Very complacent and smug sounding. I would think the election campaign might be the most obvious game changer. How much will Os have learnt from the last one and how will Ed fare under the most microscopic scrutiny. On your side how the British people view his suitability for PM when the day comes must cause concern.
Because expectations of Ed Miliband are low, he is highly likely to outperform them in the election campaign.
You might be right and his integrity and sincerity are beyond question, unlike most politicians, which could be used to his advantage. I am not so sure though and Balls and Burnham could be serious liabilities.
Seeing as what he's best known for is stabbing his brother in the back, that's an interesting notion of 'integrity and sincerity'.
I back Osborne's changes to the savings and pensions regime. I am not going to vote Tory though.
What would it take for you to vote Tory? What offer could they give that would make you consider voting for them?
I'd need to see a lot more evidence that they see the world from the bottom up rather than the top down, that they see the state and the public sector as powerful forces for good, that they did not dislike trade unions, that they recognised the major flaws in the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model and that they would not continually tack to the right in order to pander to UKIP switchers.
Thanks for the answer.
Sounds like you'd give me your vote every time. ;-)
I was referring mainly to OGH's previous thread that showed public sector employees preferring Labour by a large margin.
The poll Mike quoted in that thread also showed Labour ahead among private sector workers.
Yes, it's normal - Labour does well with people of working age and the Tory strength is among retired people. An interesting question for us lefties is why many people apparently move sharply to the right as soon as they stop working - there isn't so far much sign that the strongly Labour age group of 40-64 sticks to it after they retire. We can all think of cheap cracks about it (both ways), but it'd be an interesting research paper to look at how and why attitudes change and if there's a linear progression as age advances. Are people of 85+ hugely Tory, people aged 66-70 only slightly so?
Provisionally I think that there's a tendency to feel more worried about change with age, and a feeling that the Tories will keep change down as far as possible. That's why UKIP hurts the Tories more as they appear to suggest that one can actually CHANGE BACK to some extent - less immigration, being fully independent again, less preoccupation with green things and PCness - or at least try to, and if you're elderly, alienated and a bit frightened that sounds pretty good.
I would have thought unveiling some sort of policy / manifesto that has had no prior 'narrative' or road testing is an extraordinarily dangerous move for Miliband. The real risk is of pulling back the curtains not too long before May 2015 and seeing the whole world collapse in laughter.
Very complacent and smug sounding. I would think the election campaign might be the most obvious game changer. How much will Os have learnt from the last one and how will Ed fare under the most microscopic scrutiny. On your side how the British people view his suitability for PM when the day comes must cause concern.
Because expectations of Ed Miliband are low, he is highly likely to outperform them in the election campaign.
You might be right and his integrity and sincerity are beyond question, unlike most politicians, which could be used to his advantage. I am not so sure though and Balls and Burnham could be serious liabilities.
Seeing as what he's best known for is stabbing his brother in the back, that's an interesting notion of 'integrity and sincerity'.
I am thinking the expenses scandal when Ed was one of the few MP's to come out clean. He was as entitled to fight for the leadership as his brother. As a fan of neither I prefer Ed over his brother and certainly the rest of the candidates that were put up by Labour.
O/T - a report on the student fees situation and public spending.
hardly surprising, the system is riddled with holes. No Brains Willetts has cocked it up.
This is a risk I've been noting for some time on here. Looks like Nick Clegg's manifesto commitments died in vain. Don't knock Willetts though: my understanding is he was on the side of the angels.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
This is a risk I've been noting for some time on here. Looks like Nick Clegg's manifesto commitments died in vain. Don't knock Willetts though: my understanding is he was on the side of the angels.
Surely the problem would be solved if the government only agreed to lend on degrees where the student actually stood a chance of earning a few quid after graduation.
ComRes, Populus, Mori and Opinium have all registered polls with Labour at 35% or below in the last month. So your confidence in there being already in place an immovable election-winning bloc of voters for Labour already is demonstrably misplaced, unless you regard YouGov as the only pollster of note.
The same polls generally have the Tories lower too - the difference is mostly down to whether you think that ex-non voter UKIP voters will turn out or not. From the viewpoint of who wins the election it doesn't actually matter much, though it will matter in the Euros.
I do realise that my posts saying nothing much is happening and Labour is stably 5% ahead must look at best complacent and at worst smug, and I try not to do it every day. But it needs to be said, not least on a betting site, as there is a very strong PB tendency to overreact to things that most people barely notice.
I think there are two potential game-changers - the perception of the Euro result in terms of what it does to the kipper vote, and the Indyref. Otherwise, we should be OK.
Whether young Nick is complacent or not with Labour sitting on a small lead is a matter for PBers to cogitate over their post breakfast cupper but perhaps historical precedent might offer a clue.
Investigating the ICM polls 12 months before the general elections of 87 92 and 97 when Labour was last in opposition throws up some interesting numbers :
15/06/86 - Con 36 .. Lab 39 .. 87 GE Result - Con 43 .. Lab 32
06/04/91 - Con 39 .. Lab 43 .. 92 GE Result - Con 43 .. Lab 35
05/05/96 - Con 28 .. Lab 45 .. 97 GE Result - Con 31.5 .. Lab 44.5
Clear evidence of the governing party recovering and only the Labour landslide of 97 didn't see a substantial fall away of the main opposition vote.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
;-)
I don't particularly care what she looks like now: it sounds as if she's had the life she wanted to live, and has not let the music industry destroy or control her. If we're lucky enough to get tickets then we'll probably be so far away we can't really see her very well, and we can just close our eyes and remember those videos.
Just as long as her voice is still good. I loved her album Ariel, so it looks like a good bet.
But the opportunity to hear her sing live is unmissable. But we may have to miss it ... :-(
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Kate Bush is a heroine of mine. A huge star at a very early age who, having made a potload of money, evidently decided to record more or less when she chooses, fitting it around the rest of what she obviously considers a very fulfilling life. I doubt we have a more rounded celebrity.
Oh, and the more recent records she has put out are every bit as interesting, if not more so, than her earlier stuff.
Clear evidence of the governing party recovering and only the Labour landslide of 97 didn't see a substantial fall away of the main opposition vote.
I was about to criticise Mike for hanging too much analysis on a single poll, but this is too much to bear.
