The unpalatable truth is that since the tuition fees debacle, nothing Nick has said has made the slightest difference but it is important for him to be the scapegoat, to carry the sins of the party (and himself) into the wilderness and to be sent there not by the party but by the electorate just as happened to John Major and Gordon Brown.
But in Scotland, the aftermath of the election will inevitably focus on what the results mean for the independence referendum on September 18.
The most obvious implication is that Alex Salmond’s often repeated claim that UKIP’s success highlights a fundamental difference between English and Scottish political attitudes now lacks any credibility.
The First Minister has already blamed the BBC for the development, claiming the national broadcaster has been “beaming in” English coverage of Nigel Farage and corrupting Scottish minds.
That was a desperate piece of spin that failed to deal with the reality of thousands of Scots deciding to vote for Nigel Farage's immigrant-bashing party.
No one in Scotland did more to promote UKIP than Alex Salmond. I suspect he knows this but I don't anticipate an admission. And a reasonable night for the Scottish Tories to cheer him up further!
Yes blusterman likes to play games. I simply note SNP votes 390k Con plus UKIP 372k. 18k difference. or 1,3% So much for his clear mandate.
BTW I note Steffan Armitage of Toulon, Man of the Match in the Heineken Final on Saturday, has been left out of the England 30 man team to tour New Zealand on the same day he was name European Player of the Year.
It makes some of the stupidity of the Scottish Rugby Union seem genius in comparison.
It is quite uncanny how these things work out. In 8 out of 11 regions, the Lib Dem vote fell by between 6% and 7%. Only, North West - 8.3% and North East - 11.6% were even higher.
Is it really that right wing to not tax the first £10,000 off of what people earn. I mean this is hardly helping the "rich". Its helping everyone, its the best policy the Lib Dems came up with !
The argument - as I understand it - is that increasing the personal allowance is hughely expensive, a significant amount goes to the better off, and it doesn't help those who don't work (i.e. "the poorest").
The left doesn't take into account that it isn't the government's money in the first place
But in Scotland, the aftermath of the election will inevitably focus on what the results mean for the independence referendum on September 18.
The most obvious implication is that Alex Salmond’s often repeated claim that UKIP’s success highlights a fundamental difference between English and Scottish political attitudes now lacks any credibility.
The First Minister has already blamed the BBC for the development, claiming the national broadcaster has been “beaming in” English coverage of Nigel Farage and corrupting Scottish minds.
That was a desperate piece of spin that failed to deal with the reality of thousands of Scots deciding to vote for Nigel Farage's immigrant-bashing party.
No one in Scotland did more to promote UKIP than Alex Salmond. I suspect he knows this but I don't anticipate an admission. And a reasonable night for the Scottish Tories to cheer him up further!
And the Scottish UKIP MEP has thanked him:
Scottish Ukip MEP thanks Alex Salmond for breakthrough The SNP initially dismissed Ukip as an irrelevance north of the Border, only for Mr Salmond to radically change tactics in the final weeks of the campaign and warn that only a vote for the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh could stop Mr Coburn. Senior Tory and Labour strategists said they thought this was a major error as they believed some of their supporters had subsequently voted tactically for Ukip to give Mr Salmond a political bloody nose ahead of the referendum campaign.
It is quite uncanny how these things work out. In 8 out of 11 regions, the Lib Dem vote fell by between 6% and 7%. Only, North West - 8.3% and North East - 11.6% were even higher.
Scotland was the best. They "lost" only 4.4%.
In some parts of Scotland they held up reasonably well. Along with Orkney & Shetland I could see them maybe hanging on to their Highland seats if not much else.
No one in Scotland did more to promote UKIP than Alex Salmond. I suspect he knows this but I don't anticipate an admission. And a reasonable night for the Scottish Tories to cheer him up further!
My club is a joke - this guy inherited a great young team and let them play, maybe too much so they got tired in some games, no obvious tactical acumen displayed and now as the team is broken up for sale, we blunder in.....
