polhomepulse 2 LibDem gains so far in tonight's council by-elections. From Con in North Dorset & from Lab in Dacorum (Hemel Hempstead) Islington to come
Camerons let the sly lib dems get away with murder on promoting they party as the good cop in the coalition to the tories bad cop,timed it stopped.
Raynsford was born in 1945. Elected in Fulham by-election in 1986, he lost his seat the following year. He comes back gaining Greeenwich from Rosie Barnes in 1992. He leaves a 24.7% majority in Greenwich and Woolwich
This new system seems to load much better than Disqus. The lack of likes makes it much more egalitarian. Only downside is that it's not as easy to follow who's replying to which post.
Another selection contest to follow Which scion of a famous Labour dynasty will be rumoured to be sniffing around there? Will Dora declare for it even before Lewisham Deptford selects?
The Russians have loads of spare cash. They don't make anything but they have a sixth of the world's land surface to dig it up mineral wealth. For example in January 2013 Russia had a positive trade balance of 17,742 USD Million, a figure we would die for. Also most of the mineral extraction and trading is carried out (now) by state owned enterprise.
Russia is enjoying its new found status as a global trading power and would not want to risk its new wealth by engaging in aggressive military expansion. Yes it will defend its national interests and territory and trade military hardware with countries, like Syria, where they have historical regional leverage but the days of imperialism are over. They are much more likely to place oil rigs in Cyprus waters than battleship fleets.
What Russia will want to protect is the confidentiality of its financial dealings with Cypriot banks. The last thing they will countenance is outsiders poring over the bank's books identifying Russian customers and transactions to any authority except the Russian government. It would be hard to underestimate the importance of this need for data security.
The double taxation treaty between Cyprus and Russia dates back to the days of the USSR. No visas are required for Russians to enter Cyprus and both countries have reciprocal property owning rights. Most importantly no withholding tax is levied by Cyprus on Russian remittances and earnings. This special relationship with Cyprus was set up to enable the Russian economy to move quickly from a centrally planned communist model to a 'democratic' free market model. It gave Russian enterprises access to an inplace legal system, corporation and banking infrastructure long before these existed in Russia itself.
For these historical reasons, all sectors of the Russian economy from the highest levels of Government, through all sizes of enterprise and private individuals and households have used Cyprus as a financial, corporate and legal centre. Yes there will be 'mafia' money in there somewhere but the vast bulk of deposits and transactions will be legimate. Any foreigner doing business regularly with Russia would be advised to set up a Cyprus based company to be the counterparty to its Russian customers,
So Cyprus must not be seen as a conventional offshore tax haven for Russians. It is much more its gateway to international trade and finance. Russian money flows into Cyprus, is held there for relatively short periods and is then remitted back to Russia as inbound capital investment. Cyprus to Russia is more like The City is to the UK than it is like, say, the Isle of Man or Jersey.
Although Cyprus has been vital to Russia's economic transformation there have always been calls for its functions to be repatriated to Moscow and the Russian regions. Even in the early 1990s there was talk of the double taxation treaty being renegotiated for this purpose, Always delayed it has finally been revised under Putin and Medvedev with new rules coming into place in 2015.
All this means that the economic stability of Cyprus and the continuing solvency of its banking sector is absolutely vital to the Russian economy. The current crisis will however offer an opportunity for Russia to accelerate the downsizing of Cyprus's role and the bringing forward of the new 2015 rules.
My guess as to Russia's response to the current crisis is that Putin will make a bold offer to support the recapitalisation and restructuring of the Cypriot banks, perhaps even taking temporary 'control' of the banks in order to separate out Russian assets and liabilities from those of Cypriots. The Russian government will move to obtain full information on Russian depositors and transactions; to protect that information from falling into non-Russian hands; and to protect the business and monetary interests of its citizens.
So Russia will save the Cypriot banks to secure its own interests. Battleships and ports may be threatened but these will only be pawns in the negotiations on share of burden with the EU. Any net loan arrangements needed will be secured against mineral extraction rights in Cypriot waters.
The last prediction I make is that Russia will only make the saving offer at 'one minute to midnight'. Russians love power: the longer the supplicant waits the more their power accretes.
These local election results are probably showing the importance of personal votes to the LDs. That means that if they're on 10% in the opinion polls they're probably heading for nearer 15% in reality once you take into consideration the personal votes for their MPs.