Polls from 1992 and before are not very helpful as historical precedents because of the spiral of silence bias that they failed to correct for. It is completely desperate straw-clutching to use those to bolster your argument.
It's much more credible to argue that we've already seen a number of large shifts in opinion this Parliament: The Lib Dem "betrayal" collapse, the "vetogasm", the "omnishambles" budget and the UKIP "surge". There is plenty of time for another change of opinion - and even something like the Lib Dem collapse in 2010 took several months to play out.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Oh England My leotard....Not the Nine O'Clock News.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Oh England My leotard....Not the Nine O'Clock News.
I had to step into the "breakout room" to have a good laugh. Oh! the times we live in.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Oh England My leotard....Not the Nine O'Clock News.
I had to step into the "breakout room" to have a good laugh. Oh! the times we live in.
Clear evidence of the governing party recovering and only the Labour landslide of 97 didn't see a substantial fall away of the main opposition vote.
I was about to criticise Mike for hanging too much analysis on a single poll, but this is too much to bear.
Polls from 1992 and before are not very helpful as historical precedents because of the spiral of silence bias that they failed to correct for. It is completely desperate straw-clutching to use those to bolster your argument.
It's much more credible to argue that we've already seen a number of large shifts in opinion this Parliament: The Lib Dem "betrayal" collapse, the "vetogasm", the "omnishambles" budget and the UKIP "surge". There is plenty of time for another change of opinion - and even something like the Lib Dem collapse in 2010 took several months to play out.
Absolute Horlicks.
In 87 the ICM poll the day before the election was 1 point short of the Conservative actual result. In 92 the eve of poll undershot by 4 points and in 97 it was 1.6 points.
The bias if anything from the election of 92 indicates Labour are in an even worse position.
Accordingly on this issue a "spiral of silence" from you is appropriate.
The biggest negative in our balance of payments is energy imports. From a national financial strategic perspective we should really push to maximise UK energy output. That means incentivising North Sea investment. But most of all it means fracking.
If we can produce significant volumes of shale gas there may or may not be some downward pressure on gas bills. (Nice to have but not the main driver). There will be some good job creation in the north west. (Nice to have but not the main driver). BUT..we will produce our own gas and stop having to import it. This is massive. And it's taxable. The impact on our national finances (fiscal deficit, trade deficit) would be huge and positive.
Any government of left or right should legislate to overcome nimbyism and get fracking.
The tables are quite complex and I don't have the time to go through them all. But it is unclear to me exactly how much consumption one could displace to shale gas from something else. You're not going to convert my Triumph Stag to gas, for example.
If we said that gas use completed displaced coal, it would mean an increase in gas use from about 35% to about 55%.
What's the actual value of a tax levied on shale gas that made it cost the same as conventional gas does now? I have a feeling it;s a few tens of billions but that while helpful it's trivial compared to a £100bn+ deficit.
Language, and the use of language. It is all pretty meaningless, but they have ownership and connection with the soft, kind, paternalistic words.
A change of language and SO would be an ardent Tory.
One who believes in allowing all to reach full potential, who supports the poorest and weakest, who is happy to provide healthcare that is high quality and free at the point of delivery, who protects individual freedom but allows humour who finds envy a pernicious trait, who thinks that tax evasion is abhorrent and avoidance should be routed, it is only fair that we pay what is due according to the spirit of the regulations who trusts people to make their own decisions, a part of reaching full potential, who demands a quality education for the nations children.
Interesting to hear your views on the parties. My take is that the state should only be involved in matters of national significance and having a very narrow definition of that. The easy ones are defence, health (in the UK's method of provision), economy (taxation etc). After this are the other main areas where I see the state having a major role, infra-structure development, long term demographic planning, limited social safety net.
All else should be left to the individual and the role of government would be to allow that to happen.
If the income and wealth distributions were a lot flatter I would be inclined to agree with you - allow people to co-operate and work together on a bottom-up basis rather than a top-down state-directed basis.
However, with the income and wealth distributions as they are, and in the present era trending to become less equal, I disagree, because it is far too difficult for people in the bottom 75% or so of the income and wealth distribution to participate on an equal footing in a small state society.
There are many advantages to open capitalist markets, but they possess the inherent defect of concentrating wealth in a smaller and smaller number of hands, which has the effect of making markets less open and less efficient (as well as creating the risk of losing popular legitimacy).
I simply cannot take seriously any political party that does not see inequality as a problem. Regardless of where one stands on inequality from an ethical standpoint, it seems obvious to me that markets function more inefficiently when society is more unequal, and that left to their own devices markets produce inequality.
Somebody needs to show him the little cog wheel thing in the top right when you click on someone's name. That way he can just block whoever it is that he doesn't want in his timeline.
Good to see people daubing alternative DNS server IP addresses on the posters of him, though.
Important caveat on the Feb borrowing and tweets like eaton - last year had 4g monies in it.
In February 2014, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions was £9.3 billion. In February 2013 PSNB ex was £9.2 billion. (excluding the £2.7 billion asset purchase facility transfer that month). This includes a £2.3 billion transfer from the sale of 4G spectrum licenses but excludes the £2.7 billion asset purchase facility transfer for that month.
Yes, it's normal - Labour does well with people of working age and the Tory strength is among retired people. An interesting question for us lefties is why many people apparently move sharply to the right as soon as they stop working - there isn't so far much sign that the strongly Labour age group of 40-64 sticks to it after they retire. We can all think of cheap cracks about it (both ways), but it'd be an interesting research paper to look at how and why attitudes change and if there's a linear progression as age advances. Are people of 85+ hugely Tory, people aged 66-70 only slightly so?
It could be age, or it could be experience. Certainly, we'd naively expect some correlation between the number of adult years spent under a Labour government and the chance of voting for them. Labour would expect a positive correlation, as practical experience of the benefits of their policies affects voting, while the Conservatives would expect a negative correlation.
The basic question would be 'is the number of adult years spent under governments of X party a better predictor of voting intention than age, to a statistically significant degree'. Answers would be interesting, but I suspect the effect is small enough that standard opinion polls don't provide sufficient data to get a conclusive result.
@OblitusSumMe Inequality doesn't worry the Chinese too much - look at the growth rates, and the inequality figures for income - both significantly higher than UK.
I heard on Desert Island Discs recently that she wrote "The man with the child in his eyes" when she was 13.
Astonishing.
