out and scrap it entirely.
97 - Get yer money on the Lib Dems in Richmond.
98 - Tim, so assuming that you’ll forgive me for not wanting to disinherit my children for the benefit of the state give me some positives as to why I should vote for your leader and party at the next GE.
I’m NHS payroll vote so I know I should but I’m just not convinced.
Help me out on this one…
89. Tim - Susan Kramer may yet save her seat!
Easterross
Next year really is the last chance saloon for the Scottish Conservatives.
If a Conservative government is elected but with only 2-3 Scottish MPs you wont have much influence nor deserve any.
Apparently there is a story about more NHS hospitals failing inspections / cleanliness tomorrow. Might not be good for the govt. The NHS should be Labour’s strength. Such a shame that Burnham is the SoS.
99 - If any Tory member’s behaviour is seen to have let labour back in, well you can imagine how roughly they are going to be treated afterwards by those who worked their backsides off to stop that (and by those in other non labour parties too I would think).
Alastair Campbell, renowned advocate of illegal wars, now advocating football fans breaking the law in his report of our frustrating encounter at West Ham today:
“I was also pleased to see almost all of our fans standing, which we rarely did in our Championship days. It makes for much better noise.”
http://football.fanhouse.co.uk/2009/11/28/turf-moor-diaries-hammers-won-but-their-supporters-finished-a-d/#cont
On topic, even if the Conservatives are on 39%, there is a vote of 6-11% for UKIP and the BNP, to the right of them. I suspect that the latter won’t actually achieve such a vote next year, and, particularly in the marginals, those voters will mostly break for the Conservatives.
Overall, we are looking at a shift of 10-15% from left to right, compared to 2005.
Another richard is absolutely right. UKIP piled on votes in safe Conservative divisions in the County elections, while the Conservatives stormed ahead in more marginal divisions (although UKIP also came from nowhere to win a number of Labour divisions).
The BNP performance was more mixed, but on balance, they probably took more votes off ex-Labour supporters than ex-Conservatives.
So, if there were to be an election result along the lines of:-
Conservative 39%
Labour 29%,
Lib Dem 18%,
UKIP 4%
BNP 3%,
Green3%
Others 4%,
I’d predict quite a hefty Conservative majority, based on where their votes were coming from.
101: ‘How in this are you tim? Aren’t you a wealthy farmer?’
Is tim a farming man? I didn’t know that. I own a farm myself on the Surrey Sussex border, but tend to leave the day-to-day stuff to the farm manager. Bit of a rash purchase really - a five minute wonder. Good for the phez shooting though!
98. Tim. Virtually everybody ‘plays the system’. If it is within the rules, and no laws have been broken, then good luck to him.
Lord Oakeshott ? Elected representative for where ? Too many Labourv ministers and LD spokesmen in the Lords methinks.
108 Bear in mind that tim’s estate is effectively exempt from Inheritance Tax, but he feels very passionately that it should be paid by other people.
99 - If we had PR for general elections then elections would be decided between New Labour and Cameron style Tories while the UKIP/Delingpole hard right and the Maguire/Bob Crow/Galloway hard left would be a seperate factor from the sidelines.
116 The LDs always wheel out Oakenshott when they need someone who can play ‘my knickers are in a knot about this’ down pat
116 - Zac Goldsmith looks like being a gift from heaven for the Lib Dems.
I’m sure Dave will explain why he should be the priority for tax cuts.
1117
I think tim is “in a state” over IHT generally.
This can’t be right, or maybe there isn’t a benchmark for training Afghan forces..
HELICOPTERS used by British special forces to mentor their Afghan counterparts on anti-drugs operations have been grounded to save just £2m a year. The funding for the helicopters — used by the Special Boat Service (SBS) and Afghan special forces for raids on drugs barons and Taliban insurgents — was cut by the Foreign Office two months ago.
The decision came despite Gordon Brown’s announcement that Britain’s “exit strategy” rests on training Afghan forces to take over its role.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936347.ece
108 Don’t hold your breath Tim never gives any positive reasons for voting Labour.
117 Re-paste “218 I know but given IDS I defy you to say how Portillo would have been worse. Factionalism anyway? Probably yes. Disliked? Maybe. But at least not pitied as IDS was. Frankly if the Tory Party had brought back Ted Heath as Leader they would probably have been better off with the public than with IDS. I do think you are letting your frustration at Portillo’s later actions colour your view.”
117 - Sean , hence the ‘We’re all in this together’ jibe. A touch of guilt perhaps?
I’d just like him to produce a positive set of reasons to support his party. S’pose this is too much to ask I guess.
This Zac Goldsmith thing does look pretty bad. Although he says he intends to start paying tax next year, is that really good enough? I would hope/expect people sitting in Parliament setting taxes for the population would have been paying taxes themselves?
Nicolas Sarkozy hails EU shake-up a victory for France
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6679787/Nicolas-Sarkozy-hails-EU-shake-up-a-victory-for-France.html
120 The trouble with that post is it is complete nonsense. Goldsmith looks like he will become liable for a hell of a lot more inheritence tax than at present if he becomes a tory MP.
124 The funny thing is, I was a supporter of Portillo at the time. The problem for him was that he went on a journey of self-loathing, in which he came to reject most of the things he’d previously believed in. He would have been a disaster for the party.
125 Farmers are (a) exempt from IHT on farmland, and (b) get significant public subsidies, so I suspect that you are correct.
Why vote Gordon Brown 5 more years tim?
This ‘ah yes but we’re doing better in the marginals’ is the last sign of a failing campaign.
Kinnock’s Labour came out with it in 1992. Howard repeated the argument in 2005.
The moment I heard it being trumpeted by the Tories I knew they are in trouble. Yes, dropping below 40% is very serious for them at this stage of the campaign.
126 - Goldsmith is as short as 1/2 with Paddy Power and Victor Chandler.
I doubt that will last, even if he does.
Take the 6/4 on Kramer.
120: ‘Zac Goldsmith looks like being a gift from heaven for the Lib Dems.’
What are sad and pathetic little nation we’ve become when an English gent is pilloried for not meekly handing over his own money to the thieving, grasping, wasteful British state. And by a ‘Liberal’ ‘Democrat’ nonentity too, who was doubtless some overpaid council gender-equality monitorization official in a previous life. I’m so depressed now that I’ve decided to trudge off in the rain to Datchet village for some triple brandies and tolerably company. Good evening!
102. The NI civil service agency I work for has had it’s income hit hard by the recession and has a significant budget deficit. The rumour is that 200 jobs will go by April, roughly 25% of the total compliment.
Next year will ne grim for the public sector whoever wins the election.
129 I fear you are judging him on the journey he went on after 2001. Had he become Tory Leader in 2001 I really do not think you can take it as read that he would have followed the path he did having been beaten. In fact I would suggest it almost certain that he would not have done as a result.
Breaking news: UEA to publish all climategate data
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6678469/Climategate-University-of-East-Anglia-U-turn-in-climate-change-row.html
126 But put in perspective against the cash for peerages and abrahams whitewashes and the fact that Labour MPs(expenses) are yet again being discussed by the CPS(of course another whitewash is likely) Zac Goldsmith is neither illegal nor corrupt and will do the right thing from next year. If you are looking for the lesser of two evils it is a no brainer.
133. Tim - thanks I have and also at 11/8 with skybet.
134. Well, I don’t mind any individuals trying to pay as little tax as they can - Its their money and its up to them. But at the same time, I don’t expect that individual to become a part of the very State they’ve been avoiding paying tax to.
85 Speaking personally, I also think that Cameron is too liberal. But he’s preferable to Brown.
It won’t stop me voting (and working for) the Conservatives in Luton South, and from making donations to the party, but if I were living in some solidly Tory seat in Herts. or Beds. I’d vote UKIP.
That’s where I part company with Warner, Delingpole, Heffer et al, who really would like to see a Labour government in power, forever, rather than sully their “purity”.
131 - Can’t help you there, as I’ve posted on dozens of occasions.
I’m one of the Labour voters on strike and there are millions of us.
And even so, the Tories still worse as the months go on. Depressing isn’t it.
138. Of course. You won’t find me defending any of that.
132 It was however, true, in both the instances that you cite.
132. John
People have been saying the Conservatives are doing better in the marginals for years.
If you remember it was one of the reasons Brown bottled it in October 2007.
134. Stark Dawning - is this the ‘nonentity’ you mean, ‘who was doubtless some overpaid council gender-equality monitorization official in a previous life’?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Oakeshott
FOI continues to create problems for Labour..
“Whitehall hid evidence on Heathrow expansion”
THE government colluded with the airports operator BAA to skew evidence in favour of expanding Heathrow and play down facts that could help opponents, secret documents indicate.”