Ashdown/Ming/Kennedy - they all have a special place. Real tryers. Clegg has actually delivered something though, and it's pretty hard to deal with that for a party of tryers. It's hard enough to deal with the reconciliation of ideals with government if you're a member of the mainstream parties too.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
It seems perhaps we may have great politicians, but few ideas at the moment.
Hmmm. Great politicians? Great actors more likely. Glegg put on a master display of the misunderstood damaged leader, who must carry on for the good of his party. A modern Richard II. Pull the other one....
My club is a joke - this guy inherited a great young team and let them play, maybe too much so they got tired in some games, no obvious tactical acumen displayed and now as the team is broken up for sale, we blunder in.....
My club is a joke - this guy inherited a great young team and let them play, maybe too much so they got tired in some games, no obvious tactical acumen displayed and now as the team is broken up for sale, we blunder in.....
Alex Salmond's plans for an independent Scotland to join the EU within 18 months of a yes vote are "unachievable" and "not credible", a Commons committee has concluded. MPs on the Labour-dominated Scottish affairs select committee said the first minister ...
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Interestingly UKIP got 24,000 votes. As a comparison tories got 4,000, Greens 10,000 and long established Alliance Party 44,000, SDLP 81,000 and Ulster unionist party 83,000
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Speaking after becoming Ukip’s first elected politician in Scotland, Mr Coburn said of Mr Salmond’s intervention: “A lot of people are sick and tired of the SNP. It made people focus their minds on do they want another SNP seat?
“I would like to thank Alex Salmond for his tremendous help in getting us elected"
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate.
Furthermore, isn't it strange that the 'Party of Europe' didn't actually bother to look at coalitions in Europe? They seem to parcel out the departments on a party basis. Why didn't the LibDems insist on that here?
I think this is what you call a success-disaster. The Tories were expected to win at a canter so the LibDems could make whatever promises they liked, only the debate crippled Cameron and denied him a majority. Although the LibDems lost seats, they became kingmakers and ended up having to deliver on their lies.
Seeing the criticism of Gove over banning "Of Mice & Men" & "To Kill A Mockingbird" from English classes, reminded me that my Dad, a teacher who is a fan of Gove, criticised him last week as he has announced that the school my Dad teaches in will become an Academy, despite the staff, parents etc not wanting it to happen.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
And he's a man who should be listened to. Anyone that thought the Iraq War was a good idea, that boom and bust had been eradicated, and that joining the Euro would help our economy is obviously a man of sound judgment.
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
Tuition fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
Furthermore, isn't it strange that the 'Party of Europe' didn't actually bother to look at coalitions in Europe? They seem to parcel out the departments on a party basis. Why didn't the LibDems insist on that here?
One slightly unusual thing about the coalition was that the LibDems got absolutely loads of lower-down jobs, but in return hardly demanded any of the top ones. This roped lower-ranking LibDem into the deal, IIUC giving the coalition a majority just on Con + LibDem Payroll. It's one of a number of elaborate bondage and restraint devices in the coalition agreement, designed to prevent either party from ending the coalition early.
Obviously this arrangement worked out great for anyone in Cameron's inner circle as none of them had to move over and make way for a LibDem. The people who got screwed by the arrangement were ambitious Tory backbenchers, who were locked out of government for the duration.
Of Mice and Men isn't enjoyable nor that relevant nor is it great writing.
And it is certainly NOT banned.
Tuition fees have seen more students applying than ever - universities are feeling the heat as students demand better value.
Moaners will moan regardless.
Moaners will moan regardless
not so Sir H. All those Tories moaning about the NHS computer disaster being money down the drain don't moan when Willetts creates a much bigger fkup. Omerta.
Still one day we'll have Willetts head on a pike on the approach to London. Total twat.
Seeing the criticism of Gove over banning "Of Mice & Men" & "To Kill A Mockingbird" from English classes, reminded me that my Dad, a teacher who is a fan of Gove, criticised him last week as he has announced that the school my Dad teaches in will become an Academy, despite the staff, parents etc not wanting it to happen.