There are some of early demos available on-line if you know where to look. I really wish she'd make a properly-recorded version of "something like a song" from her 1973 demos.
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
The Budget did not cause these facts but it will be an occasion on which they are confirmed and observed. … Real politics is happening underneath the surface. Slowly, the water is receding, leaving only the rocks on which the hopes of Mr Miliband will be dashed.
There are some of early demos available on-line if you know where to look. I really wish she'd make a properly-recorded version of "something like a song" from her 1973 demos.
I know a guy who was on the tour. Sadly the tour sound engineer passed away a couple of years ago.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Thanks. I'm slightly ashamed of myself, but it is what it is.
It may be that when KB arrived on the scene I was doing Coleridge at school. Lines like
"woman wailing for her demon-lover"
and
"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora"
made me think "Oh, right. Like Kate Bush. Yep...I'm with you." Which I would not have been had Coleridge instead had a vision of Nora Batty.
Noting the differences in polling methodology between Populus and ICM, that would make ICM about a dead heat wouldn't it?
Hard to be sure. ICM's special assumption is that don't knows and won't says will tend to (50%) swing back to their former parties (which is an assiumption that obviously harms parties that have recently boomed, i.e. UKIP, and helps parties who did well last time, notably the LibDems), and I believe they also downweight people who didn't vote last time. Populus, interestingly, do not weight by stated past voting allegiance in internet polls but by demographic data associated with past voting allegiance - this gets around people who forget embarrassing past votes and people who lie about them, but risks that an association has broken down (e.g. that older men have shifted sharply for some reason). They do weight by stated certainty, unlike YouGov - the issue here is whether that applies in marginals or parties are good at GOTV there.
The big difference for both ICM and Populus from e.g. Survation is that they don't list UKIP as a main option. This assumes by implication a UKIP->Tory swingback.
EiT's reply to Easterross earlier is worth repeating, by the way - one should expect polls to swing around a bit purely from sample variation and it's not a sign of a polling firm getting it wrong if numbers go up and down by 1-2 (and the lead up and down by 3-4).
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
I back Osborne's changes to the savings and pensions regime. I am not going to vote Tory though.
What would it take for you to vote Tory? What offer could they give that would make you consider voting for them?
I'd need to see a lot more evidence that they see the world from the bottom up rather than the top down, that they see the state and the public sector as powerful forces for good, that they did not dislike trade unions, that they recognised the major flaws in the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model and that they would not continually tack to the right in order to pander to UKIP switchers.
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
To me they've been a pretty centrist government, that has actually tried to address some of the really big, difficult issues. They may have not got the answers 100% right, but the old education system wasn't working, a welfare system that incentivises people to make the rational decision not to work and a pension system that shafts people because they hit 75 were major problems.
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
Wooo there...get back on message ffs....it's all swingback now.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
I am reminded of the many predictions made of a "Brown epiphany" that would sweep the Conservative to majority government at the 2010 general election. It didn't happen.
However, Brown had been in the front line of British politics for well over a decade by that point, whereas young Miliband is sometimes still mistaken for his brother.
It's a bit unfashionable, but I think that campaigns matter. Perhaps most of the time the strength of both campaigns is roughly equal, so the net effect on the election is small. It's all still to play for if the Tories run a good campaign, and Labour a poor one.
I back Osborne's changes to the savings and pensions regime. I am not going to vote Tory though.
What would it take for you to vote Tory? What offer could they give that would make you consider voting for them?
I'd need to see a lot more evidence that they see the world from the bottom up rather than the top down, that they see the state and the public sector as powerful forces for good, that they did not dislike trade unions, that they recognised the major flaws in the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model and that they would not continually tack to the right in order to pander to UKIP switchers.
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
One small example off the top of my head: they've made it a lot harder for people to take claims to an employment tribunal, thus weakening the protection this provided for employees.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
;-)
I don't particularly care what she looks like now: it sounds as if she's had the life she wanted to live, and has not let the music industry destroy or control her. If we're lucky enough to get tickets then we'll probably be so far away we can't really see her very well, and we can just close our eyes and remember those videos.
Just as long as her voice is still good. I loved her album Ariel, so it looks like a good bet.
But the opportunity to hear her sing live is unmissable. But we may have to miss it ... :-(
I back Osborne's changes to the savings and pensions regime. I am not going to vote Tory though.
What would it take for you to vote Tory? What offer could they give that would make you consider voting for them?
I'd need to see a lot more evidence that they see the world from the bottom up rather than the top down, that they see the state and the public sector as powerful forces for good, that they did not dislike trade unions, that they recognised the major flaws in the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model and that they would not continually tack to the right in order to pander to UKIP switchers.
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
One small example off the top of my head: they've made it a lot harder for people to take claims to an employment tribunal, thus weakening the protection this provided for employees.
I'd see that more as they've stopped shyster lawyers pushing vexatious litigation on employers.
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
Wrong. Less than 14 months.
Well even better - if Ed is say 6% ahead he can lose 0.4% to the Cons every month and still end up PM.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
I have to say that I find that really funny in a down to Earth sort of way.
Thanks. I'm slightly ashamed of myself, but it is what it is.
It may be that when KB arrived on the scene I was doing Coleridge at school. Lines like
"woman wailing for her demon-lover"
and
"A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora"
made me think "Oh, right. Like Kate Bush. Yep...I'm with you." Which I would not have been had Coleridge instead had a vision of Nora Batty.
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
;-)
I don't particularly care what she looks like now: it sounds as if she's had the life she wanted to live, and has not let the music industry destroy or control her. If we're lucky enough to get tickets then we'll probably be so far away we can't really see her very well, and we can just close our eyes and remember those videos.
Just as long as her voice is still good. I loved her album Ariel, so it looks like a good bet.
But the opportunity to hear her sing live is unmissable. But we may have to miss it ... :-(
Pass the service revolver Jeeves
Don't do it. I know it's really hard supporting Salmond, but you shouldn't give up all hope.
I heard on Desert Island Discs recently that she wrote "The man with the child in his eyes" when she was 13.
Astonishing.
There are some of early demos available on-line if you know where to look. I really wish she'd make a properly-recorded version of "something like a song" from her 1973 demos.