One memo written in November 2007 claimed that “90% of businesses in the southeast” rated it as either “vital” or “very important” to their business. Yet officials also noted that the “conclusion [is] based on a very low sample size” and that it should be “used with caution”.
Yet the data was presented by the government in public documents to show that failure to expand Heathrow could badly damage the economy. No mention was made of the fact that only 2.6% of the 6,000 businesses to which questionnaires had been sent had responded.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936339.ece
Just in time for Copenhagen.
120. Tim, taken from the same article that you are so keen to quote
”Goldsmith has a number of UK ventures, including investments in organic food businesses. He pays UK tax on the domestic ventures but stands to lose huge sums by changing his tax status because his offshore investments will then be subject to the same tax rate as his UK earnings ”.
Anyway, Richmond Park is held by the LibDems with a sizeable majority anyway. Goldsmith could have been catapulted into a constituency with a 15K Tory majority but he has chosen to stand where the imcumbent is a LibDem, because that is where he was brought up. Good luck to him. The Tories would do well to take it
re 109. Richmond Park was down as a Lib Dem hold in the September 2009 PoliticsHome marginals poll when in national surveys the Tories were doing a bit better than they are at the moment.
Zac always had a massive challenge on his hands.
The anti-Brown dynamic is not going to work in the same way in seats like this
These are the 2005 notionals:-
LD 23,771 (46.65%); C 20,158 (39.56%); Lab 4,711 (9.25%); Green 1,379 (2.71%); Others 478 (0.94%); UKIP 454 (0.89%)
Labour. Ironic title for a group who rely on the votes of those who have never broke sweat.
Socialism. The denial of aspiration, and the rule that allows others to spend my earnings.
Who out there really believes that the Utopian scenario where nobody works, but all have riches untold, really exists? GB, Benn, Tim and a few other kn*bs..##
Get real folks, Dave is the unstoppable force.
142 - So set out a positive agenda for change within your party. Rather than carping about the ‘evil’ Tories and just for a bit of fun what would a ‘Tim’ inspired Labour party look like and campaign for?
138 - Its going to be a great sell for the Tories this one.
“If the Goldsmiths bring their assets onshore they will get a large tax cut in the first term of a Conservative Government”
151 - I did, on last nights thread.
149 - I agree with that and have taken the odds on Kramer.
122.”The decision came despite Gordon Brown’s announcement that Britain’s “exit strategy” rests on training Afghan forces to take over its role.
The Foreign Office refused to discuss the funding but privately officials confirmed the money was cut amid vain hopes that the Americans would foot the bill instead”
“was cut by the Foreign Office two months ago”
Kristen, why am I not surprised at this news, despite Brown’s big exit strategy based on setting targets for others? This screams of a GE strategy based on domestic politics rather than any real attempt at practical implementation and delivery. Just shows us yet again that the arse doesn’t know what the elbow is doing in this government. Gordon could do well to have a nice regular sit down chat with other members of the War Cabinet like Miliband, Ainsworth, and Darling about our Afghan strategy. Oh wait, that would come under leadership and governing instead of political dividing lines and electioneering.
This is the Iraq troop withdrawal announcement all over again.
Tim. Is ‘we’re all in this together’ a direct Cameron quote?
149. Mike S
And Eastleigh was down as a Conservative gain thus proving that the PoliticsHome marginals poll was very deeply flawed.
116 - tim is also being very quiet about certain Labour members.
also, how can we forget how many ministers was it tim getting tax advice paid for by the taxpayer?
Your bonus for 10, which one of those numptys tried to claim that he got the taxpayer to fund the advice so he could make sure he paid the right amount of tax lol (depends how you define “right” eh tim?)
152 No, they’ll be paying far more tax than at present.
In all fairness, you ought to be campaigning to make farmland liable to inheritance tax, rather than carping about other people wanting to enjoy similar tax advantages to yourself.
149 Absolutely. I think Richmond Park is rock solid for the Lib Dems, unlike the Sutton seats.
149 The Tories only held three figure majorities there even in the 80’s. But isn’t there the stardust factor to consider in London eg Galloway, Jackson etc? The Lib Dems should still hold but voters do like star power don’t they.
149. Could there be tactical unwind from that Lib Dem total though? The Labour vote looks very squeezed.
Don’t know if Zac would have paid much tax on his UK ventures. The Sportsman newspaper for instance would be a decent sized writedown. He doesn’t seem to have his fathers touch.
Getting above 40 is absolutely crucial!
It’s also a physcological level !
Mid December, 1 week after a seismic PBR, the Tories will start to climb again into the 40’s
I still maintain a GE result of Con42/44 Lab 26/27 Lib 20
It will all be about turnout on the night and this is what will hit Labout. Many millions of p4ssed off Labout supporters will sit on their hands! They won’t even bother to raise them to give Gordy a goodbye wave.
MODERATED
Accusing someone of bestiality is going a bit far]
New UKIP leader due on R5L Stephen Nolan show tonight. Running hard on this NHS problem. Could be about to blow up in someone’s face…
122 - Imagine you tried to pen a story about how crap this Government was, no one would believe it.
“things can only get better”
153- Sorry, I missed that. Many of us just don’t have the time to read every post and every subsequent comment.
I know its fashionable to condemn IDS but the Conservatives did top the poll in the local elections of 2002 and 2003 and in 2003 became the biggest party in local government (somthing that took Labour 11 years to achieve when they were in opposition).
Both Portillo, for ego reasons, and Clarke, for policy reasons, had the potential to do irreperable damage to the Conservatives at that time.
123 - Are there any?
I mean I dislike his style as much as the next man, but not got a lot of positives to work with has he?
153 You enjoy repettitive negative posting, and I missed lasts nights Positive Tim so please do repost, or is it yet another Tim misrepresentation of the truth.
156 - George Osborne peppered his conference speech with “we’re all in this together”
George Osborne will vote his family a huge tax cut.. Not good branding.
Not sure if this has been posted before:
“Alistair Darling rebuffs Gordon Brown on budget”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936324.ece
156. No, Osborne used the expression n times where n>5 (from memory) to the party conference.
I don’t understand criticism of legitimately reducing the amount of tax one pays. It’s hard to imagine that the critics make willing over-payments themselves.
I’ve even seen the occasional government advert urging people to make sure they apply for concessions they’re entitled to.
152, “If the Goldsmiths bring their assets onshore they will get a large tax cut in the first term of a Conservative Government”
Tim, I can’t see this quote from the TimesOnline article. I must have missed it….. I will try again.
The thick of it starts in a mo if anyone needs a reminder
160 I believe that Richmond has more copies of The Guardian sold than any other borough, which says all you need to know about its politics.
As far back as 1964, the Conservatives were under pressure in the borough.
170 thats a total misrepresentation of the truth tim, its so Labour and so smeary and so you..
Least surprising revelation of the day: Sean Fear is a UKIPer.
170 Brown of course taxed the poor more to pay for a tax cut for his back benchers.
Labour, voting themselves a tax cut paid for by taxing the poor.
You pays your money..
“(…)The rows come as tensions also grow between Brown and Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, over the war in Afghanistan.
(…)MPs claim Ainsworth is privately saying Labour would stand a better chance at the next election if Brown quit No 10 now.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936324.ece
174 - sorry, maybe not, looks like it’s later this evening.
170. George Osborne’s even better.
163 What a charming comment!
Zac Goldsmith isn’t my cup of tea, but I don’t wish a car crash on him.
Least surprising revelation of the day: Sean Fear is a UKIP’er.
169 - I’d go for radicalism under a new leader though.Three core, hard policies where the public are way ahead of the politicians.
1.National Pay freeze for two years, we’re all in this together.
2.Decriminalise drugs, the public know the war against drugs is an expensive way of breaking Britain.
3.Safe Seats breed corruption, county seats with STV gets rid of them.
If Miliband or Johnson had the guts to take that agenda on, then the Tory lead would evaporate.
by tim November 28th, 2009 at 12:06 am
IIRC there was some talk a couple of years ago about an Independent Conservative candidate in Richmond (London).
Apparantly some Conservative supporters were quite keen to see Zac lose and for him to be then replaced by a ‘proper’ Conservative in 2014/5.
170 “We’re all in this together” is certainly not a phrase that you could ever utter, with a straight face.
173. I recall being told by Brown in his 10 or so budgets that he had closed all the offshore tax loop holes. So that was a further lie if Goldsmith has indeed saved “huge sums” through his tax status.
142 - when did you go on strike tim?
Was it after you advised Labour not to “elect” Gordon or before?
You are still a member in any event are you not?
re 170. Tim - is this a bit like the way Labour have pumped millions of tax-payers money into their paymasters - the trade unions?
Or is like the way they set up the MPs communications allowances so MPs had £10,000 a year to spend getting their name across in their constituencies. So all parties had it but Labour have many more MPs?
