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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Checking the Political Weather in Wales
In 2009 the Conservatives were the big success story of the European elections in Wales, topping the poll in a Welsh national election for the first time in over a century (I haven’t been able to track down an earlier occurrence, Labour has topped every poll since 1918 when the Coalition Liberals stormed to victory under David Lloyd George).
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Surely if you're opposed to rule from London, you should also be opposed to rule from Brussels? But Plaid Cymru, and SNP are both pro-EU parties.
Seems a pretty likely outcome to me. Are there local elections in Wales tomorrow that might make Labour supporters turn out?
I'm sure it would be a tough knock for them not to have an MEP elected - they've had at least one since PR was introduced in 1999.
I'm in a split ward in ultra-politicised London. I've had one letter from a LibDem and one leaflet from Labour. In the Euros, I've had two UKIP leaflets and one Tory. If that's a feverish level of activity, what can it be like in deepest Sufoolk?
A SENIOR Labour politician has been suspended by her party during a police investigation after her father accused her of election fraud.
Clare Pritchard, deputy leader of Hyndburn Council, faces her dad and UKIP candidate Malcolm in a head-to-head contest for Milnshaw ward in Accrington in the local polls tomorrow.
Or bored by the moderators?
No offense to the moderators, as I realise it is a difficult job......but it does seem a little arcane at times.
@paulwaugh: New UKIP leaflet race row. Great scoop by @JenWilliamsMEN http://t.co/w5NVYUvcqy http://t.co/0RZa0h1wwh
"UKIP North-West press officer Lynda Roughley said:....“
I may be the only person who read that and was immediately transported back to the mid 80's and the glorious Ted Chippington - "half a mile - roughly speaking...."
Will Cons get a euro seat in Wales?
Would have been more interesting markets than the ones Ladbrokes have done with Scotland
Thanks very much, very interesting. However the Westminster changes given above appear to differ somewhat from the learned Professor Scully says on his blog, any reason for the difference?
I ripped that particular set of projections from Walesonline, I have to humbly admit I hadn't notice they differed.
topped up on labour to win east Midlands at 11/4
topped up on UKIP to win Yorkshire at 2/1
guessed turnout to be between 35 and 39% at 13/8
topped up on 'an independence from europe' getting more than 1.5% 5/6
backed lib dems to get 3 or more euro seats at 11/10
Exhausted!!
The dodgy bit is the reference to "white folks"- without that I would have no qualms about it whatsoever.
As I said I happen to think it is very effective in pointing out the myriad ways in which the current system can be gamed.
You would think with its basket case economy, public services meltdown and red prince stitch up, that there would be more antipathy to labour in Wales than there is.
UKIP under estimated?
"Chronic-Oldham has no connection with UKIP, Joe Fitzpatrick or any other political party!"
http://www.chronic-oldham.co.uk
"The monstering of Ed Miliband in the next year is going to be deeply unpleasant"
Given the way Labour have behaved over the past 20 years or so, I shall laugh myself sick if his predictions turn out to be accurate. Couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow as the leader of the most deserving party.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100272406/the-monstering-of-ed-miliband-in-the-next-year-is-going-to-be-deeply-unpleasant/
I do not think that it was meant as Black propaganda against UKIP whether or not it is actually connected to the party.
You may laugh yourself sick, but constant smearing can lead to some odd results with people who hold less partisan views.
Chronic oldham better be registered with the electoral commission then or they'll be severely in the brown stuff.
What this means is that the trial will be relisted for hearing, most probably in 2015. Before then, further efforts will need to be made to find barristers of suitable experience to represent the defendants. If they cannot find them from the public Bar, they will need to see whether there are any in the Public Defender Service. The government accepted that there weren't such barristers available at the moment but hoped that they would be able to employ some.
Those of us who have had to deal with the quality of people employed by the Crown Prosecution Service will have their head in their hands at this point. If I were on trial for a serious crime I would be deeply depressed at the thought of entrusting my liberty to the sorts of people who end up working in such services.
However, Leveson J also left it open for the defendants to argue again that they still have not been able to find barristers and ask for the trial to be halted. So unless experienced fraud QCs are prepared to take a 30% pay cut or work for the Public Defender Service in a few months time we will be back where we were.
In one case I'm personally aware of, the investigation was started in 2008, people have been arrested and charged and there is still no trial date. If anyone thinks that taking the best part of a decade to get a fraud case to court is sensible then they're on something.
This government's approach to the costs of justice is "penny wise, pound foolish".
It may not be a popular cause but a proper justice system is a mark of a civilised society.
"We are going collectively insane"
I would argue we went collectively insane a long time ago.
The assumption that money and possessions can buy you happiness being one.
It can of course buy you temporary relief, but like recreational drugs it is only temporary, and the dose needs to be increased for an equivalent effect, leading to addiction where it becomes the main driver of your life.
How were the Bangkok hookers?