That really is astonishing. What I liked about the early stuff like that was that she took quite angsty teenage ideas and made them erotically creepy. TMWTCIHE is like that, Wuthering Heights is like that. I was listening to Running Up That Hill on the way to work this morning and it has that same sort of stalkerish intentness to it. I liked the way she would then suddenly come out with something off the wall like Sat In Your Lap (and when they reviewed it on Radio 1 in '81 she rang the show to say thanks for the great review). Yes, she is and always has been class. It's just a shame she looks so like Bernard Manning now.
On topic, would I be right in surmising that Labour's optimism is based on the idea that this time they have wrecked the economy so badly even the Tories can't fix it? So after 5 years Buggins' Turn rolls round and they can do it all over again from a slightly better position?
If so, why bother with policies at all? We know what the policies are; take money away from anyone your supporters envy. ("In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.")
Hannan cited a poll a while back that showed Labour supporters generally approving of removing other people's wealth from then even it's for no gain elsewhere, just to destroy it. If that's the agenda who cares what the exact mechanism is?
So once in power, Labour overspends like a drunken sailor - it doesn't matter on what - and then come election time frightens the payroll vote with "Tory cuts".
Two weeks ago there was a huge row on QT about the effects of mass immigration in Barking, East London... it went completely unmentioned on here. It is a snapshot of how those affected by the policy feel..
These are people that have lived in the area there whole lives, not outsiders from other parts of England who move to London for work... those people are not Londoners, they can afford to move into nice areas because they have a good job. The people here are poor, and are trapped in a place that has changed around them so much that they hate the place that they used to feel at home in.
The attitude of David Aaronovitch is almost embarrassingly old fashioned and patronising... notice that he is the only person who brings race into the argument. Rachel Reeves actually speaks sense, if you can forget that it was Labour that caused the mess in the first place
The audience member at 7:22 is probably the one that I identify with most, but four out of the five that speak echo what many, many people I know from the area are feeling.
Two weeks ago there was a huge row on QT about the effects of mass immigration in Barking, East London... it went completely unmentioned on here. It is a snapshot of how those affected by the policy feel..
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
To me they've been a pretty centrist government, that has actually tried to address some of the really big, difficult issues. They may have not got the answers 100% right, but the old education system wasn't working, a welfare system that incentivises people to make the rational decision not to work and a pension system that shafts people because they hit 75 were major problems.
The two major shifts that have been locally evident is progressive strangling of rates support for local authorities and steadily making benefits claims more complicated, harder and processed more slowly. The former is forcing councils to make nasty choices. You can make a case for doing this sometimes - e.g. a bus subsidy may linger on long after it ceases to be justified if the council isn't squeezed now and then. But there's no doubt (and Tory councils will confirm) that a sustained shift is underway which hasn't been based on real public debate ("Is it time to cut back on what we expect from local authorities?").
The latter is causing a good deal of anguish at personal (anecdotal, if you like, but a lot of anecdotes) level. I know plenty of constituents who are finding that mental health difficulties in particular are now being heavily discounted and that appeals are taking up to 6 months to process, presumably due to staff cutbacks. This is the MAIN cause of food bank demand - the appeals often succeed in the end but in the meantime people are genuinely short. At a macro level it's quite popular, but at a micro level it's causing a lot of suffering. I note without pleasure that Labour has signed up to the overall budgetary cap, and it's a Labour policy that I disagree with. The thing is that the victims of the squeeze mostly don't have a realistic chance of work without a lot of help - it would be great if they did, but they're not getting more help in getting it, just being bashed because they can't.
Apart from these, I've not noticed any particular government direction, left right or anywhere. They do a bit of this and a bit of that and hope for the best.
This week the Labour Party has again closed for business. It has ceased functioning. The doors have been bolted, the windows shuttered. Labour has gone away.
This first became evident on Wednesday, when Ed Miliband chose not to reply to the Budget. Leaders of the opposition have delivered good Budget responses. Leaders of the opposition have delivered bad Budget responses. But there hasn’t been an occasion in modern British political history where the leader of the opposition has failed to offer any sort of Budget response at all.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
Wrong. Less than 14 months.
Well even better - if Ed is say 6% ahead he can lose 0.4% to the Cons every month and still end up PM.
I agree that there is a limp over the line strategy that could, as you say, work. Better though to just ride out the Budget (which is a free hit for the government) then go for it in the autumn at Conference, pretty much the only time an Opposition has clear air to lay out its plans.
There's still a long time to go to May 2015 and this week saw 2 major changes that if executed well by the Tories will make them the winners.
1 The pension change is one of a number of major initiatives that bind people to Tory policy. From now until May 2015, anyone who expects to retire (ie nearly everybody) risks the new better pension system if they vote Labour. Add to that Labour's form on destroying pension value, its a major long term personal risk to most to vote Labour. Expect more actions like this in the coming year that put in play direct personal consequences to the majority of voters if they back Labour.
2 The Tories ran a hugely successful misinformation campaign in the run up to Wednesday which Labour fell for hook line and sinker which 2 days later still leaves them with no response. Clearly, Crosby has got his communication house in order. Expect to see more wrong footing of Labour as time goes by.
Personally I am amused by the lefty line of not trusting pensions to spend their own money and the state must decide at the same time as they support benefits being spent without any state intervention.
Basically, if the regions want to benefit from HS2, they will have to plan for the growth. Which is a nosh*t sherlock analysis. ;-)
One of their findings is that there needs to be a minister with responsibility for HS2-related economic growth and regeneration. I nominate Nick Palmer, even if he loses in 2015...
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Two weeks ago there was a huge row on QT about the effects of mass immigration in Barking, East London... it went completely unmentioned on here. It is a snapshot of how those affected by the policy feel..
There's still a long time to go to May 2015 and this week saw 2 major changes that if executed well by the Tories will make them the winners.
1 The pension change is one of a number of major initiatives that bind people to Tory policy. From now until May 2015, anyone who expects to retire (ie nearly everybody) risks the new better pension system if they vote Labour. Add to that Labour's form on destroying pension value, its a major long term personal risk to most to vote Labour. Expect more actions like this in the coming year that put in play direct personal consequences to the majority of voters if they back Labour.
2 The Tories ran a hugely successful misinformation campaign in the run up to Wednesday which Labour fell for hook line and sinker which 2 days later still leaves them with no response. Clearly, Crosby has got his communication house in order. Expect to see more wrong footing of Labour as time goes by.