Or is it like the way Labour persistently fiddled with the voting system so it would work better to its advantage?
And that’s all before tomorrow’s big story in the Mail on Sunday about the Iraq war.
Labour has polluted politics.
I’d be amazed if there isn’t a recount in the Richmond Park constituency next year.
184
The only way to stop a scumbag like Goldsmith cheating on his tax is for a Jumbo Jet to drop out of the sky and land on his head.
I hate the cnut, I just hate him.
163. Tesco got Special Brew on special offer in your neck of the woods, coldstone?
tim
Your suggestions do have merit but as those aren’t official Labour policies and nor are they likely to be then they are not reasons to vote Labour.
188 - You’ll remember how many Tory MPs paid huge amounts for websites to a man operating out of Paul Goodman MPs office?
175 Yes and no doubt any Goldsmith tenure would be highly insecure but he’s probably the only Tory who would stand any chance whatsoever. And voters like star power in London don’t they? Also see 136.
This story is going to anger EVERY parent in the whole of the UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936351.ece
184. “173. I recall being told by Brown in his 10 or so budgets that he had closed all the offshore tax loop holes. So that was a further lie if Goldsmith has indeed saved “huge sums” through his tax status.”
Gordon Brown has bequeathed us the largest tax code in the whole wide world. There are more loopholes than ever before. The man is a complete and utter chump.
182
Well as he said sean.
Goldsmith, the former editor of The Ecologist magazine who resigned last year to advise the Tory party and become prospective parliamentary candidate for Richmond west, told the jury at Maidstone crown court that direct action could be justified. “Legalities aside, I suppose if a crime is intended to prevent much larger crimes, I think then a lot of people would consider that as justified,” he said.
Lets be honest getting rid of him would prevent, ‘much larger crimes’
Lord Pearson is on R5L NOW!
Cheating on tax is evasion, which is illegal. Avoiding tax is legal. The government uses tax (dis)incentives to change behaviour.
183 I believe what really does count is policy, but with you it is almost always smear and personality. Anyway my thoughts on your policies.
1) would be unenforceable and seriously unpopular.
2) I actually don’t disagree, but the vast majority do.
3) Nobody cares about voting reform. Anyway much higher priority is Rotten Boroughs and West Lothian question.
190 - Ohh Mike. I wanted to get Tim all positive.
200 - He’s fantastic.
“From what I hear I wouldn’t trust the NHS”
Actually tim I cant understand you, perhaps you can help.
You claim to be on strike yet you post god knows how many posts a day in defence of Labour or to attack their opposition.
You attack posters who are not pro labour and yes, you smear and tell untruths
You even post when you claim to be on holiday with the kids?
You do all this for a party you claim you are unable to support?
204 - I wouldn’t say he’s fantastic but working in the NHS I wouldn’t automatically trust it either. Apparently things come in shades and not just black and white.
192. Hate is a very strong and negative emotion Coldy. It will just make you bitter and twisted.
I can quite honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever actually hated anybody in my life. Not even Gord. Life’s to short to hate.
162. I agree; Tories need to be getting way above 40% at this stage.
Shamed hospitals named..
“Bolton, Greater Manchester and Basildon NHS trusts have elite “foundation status”. However, The Sunday Telegraph has learned that statistics to be published this week will show a higher percentage of patients died while in their care in 2008-09 than in any other trusts in the country. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/heal-our-hospitals/6680330/Shamed-the-top-hospitals-with-the-worst-death-rates.html
Iraq Inquiry bombshell: Secret letter to reveal new Blair war lies
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231746/Secret-letter-reveal-new-Blair-war-lies.html
190 - what is the Mails big story on Iraq tomorrow?
190 Coldstone, you must be a very unhappy soul, the two posts you have made on Goldsmith are abhorrent.
206 - He’s certainly got a Matron thing going on.
Was he imagining Hattie Jacques heaving bosom while spluttering about Matron?
I have to say though its unusual to hear a Party leader say, “Maybe I’m not qualified to come on your programme and talk about this”
209,oh dear labour.
184 Not exactly. I will be voting Conservative, next year.
209. LOL! That kind of puts the Zac Goldsmith stuff in perspective.
Attorney General said the war was illegal and was “bullied” into backing down by Blairs cronies. What a lovely bunch!
Over to Tim.
209 - wow, who were these cronies. We need to know.
There goes the Muslim vote timbot
The Daily Mail IRAQ story is up. Very bad copy for Tony Blair.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1231746/Secret-letter-reveal-new-Blair-war-lies.html
207
You’ve left it a bit late I am bitter-n-twisted: actually I’ve always been that way.
I’d like it explained to me, perhaps someone can, how an MP or a PPC, (regardless of party) can make a statement such as, ‘Putting legalities aside’ (lawmakers shouldn’t be law breakers) and not be admonished by the leadership.
I like this one from Roger Helmer.
Meantime across the pond, Republicans are reacting against wets and liberals and leftists standing as Republican candidates. They were prompted by candidates like the improbably named Dede Scozzafava running for an up-state New York Congressional seat recently. Her leftist views prompted a proper conservative to enter the race. When opinion polls showed Dede that she was on to a loser, she quit and endorsed the Democrat, who won.
Unwilling to fall into that trap again, Republicans have proposed a “Reagan Test” for candidates. They would be invited to endorse ten conservative principles. Anyone endorsing fewer than eight would be automatically excluded. I was pleased to note that the ten principles included low taxes, balanced budgets, the right to bear arms, and market-based solutions to health and energy policy — but no commitment to “fighting climate change”!
I wish them well. And I’d like to emulate them. It’s time we had a “Thatcher Test” for Conservative candidates. Meantime I suggest that any Conservatives wishing to sup with Mr. Blond (sic) should take with them a very long spoon indeed. ResPublica? ResPopuli? ResSocialistica? No thanks. I’m quite happy as a conservative. A Thatcherite Conservative with Jeffersonian principles.
Right well Cameron would fail that test wouldn’t he.
199 I have no sympathy whatsoever for his views on “direct action” but it would be going too far to say that I hate him.
The only person I’ve ever hated, I think, is a former employer of mine.
218. Roger Helmer is an idiot.
152. Tim. I am still waiting to hear whether it was your quote or from somebody else. Can’t see anything about adultery in the Times article.
209 .. no wonder Falconer as defending him on QT.
I wonder if Tony Blair will go to live in America.
Could the drip, drip, drip of this Iraq inquiry eventually see the Lib-Dems outpolling Labour at the general election?
215 - Kosovo was also “illegal”.
225 - Tim, labour bullied someone.
You are strong on bullieng arent you?
The floor is yours
225. But Kosovo was an immediate threat to out national interest (all those people being displaced out of their homes by the Serbs) There was no such imminant threat from Iraq.
219
Bet you will, if he becomes an MP, and starts to cause Cameron mega-problems, by opening his stupid mouth.
Oh! are you with Helmer on the, ‘Thatcher Test’ the right to bear arms, that could go down well.
228 I’m not in favour of ideological litmus tests.
Though I’m sympathetic to Helmer’s opinions on Philip Blond.
Con 40% Lab 25% Lib-Dem 26%
Could it happen? :O
Fourth Sector Initiative.
Didnt one Gordon Brown after years of trying to stay silent on the war say Blair was 100% right?
He always did like to duck anything controversial old Gordo
Courage? thats for others
Seriously, I wonder if he writes about courage because he knows he lacks it and it bothers him, writing about it being the closest he can come to it.
Tim, you make things up, don’t you ?
224 - What did Gordon know?
news papers so far,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Sundays-Papers—Newspaper-Front-Pages-Sunday-November-29-2009/Media-Gallery/200911415477672?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15477672_Sundays_Papers_-_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Sunday%2C_November_29%2C_2009
sunday express,not good for labour
Been looking on the bbc at the political map after 2005. I can’t believe there are over 600mps in parliament. How the hell do they get laws through the house of commons then in the house of lords? To be honest I think it must be almost impossible to get a solid law through on any social or economic issue without provoking the activists on the left or right. Maybe this is why we have no discussion on the mass slaughter of babies or the need for the death penalty for those rapists and paedophiles as a deterrant. Or maybe to clean up the lack of respect and discipline we bring back national service. Now ithese are issues I believe in but I understand and recognise the controversial aspects and detail of all 3 points. However since I’ve been born I’ve never heard a debate or suggestion of these policies.
Regarding the thread, david cameron is a typical tory he’s just got a big bright sky and green fluffy tree behind him and he has the right friends - the media are putting there personal hatred for brown ahead of there professional responsbilities to be members of the free press - but if someone is down brown then someone has to be up and cameron is in at the right time. I believe under the economic circumstances any tory leader would be up in the polls its not because cameron is leader.
