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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The first polling: Women are taking a much tougher view tha
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The first polling: Women are taking a much tougher view than men over the Lord Rennard case
There’s a YouGov poll in the Times this morning in which there’s the first detailed questioning on whether Lord Rennard he should be allowed to stay with the Lib Dems or leave following the allegations of sexual harassment
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"Good on the Naked Rambler – more public nudity would be a good thing
Stephen Gough is back in jail. Embracing his activism might just do wonders for our society's unhealthy attitude to flesh":
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/07/naked-rambler-public-nudity-stephen-gough?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
Link to last night's BBC programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039086d
(a) if a candidate wants to use a description other than "Independent" (or no description) he needs an authorisation certificate from the party to say that he is a member of the party and is therefore allowed to use the description.
(b) if a candidate wants to use a party logo, he needs an authorisation certificate from the party to say that he is allowed to use that logo.
(c) the two above (a and b) are two separate documents, and are done separately.
This simply means that Mr Williams did (b) but forgot to do (a) - or at least, forgot to write in the description. It is compulsory to be a party member if a candidate wants to use the party name, but it is not compulsory to use the party name if a candidate is a party member.
The title of the thread is misleading. When I read the words "taking a much tougher view", I took it to mean that they were less tolerant of the impertinent and ultra-vires demand by Alistair Webster QC that Lord Rennard should apologise for something he hasn't done, and of the attitude of Nick Clegg in continuing to dig himself further into a hole.
First!
Look at the gender gap !!!
(Repeat until election...)
modesty forbids etc
However, I can say I am almost lost for words at the idiocy of the Lib Dems and their elementary errors in misconstruing their own rules.
Any fool can see that they have found the allegations don't come up to proof, yet for political reasons they don't wish to say that straight, and are trying to extract an apology from Rennard, to appease the complainants.
Which is entirely contrary to their own rules, the principles of natural justice and the principles of good faith.
Whether that is concordant with natural justice is a quite separate matter.
Even in other criminal trials, our prosecutors seem to have adopted the American approach of going beyond circumstantial evidence and trying to prejudice the jury. Look at the pictures of Dennehy in the papers. Whatever the evidence that defendant X robbed the bank or called the police plebs, he looks like the sort of person who might have done.
How about a theory that mitochondria are an example of hybrid evolution? An example of a biological 'machine' improving a cell.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/10584380/Why-robot-sex-could-be-the-future-of-life-on-earth.html
off-topic.
at least Alex Salmond now has his strategy for a YES majority: include in his manifesto (do they have manifestos?) a pledge to give each new Scottish citizen £500. 52% on this basis will say YES. Job done.
Party membership, let alone a concomitant benefit such as a Whip in the Lords, is not a right. It's a privilege. Would any of the Lib Dems on this board want to see Rennard as their candidate for an elected office (e.g. a Mayoralty or a Euro-seat) right now?
No? I thought not.
I think the language is getting a little out of hand.
EITHER ask a question, and then have the courtesy to wait for the other person to give their own answer,
OR don't ask the question in the first place.
rennardisinnocentcleggisabooliakbringbackseantfreethethailandone
I think we should be told!
Personally I simply think there is no right answer for the Lib Dems here. Their failure to investigate things in a timely manner means they are entirely a hostage to the fortune of whichever way Rennard wants to play it. And as they've hung him out to dry I can't blame him for his actions.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2014/01/22/labour-needs-to-stop-fiddling-and-get-on-with-the-big-stuff/#more-17743
"If this sounds a little bad-tempered, that’s because it is. This comes across not as economic policy, but a self-indulgent wander up Wonk Lane by people with considerable experience in the academic theory of finance and none in its practice.
The economy is still the only story which matters, which means the big stuff. And while our modest poll lead is burning away, we, like Nero, are fiddling."
I think it is the public humiliation as much as anything that has got Rennard's goat up.
I believe it was the anniversary of Orwell's death the other day - he might just be spinning in his grave!
Rennard denies the allegations against him. Neither the Police nor the Party have been able as yet to prove his guilt. It appears for some that merely to be suspected of something is sufficient to warrant an apology which could leave him open to being sued. As I said I hold no brief for him or the LDs but this seems like a modern day witch-hunt.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), I'd heard a similar comment elsewhere. I think that's a rather worrying comment. As a man who was told by about three separate people at university (in the first month) he looked like a serial killer/psychopath I don't think we should judge people based on how photogenic they are.
The gender breakdown is interesting, though perhaps unsurprising. The problem is that he has not been found to have done anything wrong. An accusation is not sufficient to establish guilt.