Personally I am amused by the lefty line of not trusting pensions to spend their own money and the state must decide at the same time as they support benefits being spent without any state intervention.
Serious question: is the policy change re annuities reversible, i.e. in a practical sense?
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
Two weeks ago there was a huge row on QT about the effects of mass immigration in Barking, East London... it went completely unmentioned on here. It is a snapshot of how those affected by the policy feel..
These are people that have lived in the area there whole lives, not outsiders from other parts of England who move to London for work... those people are not Londoners, they can afford to move into nice areas because they have a good job. The people here are poor, and are trapped in a place that has changed around them so much that they hate the place that they used to feel at home in.
The attitude of David Aaronovitch is almost embarrassingly old fashioned and patronising... notice that he is the only person who brings race into the argument. Rachel Reeves actually speaks sense, if you can forget that it was Labour that caused the mess in the first place
The audience member at 7:22 is probably the one that I identify with most, but four out of the five that speak echo what many, many people I know from the area are feeling.
Brilliant. If your party wins this election it will be on the thinnest, most pitiful prospectus ever offered to the British people. It will be on the basis that 'we're just nicer'. The howls of anguish as the British people realise that no you're not nicer, you're just the same, only you lie more, will be quite something.
Yes, it is quite extraordinary that so few people on the left understand where they are heading on this. (Those that do understand, and dare speak out, are branded as 'Blairites', an insult even more potent that 'Tories' nowadays amongst Labour supporters). They act as though politics will come to an end on May 8th 2015.
In practice, of course, the kind of departmental and local authority cuts Nick mentioned would have to be bigger under Labour than Osborne is planning, partly because market jitters will raise borrowing costs, and partly because welfare waste under Labour would be higher. There's also likely to be a big problem of reduced tax revenues as companies reassess investment plans and rich individual vote with their feet. This is particularly true if we end up with a minority Labour government or weak Labour-led coalition, which inevitably would mean pork-barrelling and short-term populism.
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
To me they've been a pretty centrist government, that has actually tried to address some of the really big, difficult issues. They may have not got the answers 100% right, but the old education system wasn't working, a welfare system that incentivises people to make the rational decision not to work and a pension system that shafts people because they hit 75 were major problems.
The two major shifts that have been locally evident is progressive strangling of rates support for local authorities and steadily making benefits claims more complicated, harder and processed more slowly. The former is forcing councils to make nasty choices. You can make a case for doing this sometimes - e.g. a bus subsidy may linger on long after it ceases to be justified if the council isn't squeezed now and then. But there's no doubt (and Tory councils will confirm) that a sustained shift is underway which hasn't been based on real public debate ("Is it time to cut back on what we expect from local authorities?").
The lat sh
At a macro level it's quite popular, but at a micro level it's causing a lot of suffering. I note without pleasure that Labour has signed up to the overall budgetary cap, and it's a Labour policy that I disagree with. The thing is that the victims of the squeeze mostly don't have a realistic chance of work without a lot of help - it would be great if they did, but they're not getting more help in getting it, just being bashed because they can't.
Apart from these, I've not noticed any particular government direction, left right or anywhere. They do a bit of this and a bit of that and hope for the best.
So you offer two examples of Tory rightwingery, and then you simultaneously admit that the first is reasonable and that Labour would be forced to do the second, just like the coalition.
Brilliant. If your party wins this election it will be on the thinnest, most pitiful prospectus ever offered to the British people. It will be on the basis that 'we're just nicer'. The howls of anguish as the British people realise that no you're not nicer, you're just the same, only you lie more, will be quite something.
Sean, last night I conceded a point to you that Labour would stick to Tory spending plans. Given that, wouldn't you fancy your neighbour and former love rival Ed Miliband to get the job of PM, given your visceral hatred for Cameron?
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
What have the actually *done* (rather than said) which is 'tacking right'?
To me they've been a pretty centrist government, that has actually tried to address some of the really big, difficult issues. They may have not got the answers 100% right, but the old education system wasn't working, a welfare system that incentivises people to make the rational decision not to work and a pension system that shafts people because they hit 75 were major problems.
The two major shifts that have been locally evident is progressive strangling of rates support for local authorities and steadily making benefits claims more complicated, harder and processed more slowly. The former is forcing councils to make nasty choices. You can make a case for doing this sometimes - e.g. a bus subsidy may linger on long after it ceases to be justified if the council isn't squeezed now and then. But there's no doubt (and Tory councils will confirm) that a sustained shift is underway which hasn't been based on real public debate ("Is it time to cut back on what we expect from local authorities?").
The latter is causing a good deal of anguish at personal (anecdotal, if you like, but a lot of anecdotes) level. I know plenty of constituents who are finding that mental health difficulties in particular are now being heavily discounted and that appeals are taking up to 6 months to process, presumably due to staff cutbacks. This is the MAIN cause of food bank demand - the appeals often succeed in the end but in the meantime people are genuinely short. At a macro level it's quite popular, but at a micro level it's causing a lot of suffering. I note without pleasure that Labour has signed up to the overall budgetary cap, and it's a Labour policy that I disagree with. The thing is that the victims of the squeeze mostly don't have a realistic chance of work without a lot of help - it would be great if they did, but they're not getting more help in getting it, just being bashed because they can't.
Apart from these, I've not noticed any particular government direction, left right or anywhere. They do a bit of this and a bit of that and hope for the best.
Are Councils especially the hard left Labour ones like Derby and Derbyshire working to trim the flab, or in other words bloated and poor quality management performance and structure. Also how many of these claimants are genuinely ill, unable to work. As has been seen easy to pretend to be ill en masse.
The government has done a little more than you care to admit and I am sure Anna will get this across in your patch over the coming year.
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly.
Brilliant. If your party wins this election it will be on the thinnest, most pitiful prospectus ever offered to the British people. It will be on the basis that 'we're just nicer'. The howls of anguish as the British people realise that no you're not nicer, you're just the same, only you lie more, will be quite something.
Yes, it is quite extraordinary that so few people on the left understand where they are heading on this. (Those that do understand, and dare speak out, are branded as 'Blairites', an insult even more potent that 'Tories' nowadays amongst Labour supporters). They act as though politics will come to an end on May 8th 2015.