I think the tories are a pretty sorry bunch. George osborne is a kid with to many lego bricks to play with. I firmly believe that every tory in their hearts wants boris as there leader instead of david cameron. When you push tories they do deep down believe that cameron is smarmyn shallow and a complete blairite. But the daily mail - the most negative anti english institution in this country - speaks what tories truely think. They don’t care wat camerons policies are they just want to win. Then when they gain power they will look at cameron and challenge his ideology. This is a shameful state of journalism in an apparent free country with a press that will only question the policies of the man who wants to prime minister once he becomes leader not before. Are all newspapers due to ciculation problems putting their profits ahead of indepednece?
The three issues that motivate me are the tax credit system which I think has benefitted people with families - I’m a working single mother of twins aged 15months - and I would be in a far dire place without them. Second is that all 3 main parties have the same policies on europe none of them are giving us a say. What are the tories afraid of why won’t they give us a referendum on european membership the euro etc not just a total blairite policy of it all depends on the circumstances. Its funny how people hated blair but love cameron yet they are exactly the same just with different parties. Are tories really that shallow? And the third issue is the nuclear powerplants which will secure not jst the future of mps in this election but likely for a generation. Mps in these areas lancashire and cumbria will be safed due to local issues not national issues. I can’t see how if the nuclear deal goes through a tory can win in copeland. Or if vauxhall save the jobs in ellesmere port how will it vote tory? Don’t underestimate local issues particularly in the north. Ok long day I will do my best to reply to comments little feet are sleeping but early today I had no chance to reply I did read your comments. One of them seant I think you need to brush your teeth more than twice a day.
227 - I think you’ll find that would be regarded as illegal under international law.
226 - Lord Pearson is talking about being bullied at Eton for being “Nouveau Riche”
234 - more than he knows about selling assets.
More than he knows about the aerodynamic qualities of Nokias even
235,looking again at the front pages,non are good headlines for labour
The NHS does seem to be exploding all over the papers…
239 - 5 more years? no chance.
236. “One of them seant I think you need to brush your teeth more than twice a day.”
Haha.
237. Quite possibly. The point is, if country A is under imminant danger from country B, then it would be justified for country A to attack/invade country B even if international law says its illegal.
The thing about Iraq is that it now looks almost certainly illegal under international law and not justified under grounds that Iraq posed an immediate danger to this country and our interests.
243. And whats worse is that Blair knew it couldn’t be justified under grounds that Iraq posed an imminant threat to the UK, but lied to make it appear it did. What a soundral!
236 - talk me through that 10p tax rate thing again?
I must have misunderstood it you see. I told my son the Government were giving me more money whilst taking more away from him.
Yet I earn several multiples a year more than him, go figure.
And while your at it, that whole car tax thing (you know the retroactive thing) which was going to hurt those with lower spending power, can you help me out with that too.
235. Four out of the five so far are not good for Labour. The fifth one, not good for Jordan.
243 / 244 - Oh, but I thought he was a pretty straight kind of guy?
243 - On those terms Kosovo and Iraq were both illegal and both (Kosovo after a while) removed genocidal dictators.
The UN protection of Sarajevo and Rwanda was legal.
I know which side of the law I’d rather be on.
244,yes and you will get the labour lemmings posting to defend him,tim comes to mind.
One point I forgot to mention is why does the site consistently twist a tory negative to a positive. When the tories are in the 40s the site advertises the importance of it as it can’t win in the 30s. When a poll shows movement against the tories you spend all day bombing the legitimacy of it before another comes out confirming there is a movement and say its just a phase. Now we have a thread with cameron under 40 which is not enough to win and again its twisted don’t worry they are 8per cent ahead in marginals. If they were 8per cent up in marginals they would be more than 10pts up in the country.
248,told you
249. I assume your refering to MORI? In which case the things that were posted on here about MORI are still correct. It has not been supported by any other pollster and is still firmly out on its own.
Susanna you need some lessons from the bunker on how not to blow your Draperbot cover.
Tim and Gabble will be able to help.
Now f off.
So, we have Labour leading us into an illegal war and knowingly doing so.
At the same time the poor working class people (you know the ones who Labour swear they are protecting whilst the evil tories will exterminate them) who actually had to do the fighting get to go with sh*te equipmemt at best and often without entirely.
Labour sent troops into a war zone with 5 rounds each…………
Not only that, we didnt even have enough pain relief (morphine) and injured men suffered more because of this.
5 more years? no thanks
49
It’s called a debate, a conversation, even an argument.
252 - Of course, no one spotted your propaganda, did they?
253 - Illegal Wars, not war.
Its plural.
247. Tim, again, I’m not saying that its never justified to break international law. If a country is in immediate danger then that country has the right to break the law. We’re both agreed about this. But differance is;
Kosovo was an immediate threat to the UK.
Iraq was not an immediate threat to the UK, so Blair lied to make it seem like it was.
Kosovo was probably illegal, but justified by posing a threat to our security. Iraq was also probably illegal but can’t be justified either, because it posed no such threat.
255 - tim you going to help me out? (205 refers)
You are on strike as a voter yet have posted over 10K posts defending Labour.
Man, thats dedication (or something)
255 - Are you confusing opinion with propaganda?
256 - you seem proud tim? can it really be so?
Care to comment on the 2nd part of the post you were replying to?
tim likes getting fired up about bullying. So I’ll be interested in his take on the bullying of the AG…
Nicola Murray - Fanfuc*ingtastic…
Bit of a lacklustre Thick of It.
I see the odds have shifted on Richmond Park.
Brilliant Thick of It
remind me who runs Ofsted……
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936335.ece
“AN insider has accused Ofsted, the children’s inspectorate, of destroying “smoking gun” documents that could expose an attempted cover-up in the Baby P childcare scandal.
The Ofsted whistleblower alleges the watchdog deleted draft reports from its computers that gave a highly favourable verdict on Haringey, the London council whose failings contributed to Baby P’s death.
The drafts were about to be finalised and released when the tragedy became public. The assessment was then hurriedly scrapped and rewritten to condemn Haringey as inadequate.”
268 - Balls also gets a mention “so what” cry the Labour collective
we nearly got a full house of bad news from all the front pages for labour
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Sundays-Papers—Newspaper-Front-Pages-Sunday-November-29-2009/Media-Gallery/200911415477672?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15477672_Sundays_Papers_-_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Sunday%2C_November_29%2C_2009
245 I make 26000gross so the 10p tax rate doesn’t affect me. I’m only concerned about how much the tories want to take away from me. I chose to work because I want to work as I want to set an example to my babies that work is a productive way of enhancing life. Wat I don’t understand is how taking 100 from me every week a single mother with twins helps the public finances when with the other land your giving inheritance tax policies to people who are getting these money because of the dna inside their body.
My babies have done nothing to the tory party I don’t understand why tories love taking money from middle class families? Wat do you hate about us that with the right resources we surpass you? Why take from single paret families and give to the super rich? Selfish and unpatriotic.
260. Floater. Tim never replies to anything that would mean him saying ‘Sorry, I got that one wrong’ ( a bit like our Gordon). No humility. Just makes up a whole lot of garbage.
270 - It’s been the same for month.
Amazing that the Tory vote is falling isn’t it?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936223.ece
“A FAMILY of former asylum seekers is living in a £1.8m central London home at a cost to the taxpayer of £1,600 a week, despite a pledge by ministers to crack down on housing benefit payments.
Somali-born Nasra Warsame, seven of her children and her mother moved into the six-bedroom property last month after Westminster council agreed to pay the rent.
Her husband and an eighth child are living in a separate “overspill” property also paid for by housing benefit. Warsame’s five-storey home boasts three sitting rooms and four bathrooms. It is within walking distance of the West End.
This weekend critics said the £1,600 payment — £83,000 a year — was “excessive” and accused the government of failing to get to grips with Britain’s annual £17 billion housing benefit bill.
Last year James Purnell, then work and pensions secretary, promised to make housing benefit “fair to taxpayers” as well as to people on low incomes.
Today’s revelations, however, appear to contradict that claim”
Quite
271.another labour lemming FFS.
266. I agree with you. The Tories were bad value at 1/2 on. It should probably have Evens with Susan Kramer at 4/5 on.
271 - “Why take from single paret families and give to the super rich? Selfish and unpatriotic.”
you need to address that point to Labour.
273,Not has bad has sunday’s headlines my labour lemming friend
273. Which leads me to suspect we won’t have to wait very long into January to find to Tories going 40%+ again on average.
271. Where are these desperate Labour spinsters coming from?
273 - so tim, you think your team (they are your team afterall - despite the crap about voting strikes) will have a majority in seats?