In all the debate around OM&M etc no one seems to have fessed up* to the fact that Eng depts teach the same texts because they can't afford sets of new ones. Nor do they have the time to prep to teach them.
*maybe because I've yet to see a current/ft teacher interviewed.
Tuiion fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
My feeling is that if it wasn't tuition fees it would've been something else. Maybe wouldn't have resonated as much or been something less symbolic, but something else.
We had 57 MPs to the Tories 306. We were always going to have to give up large chunks of our manifesto to what the Tories wanted.
In hindsight tuition fees was a bad one to give up (possibly partly driven that Clegg was never behind the policy in the first place) given how it resonated, and a worse decision was to then agree to have it under Cable's purview as it went through. If we couldn't hold tuition fees then we should've put it in a Tory department and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
Assuming the latter what do you think the result would be? Unfair, horrible, and ghastly, but trebling tuition fees might just lead to more equality.
There's a weird effect that education loses it's attractions when it becomes easy to attain. In fact it loses its attraction if it becomes cheap and the audience is poorly educated. Now there's a thing about that tag - I mean poorly educated only if you don't retain the natural lifelong passion for knowing stuff, and of course you have that unless you have received a bad education. I'm sorry to say this, but most people (in the UK) have received a bad education.
Mr. Brooke, it's ridiculous that the Willetts idiocy only appears to be raised on here. I'd suggest PB is wrong, but it does have a rather better record than the mainstream media.
It takes a special policy to increase fees and at the same time increase the cost to the taxpayer.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
Sad to see the skilled dark art of making someone an offer they cannot refuse seems to vanished from politics these days,the L/DS being the latest example-Cameron should have removed at least half the cabinet as well. Ruthlessness is in short supply these days.It makes me feel old.
Seeing the criticism of Gove over banning "Of Mice & Men" & "To Kill A Mockingbird" from English classes, reminded me that my Dad, a teacher who is a fan of Gove, criticised him last week as he has announced that the school my Dad teaches in will become an Academy, despite the staff, parents etc not wanting it to happen.
In all the debate around OM&M etc no one seems to have fessed up* to the fact that Eng depts teach the same texts because they can't afford sets of new ones. Nor do they have the time to prep to teach them.
*maybe because I've yet to see a current/ft teacher interviewed.
I actually like both of the books mentioned, but wasnt commenting on that, just that seeing it on Ch 4 reminded me of the Warren School becoming an academy despite nobody wanting it.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
If AV<>PR, why on Earth did the LibDems agree to it?
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
Tuiion fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
My feeling is that if it wasn't tuition fees it would've been something else. Maybe wouldn't have resonated as much or been something less symbolic, but something else.
We had 57 MPs to the Tories 306. We were always going to have to give up large chunks of our manifesto to what the Tories wanted.
In hindsight tuition fees was a bad one to give up (possibly partly driven that Clegg was never behind the policy in the first place) given how it resonated, and a worse decision was to then agree to have it under Cable's purview as it went through. If we couldn't hold tuition fees then we should've put it in a Tory department and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
I know this doesn't help with the political damage but the resulting policy was pretty good...
Tuiion fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
My feeling is that if it wasn't tuition fees it would've been something else. Maybe wouldn't have resonated as much or been something less symbolic, but something else.
We had 57 MPs to the Tories 306. We were always going to have to give up large chunks of our manifesto to what the Tories wanted.
In hindsight tuition fees was a bad one to give up (possibly partly driven that Clegg was never behind the policy in the first place) given how it resonated, and a worse decision was to then agree to have it under Cable's purview as it went through. If we couldn't hold tuition fees then we should've put it in a Tory department and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
Even if they had abstained in parliament it would have been forgivable, but such a U turn of a front line policy was awful for their integrity, not to mention PR.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
If AV<>PR, why on Earth did the LibDems agree to it?
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
Because Cameron managed to hoodwink them at the time of the Coalition negotiations in May 2010.
Seeing the criticism of Gove over banning "Of Mice & Men" & "To Kill A Mockingbird" from English classes, reminded me that my Dad, a teacher who is a fan of Gove, criticised him last week as he has announced that the school my Dad teaches in will become an Academy, despite the staff, parents etc not wanting it to happen.