In practice, of course, the kind of departmental and local authority cuts Nick mentioned would have to be bigger under Labour than Osborne is planning, partly because market jitters will raise borrowing costs, and partly because welfare waste under Labour would be higher. There's also likely to be a big problem of reduced tax revenues as companies reassess investment plans and rich individual vote with their feet. This is particularly true if we end up with a minority Labour government or weak Labour-led coalition, which inevitably would mean pork-barrelling and short-term populism.
Not at all true that Blairite is a worse insult than Tory for Labour supporters. That is your view, but I can assure you it is completely wrong. Many Labour supporters consider themselves Blairites. It's a broad church - just more united, currently, than the Europe-riven broad church of its opponents.
Yes, it is quite extraordinary that so few people on the left understand where they are heading on this. (Those that do understand, and dare speak out, are branded as 'Blairites', an insult even more potent that 'Tories' nowadays amongst Labour supporters). They act as though politics will come to an end on May 8th 2015.
As far as I can understand the nature of the schism, "Blairite" simply means what "revisionist" used to.
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly.
There is every chance that in 2015 the election will be won by the party that wrecked not just our economy, but everyone else's as well. There is a block vote out there that does not want this fixed.
It's an Easter Island strategy and it's pretty revolting morally, since any thoughtful person can see that the consequences of trashing the economy with debt now are visited on people who don't get to vote on it because they aren't born yet.
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly.
There is every chance that in 2015 the election will be won by the party that wrecked not just our economy, but everyone else's as well. There is a block vote out there that does not want this fixed.
It's an Easter Island strategy and it's pretty revolting morally, since any thoughtful person can see that the consequences of trashing the economy with debt now are visited on people who don't get to vote on it because they aren't born yet.
You do realise that Ozzy will have almost doubled the national debt by 2015, and that he will miss his own deficit targets by ~£200bn, due to presiding over a flatlining economy for three years (which was growing when he took over).
They're really struggling to land a punch, but by golly they're trying! I liked: 4. Con artists rub their hands with glee 5. Existing pensioners feel left out
I know this is terribly, terribly shallow of me, but despite the fact that I love what KB did between 1978 and 1985, I am so aghast at what she looks like now that I will be skipping these dates.
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
;-)
I don't particularly care what she looks like now: it sounds as if she's had the life she wanted to live, and has not let the music industry destroy or control her. If we're lucky enough to get tickets then we'll probably be so far away we can't really see her very well, and we can just close our eyes and remember those videos.
Just as long as her voice is still good. I loved her album Ariel, so it looks like a good bet.
But the opportunity to hear her sing live is unmissable. But we may have to miss it ... :-(
Pass the service revolver Jeeves
Don't do it. I know it's really hard supporting Salmond, but you shouldn't give up all hope.
At least not yet ... ;-)
You seem confused as most are on here, I do not support Salmond , I support SCOTLAND. Huge difference and reason why YES is a certainty. It is NOT about Alex Salmond.
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly.
There is every chance that in 2015 the election will be won by the party that wrecked not just our economy, but everyone else's as well. There is a block vote out there that does not want this fixed.
It's an Easter Island strategy and it's pretty revolting morally, since any thoughtful person can see that the consequences of trashing the economy with debt now are visited on people who don't get to vote on it because they aren't born yet.
You do realise that Ozzy will have almost doubled the national debt by 2015, and that he will miss his own deficit targets by ~£200bn, due to presiding over a flatlining economy for three years (which was growing when he took over).
Like I said, BF, this is the Labour line that the Ponzi scheme could have continued. It is morally incompetent and utterly dishonest to suggest otherwise. Exactly what one would expect of Gordon Brown, in fact.
Labour inherited a robust economy, completely wrecked it and are up on their high horse about how the Coalition hasn't fixed their disasters fast enough. It's a hypocritical and thoroughly disgusting position to argue.
''Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly. ''
Nope. I think most tories would acknowledge the voter is always right. If labour win, there will be a good reason.
The Crown Prosecution Service has charged two people in connection with an alleged "female genital mutilation". The CPS may have some questions to answer about their choice of charges. Why wasn't a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, contrary to s. 18 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment (as opposed to fourteen years under the 2003 Act), been brought? It should be noted that consent is no defence to a charge of statutory assault (R v Brown [1994] 1 AC 212). One is tempted to think that the politically desired proceedings have been instituted.
LOL. Today's latest rehash from Dan Hodges is worth a look if only for the comments at the bottom. It seems Telegraph readers are querying why, despite predicting a Labour collapse since the Year Dot, Labour's polling score remains resilient. My personal favourite was from one chap who wondered why, as he had been a Tory voter for 50 years and was not going to vote for Cameron, Hodges thought current Labour pledges would do so.
Labour's argument is essentially that had they been left in charge the Ponzi scheme could have continued.
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
It's a well worn PB tradition that when the Conservatives are in panic mode (one of only two modes, the other being complacency), they blame the electorate for being too stupid to vote for them. It's a strategy of sorts, I suppose.
Boba - I have said for a number of years that the fury the voters will recieve on here on election night will be a sight to behold....it will be damn ugly.
There is every chance that in 2015 the election will be won by the party that wrecked not just our economy, but everyone else's as well. There is a block vote out there that does not want this fixed.
It's an Easter Island strategy and it's pretty revolting morally, since any thoughtful person can see that the consequences of trashing the economy with debt now are visited on people who don't get to vote on it because they aren't born yet.
You do realise that Ozzy will have almost doubled the national debt by 2015, and that he will miss his own deficit targets by ~£200bn, due to presiding over a flatlining economy for three years (which was growing when he took over).
So Labour want faster deficit reduction with more cuts and more tax rises?
Comments
All I see in the thread header is Scarlett Johansson.
Sounds like you'd give me your vote every time. ;-)
Provisionally I think that there's a tendency to feel more worried about change with age, and a feeling that the Tories will keep change down as far as possible. That's why UKIP hurts the Tories more as they appear to suggest that one can actually CHANGE BACK to some extent - less immigration, being fully independent again, less preoccupation with green things and PCness - or at least try to, and if you're elderly, alienated and a bit frightened that sounds pretty good.
What caused such unaccountable joy? Had she suddenly realised that we'd won the pools? Had she solved the Hodge Conjecture?
