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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » MEMO to CON MPs who think that an EU referendum is the magic bullet that’ll help them save seats: It isn’t
Judging by the intensity of many backbench CON MPs over the EU referendum issue you’d have thought that they firmly believe if only they could get this sorted it would be the magic bullet that would ensure their re-election at GE2015.
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All the tories get out of Europe is stories of splits and a perception of being slightly obsessive, paranoid and defensive. Cameron's best policy on Europe was not to talk about it and it should remain his guiding principle from here to the election.
There are some Tory MPs who want out of Europe, and don't care about a UK election (Read Matthew Parris in The Times today)
There are some Tory MPs who are going to lose seats because of UKIP votes
If there was a referendum, and we voted out, both of those impediments to a Tory win would disappear, but that is a long way from thinking just having a vote will save any seats.
"Europe Union (i.e. EU Dictats, Open Borders, European Human Rights Act, the Euro, the European Central Bank, etc.)"
then I think more people would see it as an important issue. As it is, when asked what "Europe" means to them, most people probably think of football, the French Riviera or Alpine scenery which clearly aren't of pressing concern.
@Alanbrooke said
"I'm suggesting we create more than two banks to restore competition we need to back out of a position where two banks ( RBS and LBG )have 40+% of some of our credit markets. Anything above 15% for a company tends to drift towards a monopoly position. We need a series of banks with nor more than say 5%.
The capital for these banks we have already paid in the recession. I'm afraid we've spent the money. The issue we have is do we follow the GO route of leave the big beasts in place and try to privatise them in the short term or sit on the capital longer and restructure them for the wider benefit of the economy. My preference clearly is for the second. As a note I don't think just breaking banks up per se will not solve all our problems, clearly it won't, but I do believe it will lessen them significantly and create an environment where regulation is underpinned by competitive pressure. It's the point I made last night the control of pricing in oligopolies tends to be pricing for profit as opposed to pricing to win business.
As for your second point, yes there is that risk and ultimately that depends on how a split is managed. Clearly the retail banks need to be better capitalised. However I would suggest that if the mega banks have been feeding capital from retail to other operations this has simply been a covert way of gaining access to more funds to play international markets. If the markets they wish to play are that profitable then they should do what they should have done in the first place and raise fresh capital to gamble on their own accounts.
I don't suppose we'll be heading back to the halcyon days of Warmington on Sea, technology and the world have moved on, but the interesting thing of this debate has been the way the banker fans have lined up to defend the producer and have put the needs of the customer to one side. SMEs remain one of the powerhouses of UK jobs, innovation, prosperity and bluntly tax revenues which multinats avoid. That we seem to want to ignore ways of increasing their prosperity seems bizarre to me."
Sorry for not replying on previous thread but another higher power insisted I needed a Costa downtown. It may be we are closer than I thought from my skim of the previous debate. I certainly agree with nearly all of this.
It is quite possible a significant proportion of people feel that the problems facing their family (particularly economic issues) cannot be solved by the government but only by themselves. As such would that necessarily inform the way they vote?
This is a general point not specifically related to Mike's normal banging on about Europe. :-)
Romney was well ahead on managing the economy in November 2012.
By the way Mike, I notice you don't include the UKIP numbers in your header. It appears that 20% of UKIP supporters consider the EU in the top 3 most important to their family and 36% consider it in the most important to the country. I wonder if Cameron (or Miliband) would like 36% of the UKIP vote back?
They measure all Tory leaders through the prism of Margaret Thatcher's tough leadership in the eighties.
I suspect the reality is that the EU is far more complex these days, the laws and regulations are far more embedded into our daily lives and disentangling us from the EU by leaving is probably nightmarish bordering on impossible.
So realistically and rationally Cameron nor any other leader is going to push to leave the EU in the short term. Reforming and improving the EU is really the only feasible option.
But that won't wash with anti-EU Tories or Kippers. The EU remains the most convenient stick to beat Cameron (or any other 'wet' leader) with.
As long as Europe is a live issue on the right the higher the chances are that Labour gain power. Such is the EU paradox.
Instead he pretend to be a EUsceptic to win the leadership and then made a series of promises he never meant to keep.
When someone's been exposed as a liar trust is lost permanently.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/01/18/ukip-politician-david-cameron-to-blame-for-floods-because-he-made-gay-marriage-legal/
Of course Mike Smithson was a wholehearted supporter of the ERM at the time and a wholehearted advocate of joining the Euro afterwards.