In all the debate around OM&M etc no one seems to have fessed up* to the fact that Eng depts teach the same texts because they can't afford sets of new ones. Nor do they have the time to prep to teach them.
*maybe because I've yet to see a current/ft teacher interviewed.
I actually like both of the books mentioned, but wasnt commenting on that, just that seeing it on Ch 4 reminded me of the Warren School becoming an academy despite nobody wanting it.
Tuiion fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
My feeling is that if it wasn't tuition fees it would've been something else. Maybe wouldn't have resonated as much or been something less symbolic, but something else.
We had 57 MPs to the Tories 306. We were always going to have to give up large chunks of our manifesto to what the Tories wanted.
In hindsight tuition fees was a bad one to give up (possibly partly driven that Clegg was never behind the policy in the first place) given how it resonated, and a worse decision was to then agree to have it under Cable's purview as it went through. If we couldn't hold tuition fees then we should've put it in a Tory department and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
Even if they had abstained in parliament it would have been forgivable, but such a U turn of a front line policy was awful for their integrity, not to mention PR.
I think had it not been under Cable's department we would have abstained.
It wasn't really a front line policy before the election. It go elevated in status a lot afterwards during the controversy. It's why I wonder if it had been something else given up that that would've been elevated instead.
Just finished a bit of analysis on how the pollsters did with the Euros.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
You'd struggle to get away with letting unis charge what they like.
Originally bozo Willetts said only a handful of unis would charge £9k ( Oxbridge ) average charges would be closer to £6k. In the end they nearly all charged £9k.
Now Oxbridge want fees of £16k. Cue a massive rise in fees, cries of elitisim and the hard economic reality that if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
If AV<>PR, why on Earth did the LibDems agree to it?
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
Two reasons: 1) It almost guarantees more LibDem seats than FPTP gives them, assuming the LibDems are more transfer-friendly than their opponents. 2) Arguably it would have been an incremental change on the way to a more proportional system. (*) Start by ordering the candidates and redistributing them. (AV). Then come back and make another change to use bigger seats with multiple MPs, which you could phase in gradually, and you have STV.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
If AV<>PR, why on Earth did the LibDems agree to it?
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
Because the Conservatives wouldn't countenance any sort of PR. Labour were also somewhat receptive to AV.
Same thing on Lords reform, the proposals were watered down as far as they could be to try and get the Conservative backbenchers (that Cameron couldn't deliver) onside. As it turned out they weren't willing to have elections to the upper house in any form.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
Nah, they should keep the fees, but give the students a contribution (possibly 100%) towards the cost.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
You forgot our net contribution to Europe, which is greater than overseas aid.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
You'd struggle to get away with letting unis charge what they like.
Originally bozo Willetts said only a handful of unis would charge £9k ( Oxbridge ) average charges would be closer to £6k. In the end they nearly all charged £9k.
Now Oxbridge want fees of £16k. Cue a massive rise in fees, cries of elitisim and the hard economic reality that if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live.
"if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live"
Congratulations Alanbrooke, that is the first time I have read or heard a sound economic argument against tuition fees.
Not that I agree with your conclusions, I think there are a lot more "hard economic realities" which bite if we don't have tuition fees, and that if a tuition fee system is sensibly organised it does not need to have any inflationary effect, but every other argument I have encountered on the anti-tuition fees side of the debate have all been either unashamedly based on emotion, or betray fundamental misunderstanding of economic theory and reality. This is the first exception I have come across and I take my hat off to you sir.
Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Scotland has as many UKIP MEPs as London which, unlike Scotland, returned a Green MEP. It's hardly a different country, is it?
UKIP's best Scottish result - Moray 13.6% UKIP's Worst rest of UK result - London 16.9%
Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Scotland has as many UKIP MEPs as London which, unlike Scotland, returned a Green MEP. It's hardly a different country, is it?
UKIP's best Scottish result - Moray 13.6% UKIP's Worst rest of UK result - London 16.9%
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
Good idea at university level. Far too logical. It'll have no legs. Certainly Gove would never approve.