No, it was the news that Kate Bush is doing 15 live dates at the Hammersmith Apollo later this year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26679515
Part of her appeal was that her preternatural, ethereal voice was of a piece with her looks and, you therefore hoped, her mind.
This effect is wholly ruined by her looking like a primary school drama teacher whose hair is far too long for her age.One wanted her to age gorgeously like Helen Mirren, or Jenny Agutter, or my colleague in Sales down the hallway.
I said I was shallow.
Surely the problem would be solved if the government only agreed to lend on degrees where the student actually stood a chance of earning a few quid after graduation.
Investigating the ICM polls 12 months before the general elections of 87 92 and 97 when Labour was last in opposition throws up some interesting numbers :
15/06/86 - Con 36 .. Lab 39 .. 87 GE Result - Con 43 .. Lab 32
06/04/91 - Con 39 .. Lab 43 .. 92 GE Result - Con 43 .. Lab 35
05/05/96 - Con 28 .. Lab 45 .. 97 GE Result - Con 31.5 .. Lab 44.5
Clear evidence of the governing party recovering and only the Labour landslide of 97 didn't see a substantial fall away of the main opposition vote.
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/inspire-hungover-crowd-Glasto/story-20836868-detail/story.html
Must be a backhanded tribute. She might have wanted to forget Benn's role which helped keep Mrs Thatcher then Tony Blair in power.
Ind Robinson 295 Con 150 Lab 140 Ind Ratcliff 106 Lib Dem 39 Ind Smith 17
Note the winning Independent was the former Conservative county councillor who lost his seat to UKIP last May .
I don't particularly care what she looks like now: it sounds as if she's had the life she wanted to live, and has not let the music industry destroy or control her. If we're lucky enough to get tickets then we'll probably be so far away we can't really see her very well, and we can just close our eyes and remember those videos.
Just as long as her voice is still good. I loved her album Ariel, so it looks like a good bet.
But the opportunity to hear her sing live is unmissable. But we may have to miss it ... :-(
Oh, and the more recent records she has put out are every bit as interesting, if not more so, than her earlier stuff.
LD 482
CON 341
UKIP 112
LAB 63
Polls from 1992 and before are not very helpful as historical precedents because of the spiral of silence bias that they failed to correct for. It is completely desperate straw-clutching to use those to bolster your argument.
It's much more credible to argue that we've already seen a number of large shifts in opinion this Parliament: The Lib Dem "betrayal" collapse, the "vetogasm", the "omnishambles" budget and the UKIP "surge". There is plenty of time for another change of opinion - and even something like the Lib Dem collapse in 2010 took several months to play out.
/watch?v=SMXIro1P_7g
almost as good as the Moseley song.
Astonishing.
In 87 the ICM poll the day before the election was 1 point short of the Conservative actual result. In 92 the eve of poll undershot by 4 points and in 97 it was 1.6 points.
The bias if anything from the election of 92 indicates Labour are in an even worse position.
Accordingly on this issue a "spiral of silence" from you is appropriate.
First UK prosecutions over female genital mutilation announced by CPS http://bbc.in/1jfFDH0
And not before time....
According to https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-consumption-in-the-uk 36% of UK energy use is road fuel with 29% being domestic, 17% industrial and 13% service.
The tables are quite complex and I don't have the time to go through them all. But it is unclear to me exactly how much consumption one could displace to shale gas from something else. You're not going to convert my Triumph Stag to gas, for example.
If we said that gas use completed displaced coal, it would mean an increase in gas use from about 35% to about 55%.
What's the actual value of a tax levied on shale gas that made it cost the same as conventional gas does now? I have a feeling it;s a few tens of billions but that while helpful it's trivial compared to a £100bn+ deficit.
Language, and the use of language. It is all pretty meaningless, but they have ownership and connection with the soft, kind, paternalistic words.
A change of language and SO would be an ardent Tory.
One who believes in allowing all to reach full potential,
who supports the poorest and weakest,
who is happy to provide healthcare that is high quality and free at the point of delivery,
who protects individual freedom but allows humour
who finds envy a pernicious trait,
who thinks that tax evasion is abhorrent and avoidance should be routed, it is only fair that we pay what is due according to the spirit of the regulations
who trusts people to make their own decisions, a part of reaching full potential,
who demands a quality education for the nations children.
However, with the income and wealth distributions as they are, and in the present era trending to become less equal, I disagree, because it is far too difficult for people in the bottom 75% or so of the income and wealth distribution to participate on an equal footing in a small state society.
There are many advantages to open capitalist markets, but they possess the inherent defect of concentrating wealth in a smaller and smaller number of hands, which has the effect of making markets less open and less efficient (as well as creating the risk of losing popular legitimacy).
I simply cannot take seriously any political party that does not see inequality as a problem. Regardless of where one stands on inequality from an ethical standpoint, it seems obvious to me that markets function more inefficiently when society is more unequal, and that left to their own devices markets produce inequality.
Good to see people daubing alternative DNS server IP addresses on the posters of him, though.
In February 2014, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions was £9.3 billion. In February 2013 PSNB ex was £9.2 billion. (excluding the £2.7 billion asset purchase facility transfer that month). This includes a £2.3 billion transfer from the sale of 4G spectrum licenses but excludes the £2.7 billion asset purchase facility transfer for that month.
George Eaton @georgeeaton
Borrowing was higher in Feb (£9.3bn) than same month last year (£9.2bn). http://bit.ly/1ghzdJM
The basic question would be 'is the number of adult years spent under governments of X party a better predictor of voting intention than age, to a statistically significant degree'. Answers would be interesting, but I suspect the effect is small enough that standard opinion polls don't provide sufficient data to get a conclusive result.
It may be that when KB arrived on the scene I was doing Coleridge at school. Lines like
"woman wailing for her demon-lover"
and
"A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora"
made me think "Oh, right. Like Kate Bush. Yep...I'm with you." Which I would not have been had Coleridge instead had a vision of Nora Batty.
Details are here:
http://www.populus.co.uk/Our-Methodology/Polling/
The big difference for both ICM and Populus from e.g. Survation is that they don't list UKIP as a main option. This assumes by implication a UKIP->Tory swingback.
EiT's reply to Easterross earlier is worth repeating, by the way - one should expect polls to swing around a bit purely from sample variation and it's not a sign of a polling firm getting it wrong if numbers go up and down by 1-2 (and the lead up and down by 3-4).
