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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why May’s Euro elections could be more challenging for UKIP than 2004 or 2009
Expect to see more attacks on UKIP like this in the 11 weeks remaining
pic.twitter.com/4AyroUsc1S
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Ed Miliband@Ed_Miliband·2 hrs
I welcome the support David Owen is giving Labour. We are reaching out to become a truly One Nation party.
I hope we see more of this between now and the election
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hRwnXmdRCo
The Owen support for Labour is a big development which makes the ill-thought out Red Ed rhetoric even less potent.
It's a definite positive for Ed but it's hardly one nation, it's trying to get the left-leaning LibDems or Social Democrats back and safely ignore the Orange booker side and everyone else.
ukipwebmaster @ukipwebmaster 15m
@Nigel_Farage 's conference speech gets over 7,500 views in a couple of days. Other political leaders are envious: http://youtu.be/e0aYvwzhELw
View media
British Foreign Secretary Hague says sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine has been violated-@Reuters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOwfeoDX2o
Steve Clark @steveclarkuk 17h
Dear world, please don't let Middle East "peace" envoy TONY BLAIR anywhere near #Ukraine...
All it needs is for the NeoCon chickenhawks to start foaming at the mouth for war again.
Just like they did over Syria.
Nigel Farage @Nigel_Farage 2h
Watch our new communities spokesman @SuzanneEvans1 on the @daily_politics from Friday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03wvfwb/Daily_Politics_28_02_2014/ … (15 minutes in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6GsEKrCvgw
"Lord Healey reportedly calls him 'Lord Owen of Split' and has previously likened him to the 'upas tree, in whose shade nothing grows'. Though great hopes are now invested in him, he has been possibly the most hated man in the recent history of the House of Commons. 'The good fairy gave the young doctor almost everything: thick dark locks, matinee idol features, a lightning intellect,' Denis Healey once said. 'Unfortunately, the bad fairy also made him a shit.'".
Birds of a feather flock together.
Channel 4 News @Channel4News
Government's migration pledge "in tatters", as figures reveal net immigration of 200,000 - @C4Ciaran reports http://bit.ly/1cbHBty #c4news
He's just been handed yet more ammunition as it's not just Boris calling Osbrowne a Liar but now Liam Fox is wading in and mocking the inept chumocracy.
Anne M @meganne121 2h
Liam Fox says Cameron is underestimating UKIP and that his immigration pledge is 'statistical nonsense' - http://www.channel4.com/news/liam-fox-immigration-david-cameron-ukip-farage-election … #UKIP
OMOV debate over. Now Labour need to focus on winning G-election. Socialists and Blairites need to unite to defeat the greater evil: Tories.
LOL
Not a hope in hell.
For some reason the Blairites are being laughed at very hard indeed these days.
Personally I think that given the voting system used to elect MEPs, any defection by an MEP should result in that seat being given to the party's next candidate. So (for all I like him) Helmer should no longer be an MEP and neither should Bannerman or any other MEP who has defected from the party that they were elected for.
He was in sparkling form on Marr this morning.
If Cammie's Cast Iron Immigration Pledge in tatters doesn't help Farage (and it absolutely should have) then he's going to have to rely on calamity Clegg's debate publicity.
NEWSNIGHT: Neo-Nazi threat in new #Ukraine speaking loud&clear about Russian and Jews http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY …
I made a mistake is 7500 views in 2 days
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=72B6r6l5Igs
"...the date being pencilled in for a Commons vote is at the very end of the session on the eve of the Commons rising for the summer recess on July 22. "
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100260182/the-next-tory-plot-to-embarrass-david-cameron-on-europe-is-already-taking-shape/
We appear to be on the same side as Al-Qaeda in Syria. Now, in Ukraine, we again appear to be on the same side as the SS types.
I would like to make it clear, in neither case, are we their allies but, accidentally or otherwise, we appear to be on the same side.
Is Putin really doing anything different in the Crimea than what Britain did in the Falklands ? He is intervening on the side of kith and kin. Whether you like it or not that is what we did in the Falklands.
What is Putin supposed to do ? Let Ukraine be taken over by the SS mob. They even control the Defence ministry now, for God's sake. ! They are openly displaying SS and HH symbols.
I am sure I am just being unbelievably precious and demonstrating why that site that Mike linked to the other day had me down as 88% Lib Dem as well as 90% tory but Downfall parodies for a member of a Jewish family that fled to the UK to avoid the death camps? Really? I mean, really?
I really don't think so.
The idea being you undermine an opponent well before the election and deliberately muddy the waters.
The hint is they are not as "patriotic" as they make themselves out to be. Where Miliband has played the patriotic card, I am not sure but the attacks are typically vile neo-right wing types
But Putin's canny, and he'll probably have set aims that may make it very hard for the west to do anything.
Without revisiting Czechoslovakia in 1938 are we really going to go to war with the second largest nuclear power on the planet to protect the integrity of Ukraine? Absolutely no chance whatsoever. Therefore we should never have made such silly promises in the first place.