Most people think that what they are interested in other people are also interested in. And that the things they care a lot about other people also care a lot about.
It doesn't just apply to political issues - it applies to all subjects.
Which is why these Tory MPs will never ever get the message. Their brains cannot digest the information.
The Tories are too split on this issue and I think a referendum in 2017, if it happens, should settle them down. The problem is that the Tories are unlikely to win in 2015 and there will probably not be any referendum. People blame Cameron, but I cannot see it being any different under another leader. Should Cameron try to do a deal with Farage, so that UKIP does not field a candidate in marginals the Tories need to hold or win, so at least the Tories have a chance of winning a majority. This would surely be in the interest of Tories and UKIP.
Both are equally absurd.
Personally I would be in favour of UKIP not standing against - or even going so far as to endorse - any candidate, Labour or Conservative, who advocated leaving the EU in their manifesto. But I am pretty sure that under the current leadership that will not happen.
Thanking God for saving your family from a natural disaster is akin to thanking a serial killer for knifing the family next door.
Just because a Conservative or Labour MP might suport leaving the EU doesn't mean that their other views might not be objectionable to UKIP supporters.
Mr. Tyndall, it does seem peculiar that the current monotheistic believers might thank God in that, but not blame him if they do lose someone in such a tragedy.
I quite like the old Greek polytheism (which is making something of a comeback, reportedly) in that regard. If someone you knew drowned then obviously it's Poseidon's fault.
So a UKIP that put leaving the EU back at the top of its list of priorities and chose its opponents on that basis would be far more in keeping with my view of what the party should stand for than just a blanket candidate list in all constituencies irrespective of the views of the sitting MP.
If not then its position is "we don't like it but we wont ban it" which is perfectly liberatarian.
Mr. Tyndall, that's my view on UKIP standing or not in specific constituencies. There's no point cutting off your nose to spite your face.
So potentially interesting sub questions though on the agree/disagree front...everyone should find something to froth over
George Osborne is right to seek a further £12 billion in public spending cuts through reducing welfare benefits
Ed Miliband is an old-style left-winger
Middle-class families have become worse off under the coalition Government than they would have been under Labour
Middle-class families would be worse off if Ed Miliband becomes prime minister in 2015 than if David Cameron is re-elected
Theresa May would make a better prime minister than Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson would make a better prime minister than Theresa May
Scotland should be an independent country
There is too much bad language on TV and in films
As a supposedly serious political party they should not have a position on something unless they propose doing something about it. They might as well have a position on who should be ejected from the Big Brother household in that case.
When you hear something surprising/unexpected that makes you drop the jar of jam you're holding.
Anyone know the difference between jam and marmalade?
Ahem.
Matthew Parris in the Times has picked your theme on the UKIP fifth columnists in the Tory party.
John Rentoul blogs upon it
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/01/18/the-tory-fifth-column/
We also asked people if they agreed or disagreed with the following statements. Fame and acclaim to the person with the best guesses for the “agree” percentages.
George Osborne is right to seek a further £12 billion in public spending cuts through reducing welfare benefits
Ed Miliband is an old-style left-winger
Middle-class families have become worse off under the coalition Government than they would have been under Labour
Middle-class families would be worse off if Ed Miliband becomes prime minister in 2015 than if David Cameron is re-elected
Theresa May would make a better prime minister than Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson would make a better prime minister than Theresa May
Scotland should be an independent country
There is too much bad language on TV and in films
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/01/18/poll-alert-39/
Marmalade is made from citrus fruits and jam is made from berries I believe is the difference
Either it's super soar away (10-12%?) or neck and neck (0-2%?). I'll guess the latter....but either way it's therefore probably an outlier.
Con 29, Lab 36, LD 8, UKIP 18.
So would take a heavy shift for a Con/Lab crossover or a Con/UKIP Crossover.
Lab 36, Con 29, LD 8, UKIP 18.
ComRes do have high UKIP scores so could it be a very good one for UKIP?
Lab lead of 7% last time is very near current average (approx 6%) so would be surprising if it's way off that.
I think its perfectly tolerant to say you oppose something but aren't going to outlaw it.
For example I think its wrong for guesthouse owners to ban homosexual couples but I wouldn't make it illegal for them to do so.