Give me odds my man
The legality of Kosovo has never been tested. Arguably in view of Serbian atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia, armed intervention to protect the muslim/Albaniam minority was entirely legal under International Laws on genocide and to prevent war crimes. Whether the bombing of Serbian cities was legal though?
With Iraq consideration should similarly be given as to protection of Shi’ite and Kurdish populations, but but the no fly zones, sanctions and enforcement were containing the regime so intervention to stop genocide wasn’t an excuse for war.
The only legal basis was Iraqs failure to comply with the Resolutions of the 1990’s and the balance of opinion was they did not provide sufficient basis, though that is arguable.
271 Sorry - are you a single parrot family?
275 - It’ll play well in the other Lib Dem seats in SW London as well.
254 I have no idea what your rabbiting on about. I have a life and I don’t need to play silly little games. I have an opinion if its not welcome or found unacceptable trust me I won’t lose a seconds sleep over it as I have two wonderful children to brighten my day.
273. It has not been the best few weeks for Cameron. A few gaffes, and a concerted and effective effort by some Right Wing commentators to undermine him. Not surprising the Tory share has dropped a bit.
Oh dear……
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6936281.ece
“THE man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was implicated in the purchase and development of chemical weapons by Libya, according to documents produced by the American government.
The papers also claim that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed alMegrahi sought to buy 1,000 letter bombs from Greek arms dealers while working as a Libyan intelligence officer.
The documents, prepared by the US State Department, raise further questions about the wisdom of the Scottish government in releasing the convicted bomber on compassionate grounds in August.”
284. You post what you want Susanna. And welcome to Politicalbetting.
Kosovo wasn’t “illegal” under international law. It was illegal under international law. And it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake.
285 and a few left ones,like the bbc.
283 tim - bullying at the heart of the Blair Govt. - used to silence a man who had the ability to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq. Any thoughts? Only, you are usually quite voluble on the subject of Tory or Eton bullies…
285. On the other hand, its been a good few weeks for Cameron because Browns now pretty cemented into place as leading the Labour Party into the general election!
After plugging various figures into various swing/regional models, I’ve come to the conclusion that if the Lib Dems are above 18%, then the Conservatives need a 10% lead to claim a majority of seats in the House of Commons.
Below that, and they enter the zone where they’d only be able to form a government with the Lib Dems, something the Lib Dems might be reluctant to do, and something that might cause a revolt on the right of the party. Or they might be forced to accept minority government.
At the moment the model I use at http://ukelectiontrend.blogspot.com/ is showing a slim majority of seats for the Conservatives. Which might still give them problems when they come to govern, particularly over Europe.
271 - susanna. On Tax Credits I understand that they plan to look at £50k+ earners and remove the tax credits from them. They have also said that they would like to reverse the 0.5% NI increase that Labour have planned for April 2010. So I’m not sure they are planning to take any money off of you…
292 - yep.
I plan to get royally p*ssed watching Labour get booted out.
Hilarious…..
292. Granted.
293 - Nick, wasting your time mate.
That poster not interested in truth, think of her as tim lite
291 - I also find that taking the Mail at face value is a losers game.
I do wish someon had pushed Hurd and Major against awall in the mid 90’s though.
294. I’m with you man. I’ll have a champagne on ice just like BBC in 1997!
287
Why has that suddenly come out? Perhaps the Americans were not to pleased with Battling Bob’s criticisms.
299 - yep its going to be fun and I will win money at it too
The funny thing is one of the guys I am betting with will be happy to lose as he wants them out
BTW for you Labour posters - him and I are just two of the working classes you lost for a long , long time.
237
Susannah, your comment about the nuclear industry and Copeland completely misses two rather important points.
First, there will not be a final decision on any nuclear site before the last possible date for the 2010 election.
And second, during the lifetime of any new nuclear power stations there are likely to be not just one but several changes of government. Which means that they are not going to be built without a consensus of support from both the government and the opposition, because investors simply will not put millions of pounds into a nuclear power station if the investment could be rendered worthless as soon as an election changes the government.
So if new nuclear build takes place while Labour is still in office, the Conservatives will deserve some of the credit for supporting it, and equally, if the Conservatives are in power by then, support from the Labour opposition will have been a factor.
297 - Maybes Yes, Maybes No, but I thought I would do the courtesy of replying… I suppose that I should be watching MoTD but from what I hear Blackburn v Stoke actually managed to live far below my expectations for entertainment…
298 TIMBOT, another day of your life wasted, posting here for hours on end. You need help.
Sky - 12 hospital trusts significently underperfoming.
“things can only get better”
Typical dna tory tactic mockn drag and attempt to humiliate anyone with a different opinion.
Does labour support national service? No
Does labour support the banning of abortion? No
Does labour support the death penalty? No
I work I have two children the father I told to leave as he hit me once. Once is enough. I choose to work how am I labour?
my social beliefs are conservative. But there are no conservatives in the conservative party they are tories who care about the individual rather than the people. You can’t be patriotic if your a nationalist. Ask maggie thatcher.
The news about Lord Goldsmith’s opinion is not particularly surprising. Even when he eventually gave a more helpful opinion, the phrase he used was that “a reasonable case” could be made that it was legal. No lawyer who thought that something was the right side of the line would use the phrase “a reasonable case”. He or she would use a less equivocal phrase.
300.MTF, I think it goes back further than Bob Ainsworth’s comments.
Reminds us all that Megrahi is still with us, free and living in Libya.
299/301 - You’ll probably enjoy your champagne, but best pray the the polling trend doesn’t continue and the Tories get their act together.
304 - the amusing thing is he now claims to be on strike and does not vote Labour.
10k posts on behalf of a party he will not vote for…..
or of course its another untruth.
298 Too many big statements in that story for the Mail to afford to get it wrong.
They’ve at the very least been briefed on the contents of that letter, even if they haven’t got a copy. I suspect that “friends” of the former AG are seeing the way the wind is blowing on Chilcot - and want to ensure that he is not lined up to shoulder blame…
By the way - piss-poor distraction stuff about Hurd and Major, tim.
293 Unlikely that a single mother with two children would suffer any financial penalty under any policies put forward so far.
Susanna and the twins of course will suffer considerable financial penalty if Mr “My Credit Card will pay” Brown continues his ruinous approach to public finances. With borrowing of £30k per person (more per taxpayer) already likely, thats £100 a month each paying back the interest (so £300 a month for that particular family) and it could well go higher.
309 - still waiting for my odds tim.
Put yer money where your mouth is.
305. All that money Labours spent and the standard of so many hospitals is still terrible.
Where did all the money go?
Historians looking at the 97-10 Labour years will be asking themselves that question for the next few hundred years.
304 - Not really.
For the most part its stimulating and interesting in here.
You’re interesting when you post about films, just steer clear of the politics and betting side of things and you’ll be ok
306
What a load of nonsense (your personal comments about your family excepted)
313 - What would you like odds on?
306. Good for you for kicking that violent bully into touch.
I think you’ll find that on national service, banning abortion and bringing back the death penalty, the Conservatives and Labour share the same opinions.
As far as Cameron goes, I think its unfair to compare his beliefs to that on Mrs Thatcher.
306 “But there are no conservatives in the conservative party they are tories who care about the individual rather than the people.”
Anyone who uses “tories” like that sounds very old Labour. Are you really Neil Kinnock?
317 - 281 refers.
If your that bullish about Labour (the party you no longer vote for) chances that is.
308. “Reminds us all that Megrahi is still with us, free and living in Libya”
Megrahi is at death’s door. When neocons and Thatcherites witter on about “freedom” I didn’t realise that was kind of thing they have in mind. If so, it wasn’t worth dismantling the welfare state for.
293 nick your pt on tax credits is correct but philip hammond mentioned on newsnight that to really get into the deficit people making 20000 or more do they need tax credits in his view no and its a definite possibility as the tories only showed a finger of the slap they indeed to give to the public. I believe that vat will go up and tax credits will go from middle class families.
302 well just for you ill do my first politcal bet labour hold copeland. I also think they will hold ellesmere port due to vauxhall ensuring jobs. Ill look around for another seat to do a treble. Maybe eastleigh I think chris huhne is a gd guy and can do wayt oaten did in winchester defy the doubters.
A nation of property owners
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5579973/a-nation-ofproperty-owners.thtml
315 ‘For the most part its stimulating and interesting in here.’
Not for 16 hours+ a day, 7 days a week. You’re losing the plot.
Sky - re parents needing to be vetted to go to xmas concerts - “absolute rubbish from the Government”
Say it aint so……
Sussanah, is this ok with you?
324. Thats not true? Surely?
318. “I think you’ll find that on national service, banning abortion and bringing back the death penalty, the Conservatives and Labour share the same opinions.”