A newly elected Ukip councillor has become the latest party member to face accusations of racism and homophobia, just days after Nigel Farage celebrated unprecedented gains in local elections in England.
Dave Small, who has just been selected as a councillor for the Redditch borough council in Worcestershire, already faces the prospect of being kicked out of the party after he reportedly described gay people as “perverts” and immigrants as “money-grabbing scum”.
“Why on earth is this useless Government[sic] pandering to Puffs?” he reportedly wrote. “I refuse to call them gays, as what has gay to do with Perverts like Elton John and Clair[sic] Balding who get their jollies in such disgusting ways. To sum up, they should not allowed to be married, they should go back to the closet.”
The party issued a statement saying that the case would be looked into as part of “an established disciplinary procedure”. Similar incidents in the past have seen members kicked out of the party.
I suspect over the next year or so we'll see a lot of stories of "Lazy UKIP MEPs never turn up" and "UKIP councillor facebook outrage"
Just finished a bit of analysis on how the pollsters did with the Euros.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
What are the current odds on a second election in 2015? As things stand now I find it hard to see how any working majority or coalition can be achieved by anyone.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
You forgot our net contribution to Europe, which is greater than overseas aid.
I've already allocated that to the Hurst LLama beer fund.
The map I saw showed London an island of lukewarm support for UKIP amidst a sea of stronger support, with vote share weakening a little in Wales and the north of England before diminishing a shade more in Scotland.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
You'd struggle to get away with letting unis charge what they like.
Originally bozo Willetts said only a handful of unis would charge £9k ( Oxbridge ) average charges would be closer to £6k. In the end they nearly all charged £9k.
Now Oxbridge want fees of £16k. Cue a massive rise in fees, cries of elitisim and the hard economic reality that if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live.
If the taxpayer ain't paying who cares what the unis charge for a joint honours degree in medieval pottery and flower arranging or whatever. If Oxford can find people willing to pay £16k a year for its PPE course, or some fourth-rate ex-poly £9k a year for its degree in Golf Course management, good luck to them. The market will soon sort out what is worth keeping and how much it is worth, providing the government gets out of the way.
STEMM subjects are, however, vital to the future of the national and as such the taxpayer should rally round and fund them and contribute to their students' living allowances.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
You forgot our net contribution to Europe, which is greater than overseas aid.
I don't think it is - can you post your source or your numbers?
It's so obvious that barring disaster the Conservatives will now go on to win the General Election. Look:
1. Lab and Cons are neck and neck with 12 months to go. That's dreadful for Labour 2. UKIP don't perform anything like so well in GE polls, just as they didn't in the locals 3. UKIP returning support breaks 2:1 to the Cons 4. The economy is strong and getting stronger. + 5. Governing parties also tend to gain support in the run up 6. EdM is weird (the voters)
They will put on a 5-12% lead between now and GE2015 for a win.
Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Not quite nowhere in vote terms (all percentage points, from memory)
about 6% from previous time about 1.5% from BNP and about 4% from other parties - I suspect some Tory but also some Labour as well as the Europhobes from other parties. There must have been some shifting around to accommodate the displaced LDs.
[edit - actually a little less than 4%, arithmetic a bit rusty!]
The UKIP vote in Scotland went from 5.3% to 10.5%, almost exactly doubling. The tory vote went up 0.4%. Given the main source of UKIP support is supposed to be disaffected tories I find this really odd.
Ah, thanks for the refinement. Yes, you'd indeed need 4% from some other parties. But it is perfectly possible that the Tory increase would have been even greater had it not been for UKIP. I also wonder about turnout, now you mention it. Could the Euro have encouraged Europhobes to turn out disproportionately?
Turnouit up from 28.5% in 2009 to 34% - without the spur of local elections on the same day.
On the back of the Indyref debate, almost all the polls identified Scots as being the most committed to voting.