Will Edmund be able to work his magic? I can live without the 'Ignore' feature, but the 'Favourite' feature was extremely useful to ensure one can scan a thread and not miss any comments from key posters - important for the betting part of politicalbetting.com.
@AndyJS I think the point is "That means that if they're on 10% in the opinion polls they're probably heading for nearer 15%" exactly, it's that they'll win as many seats as if they were on 15% or more, because lost votes will be drained from places they didn't win in 2010.
I am a Havering boy and it is no surprise at all. I see they are targeting Thurrock ( which contains Chafford Hundred, known locally as Chafrica) at the next election. Don't be surprised if they do well there
After allowing 3rd party cookies to be set for Vanilla Forums (not something that is always intuitive in Chrome) I'm in. It's quite the shock to see PB so readable again. Thanks Robert!
Pulpstar - it does sound as though you missed out, though I don't remember the exact timing when Working Family Tax Credit (which did as I recall relate to having a family) changed to Working Tax Credit. As Carl says, it makes a much bigger difference than the tax band and it was the main reason why for the first time for yonks it almost always paid to get a job. It does act as a sort of subsidy for employers in that they can get away with paying minimum wage - the argument is that the State benefits by not paying JSA, so it's giving you some of that as a reward for getting into work.
I just think its the least likely option to occur. Even if the population at large like the Russian saviour notion I'm not sure the political elite do.
What you say is true. However, Russia is incredibly dependent on energy exports. Something like 70% of the tax base is directly related to oil and gas. Should the rest of the world be able to repeat the extraordinary growth in tight oil production we've seen in the US in the last three years, then things will not look so great.
Just Islington played safe and went as expected. Some of the other results may not be totally unexpected but still interesting and major parties should take note of them.
I love all these 'default' faces that people have! Fitalass - what's the result going to be on the morning of the 19th September 2014? As I've said before, I'm really torn on whats going to happen. I think we will have the great ecomomic meltdown by then (favouring a year from now when it all comes to a head) which favours Salmond, on the other hand there is the huge negative of what I think will be a much reduced oil price. So the economics cut both ways. However, if the collapse is serious enough - like what is happening in Cyprus right now, then what does Scotland have to lose by going it alone? All Salmond has to do is say just how incompetent government from London has been, under both main parties. So I'm going to stick my neck out and go 52 48 in favour of independence. Its a long shot yes, but I expect the climate will be very different in 18 months time, and the economic collapse should turn everything upside down. Its going to be one of the most interesting political campaigns in history - I can't wait for all the fun and games.
Havering is by far UKIP's best area in Greater London so not all that surprising to see them winning a seat there. It'll be interesting to see if they can hold onto it in next year's scheduled London elections.
If @OldLabour is about, he might be interested in the 12th Report of the House of Lords' Select Committee on the Constitution on the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill HL 155.
Interesting by-elections, with prizes for Labour (humungous wins in marginal wards in North London, no doubt due to my presence :-) ), UKIP (another win out of nowhere) and the LibDems (outside London, one from each of Labour and Tories in split wards). Dreadful Tory results all round - 15% in their former seat in Havering, under 5% in the London seats.
So I see it's not Disqus. The password checker is far, far too fussy and any of my usual passwords which satisfy every other site, would not do. And I've had to change my screen name
Incidentally there's a crisis in the NHS in the West Midlands at the moment (and presumably elsewhere) with not enough beds for too many sick people. And that's before the madness at the end of the month when the music stops and the mad scramble begins to sit in the vacant chairs and then try and remember what the hell you're supposed to be doing when you're sat in them.
It's only taken me about 30 minutes to sign up because for some reason the system wants passwords of massive complexity and the Captcha codes are almost impossible to read. Does it really need to be so difficult?
Not sure if I was the only one but for the last week all I could see was approx 50 comments per thread and I was unable to log in to post at all.
I made a prediction at the start of QuestionTime, and I wasn't wrong. Why on earth do Labour allow the deeply patronising and sneery Emily Thornberry anywhere near that programme? She manages to turn off every QT audience no matter how left leaning without fail. Michael Gove was in fine form, and spoke eloquently and passionately about his education brief. It was interesting that this Budget episode drifted off the subject relatively quickly. Enjoyed seeing Anthony Horowitz on the programme too. I am a big fan of this author because my lads all loved his books, even more so than the Harry Potter series.