Can the Ukraine hold together as a single unit? Possible but increasingly difficult and impossible if there is major bloodshed. Avoiding that is therefore the priority. We must emphasise this to both the Ukrainians and the Russians.
How can it hold together? Clearly significant levels of devolution to the Russian speaking areas is required and recognition must be given to the realities of Russia's interests in the Crimea. At this stage almost any compromise short of independence is worth considering.
Do we really want such an unstable country in the EU? Err, no, I really don't think so. We must therefore be wary of making yet more promises we cannot keep.
There were several days where Russia gradually amped up rhetoric to see how the West would react. When we didn't stand by Ukraine, they pushed it further in Crimea. When we barely reacted there, they are now pushing further in Eastern Ukraine. Their aims creep up a bit more the more they sense weakness. I wouldn't be surprised if the Baltic states expelled their Russian populations at this point. Just the presence of Russians in your country makes you very vulnerable to invasion. It's this limp hand-wringing response of people that express sadness but aren't willing to stand up for what is right that will see the collapse of a democratic world order. I'm sure China will be watching closely as it thinks if the future of Taiwan and the south Pacific...
But Hitler parodies for a jew who lost family in the holocaust seems in very doubtful taste to me.
Besides, the two are not incompatible. Someone might believe that Ukraine would be better served by being under the EU banner than under Russia's, whilst believing the UK is better off out. Different countries, different problems, and different solutions.
I just hope our leaders are more realistic.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ed-milibands-labour-party-reforms-are-good-news-for-all-9162681.html
The indisputable fact is that Putin has authorised the invasion of a sovereign state with a view to annexing the Crimea and likely large swathes of Eastern Ukraine. This despite the fact that the Russian Federation has signed numerous treaties guaranteeing the borders of Ukraine. The fact that it is a young state is irrelevant.
The cricket, on the other hand, is going rather well so far despite the fact that the talentless goon Bopara gets another undeserved cap.
I don't think we need to worry on that score. Hague and Kerry are in Kiev to do a bit of flag waving. They will do a bit of jaw-jaw, get on their planes and come home having done their bit.
Who is going to war to support the neo-fascists ?
In their likely temporary absence might I ask for some temperance of the abuse.
Thank you.
Oops, sorry ! If we do it, then it is OK.
The plan to call up reserves is the clearest statement that the Ukrainians know no one is going to honour any treaties. Its also a sharp reverse of the 'we will not be provoked' line trotted out by Kiev. At this point, a failure to mobilise is effectively inviting Russia in when it feels like it. Moscow isn't answering the phone so it's time to prepare to defend itself. They will fight when it comes to it.
The difficulty for the Ukrainians is this:
In doing this mobilisation Russia can self justify it as a new threat.
What exactly are they mobilising? There will be forces, they will be available, there is kit in stores, but what forces and how well organised? The problem then is how well sustained will they be? The next days will tell but some omens are not good, the navy in particular is deeply fractured and resignations abound...more of them today.
So far the signs are are that the self defense troops who formed up in the civic disturbances are not waiting to see, they are mobilising themselves. This in itself is the development of a potential second force of militias, when the Ukrainians need one military, despite the statements that these will work with the defence ministry
A notable number of immigrants serve in the armed forces and their forebears served and died for our nation in two world wars and before and since. One of our most recent holders of the VC, Johnson Beharry, is an immigrant.
Shame on you.
I can only think that people are a little scared of the potential of a war that we may be sucked into by accident.
Its certainly impactful, whether its wise may be another matter......
Salmond for cute babies, Unionists for botched operations with unsterile equipment may be a step too far.......
Many Crimeans were Muslims who were transported to Uzbekistan by Stalin. I am sure you would not be worrying about them.
No one is saying that Kiev cannot have its happy little fascist state under EU protection. They are just saying that the right to that state does not extend to the East and South which weer never even part of the Kievan Rus Kingdom (if you really think that we should base modern borders on long lost ancient kingdoms with no continuity of existence).
I am waiting for the Dalraidians to press their claim for independence in western Scotland. That would make the whole SNP debate far more interesting.
*When we helped evacuate them in advance of the Turks and then betrayed them in camps in Mesopotamia
I think one of the great problems with the former soviet countries is they were, pretty much, broken up along internal SSR boundaries, some of which were arbitrary and counter intuitive. The Crimea, for example, is, for all intents and purposes, Russian. It is more Russia than some areas which actually in Russia. Yet, because it was in the Ukrainian SSR, it is now in the state of Ukraine.
I supported the first Gulf War but not the second.
The fact that the UK has made mistakes in the past shouldn't preclude the present government from taking action in the future.
Surely we know the consequences of indulging Putin and accepting his probable "I have no more territorial claims in Europe" gambit.
Perhaps next he'd like to take a slice out of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and establish a corridor to Kaliningrad. How about a chunk of Belarus and Moldova ? .... and while he's at it if he absorbs Crimea and Eastern Ukraine why not annex the rest of Ukraine too .... just to keeps matters simple you understand.
And then there's a whole swathe of bits and bobs in Asia to consume ....
Just playing Devil's Advocate, if the majority of people East of the Dneiper wanted to become part of Russia, would you advocate its annexation?