@Stuart_Houston @SophieWarnes @MMinniemoo @paulwaugh It is genuine. I have seen the emails between the agent and the Electoral Commission
My favourite is fried egg and sausage. I'm fairly sure this is now illegal.
When I was on steroids I used to add fried egg to my microwave burgers. Not sure if this has ever been acceptable.
http://politicalbookie.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/local-and-european-elections-betting-update/
I suspect the site is telling porkies. The leaflet refers to "our deputy leader Paul Nuttall"
If she's seen the emails between agent and commission then surely said emails must be acknowledging responsibility.
Off the top of my head unless Chronic Oldham is affiliated with UKIP (and have a proper imprint somewhere), or registered with the electoral commission themselves then they're breaking the law.
As always with the legal profession the default position is Nothing Is Ever Our Fault.
Where were the clarion calls when legal aid was being raided for millions for foreigners who have never set foot in Britain to sue the British army on completely spurious grounds?
Where was the criticism when certain barristers and judges used human rights law to effectively act as a (rather wll paid) fifth column against government policy?
Grayling is doing what he is doing because he can. And in some respects the bar and the solicitors had it coming.
What I get from the legal profession is a complete refusal to in any way whatsoever criticise or reform their attitudes and practices. They are completely right.
It is a childish, amateurish and nonsensical position.
The thought of almost anyone taking a pay cut is popular.....as long as it isn't themselves.
Especially as some of the best paid and high profile barristers in the land (they know who they are), have a towering contempt for British institutions and the governments they are so often set against.
"Labour Party donor and and stalwart of the Labour's 'Finance and Industry Group' (LFIG) Ian Wallace has today announced that he is joining UKIP after becoming disillusioned by the direction the Labour Party has taken. Mr Wallace has called on Labour members to join UKIP alongside him, to vote for them in tomorrow's European and local elections, and indeed give them support in the 2015 general election"
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/21/Labour-stalwart-defects-to-ukip
I don't think this is true. I don't have the figures but I would have thought the majority of people earn less than 100K. I don't think anyone really thinks anyone on less than 100K should have a pay cut.
Complete rubbish
Care to expand on "complete rubbish"?
Or will we descend into a trade of ever more inane insults?
( I am relaxed about either)
1. Chronic Oldham is unaffiliated with UKIP.
1. (a) They're breaking the law (as I understand the law, which isn't perfect I grant you).
1. (b) Why are they referring to Paul Nuttall as "our Deputy Leader"
1. (c) JenWilliams says she's seen the emails with agent and Electoral Commission. So if they aren't UKIP surely the agent denies responsibility and she wouldn't be calling them UKIP leaflets.
2. Chronic Oldham is affiliated with UKIP.
2 (a) There should be an imprint somewhere on the leaflet (can't see both sides etc). If there isn't they're breaking the law (as I understand the law, which isn't perfect I grant you).
2 (b) Chronic Oldham is telling lies on its own website.
2 (c) The leaflet would effectively be from UKIP.
So, not a made up story then.
Do I see apolgies from the many PB doubters on here, when the story first broke by Guido?
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ukip-launch-race-row-probe-7151633
"The leaflet was distributed by Joe Fitzpatrick, a former Labour councillor and one-time agent to shamed ex-MP Phil Woolas, but now a UKIP candidate and agent.
Mr Fitzpatrick has defended the pamphlet, insisting it reflects genuine concerns about electoral fraud in the borough - including deals in which candidates 'swap' postal votes across boundaries."
"in an email to the Electoral Commission, Mr Fitzpatrick defended the stance taken on his latest pamphlet.
He says the commission's observers should come down to Friday's count to observe the 'blatant abuse' taking place by certain candidates, whom he identifies.
In response the commission said any such concerns about fraud should be passed to police as soon as possible."
They seem sure of their ground.
Look at poor black men in the US, on trial for capital crimes and often forced to take court appointed lawyers who are no good, take no interest in the case and do sloppy work. They face years in prison and only later is it realised that there has been a miscarriage of justice. Why should we want to emulate that system here?
I have no dog in this fight. But as someone involved in catching fraudsters it is very depressing to see that our ability to do so and send a clear message to others that this is wrong is being compromised by a ludicrous cheese-paring approach which will not save costs. Where people have incompetent lawyers trials last longer so there is no saving.
I can't think of any group of people paid out of the public purse who have faced a 30% pay cut. Perhaps you or others could name some.
"The database... included eBay customers' name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth," it said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27503290
Identity theft coming your way in 3..2..1..
Some of the people who look after two relatives who are severely disabled. I wish they were paid double, treble what they are paid.
The people who are standing at bus stops at 4 in the morning in January in central London waiting to go into the city to clean offices/do other menial,clerical,admin jobs. Often living cheek by jowl with families on benefits who are going to bed at the same time as they are getting up. Bloody heroes (and mostly black and brown faces). I wish they were paid loads more, or paid far less in tax.