I first heard the new Labour line on why they won't come clean on their own economic policy from Ed Balls a few weeks back with utter disbelief, and prayed that this one would keep getting an outing from Labour MP's. Thornberry didn't disappoint, the idea that Labour can spin the line that they cannot tell us what they would do on the economy because they don't know what kind of mess they will be left with was met with derision and open laughter from the audience tonight. Not a great line when the electorate still hold the Labour party most responsible for the current economic mess inherited by this Government, but please carry on regardless until the next GE in the hope that if you say it enough it will resonant. It won't, but it will lead to the perception that this Labour Opposition are totally delusional and unable to accept their responsibility for that economic legacy.
"The password checker is far, far too fussy and any of my usual passwords which satisfy every other site, would not do. And I've had to change my screen name"
Ditto, ditto. And for some reason I couldn't sign in with my Google account, even though there was an option to do so.
But in other ways it looks like it might be an improvement. I'm just hoping there's some insurmountable technical problem that will prevent Edmund from reintroducing the widget.
Can I just ask for a tip - in order to refresh comments am I right in thinking you have to refresh the whole page (unlike the old system where we were told to switch from old to new first - and back again)?
MikeL, snap, was just going to ask same question. A big thanks to Robert for tonight's change, a big improvement, and high fives to Max for coming up with this solution. Don't miss the Like/Reply options if it means PB gets it old mojo back. Would love to see the old numbering system back if its practical, but totally understand if that is not possible.
I don't mean to complain - I know my IT skills are poor compared to most people but at the same time I think it's important to remember that many people are in similar positions.
It literally took me approx 50 attempts to sign in. I nearly gave up and was about to email Mike S. I just think you should be aware as what is easy for IT experts can be a total nightmare for ordinary people.
But many thanks again and I can't tell you how pleased and relieved I am to be on here again. Being without something makes you realise how much you appreciate it.
'It literally took me approx 50 attempts to sign in. I nearly gave up and was about to email Mike S. I just think you should be aware as what is easy for IT experts can be a total nightmare for ordinary people.'
MikeL commiserations as a fellow non techie, I am very lucky that I am married to an IT bot. My first attempt at signing in failed so I immediately handed over the problem to my other half who got me set up to post. I notice that there is another thread on this new forum that has been set up to deal with any problems or queries caused by this system change which another fantastic addition. We often talk about the PB community, but this new system really does seem to enhance that ethos which can only be a good thing. What really annoyed me about that last unannounced Disqus change was the fact that it seemed to be aimed at tackling the volume or the success of the sites rather than trying to enhance it for users.
Conhom put in place a nesting system a while back which made following the threads in any coherent fashion impossible, never mind engaging in any free flowing communal debate. It used to have threads that allowed for a similar format of debate and instant reaction to events as the old PB. Now it gets easily constipated with nesting, and as a result the flow of any coherent debate is totally choked off. I knew from that experience that this Disqus update would such the life out of a site like PB. Take the GE night, a few years ago I would have been darting between a site like Conhom and PB, not now.
Oops, posted last comment without editing, but thanks to Tony_E's advice have now found this option. This new system just gets better and better, well done to Robert and Max for their sterling efforts.
You can edit for a limited time it seems. Go to your comment and hover over the top right of the comment box, a settings cog appears. Click for options.
I am having an IT nightmare tonight - in addition to signing up to PB my internet went down from 6pm to 8pm, 8.10pm to midnight and just now 2am to 3am.
Goodness knows what the problem is - whether it is my computer or the ISP or BT - I simply haven't a clue. It's literally enough to make one just want to abandon the whole thing.
The internet isn't a new invention - it's been widely used for many, many years and I really do feel things should not still be this difficult.
@MikeL, that is not so good. But sounds like your server is having problems. Click on your avatar to see and explore other options with this new server.
As is usual on a Thursday evening, my experience of being culturally uplifted by analysis of serial murderers on Channel 5 was followed by the dreary and desperate agony of wallowing in BBC's "Question Time". Perhaps it might be helpful to point out that the so-called "Crossbow Cannibal", Stephen Griffiths, was born on the same day as Ed Miliband. I blame the Labour government.
Comments
Go to your profile and the option is there. Edit profile button top right.
Camerons let the sly lib dems get away with murder on promoting they party as the good cop in the coalition to the tories bad cop,timed it stopped.
Edit: Ah, editing works. That's good.
LD 363 Lab 278 Con 229 UKIP 193 Eng Dem 51
2011 result
Con 619/594 Lab 611/592 LD 209/204
But I have to admit I had not realised that Osborne was a closet socialist !