I’m not sure that’s quite true. Two of those are conscience issues, and a significant minority of Tories still support the death penalty. In Labour (and other parties of the left and centre) there’s virtual unanimity against it.
Sky saying BNP leader representing Europe at cliate change conference?
On the subject of climate change
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
“SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.”
Tut tut
325 - its in one of the Sundays allegedly
325 it is see my post upthread at 197
325 / 329 - Just when you think the Governemnt can’t get anymore stupid…..
326. Well, put it this way, in all the Tory governments from 1970-1997 abortion wasn’t banned and the death penality wasn’t brought back. And these things are not going to happen under Camerons government either.
Of course individuals can believe all sorts of things, but overall to Tories are not about to ban abortion and nor will they bring back the death penalty.
320 - If you want odds you’ll have to be more coherent than that.
325 - One headmaster somewhere in the South West, apparently.
328 story here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936351.ece
325,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936351.ece
306. You are either joking, or so seriously misinformed that arguing from you is a pointless endeavour. None of those are conservative party policy, even in Norfolk.
Tax credits are a monstrous social injustice in themselves. The genuinely poor have in many cases been devastated by unexpected demands for repayment: the scheme could only have been thought up by someone with a genuinely autistic inability to imagine what it is like to be poor. On the other hand the system is easily played by the well heeled middle classes with their own businesses by entirely legitimate accounting practices and I know people who pay for skiing holidays, or keep a horse, out of tax credit money.
306.susanna, welcome. Its great to see another female poster joining PB.com, and a Labour supporter at that. I was just remarking about the lack of Labour leaning females on here to Tim last week, so this is really positive. Its not a Tory site by the way, everyone is welcome and the main focus is betting.
321.I read that he went home from hospital last week.
really tim, I’d read the article first…
333- that figures.
You realise its over and even though you claim not vote for them you still find it in you to post 7 days a week for god knows how many hours a day.
How many posts you at tim? I’m sure you are over 10k but i’m erring on the low side.
Why do you post so much to support a party you claim you could not vote for (at present)?
Enlighten us
332 - A Tory majority would probably result in the reduction of the abortion limit to 22 weeks.
I’m sure there would be some more of Nadines plastic fetus wavers washed in on a landslide.
With capital punishment, no movement at all ever.
One of the things I really do like about his country, now the Tories have got on board, is how attitudes to gay people have changed remarkably quickly.
The Conservative party will never mirror the Palinesque loons in the States.
332. “Of course individuals can believe all sorts of things, but overall to Tories are not about to ban abortion and nor will they bring back the death penalty.”
But the point is that those Tory governments couldn’t do - or not do - anything about either of those topics, because they’ve long been designated subjects outside the province of the party whips. What matters is what individual MPs think, and there’s no getting away from the fact that Tories are far more likely to be in favour of the death penalty than MPs from other mainstream parties. The reason that no Tory-majority parliament since 1970 has reintroduced the death penalty is because of a) split in the Tory ranks, and b) virtual unanimity among the opposition. The ‘b’ is as crucial as the ‘a’ there. If Mrs Thatcher had had her way, it certainly would have happened.
337. “I read that he went home from hospital last week.”
Aye, and I once read that William Shatner was married to a mauve bison. Let’s stick to established facts, shall we?
342 - The Telegraph reported he had been sent home..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/6487842/Lockerbie-bomber-Abdelbaset-al-Megrahi-discharged-from-hospital.html
341 James. I fear you are situating the issue to suit your own prejudice. Very recently polling has found a considerable majority of the public (70%) would support its reintroduction.
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2504
172 – James Kelly, since Britain became a member of the EEC in 1972, or as it is known today, the EU, it has been illegal for any member country to have the death penalty.
Nothing to do with the colour of your stripe.
340. Agreed.
I’ve got three gay friends and all of them are Conservative. Its always appeared to me that the Tories were missing out on the support from quite a substantial minority by not being more open to gay people.
And on that note of harmony I’m off for the night.
It’s now impossible for any party to re-introduce capital punishment, since it is illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights. Only withdrawal from Europe would permit the death penalty to become a practical proposition.
343. Well, quite. A publication that, at least on matters relating to Scotland, is roughly on a par with the mauve bison rag.
338 - I did read it, and nowhere does it refer to parents attending Xmas events.
Of course there is middle ground here and its probably not a good week to hand over choirboys to Priests.
Hysteria on this issue works both ways remember, should the state step in or shouldn’t it, and when.
James Kelly
So what you’re saying is that the Conservatives give their MPs a free vote on capital punishment and they split in approximately the same proportion as the public at large while the other parties have it as official policy to oppose capital punishment.
Seems like the Conservatives are in touch with public opinion on this issue and the other parties aren’t.
342.”Aye, and I once read that William Shatner was married to a mauve bison. Let’s stick to established facts, shall we?”
Oh, right okay. What is his current address when he chats to the officials in Scotland, hospital or home?
347 - James if you have a source that shows this story to be wrong then please do post it.
345. “James Kelly, since Britain became a member of the EEC in 1972, or as it is known today, the EU, it has been illegal for any member country to have the death penalty.
Nothing to do with the colour of your stripe.”
That is quite simply untrue. Britain didn’t sign up the relevant protocol until a few years ago under the current government, and there was no question of a Common Market-wide ban when we joined in the early 1970s. If there had been, it’s a bit mysterious that France managed to keep on guillotining people until 1977.
349. “So what you’re saying is that the Conservatives give their MPs a free vote on capital punishment and they split in approximately the same proportion as the public at large while the other parties have it as official policy to oppose capital punishment.”
On that occasion you knew you were being silly. All parties have a free vote as you well know - it’s just that non-Tories appear to have been rather quicker to sign up to a more civilised world.
350/1. I think it’s rather more up to the telegraph to substantiate their story, or indeed for Christina to substantiate her apparent belief that Megrahi is enjoying some kind of fun holiday, rather than for me to disprove it.
349 - Debates about capital punishment are like sniffing play doough, they take you back to a distant past but have no substance, its not going to happen.
Even Texas is now cutting back on its cull rate
341, 342
In post 341 you tell us that you think Tories “are far more likely to be in favour of the death penalty” Which is your opinion, unless you have some actual facts to prove far more likely.
In post 342 you accuse Christina of not sticking to the facts.
I have to admire your speed of hypocrisy James, that must be a new record.
Veting parents for christmas concerts is a joke and whichever prat decided this needs to have a resignation letter in his hand.
I hate political correctness drives me bonkers.
The tories and its propogandanists the mail telegraph lecture about the problems facing britain and say it all discipline. We need discipline in school bla de bla de bla but it doesn’t do anything because the judicial system is unelected and they can twist the law to prevent discipline measures.
What we need is total social reform ban abortion ban hunting bring back national service and restore the death penalty to murderers and paedophiles (rape under 12) and please make judges accountable to the people. Labour doesn’t want to change britains discipline problem drastically. The tories lecture about the social breakdown but don’t have the right answers to solve it. They in realoity do it for one purpose its red meat for the tory activist.
I just want my children to be in a country with morals and values no party represents or desires a debate as they are afraid to discuss it.
357 - No one is vetting parents for concerts.
134: Susan Kramer worked in corporate finance and international banking before becoming an MP. Not a local government employee in any form.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/richmondpark
Where does Goldsmith stand on the AGW debate?
When tim and I have our new blog up and running, you shall bow down before us and call us MASTER.
Fact.
356. Come off it, Voreas. The point it ceases to be simply my opinion and becomes a fact is the point at which division lists are published. It’s a matter of public record that when there have been free votes on capital punishment, the Tories have been split, and Labour and the Liberal Democrats (and predecessor parties) have been near-unanimous against it.
356 - In every parliamentary vote Tory MPs have been more likely to vote in favour than MPs of any other party.There’s not much of a factual argument there.
353. James Kelly
How may Labour MPs support capital punishment? None
When did the last Labour MP to support capital punishment leave parliament? 1983
If Labour wants to official oppose capital punishment then that’s their choice but don’t start claiming that Labour give a free choice on the issue.
Who needs Labour, the Libdems or the SNP in Scotland when we have Tim Montgomery!!
Herald - Cameron urged: let Scottish Tories set up breakaway party
Yep, the man of the Tory grass roots speaks out again, except if you are a Scottish Tory! Nope, then its BOO!
The established fact of the Megrahi case is that he is still alive when McAskill’s ‘expert’ said he would now be dead.
Two possible conclusions:
McAskill is a liar or Libyan healthcare is better than that in Scotland.
BTW, tim, I am serious about the blog, and assume you are.
Assuming you actually exist, we can discuss it via the electronic internet.
[pseudo dot meta at gmail dot com]
366 - I shall check that I exist and e mail you.