Membership of a political party and serving in Parliament is not a right, it is a duty and a privilege. Rennard, whether he intended to or not, clearly upset these women sufficient that they chose to go public. That, in itself and regardless of guilt/innocence/provability or not, is worthy of an apology. There must be some suitable formulation that you can come up with that apologises for distress without accepting guilt.
And Clegg has clearly balls the whole thing up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-25834730
More importantly, there should be an investigation into how the police lost some critical evidence against Hancock.
It stinks.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/12/police-losing-evidence-sexual-assault-mike-hancock
Will we see the Labour VI share jump as a result? If it does push more women over to the reds, will they be permanent?
The longer this goes on the more potentially damaging it is, but we've seen so many "potentially" damaging events recently that have not registered at all (as far as VI goes anyway), I'm minded to think that it'll just become part of the background politicians-are-all-bstards noise.
He needs a legal victory to overturn that guilty verdict.
I wonder if Ed will raise this at PMQs, it will force Dave to either take the pee out of the Lib Dems or he'll have to defend them and be associated with Rennard.
His leadership ambitions must have been damaged as a result.
I clicked on the Rennard thread and it took me a few minutes to realise that it was two days old. The same arguments are being repeated over and over.
I reckon the issue is whether he was clumsy in manner or approach, or if he was taking advantage of his position. We can only guess at his motives, a subjective view -as the investigation admitted. That probably explains the sex divide.
It all depends on your prejudice.
Murray's struggling like a Carthiginian at Zama
Michael Deacon@MichaelPDeacon1 min
Clegg is asked about story that Miriam influenced his decisions on Rennard. He scoffs at the idea. As if a Lib Dem would listen to a woman!
Ronan Keating may have put it slightly more catchily.
Farron is firmly on the left of the Lib Dems, he knows which parish he is preaching to. I'm not certain it does harm his leadership chances so much.
http://order-order.com/2014/01/22/burley-report-in-full/
"Which party supporters will be most sympathetic to Rennard? UKIP perhaps."
Very interesting. The LDs would prefer him to apologise along the lines of "I'm sorry for any unintended offence caused."
A tricky one all round. Someone looking like Rennard could cause offence with what is construed as being a lascivious wink.
If it were to come from George Clooney however?
So he might feel he's being penalised for being ugly.
It's hard not to give George Osborne credit for this. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls would be taking credit for it if they were in office. And they'd be slamming Osborne if unemployment was rising.
I thought unemployment would rise during this parliament. I'd obviously been smoking whatever David "5 million unemployed" Blanchflower had been rolling.
CCHQ Press Office@CCHQPress21 secs
BBC Presenter referring to record fall in Unemployment: "A lot of people will be worried these figures are so good" #CantMakeItUp
Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn1 min
Extraordinary jobs figures just out: unemployment down 167,000 between Sept and Nov to 2.32 mil. Largest drop sine records began in 1970.
Not sure this month's psbr figures are as good....but I can't make head nor tail of the ONS stats. I need Avery's yellow tables.
George Eaton@georgeeaton6 mins
Last August, Bank of England expected unemployment to reach 7% in 2016. It's 7.1% now.
The problem is that Rennard does think that he did nothing wrong and that he has nothing to apologise for. He considers his behaviour in being somewhat suggestive to these women to be with the normal bounds of social intercourse between the sexes. What he is really showing is a lack of empathy. The women do not agree with his view and are offended and he is just not seeing it from their point of view.
Given his position in the party it was at least potentially an abuse of position even if that was not in his thoughts. It really should not have been too difficult for someone who has lived in the public life for a lot of years to make the leap of perspective and apologise for any offence he might have caused.
I am on the right in economic terms if rather more centralist on social issues but I think Clegg has had very little option to proceed as he has here. It is sad it has come to this and the QC really did not help with the way he dealt with things but no political leader today could simply ignore this or fail to act.
POEBWAS
ABSOLUBTE RICK he said !
And my darkest secret of all, under the right scenario, I can see myself voting Lib Dem in 2015.
UKIP accepts most people who want to ascend to our ranks, however I don't think Rennard will be one of them.
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wr16pixymw/YG-Archive-140121-Rennard.pdf
CCHQ Press Office@CCHQPress21 secs
BBC Presenter referring to record fall in Unemployment: "A lot of people will be worried these figures are so good" #CantMakeItUp
Maybe he's worried that such a huge figure will turn out, later, to be false, as so many statistics (like crime) have turned out to be.
That is for the voters; then there are internal party matters, including its effects (if any) on activists' willingness to push bar charts through letter boxes.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukip-made-up-take-great-ukip-3048561#.Ut-VDX_fWK0