We have enough problems with governments 'doing' things and imposing their views upon others.
.
There is no doubt about it - the position is crystal clear and has been for a very long time.
Only solution is to throw these people out of the Party. It cannot be acceptable to continue as a Conservative MP if everything you do is designed to lose the party the GE.
For a start, we tend to live amongst people who think like us, which is why most constituencies are not marginal, especially when you get to the ward level. Worse, we tend to socialise with and even marry people who think like us.
We read newspapers and blogs which reinforce our views; on Twitter we follow those whose opinions we already support.
More subtly, search engines tailor their results in line with our previous activity.
There was research published after the Bush/Gore election showing that Democrat and Republican voters did not just have different opinions, they had different facts.
Of course, in America, television news is not required to be impartial but the phenomena listed above probably mean the same is true here. (Are any aspiring politics PhD students looking for a thesis topic?) Is Britain skint because of the global financial crisis which started in America or because Gordon Brown did not fix the roof while the sun shone? Is the world heating or cooling?
That's the problem -- Tory MPs (and Labour ones) mix with like-minded people who share the same analyses of the EU, immigration or VAT on pasties.
It was Jane Merrick, the political editor.
John Rentoul is very good at not hyping MoE changes, he's one of the very few media bods who understands MoE shifts and polling in general.
So 13 polls have had the lead between 4% and 8%.
It's been very stable - if the ComRes lead is 2% or 10% then it surely has to be an outlier.
Take a look around the world and you'll see how dangerous that position of yours is.
My viewpoint helps homsexuals in much of the world while your's oppresses them.
Its easy to congratulate yourself on your 'progressive' views when you live in the Sheffield Hallam of 2014 but if you lived in a different time or place you'd be cheering at gays being stoned.
Tolerance is about allowing things you don't like not imposing your views upon others.
Putting aside that the EU outweighs just about every issue that the Libdems bang on about (electoral reform, taxation, climate change etc) and much as we know that OGH has long since prostrated himself at the alter of 'Ever Closer Union', the reality is that the EU issue is important enough to Tories to make a difference.
Firstly he persists in ignoring that the EU is heavily linked to the immigration issue which if I recall was only 2points behind the economy (39-37) in the Mori issues index as the most important issue there is.
Secondly, even if we do as OGH and ignore that and just look at his salami sliced statistics 12% of 2010 Conservatives rate it in their top three. That's 1.3 million votes if fully projected. Can the Tories afford to lose 1.3 million votes? Can they win the election with just 9.4 million votes? Of course not. As much as OGH wants the issue to go away for the Tories it cannot.
I appreciate that Libdems are utterly on the wrong side of this issue and just want the Euros to go away but when is OGH going to give up this futile and generally disingenuous (given the importance of the EU in political terms) propaganda?
I'm sure if you lived in a different time or era, you'd be cheering Jim Crow.
See we can all play this game.
The properly Libertarian view is that the Government has removed legislation from an area of people's lives that it has no place intruding upon.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglascarswellmp/100254045/the-tories-dont-have-a-coherent-economic-policy-we-need-to-find-one-fast/
"Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie's administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with MSNBC."
"In this account -- supported by email, public records and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's own diary entries -- Christie's inner circle was willing to cut off devastated constituents, muscle a friendly mayor and arrange public funds to finance a study for a project the governor supported."
Deadline to send CVs: Monday 20t (10 AM)
Shortlisting interviews: January 22
Selection: January 24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2011
Alternatively, you could point to the fact that ERM exit was (almost) coincident with the Labour Party getting Blair as leader.
Alternatively, it could be the time when a group of youngsters (like me) got the vote and (perhaps unlike me) were vehmently anti-Tory.
Beware of reading too much into correlations.
I don't approve of bigotry ** in its many forms - for example that bigoted little song you sing about the French rugby team.
I suspect you'd be loudly applauding Jim Crow laws though as long as you thought there was a political point to be scored through it.
BTW Eagles have you resigned from the Conservative party yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10578079/Defence-cuts-threaten-US-UK-partnership-says-Robert-Gates.html
** I dare say I fall into bigotry on occassions and for so doing I criticize myself for not being more tolerant.
As for the thread, the 33rd most influential 50+ on Twitter talking biased shit once again. He obviously isn't stupid so why portray himself so?