The tuition fees was a debacle (Lib Dems will have to learn that coalitions are now a very real possibility and hostage-to-fortune popular policies are no longer allowed), losing Laws and Huhne didn't help and Cable's diminishing visibility has exposed Clegg to continual buckets of horse-shit being tipped on his head.
Excuse me?
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate. .
AV wasn't PR, nor would it have caused coalitions.
If AV<>PR, why on Earth did the LibDems agree to it?
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
Because the Conservatives wouldn't countenance any sort of PR. Labour were also somewhat receptive to AV.
Same thing on Lords reform, the proposals were watered down as far as they could be to try and get the Conservative backbenchers (that Cameron couldn't deliver) onside. As it turned out they weren't willing to have elections to the upper house in any form.
Lords reform was an idiotic Tory own goal, and may haunt them in 2015, but to leave the boundaries as odd as they are was hardly a shining L Dem moment. I mean W Isles five times the value per vote of Isle of Wight?
Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Scotland has as many UKIP MEPs as London which, unlike Scotland, returned a Green MEP. It's hardly a different country, is it?
UKIP's best Scottish result - Moray 13.6% UKIP's Worst rest of UK result - London 16.9%
Seem a pretty clear distinction to me.
Quite. That line of argument would also be more credible if the SNP had about 10 MEPs in England and Wales, and the Tories about half as many. By the way, 17% for Tories is not that impressive by Scottish standards as shown in the Parliament. Basically the Kippers got most of the BNP and a few Europobes, and bumped up a little to get over the boundary for a seat. If that was the worst Mr C or Mr M had to suffer, they'd be delighted.
It's incidentally being very heavily ramped by the BBC (e.g. in the interview with Ms Sturgeon today). I couldn't possibly imagine why.
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
MD!
Would you mind awfully if I called you a blithering idiot and recommended a reading list?
I envy you enormously in that whether you take my advice or not there's this simply amazing world before you. I know you half know this anyway in that you've evidenced some reading of the classics, and perhaps a really careful reading of some.
The book that made literature shine for me was "The Citadel" by AJ Cronin. Since I read that though there are many books that have made the world shine more generally - Pride and Predjudice, Les Miserables, Trollope, Dickens, and a virtual infinity of others.
When you've properly sorted yourself out and realised that literature is one of the great pleasures of life then I'd recommend setting aside a few weeks/months to the novels of Patrick O'Brian. The world will never be the same again when you realise he's stolen all that time and yet you'd happily pay the price twice-over.
Mr. Owl, the Lib Dem proposals were completely ridiculous. One off 15 year terms are just crazy.
Mr. Omnium, I'd say recommend away, but a combination of immense poverty (even worse than I thought...) and having a largely unread Complete Works of Shakespeare means that I'm not really able to buy anything and am very likely to go on a Shakespeare binge once I finish my current book (the last of the many I got for Christmas).
Talk of Better Together reminds me of how graceless and grumpy Alex Salmond was on the telly last night. I know Scotland is a different country, but that can't have been appealing to many people anywhere, can it?
Agreed. Not one of his better efforts. One of the strangest results on a strange night is UKIP coming from nowhere to win a seat in Scotland AND the tory vote rising at the same time (albeit by MoE levels).
Where did the UKIP supporters come from? It would be fascinating to know. The obvious answer is ex Lib Dems and given what happened elsewhere I don't think that can be ruled out. I also wonder if some SNP supporters are not completely engaged with Salmond's love affair with the EU.
Anyway with 63% of the votes for Unionist parties it was a good night for no.
Not quite nowhere in vote terms (all percentage points, from memory)
about 6% from previous time about 1.5% from BNP and about 4% from other parties - I suspect some Tory but also some Labour as well as the Europhobes from other parties. There must have been some shifting around to accommodate the displaced LDs.
[edit - actually a little less than 4%, arithmetic a bit rusty!]
The UKIP vote in Scotland went from 5.3% to 10.5%, almost exactly doubling. The tory vote went up 0.4%. Given the main source of UKIP support is supposed to be disaffected tories I find this really odd.
