Can the LDs become the third party once again? – politicalbetting.com
Can the LDs become the third party once again? – politicalbetting.com
An interesting element of the next election on which Ladbrokes have a market is whether the LDs can win more seats than the SNP. The bookie rates this being the case as being tighter than evens.
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That said, there’s nothing I’d personally like more than an SNP implosion. I don’t like those who wish to break up the country, and have many family and friends in Scotland.
David Davis said Mohamed Amersi ‘silenced’ Margaret Hodge, chair of parliamentary anti-corruption group
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/03/tory-donor-accused-of-using-bullying-legal-threats-to-suppress-a-report
Carter Ruck, naturally.
I read of ancient freemen.
Of Greece and Rome who proudly stood,
Three hundred men and three men.
And there I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain
The Lib Dems, long a joke should be
A party once again
(With apologies to Dominic Behan as arranged by Sean O'Riada)
And Good Morning to one and all.
Given the SNP are forecast to fall to about 30 seats then the LDs could certainly become the 3rd party UK wide again for the first time since 2015
Feels like maybe the fourth party should be given slightly more questions.
I wondered who the fourth party has been historically.
1959: the only fourth party was a solitary independent Conservative
1964: no fourth party
1966: Republican Labour (with 1 MP)
1970: Unity (with 2 MPs)
Feb 1974: UUP/SNP tie
Oct 1974: SNP
1979-2001: UUP
2005: DUP
2010: DUP
2015: LibDem/DUP tie (who got the question?)
2017 onwards: LibDem
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/02/fraser-nelson-jeremy-clarkson-ipso-press-regulator-ruling/
No matter one’s opinions about the characters involved in the recent IPSO decision, do we respect freedom of the press, or do we regulate the media by loud activist groups?
I was very critical of the political media, and their bosses, during the pandemic, and continue to think that politics is debased, and good people don’t stand for election, because of the media environment - but also that freedom of the press is a mark of a democratic western society, and if powerful people can force opinions and jokes to be silenced there’s a big problem.
If each of them had two questions for the leader, plus six for Labour less 2 for SF that's 22 questions. That's a lot to cram in and get backbenchers in too.
Even if you said they must have at least five MPs, that still leaves 12 to get in. Not much room for more.
So the line has to be drawn somewhere. It may be unfair on the Lib Dems but ultimately you could make a case it was their own fault they collapsed so much (they were not actually forced to support the disastrous Browne report).
I’m not a newspaper.
(What I actually said, was that I would expect the very offensive football shirt to be a defence against assault. Obviously a newspaper wouldn’t publish anything so offensive. The man wearing the shirt in question was charged with a criminal offence).
You are still maintaining that Shirt Guy's freedom of expression ends where your feelings begin.
On present public opinion I think it is quite likely the Lib Dems will overtake the SNP
However, with so much of today's political discourse the question is unlikely to be answered for 15 months or so, and that is a long time in politics
I doubt many of us would have predicted the political demise of both the conservative and SNP a couple of years ago
It is events that unexpectedly arise that play into the politics as we have had amply demonstrated
He was fined £1000 and banned for all football grounds for four years.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/hillsborough-tshirt-wembley-james-white-b2360131.html
The subject of the article didn’t complain about it, only campaign groups - and THAT is the problem.
I wasn’t at Wembley for the cup final, and wouldn’t have been around MU fans if I was. He’s also bigger than me, I would have been somewhat unlikely to have actually assaulted him, but would have expected to use his offensive language in my defence if I had done. The magistrate fined him for causing grevious offence.
My wife reminds me she was sent to Orkney to stay with relatives during the early years of the war
I mean, who thinks there are nice judges out there?
Christie says Trump and Biden are both past their ‘sell-by date’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4078484-christie-says-trump-and-biden-are-both-past-their-sell-by-date/
...Christie also told Dowd that he isn’t fazed with being a target of Trump’s latest insults, where he commented on the former governor’s weight, referring to him as “Sloppy Chris Christie.”
“I’m not going to say it never bothers me,” Christie told the Times. “Trump is no Adonis, so coming from him? Who cares? Look in the mirror. I always thought it was very funny that he has this vision of himself. He told me one time the reason he ties his ties so long is that it slenderizes him and I should do the same thing.”..
https://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/news/politics/new-central-beds-council-chairman-to-contest-mid-bedfordshire-by-election-after-nadine-dorries-resignation-4179010
So if very much not expect his vote to hold up.
Ex-Thames Water owner accused of ‘money-grabbing’ cuts to Cadent pension scheme
Exclusive: Cadent Gas, owned by Australia asset manager Macquarie, is considering closing its defined benefit scheme
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/03/gmb-accuses-gas-network-of-money-grabbing-cuts-to-pension-scheme
Most interesting is this, which suggests the Thames Water game might be being played again.
...Last month, Cadent said that an increase in revenues had helped it record a £945m profit in the 2022-23 financial year, up from £685m the year before. It paid a £350m dividend to shareholders and had net debts of £7.4bn...
Why is another monopoly utility allowed to make such outsize profits ?