363. People on my street have completely free choice over whether or not to eat poisonous mushrooms. How many people on my street have eaten poisonous mushrooms in recent years? None. By your curious definition that is a sign that free choice is an illusion, in reality it’s a sign of the eminent common sense of people on my street.
354.Some fun holiday! Can you substantiate that stupid claim?
You said lets keep to the facts, so I am asking, is Megrahi in hospital or at home?
@364:
Christina,
I’ve been arguing for years that it makes sense to spin the Scotch Tories off into an independent party. I am still confident it will happen eventually.
Tory/Conservative are dirty words in Scotchlandshire. Only partisan independence will fix that.
Don’t worry, we’ll still be special friends.
337 hi christina thanks for the welcome. I’m just as critical of labour as the tories I just think its time we looked at cameron and say is he just another blair. I would vote for boris johnson in a heartbeat. At least the man has balls. Cameron just reminds me of blair and I can’t take it anymore. I just wish the conservative party could be full of real people with real jobs not a bunch of career opportunists. O I’m posh let’s be an mp that will pay the morgage.
365. I’m not quite sure how MacAskill is a liar when he said “he may live longer than three months, he may die sooner, all I can do is act on the best medical evidence available to me now”. That was pretty up-front by any standards.
368. “Some fun holiday! Can you substantiate that stupid claim?”
No, Christina, that was your stupid claim and I was rather hoping you’d be able to substantiate it.
348
“I did read it, and nowhere does it refer to parents attending Xmas events”
Tim, I think you should get your eyes checked.
The opening sentence. The very first paragraph of the article says:
“Parents who want to accompany their children to Christmas carol services and other festive activities are being officially vetted for criminal records in case they are paedophiles.”
The article also mentions school christmas discos.
So yes it does specifically mention vetting parents attending Christmas events
368. Pathetic.
How many people eat poisonous mushrooms each year one in a thousand? one in a million?
Now how many people support capital punishment? Two in three.
How many Labour MPs have there been elected since one of them supported capital punishment? About a thousand at a guess, the chance of them all being opponents of capital punishment on a free vote is about infinity to one.
Why are you ashamed to admit that other parties have opposing capital punishment as official policy?
371.susanna, won’t be able to say whether Cameron is another Blair until we see how is performs as PM if the Conservatives win the next GE. None of us knew how Mrs Thatcher, Major or Blair would turn out the day they were first elected. Deep down, we all knew what Gordon Brown would be like, sadly his own Cabinet knew better than most. That is why no one in the Labour party or the country has ever got the chance to vote for him.
A question for the tory voter here who represents you more boris johnson or david cameron and why?
Thanks for occupying my tired brain gd chat. I need to sleep 7.00am I need 4 bananas and a big bowl of porridge for two hungry babies. Need sleep nite all don’t bet what you can’t afford to lose please!
371,susanna said,
I just wish the conservative party could be full of real people with real jobs not a bunch of career opportunists
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2009/11/fiona-bruce-selected-for-congleton.html
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2009/11/dr-daniel-poulter-adopted-for-suffolk-central-and-ipswich-north.html
real people with real jobs susanna,get real.
370 - It does have to be time to call Salmonds bluff and have a referendum, he’ll lose badly.
Its the only way that normality will resume.
It may not help the Tories in the short term (I have an article penned for our new blog regarding cultural hatred of the Conservative party and how it has wiped them out in certain geographical areas)
but the boil has to be lanced
375. This is nonsense and you know it. Capital punishment has just long since gone out of the culture of the Labour party (amazing, really, considering how authoritarian it is in other ways) - the party whips don’t need to go around laying down the law on the issue, because the unanimity is genuine.
361, 362 Forgive if I am dubious but lets be fair you two have a record of not exactly being straight, so could you find me some proof. I have looked for 10 minutes and found nothing.
379. “It does have to be time to call Salmonds bluff and have a referendum, he’ll lose badly.”
In which case it’s curious that the three unionist parties by all accounts have absolutely no intention of doing so - they clearly don’t share your confidence about the outcome, Tim.
381. What? What? Let’s start by seeing you coming up with the slightest justification for your claim that I have a “record of not exactly being straight”! Is that code for “oh, he’s not one of us, you know…”
@380:
I’m in favour of capital punishment, but only for political prisoners, mainly consisting of people who say “I could care less”.
@382:
As I’m sure you’re aware, the Unionist parties of the UK are now little more than Unionist in name only.
Even then, there’s little enthusiasm for independence for your wee pretendy Country.
374 - OK, I didn’t read it carefully and being the father of two girls I know damn well I’m not being vetted for their Davemas performances, so I suspect storm in a teacup with a stupid headmaster on board.
I do note however that in the good old days we allowed the abuse network, otherwise known as priests free access.
376 christina deepdown we know cameron will be like blair.
The pm all tories want cameron to be is actually in london city hall. Boriss charm is natural. You can’t help but like him. Cameron like blair was ruthlessly calculating using his family and the media for his personal gain and relyong on that big affable smile.
373.At 354 you posted “350/1. I think it’s rather more up to the telegraph to substantiate their story, or indeed for Christina to substantiate her apparent belief that Megrahi is enjoying some kind of fun holiday, rather than for me to disprove it.”
No James, you made that claim about my beliefs, not me. So if you can substantiate the claim that I said the words ’some fun holiday’, go ahead. You were the one harping on about facts. I think that you are guilty of assuming my opinion here rather than reading what I actually posted.
Ouch - Gerald Scarfe cartoon..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article6936333.ece
@387/376:
I think you’ll find many Tories are praying Dave will be like Blair, what with Tone being the third most successful British politician after Churchill and the Blessed Margaret.
Politicians of Blair’s skill normally only come along once in a generation. Is it too much to hope we’ve been blessed with TWO?
388. Christina, the game you’re playing is blindingly obvious. “Free”, “still with us”. You’re trying to pretend that his illness is a figment of everyone’s imagination…while conveniently retaining deniability, of course. Well, feel free to carry on hiding behind weasel words, it simply demonstrates the point that you’re completely unable to substantiate the picture of his state of health you’d like to plant in our minds.
387,are you for real ? only one person using they family for personal gain
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/3068658/Labour-conference-Sarah-Brown-surprises-husband-with-impromptu-address.html
378 u found 2 candidates out of 650 welldone ill give you one then dorset south tory candidate against jim knight. Right sleep.
383 Ok fair enough perhaps I shouldn’t lump you in with Tim but this is hardly an honest line is it.
“Megrahi is at death’s door. When neocons and Thatcherites witter on about “freedom” I didn’t realise that was kind of thing they have in mind. If so, it wasn’t worth dismantling the welfare state for.”
Firstly Neocons are from the left of the political spectrum and frankly their doctrine isn’t a million miles from the Lib Dems and Labour’s ethical foreign policy probably just more honest about it. Secondly, Thatcher didn’t dismantle the welfare state, public spending as a percentage rose under her premiership.
Admittedly this doesn’t put you in Tim’s league but many more disingenous posts like it and you will start to be.
385. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the Unionist parties of the UK are now little more than Unionist in name only. Even then, there’s little enthusiasm for independence for your wee pretendy Country.”
In these parts, people with ‘little enthusiasm for independence’ are generally referred to as ‘unionists’. In which case, if you’re right, there are rather a lot of ‘unionists’ around. You’ll have to make up your mind which case you’re arguing here, old bean.
394. “Neocons are from the left of the political spectrum”
??????????????
Words fail me!
Incidentally, I’ve dug up a link for you on capital punishment - it contains a full division list from a free vote in 1990. There will be more recent ones available on Hansard as well if you can track down the relevant dates -
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1990/dec/17/punishment-for-murder-of-a-police-officer
Pretty dishonest reporting from the MoS.
How can they devote an article on Goldsmith’s advice to Blair, without mentioning resolution 1441?
The fact is, the so-called smoking-gun letter from 29.07.2002 was written before resolution 1441 was passed on 08.11.2002.
Goldsmith’s subsequent advice relied heavily on resolution 1441, both in his reasonings and his final judgement:
“Lord Goldsmith concluded that ‘a reasonable case can be made that resolution 1441 is capable in principle of reviving the authorisation [of the use of force] in Resolution 678 without a further resolution.’”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Goldsmith,_Baron_Goldsmith
393,no susanna,the two examples I gave were the latest two to be selected.
‘I’m not quite sure how MacAskill is a liar when he said “he may live longer than three months, he may die sooner, all I can do is act on the best medical evidence available to me now”. That was pretty up-front by any standards.’
Wrong
McAskill didn’t say “he may live longer than three months, he may die sooner”
What McAskill said was:
“There are no fixed time limits but life expectancy of less than three months may be considered an appropriate period.”
Followed by:
“Consensus on prognosis has therefore moved to the lower end of expectations.”