Ah, thanks for the refinement. Yes, you'd indeed need 4% from some other parties. But it is perfectly possible that the Tory increase would have been even greater had it not been for UKIP. I also wonder about turnout, now you mention it. Could the Euro have encouraged Europhobes to turn out disproportionately?
Turnouit up from 28.5% in 2009 to 34% - without the spur of local elections on the same day.
On the back of the Indyref debate, almost all the polls identified Scots as being the most committed to voting.
You forgot NI again! Turnout Up in the Province from 42.8 to 51.8%!
The electoral oblivion apparently confronting the Liberal Democrats as led by Nick Clegg was underscored on Monday by leaked opinion polls in four seats showing that the party will be wiped out.
Commissioned by a Lib Dem supporter from ICM and subsequently passed to the Guardian, the polling indicates that the Lib Dem leader would forfeit his own Sheffield Hallam constituency at the next election.
The LDs need to find a policy that sets them apart. A wishy-washy environmentalism, mixed with a kow-towing to world groups (unfairly I'm sure, but that's how I see them) isn't a vote winner.
Legal weed?
Scrap tuition fees...
or treble them
If UKIP scrap tuition fees I'll vote for them.
If they scrap tuition fees for STEM subjects and give students on those courses a maintenance grant and allow univesities to charge what they like for the rest they might have the basis for a viable HE policy that will be of long term benefit to the nation as a whole.
You'd struggle to get away with letting unis charge what they like.
Originally bozo Willetts said only a handful of unis would charge £9k ( Oxbridge ) average charges would be closer to £6k. In the end they nearly all charged £9k.
Now Oxbridge want fees of £16k. Cue a massive rise in fees, cries of elitisim and the hard economic reality that if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live.
If the taxpayer ain't paying who cares what the unis charge for a joint honours degree in medieval pottery and flower arranging or whatever. If Oxford can find people willing to pay £16k a year for its PPE course, or some fourth-rate ex-poly £9k a year for its degree in Golf Course management, good luck to them. The market will soon sort out what is worth keeping and how much it is worth, providing the government gets out of the way.
STEMM subjects are, however, vital to the future of the national and as such the taxpayer should rally round and fund them and contribute to their students' living allowances.
sorry Mr L "the market" is doing nothing of the sort. HMG is ineradicably dug in to the education system. Therefore it is the taxpayer who is ultimately on the line for the bill.
Willetts has screwed up the numbers and gaylord Cameron would rather grandstand noblesse oblige with African autocrats than fund our own kids.
Which ever way you cut it education has to be paid for, simply pushing the bills on to future generations and charging them interest for the pleasure is moronic. The bill will come back to society in higher salaries. How's that pension looking ?
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
That has to be the most depressing thing I've ever read on PB.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the finest books ever written, spawning one of the finest films ever made, Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch is phenomenal.
Just finished a bit of analysis on how the pollsters did with the Euros.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
This is a corollary to the first law of UK Polling:
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
That has to be the most depressing thing I've ever read on PB.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the finest books ever written, spawning one of the finest films ever made, Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch is phenomenal.
He won an Oscar, deservedly so.
I also read the book at school and quite liked it. A fond memory of that time was my friends and I conflating Burris Ewell with Boris Yeltsin into Burris Yeltsin!
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
That has to be the most depressing thing I've ever read on PB.
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the finest books ever written, spawning one of the finest films ever made, Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch is phenomenal.
He won an Oscar, deservedly so.
Any thoughts on the ICM poll in the Guardian showing Labour ahead of Clegg in Sheffield Hallam? A result backed up by the Euro elections? :P
Would commenters more experienced (i.e. older) than me care to comment on John Major vs Ed Miliband in weirdness stakes.
I'm always rather skeptical of how much revisionist history there is in terms of someone "looking prime ministerial".
Nah. You either have it or you don't and ordinary people spot the weird and unelectable ones pretty quickly: Kinnock, Howard, IDS were all good examples of people who would never convince the electorate. Gordon Brown was able to slip in the back-door route as Prime Mentalist but soon got found out.