First wicket down in the test before lunch - just got a bit easier for Mr Cook
There's a cog top right of your comment box - if you hover over it you get an option to edit.
Another selection contest to follow
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/331/#Comment_331
Thanks. Got it now
@Neil
Raynsford's wife is already in the Commons. So who can we place there? I guess it will Open
(edit) & edit test...
Val deserves a seat, give it to Val!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/21825762
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/eurozone-downturn-intensifies-led-by.html
and the type of conditions we need for a market top (March 27 plus or minus a day):
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/denial-is-everywhere-about-increasingly.html
The Russians have loads of spare cash. They don't make anything but they have a sixth of the world's land surface to dig it up mineral wealth. For example in January 2013 Russia had a positive trade balance of 17,742 USD Million, a figure we would die for. Also most of the mineral extraction and trading is carried out (now) by state owned enterprise.
Russia is enjoying its new found status as a global trading power and would not want to risk its new wealth by engaging in aggressive military expansion. Yes it will defend its national interests and territory and trade military hardware with countries, like Syria, where they have historical regional leverage but the days of imperialism are over. They are much more likely to place oil rigs in Cyprus waters than battleship fleets.
What Russia will want to protect is the confidentiality of its financial dealings with Cypriot banks. The last thing they will countenance is outsiders poring over the bank's books identifying Russian customers and transactions to any authority except the Russian government. It would be hard to underestimate the importance of this need for data security.
The double taxation treaty between Cyprus and Russia dates back to the days of the USSR. No visas are required for Russians to enter Cyprus and both countries have reciprocal property owning rights. Most importantly no withholding tax is levied by Cyprus on Russian remittances and earnings. This special relationship with Cyprus was set up to enable the Russian economy to move quickly from a centrally planned communist model to a 'democratic' free market model. It gave Russian enterprises access to an inplace legal system, corporation and banking infrastructure long before these existed in Russia itself.
For these historical reasons, all sectors of the Russian economy from the highest levels of Government, through all sizes of enterprise and private individuals and households have used Cyprus as a financial, corporate and legal centre. Yes there will be 'mafia' money in there somewhere but the vast bulk of deposits and transactions will be legimate. Any foreigner doing business regularly with Russia would be advised to set up a Cyprus based company to be the counterparty to its Russian customers,
So Cyprus must not be seen as a conventional offshore tax haven for Russians. It is much more its gateway to international trade and finance. Russian money flows into Cyprus, is held there for relatively short periods and is then remitted back to Russia as inbound capital investment. Cyprus to Russia is more like The City is to the UK than it is like, say, the Isle of Man or Jersey.
Although Cyprus has been vital to Russia's economic transformation there have always been calls for its functions to be repatriated to Moscow and the Russian regions. Even in the early 1990s there was talk of the double taxation treaty being renegotiated for this purpose, Always delayed it has finally been revised under Putin and Medvedev with new rules coming into place in 2015.
All this means that the economic stability of Cyprus and the continuing solvency of its banking sector is absolutely vital to the Russian economy. The current crisis will however offer an opportunity for Russia to accelerate the downsizing of Cyprus's role and the bringing forward of the new 2015 rules.
My guess as to Russia's response to the current crisis is that Putin will make a bold offer to support the recapitalisation and restructuring of the Cypriot banks, perhaps even taking temporary 'control' of the banks in order to separate out Russian assets and liabilities from those of Cypriots. The Russian government will move to obtain full information on Russian depositors and transactions; to protect that information from falling into non-Russian hands; and to protect the business and monetary interests of its citizens.
So Russia will save the Cypriot banks to secure its own interests. Battleships and ports may be threatened but these will only be pawns in the negotiations on share of burden with the EU. Any net loan arrangements needed will be secured against mineral extraction rights in Cypriot waters.
The last prediction I make is that Russia will only make the saving offer at 'one minute to midnight'. Russians love power: the longer the supplicant waits the more their power accretes.
I am a Havering boy and it is no surprise at all. I see they are targeting Thurrock ( which contains Chafford Hundred, known locally as Chafrica) at the next election. Don't be surprised if they do well there
Lab 1,343 Green 381 LD 276 Con 120 BNP 31 SPGB 18
Lab gain from LD
I just think its the least likely option to occur. Even if the population at large like the Russian saviour notion I'm not sure the political elite do.
Genius! Thanks Mike!