How on earth is singing Ou Est La Papier bigoted? Are you sure you're not an equal opportunities officer for some uber left wing organisation, 'cause that's the kind of bollocks I'd expect, either that, or you've fallen down and hit your head very hard?
Please tell me how this is bigoted, I'd love to know.
You seem to miss my qualification to the Tory party, and focus upon one part of my red line.
I said, if Cameron did a Blair, and sent troops under-resourced into new wars, then that's my red line.
If I don't respond for a while, don't be offended, I have to go change a nappy, and I maybe some time.
I have 5 Man City goals at 13/2 and 6 at 15/2
My other bets for this weekend are
Newcastle to beat West Ham
Villa to beat Liverpool, Suarez to score at least,
Swansea to beat Spurs and England to beat Aus.
Oh balls it is for Cardiff.
As was once wisely observed 'The Tory Party only ever panics in a crisis' and we should not underestimate the eagerness of some of them to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory....
Lord Ashcroft has tried to set them straight several times, but I fear they are beyond help....
I believe that people with good manners show respect to visitors and to their national anthems.
And don't replace the words with a song about having a sh1t.
If I was French I would have been deeply offended and would have assumed that bigoted English people were abusing my country, and thought worse of England because of it.
Clearly you see nothing wrong with the song whereas I do.
Which of us is right ? Perhaps we're both are in different ways but who is to judge and I have no wish to impose my views upon you.
So while I deeply disapprove of the song and I wouldn't stop you singing it. Instead in two weeks time (almost to the minute) I'll be thinking "Eagles is singing that song again, I wish he'd stop".
That's what I mean about tolerating things you disapprove of.
If that means I share some views with 'an equal opportunities officer for some uber left wing organisation' then so be it. I form my own views from my own thoughts, knowledge and experience and don't just repeat whatever is the latest fashionable thinking or government decree.
Perhaps an odd state of mind in the modern world but its the one I've got.
And with that I have to depart for some time, I hope the nappy changing was successful.
Cue shrieks from cybernats, the digital wing of the SNP, masters of coordinated outrage.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100255404/alex-salmond-the-snp-and-fascist-scotland/
Let's remember what a massive boost this gave to the Tories in the polls and them at GE1992.
What sparked off the sceptic split was the Danish referendum in, I think, June 1992.
Basically, indecisive voters, on the cusp of switching parties, or unsure whether to bother voting at all, will often end up deciding on the basis of minor issues, because all the major issues cancel out for them. (If they didn't, the wouldn't be undecided.) This can mean going for the candidate who looks most authoritative, or deciding they might might as well vote since the dog needs walking, or even deciding that while there's nothing to choose between the main parties of all the important issues, Cameron talks more sense on the EU.
Of course the Tories are in no position to comment over this given that they were happy for Ken Gregory to continue as a Councillor after he left phone messages hoping that an opponent died of aids.
Alls fair in love, war and Rugby.
But just for you, I'll never sing it again.
Some of us have been advocates of gay rights even before it was unfashionable in Tory circles, but that's because one of my friends had a very troubling coming out when when we were sixteen, so it is an issue that has always been close to my heart.
Nappy changing is fun nowadays, I now change nappies whilst wearing either my Iron Man or Darth Vader helmets as it gives me protection.
Honestly, I have a son, that times his weeing to the exact moment I remove his nappy.
Swansea also to win sadly...
I had the ultimate floating voter on the doorstep this afternoon - a libertarian (so LibDem) pro-trade union (so Labour) Eurosceptic (so Tory) and disillusioned with traditional parties (so UKIP). He so needs a Swiss referendum system to express his views precisely.
Europe is a symptom rather than the key issue for most UKIP supporters that I meet - "The elite does what it likes, look at immigration, look at Europe, etc." I don't think any particular policy on any issue will really bring them back - what they want is a tub-thumping populist (Boris is probably the closest the Tories have to it). It's important in the opposite sense to the Guardian wing of Labour too - I raised £160 today at a lunch discussion of the EU with local voters, and I was the least solidly Europhile person in the room, as I cautiously suggested the EU wasn't perfect.
I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies though. At least Mike has stopped trying to make that ludicrous claim that no one gives a monkeys about the EU.
Cathy Newman @cathynewman 1m
Rennard says he "considered" an apology "years ago", & brother accuses critics of a witch hunt "worthy of the ku klux klan" #c4news 6.05