Megrahi was examined 3rd August and everything McAskill’s statement implied that Megrahi would die soon and nowhere did he actually say that he might still be alive after 3 months.
391.James, in other words you cannot substantiate that claim.
“287
Why has that suddenly come out? Perhaps the Americans were not to pleased with Battling Bob’s criticisms.
by Maggie Thatcher Fan November 28th, 2009 at 11:33 pm”
My response @308, which by the way I think is perfectly valid in the circumstances.
“300.MTF, I think it goes back further than Bob Ainsworth’s comments.
Reminds us all that Megrahi is still with us, free and living in Libya.
by ChristinaD November 28th, 2009 at 11:39 pm”
Now, you are trying to say that I am “trying to pretend that his illness is a figment of everyone’s imagination…while conveniently retaining deniability, of course. Well, feel free to carry on hiding behind weasel words”
Again, where have I denied the man’s illness in this thread??
393. susanna
Take a look at UK Polling Report.
Each constituency has the its candidates listed often with details as to their background.
399. “Wrong.”
Er, no. For me to be wrong, you’d have to demonstrate that he didn’t say what I claim he said, not merely establish that he also said something else as well. This article will give you a brief introduction as to where you’re going wrong here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
396 Some info on neoconservatism and the perhaps uncomfortable origins of it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
I am going to accept that a minority of the Tory party in the past were pro capital punishment, but I think it is a caricature that is out of date today.
393,Susanna said,
ill give you one then dorset south tory candidate against jim knight.
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/4763901.Richard_Drax_s___4_246_boost_for_troops/
seems a good egg to me.
400. “James, in other words you cannot substantiate that claim.”
No, my words were rather more concerned with highlighting your own failure to substantiate your own innuendo.
“Again, where have I denied the man’s illness in this thread??”
I think it’s my turn to say you need to re-read one of my posts. The answer to your question is in post 391.
Andrew Rawnsley :
“Promising to slash inheritance tax once looked like a brilliant coup for the Tories. Now it’s an albatross around their necks”
“…they are glued to a policy which has little economic merit and makes them politically vulnerable, a promise to privilege those who are already privileged.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/29/tories-inheritance-tax-gordon-brown
405.No, I don’t need to reread any of your posts, you cannot substantiate any of the crap you have posted tonight regarding my comments or views. Very poor show.
406,all gone to bed,post it in the morning son,you have got free range tonight
407. I’ll tell you what’s a poor show, Christina - your refusal to even re-read a 60-word post of mine when you effectively instructed me to re-read several lengthy posts of your own the other night. Oh well, I certainly shan’t be indulging you in future.
394 - So Dick Cheney’a a socialist as well now? Damn, those Americans are shifting that centre ground quicker than Usain Bolt with wings on.
408.
‘appen you’re right.
Night.
406 Actually the most interesting part of that brownite nonsense was this “The government is scheduled to raise the threshold from £325,000 to £350,000 next April.” So what that means is even today there are vast tracts of the south where 2 and 3 bed houses cost more than £350,000 and this is the problem with Labour’s attack on IHT cut. Basically first time buyers and hard working families with small homes would be hit by this tax.
Good luck arguing this one Labour.
394: ‘Firstly Neocons are from the left of the political spectrum and frankly their doctrine isn’t a million miles from the Lib Dems and Labour’s ethical foreign policy probably just more honest about it.’
You are 100% correct. No true rightist and believer in the nation state would think to impose his own views upon other sovereign states - we leave that to the Trotskyists, which most of the Neo-Con ‘thinkers’ were until Marxism was discredited. The Iraq invasion was backed by a Labour prime minister and its leading cheerleaders in the media - Aaronovitch, Hari, Cohen etc. - were Leftists. It’s time the British Left grew up and stopped blaming the rest of us.
413. I mentioned fallacies earlier, and that strikes me as being a classic example of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. What do you do if the most right-wing American administration in recent history comes up with an utterly catastrophic policy? Simple - reclassify that regime and the policy it followed as “left-wing”. We see the same trick with the BNP. It’s brazen, but outside the closed little world of the right-wing blogosphere, nobody’s falling for it.
It seems that neither Rawnsley nor Gabble were paying attention to George Osborne’s speech to this year’s Conservative Conference. He said that although we still believed in principle that only millionaires should pay inheritance tax, in the present financial climate raising the threshold for this tax would have to wait.
The conference accepted this without a murmur.
Since they have no concern whatsoever for the truth, Brown and his acolytes will probably continue to misrepresent Conservative policy on IHT as proving that the party’s top priority is to cut the tax paid by the wealthiest estates. But that was a pretty misleading comment even before the proposal was put on the back burner. Now it is patent nonsense.
414: ‘…the most right-wing American administration in recent history…’
Bush was elected as something called a ‘Compassionate Conservative’ - the whole point of the notion was to eschew Conservatism. And he did, as was evinced by his following of policies by Neo-Con ‘thinkers’ (former Marxists) and the backing he received from the Prime Minister of Britain’s socialist Labour Party. I’m amazed you find the point at all controversial.
This story is being covered by the Scottish media and blogsphere tonight.
Herald - Culture minister’s aide quits over abusive blog’s ‘dirty tricks’
417. I feel a bit sorry for him actually. “Montague Burton” has left quite a few comments on my own blog over the last few months and he’s always come across as a decent guy. Although I must admit I did have to censor him once for bad language! It does make you wonder how many other advisers (from all parties) are running anonymous blogs.
418.I never came across him at all, first I heard about this blog was the noise in other Scottish blogs about this impending Sunday media attention.
416 Bush a ‘compassonate conservative’ makes me think-
After 8 years of growth,and benign geo-political events for former President Bill Clinto,even factoring in that Florida’s 25 ECVs and the presidency should have been his:
How the F*** did Gore lose in 2000??!!
Sorry to be so vocal,but I still scratch my head at this!!
416. “and the backing he received from the Prime Minister of Britain’s socialist Labour Party”
Hmm, that would all be rather more plausible if the said Prime Minister bore any actual resemblance to a socialist, or indeed showed some signs of considering himself a socialist at all. In reality, he could hardly even bring himself to define New Labour as social democratic.
For the wider point, look across western Europe - to the best of my knowledge Labour was the only nominally left-wing government to support the Iraq war. The other two big cheerleaders were the right-wing governments of Spain and Portugal. The 2002 German federal election hinged on the Iraq issue, with the Social Democrats attacking the neocon policy in contrast to the Christian Democrats offering guarded support for it. As soon as the Spanish Socialists took power in 2004, they withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. The examples are endless…do I really need to go on?
Well, perhaps I do. Because what makes your suggestion that right-wingers “don’t do” interference in sovereign nations truly laughable is the fact that all but a tiny handful of Conservative MPs enthusiastically voted in favour of the invasion of Iraq in the Commons vote!
When does it end ? All 6th formers to undergo criminal checks…
“The Government has pledged that all 16 to 18 year olds will complete 50 hours of community work as part of its move to raise the school leaving age.
In the speech announcing the plan, which will be a Labour manifesto pledge, Gordon Brown specifically mentioned that teenagers would make a difference by “helping in an old people’s home or tutoring younger pupils”.
But under the Government’s strict new vetting regime, anyone over the age of 16 working with children or vulnerable adults will have to start registering with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) from November next year. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/6677985/Criminal-checks-for-all-sixth-formers.html
Why do we have to treat everyone as a potential criminal? Thanks Labour, I hope you remember these young people turn into voters, and they just might not share your enthusiasm for big brotherness.
422# 50 hours of community work at that age is fine to me.
i actually think it should be a minimum of 3 months of national community service before one can go to university as aminimum and expect others to contribute to their upkeep.
at my school it was “strongly suggested” we took part in social schemes, i actually taught mentally impaired girls how to swim for 6 months and learned as much out of it as they did.
they pretended they forgot how to swim each week so you would hold them from below, i sussed that out quickly. and one needed an extra tight knot in one’s trunks as they were accidentally whipped off if you were not careful!
they were innocent-ISH, but strangely knew exactly what they were doing.
one time, a girl said she could not swim unless she had a rubber ring on. i pretended to blow it up and she put it on empty and swam like a fish. kid you not.
what i am saying is that these are experiences i may not have volunteered for at 17, they were ‘woosy” and not “trendy”, but they were helpful to me.
alot of the rude arrogant 17 year olds out there who have had no discipline or even thought about others might learn from a mere 50 hours what they failed in 17 tears at a children’s home or what is increasingly a failed schools system.
redcliffe - I haven’t a problem with our young people taking part in some sort of service to the community and I agree it can beneficial have benefits for both sides. I do have a problem with the criminal record checks for all mentality. The mission creep found in so much of this government’s policies is staggering at times.