I said there was a 2nd place on the cards in Islington
Lab 1,698 LD 371 Green 206 Con 87 BNP 20
Lab hold (in a Lab-LD split ward)
Ah well, 2 seconds would have been greedy
UKIP 831 LAB 569 CON 280 HARROLD HILL RA 227 BNP 202
I think another Resident candidate is missing.
What you say is true. However, Russia is incredibly dependent on energy exports. Something like 70% of the tax base is directly related to oil and gas. Should the rest of the world be able to repeat the extraordinary growth in tight oil production we've seen in the US in the last three years, then things will not look so great.
11:57PM
@Andrea
Ah well, 2 seconds would have been greedy
Just Islington played safe and went as expected. Some of the other results may not be totally unexpected but still interesting and major parties should take note of them.
Hmmm UKIP going down well in my home borough of Havering? Wonder why... And which borough does Havering border by the way?
Incidentally there's a crisis in the NHS in the West Midlands at the moment (and presumably elsewhere) with not enough beds for too many sick people. And that's before the madness at the end of the month when the music stops and the mad scramble begins to sit in the vacant chairs and then try and remember what the hell you're supposed to be doing when you're sat in them.
Good night all.
It's only taken me about 30 minutes to sign up because for some reason the system wants passwords of massive complexity and the Captcha codes are almost impossible to read. Does it really need to be so difficult?
Not sure if I was the only one but for the last week all I could see was approx 50 comments per thread and I was unable to log in to post at all.
I first heard the new Labour line on why they won't come clean on their own economic policy from Ed Balls a few weeks back with utter disbelief, and prayed that this one would keep getting an outing from Labour MP's. Thornberry didn't disappoint, the idea that Labour can spin the line that they cannot tell us what they would do on the economy because they don't know what kind of mess they will be left with was met with derision and open laughter from the audience tonight. Not a great line when the electorate still hold the Labour party most responsible for the current economic mess inherited by this Government, but please carry on regardless until the next GE in the hope that if you say it enough it will resonant. It won't, but it will lead to the perception that this Labour Opposition are totally delusional and unable to accept their responsibility for that economic legacy.
Ditto, ditto. And for some reason I couldn't sign in with my Google account, even though there was an option to do so.
But in other ways it looks like it might be an improvement. I'm just hoping there's some insurmountable technical problem that will prevent Edmund from reintroducing the widget.
I don't mean to complain - I know my IT skills are poor compared to most people but at the same time I think it's important to remember that many people are in similar positions.
It literally took me approx 50 attempts to sign in. I nearly gave up and was about to email Mike S. I just think you should be aware as what is easy for IT experts can be a total nightmare for ordinary people.
But many thanks again and I can't tell you how pleased and relieved I am to be on here again. Being without something makes you realise how much you appreciate it.
Well that works. Need to change my avatar though... Thanks to Rob + OGH!!
Bloody insane insertion.
Only took me 20 minutes to log on to the new system, although I had to change the Google password I have had for the last 5 years to get here.
MikeL commiserations as a fellow non techie, I am very lucky that I am married to an IT bot. My first attempt at signing in failed so I immediately handed over the problem to my other half who got me set up to post. I notice that there is another thread on this new forum that has been set up to deal with any problems or queries caused by this system change which another fantastic addition. We often talk about the PB community, but this new system really does seem to enhance that ethos which can only be a good thing. What really annoyed me about that last unannounced Disqus change was the fact that it seemed to be aimed at tackling the volume or the success of the sites rather than trying to enhance it for users.
Conhom put in place a nesting system a while back which made following the threads in any coherent fashion impossible, never mind engaging in any free flowing communal debate. It used to have threads that allowed for a similar format of debate and instant reaction to events as the old PB. Now it gets easily constipated with nesting, and as a result the flow of any coherent debate is totally choked off. I knew from that experience that this Disqus update would such the life out of a site like PB. Take the GE night, a few years ago I would have been darting between a site like Conhom and PB, not now.
Many thanks to those that made it possible
You can edit for a limited time it seems. Go to your comment and hover over the top right of the comment box, a settings cog appears. Click for options.
I am having an IT nightmare tonight - in addition to signing up to PB my internet went down from 6pm to 8pm, 8.10pm to midnight and just now 2am to 3am.
Goodness knows what the problem is - whether it is my computer or the ISP or BT - I simply haven't a clue. It's literally enough to make one just want to abandon the whole thing.
The internet isn't a new invention - it's been widely used for many, many years and I really do feel things should not still be this difficult.
I'm off to bed. Thanks for your help. Goodnight.