Soldiers/sailors/airmen risking their lives. I think their terms and conditions are a national shame.
Need I go on?
Some other points of fact. It was Parliament that passed the Human Rights Act 1998, and said that British courts were obliged to have regard to the judgments of the Strasbourg Court. Parliament is free to change the law if it wishes, although it shows no inclination to do so.
I also note that Bobby Ansah is saying stabbed, Lancashire constabulary are saying punched.
Ahem.
I seem to recall a couple of us raising our cyber-eyebrows a few weeks ago when it was reported that Joe Fitzpatrick had joined UKIP and that he was a UKIP candidate & agent.
What was the party thinking? One didn't exactly need the world's most refined bargepole to realise that it would be wise to avoid that little snafu.
People are entitled to their views about lawyers. When it's them or their son/daughter facing a prosecution and unable to find a suitably qualified and competent lawyer to help them they change their tune.
Who wants to make a market on it?
There were 44,976 Germans living in London and 42,151 Romanians at the time
5/6 the pair?
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/05/reasons-to-love-your-german-neighbours/
No mention of nurses, those people who get up early in the morning to clean up your rubbish, sweep streets so they are tidy for the rest going to work etc, All of them taking a real term paycut while the people who proposed the wage cap trouser a healthy rise.
Need I go on?
Actually, nothing much would change I guess.
In terms of the type of Government we're likely to see after the 2015 GE, I feel a Labour Minority one offers the best value at generous odds of 8/1 with Paddy Power, subject to their customary pathetically low stake limits.
This is likely to be the outcome should Labour win between 285 - 325 seats, which I also consider itself to be the most likely outcome (although I'd love Stephen Fisher to be right). I see the Socialists avoiding a coalition with the LibDems at all costs and this is all the more likely if the yellows suffer a halving or thereabouts of their current representation in the HoC.
DYOR.
Our failure to convict fraudsters at least means that the financial sector remains lucrative, and attracts clever people to work in the "City"?
Errr... Mrs. Free, if the people working for the CPS are so bloody awful then isn't that the criminals' advantage. Actually, perhaps what you really mean is that if your were to be on trial for a serious crime you would be quite happy about the quality of the prosecutors but be aghast that you could be defended by such incompetents. Having not terribly good lawyers on both sides just levels the playing field?
I have had this conversation so many times over the past forty years, each time to the horror of anyone from the legal establishment, but I am going to try again here. Perhaps it would be a good idea if a court hearing was primarily involved with establishing the true facts of what happened and not, as in England it is at the moment, be a "game played by and between lawyers for their own benefit".*
* That quote verbatim was from a junior counsel who later went on to be a QC and a criminal judge. I think he is still alive otherwise I would name him and the place where he made the speech.
"He predicts a 32 24 22 win for the ‘kippers, with the Tories in third and an unexpectedly high turnout for a Euro-vote"
http://order-order.com/2014/05/21/top-tory-attacks-cameron-euro-strategy/
What we need is a new "Maggie" to curb the power of these "unions"
Starve them and baton them till they fall into line I say!
pro-Wales vs anti-England
However, the rain is going to be patchy, and only heavy in relatively small areas for relatively short periods of time, so even if you think turnout is affected by the weather, it's not clear how large the effect would be.
There is no competitive advantage in being viewed as dishonest. Quite the contrary. If a proper City is to prosper - not just for itself but for the rest of us - it needs to be "clean". It won't be if people believe that the chances of being caught and punished are low. And it sends an appalling message to those who are doing the right thing and behaving honestly - that they're mugs for doing so.
Irony does not always work well in text, but take it from me that I agree with you.
So if we are stuck with the legal profession's HRA then it would have been more constructive if the legal profession had proposed alternative ways of reducing legal aid by 30%+.
You're confusing England with the UK polity and Westminster government/establishment.
Isn't the legal aid budget only for defence, and not prosecution?
To answer a separate point, perhaps there might be some cash left for serious fraud trials if certain members of the profession didn't pillage the legal aid budget for so many funds on behalf of people who have never set foot in the country (as mentioned before, with regard to a group of Iraqis?).
I read the other that one particular firm garnered 10 million quid in legal aid fees for this type of case in one year alone.
Shouldn't the profession be getting together and having a discussion about the prioritisation of funding? Is the question of scurrilous cases eating up the funds that can be better used elsewhere even being raised?
Of course it isn't. Because the profession is never wrong, and never needs to be reformed at all.
The adversarial system is not a game played by lawyers for their own benefit. It is merely a different (and often better) way of establishing the facts than a continental inquisition.
Result.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/ukip-oldham-leaflet-racism-row-7148269
"That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100272395/osborne-says-stop-abusing-ukip-supporters-a-bit-late-george/
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/05/20/voters-think-media-more-biased-against-UKIP/
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
Got any tips for the 3.30 at Lingfield?!