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
To me they've been a pretty centrist government, that has actually tried to address some of the really big, difficult issues. They may have not got the answers 100% right, but the old education system wasn't working, a welfare system that incentivises people to make the rational decision not to work and a pension system that shafts people because they hit 75 were major problems.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
Wrong. Less than 14 months.
if the Hodges and Rentouls are right then the poll switch will be late and rapid.
But so far no movement - perhaps Ed the tortoise will stay ahead of the hare and sneak over the line - there is only 15 months to stay ahead in the polls.
Wooo there...get back on message ffs....it's all swingback now.
However, Brown had been in the front line of British politics for well over a decade by that point, whereas young Miliband is sometimes still mistaken for his brother.
It's a bit unfashionable, but I think that campaigns matter. Perhaps most of the time the strength of both campaigns is roughly equal, so the net effect on the election is small. It's all still to play for if the Tories run a good campaign, and Labour a poor one.
Well even better - if Ed is say 6% ahead he can lose 0.4% to the Cons every month and still end up PM.
All in the title..
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/kate-bush-warns-everyone-she-now-looks-like-lemmy-2014032184900
At least not yet ... ;-)
On topic, would I be right in surmising that Labour's optimism is based on the idea that this time they have wrecked the economy so badly even the Tories can't fix it? So after 5 years Buggins' Turn rolls round and they can do it all over again from a slightly better position?
If so, why bother with policies at all? We know what the policies are; take money away from anyone your supporters envy. ("In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.")
Hannan cited a poll a while back that showed Labour supporters generally approving of removing other people's wealth from then even it's for no gain elsewhere, just to destroy it. If that's the agenda who cares what the exact mechanism is?
So once in power, Labour overspends like a drunken sailor - it doesn't matter on what - and then come election time frightens the payroll vote with "Tory cuts".
These are people that have lived in the area there whole lives, not outsiders from other parts of England who move to London for work... those people are not Londoners, they can afford to move into nice areas because they have a good job. The people here are poor, and are trapped in a place that has changed around them so much that they hate the place that they used to feel at home in.
The attitude of David Aaronovitch is almost embarrassingly old fashioned and patronising... notice that he is the only person who brings race into the argument. Rachel Reeves actually speaks sense, if you can forget that it was Labour that caused the mess in the first place
The audience member at 7:22 is probably the one that I identify with most, but four out of the five that speak echo what many, many people I know from the area are feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK3JAL3hKRo
The latter is causing a good deal of anguish at personal (anecdotal, if you like, but a lot of anecdotes) level. I know plenty of constituents who are finding that mental health difficulties in particular are now being heavily discounted and that appeals are taking up to 6 months to process, presumably due to staff cutbacks. This is the MAIN cause of food bank demand - the appeals often succeed in the end but in the meantime people are genuinely short. At a macro level it's quite popular, but at a micro level it's causing a lot of suffering. I note without pleasure that Labour has signed up to the overall budgetary cap, and it's a Labour policy that I disagree with. The thing is that the victims of the squeeze mostly don't have a realistic chance of work without a lot of help - it would be great if they did, but they're not getting more help in getting it, just being bashed because they can't.
Apart from these, I've not noticed any particular government direction, left right or anywhere. They do a bit of this and a bit of that and hope for the best.
I agree that there is a limp over the line strategy that could, as you say, work. Better though to just ride out the Budget (which is a free hit for the government) then go for it in the autumn at Conference, pretty much the only time an Opposition has clear air to lay out its plans.
1 The pension change is one of a number of major initiatives that bind people to Tory policy. From now until May 2015, anyone who expects to retire (ie nearly everybody) risks the new better pension system if they vote Labour. Add to that Labour's form on destroying pension value, its a major long term personal risk to most to vote Labour.
Expect more actions like this in the coming year that put in play direct personal consequences to the majority of voters if they back Labour.
2 The Tories ran a hugely successful misinformation campaign in the run up to Wednesday which Labour fell for hook line and sinker which 2 days later still leaves them with no response. Clearly, Crosby has got his communication house in order. Expect to see more wrong footing of Labour as time goes by.
Personally I am amused by the lefty line of not trusting pensions to spend their own money and the state must decide at the same time as they support benefits being spent without any state intervention.
Another day, another HS2-based report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26669615
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hs2-growth-taskforce-a-report-to-government-on-maximising-the-benefits-of-hs2
Basically, if the regions want to benefit from HS2, they will have to plan for the growth. Which is a nosh*t sherlock analysis. ;-)
One of their findings is that there needs to be a minister with responsibility for HS2-related economic growth and regeneration. I nominate Nick Palmer, even if he loses in 2015...
;-)
Lols... ManU are going to get slaughtered...
It is depressing that 35% or so of the electorate are so dumb and / or morally incompetent as to believe this and want to vote for it.
@SeanT
You are using a single data point though. There have been periods in this parliament where Labour have been doing worse than today.
One Budget.
One Conference.
In practice, of course, the kind of departmental and local authority cuts Nick mentioned would have to be bigger under Labour than Osborne is planning, partly because market jitters will raise borrowing costs, and partly because welfare waste under Labour would be higher. There's also likely to be a big problem of reduced tax revenues as companies reassess investment plans and rich individual vote with their feet. This is particularly true if we end up with a minority Labour government or weak Labour-led coalition, which inevitably would mean pork-barrelling and short-term populism.
These Netherlanders will absolutely pummel Jade Dernbach.
Red Hot Dutch.
The government has done a little more than you care to admit and I am sure Anna will get this across in your patch over the coming year.
It's an Easter Island strategy and it's pretty revolting morally, since any thoughtful person can see that the consequences of trashing the economy with debt now are visited on people who don't get to vote on it because they aren't born yet.
Pension reform: Ten hidden consequences
They're really struggling to land a punch, but by golly they're trying! I liked:
4. Con artists rub their hands with glee
5. Existing pensioners feel left out
Labour inherited a robust economy, completely wrecked it and are up on their high horse about how the Coalition hasn't fixed their disasters fast enough. It's a hypocritical and thoroughly disgusting position to argue.
Nope. I think most tories would acknowledge the voter is always right. If labour win, there will be a good reason.
Childish but funny.
Tried to get it on amazon a few years back and it was about £200 so I flinched
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudbusting
And who but KB would pen lyrics like "Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge"?