Read literally Clarkson's words may be properly read as incitement to a criminal offence - assault.
Suppose some writer in a paper had said, instead of the parading naked stuff, that "It would be a good idea, though illegal, for X (a major public figure) to be raped, strangled and murdered, and in my opinion it would be excellent if some public spirited person carried this out '.
This too is the expression of opinion. Are we sure that this should be entirely unregulated except through the criminal courts?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-english-village-that-would-rather-be-welsh-815422.html
No one seriously expects Audlem to join Wales, or Orkney to join Norway, or Totnes to rejoin the EU. But it gets them in the news and hence their grievances listened to.
(Audlem's a lovely place.)
I was in Orkney in 2019 and the taxi driver was doing a very fair London cabbie imitation about how the island is getting swamped with immigrants - new age English in this case. Can't imagine covid did anything but accelerate this. So perhaps there's more activism in the air these days.
As far as I am aware Orkney have been considering this for quite a long time, and no doubt accelerated by both the SNP and Labour's policy of stopping all future oil development which of course is quite considerable in their waters
Berwick upon Tweed is another example, come to think of it - the locals are not at all happy about their being merged into Northumberland, and there was a similar proposal to be hived off from England some years back.
'@HackneyAbbott
1h
Our multi-millionaire prime minister Rishi Sunak donates just one £10 bottle of wine to his local school'. After all he signed it too
https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1675761345856262144?s=20
Interesting comment, especially in view of the remark on Totnes earlier.
Due to a personal joke between a couple of parents, a cheap bottle of wine was included in the auction. The people involved created a hilarious bidding war for it.
Due to one of them working in the wine trade, the sum it sold for is going to be included in the wine price data that gets distributed. We are al speculating at whether this will cause a hilarious “ramp” - with idiots spending zillions on a bottle of sub Oyster Bay.
Bring it on.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66081671
Features Leon's sniper among the rioters, who was apparently very well prepared, having taken up position over a year ago!
https://twitter.com/AKurkov/status/1675771627257069569
We may still be waiting for international irrelevance or five million unemployed, but Brexit has indeed been followed by violence in the streets, social disorder, civil breakdown and national division.
(Admittedly in France, not here, but let's not get hung up on details).
Reasons:
- It's a by election. Does not change government. I'm more interested in what the MP will do to represent the interests of the constituency between now and next election than anything else. Labour literature silent on this
- Labour literature all about 'sending a message' to the government. I'm not interested, if they haven't got the message by now, they never will - and anyway, I want them out
- I have no particular interest in sticking it to Sunak - replacement of him before a GE is not in my interests, Cons would most likely choose a loon who gets to be PM for ~1 year. Even if they choose someone sane, that risks their re-election and I think the party as a whole needs a spell in opposition and a cleanout under a new leader.
- I'm not yet enthused by the Labour package nationally - given this and the lack of a positive message from the local candidate, I'm not persuaded to give a positive vote to Labour
I will, probably, as it stands give Labour my vote at the GE in the new Selby CC constituency.ETA: I no longer have any money on the outcome. I do think Labour have a fair chance, but it all depends on differential turnout (I'd back Con to win, probably, still in a GE on current boundaries, but if Lab can fire up an anti-Tory vote and get it out then they can win)
If no crime is broken, then it may be a matter for their employer if they have one.
Other than that, yes, free speech is the bedrock of a free society.
And for what its worth, I think what Clarkson said was deplorable. But even deplorable people get to speak.
PS not read what Fraser Nelson wrote since its behind a paywall.
Similarly, there was a Guardian journalist in the 1980s who stood for Dail Eireann as a Unionist candidate. In Cork! I think he did the Irish equivalent of losing his deposit. But again, he had a lot of fun, generated a lot of publicity and added to the gaiety of nations.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/03/russia-bombing-civilian-targets-crimes-ukraine-victoria-amelina
...Speaking on a major propaganda talkshow on the state-run Russia-1 Channel, the head of the Duma defence committee, Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov, saluted the attack on Kramatorsk, saying: “I take my hat off to those who planned it, who carried it out. My old military heart rejoices when I see how many of these kids’ bodies are being dug up, sometimes with tattoos, sometimes with emblems.” Among the bodies there are those of the 14-year-old twins Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko...
Given DA's somewhat chequered history with 1. schools and 2. alcoholic drink, this is a pretty pathetic and ill advised attack.
James White, the individual in question, pleaded guilty to a public order offence, presumably because his own lawyer told him the sentence would only go up if he took a different route.
There are groups who are already being targeted for violence. Public figures are one of those groups. Advocating violence against such groups has a different context and implied meaning.
Was Jo Brand (and the BBC, by association) inciting violence against Nigel Farage. IMHO that was a much more egregious case. Personally I think that was more of the BBC’s problem than Brand’s. Comedians will make jokes that go way over the line for public broadcast, it’s the job of the broadcaster to edit accordingly.
If a crime is committed then we have a criminal justice system to handle that.
If no crime is committed, then there ought to be no abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.