I'm surprised you bring John Major in. He was Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the space of a few months and seemed a pretty safe pair of hands as PM against Hesseltine's tarzanic posturing at the time. I don't think anyone really thought of him as 'weird,' and he had the common touch that is always an asset for a Conservative: genuinely being able to talk about his working class council estate roots.
EdM is never going to be PM. The Conservatives have just got to pray Labour don't wake up and smell the coffee.
Mr. Llama, assuming STEM's what I think it is, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, or something like that) I think that's a great idea.
You got it , Mr. D.. I meant to type STEMM, of course, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine). As for the rest, all very nice but as a nation we are skint so if someone really wants to go and read history or whatever they can pay for it themselves.
I disagree, We're not that skint, we're just spending our money on the wrong stuff. Scrap overseas aid and fund our kids instead.
I agree with the sentiment that we are spending what money we have on the wrong stuff, but we are really, really skint. The interest on the national debt is now nudging £1bn a week and the debt will be rising for a few more years yet. HMG is still borrowing every week to pay the bills. Come on, Mr. Brooke, you now this stuff as well as I do - one reason why so often and correctly slag off Osborne on these very pages.
Well, if the deficit is ever to be eliminated then some things HMG spends money on will have to go. Overseas Aid, beyond emergency relief, should be one candidate for the axe and non-STEMM HE should be another.
Evening all - totally OT. but has anyone (AndyJS?) created a nice spreadsheet somewhere with all the sub-regional European Election Results? Much obliged if it has already been done - if someone is in the middle of doing it, happy to contribute the small amount of spare time that I have over the next couple of days to assist.
Michael Gove has hit out at the “culture warriors” he says have falsely accused him of banning American novels including To Kill a Mockingbird from English literature GCSE courses.
Comments
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/26/tony-blair-ukip-europe_n_5392047.html
It makes some of the stupidity of the Scottish Rugby Union seem genius in comparison.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/27578299
Scotland was the best. They "lost" only 4.4%.
The left doesn't take into account that it isn't the government's money in the first place
Scottish Ukip MEP thanks Alex Salmond for breakthrough
The SNP initially dismissed Ukip as an irrelevance north of the Border, only for Mr Salmond to radically change tactics in the final weeks of the campaign and warn that only a vote for the SNP’s Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh could stop Mr Coburn.
Senior Tory and Labour strategists said they thought this was a major error as they believed some of their supporters had subsequently voted tactically for Ukip to give Mr Salmond a political bloody nose ahead of the referendum campaign.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10857110/Scottish-Ukip-MEP-thanks-Alex-Salmond-for-breakthrough.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27579306
Grauniad boo-boo: theguardian.com, Monday 26 May 2014 19.06 BST
This article has been taken down as it breached an embargo.
http://www.theguardian.com/info/2014/may/26/removed-embargoed-article
Meanwhile on google.....
Alex Salmond's plans for an independent Scotland to join the EU within 18 months of a yes vote are "unachievable" and "not credible", a Commons committee has concluded. MPs on the Labour-dominated Scottish affairs select committee said the first minister ...
Gavin Moore @jwgavinmoore
Twitter tweet
Some guesstimates we'll be here to 2:30am #VoteNI2014
Interestingly UKIP got 24,000 votes. As a comparison tories got 4,000, Greens 10,000 and long established Alliance Party 44,000, SDLP 81,000 and Ulster unionist party 83,000
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/elections/european-election-2014-sinn-feins-martina-anderson-tops-the-poll-30305034.html
A creditable performance by UKIP.
Over 51% in NI, that's massive turnout.
25.5% - SF got almost exactly the same in Westminster 2010, again topping the poll.
Nationalist vote 38.5%, almost exactly in line with Local election result.
or treble them
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10857110/Scottish-Ukip-MEP-thanks-Alex-Salmond-for-breakthrough.html
Speaking after becoming Ukip’s first elected politician in Scotland, Mr Coburn said of Mr Salmond’s intervention: “A lot of people are sick and tired of the SNP. It made people focus their minds on do they want another SNP seat?
“I would like to thank Alex Salmond for his tremendous help in getting us elected"
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/eamon-gilmore-quits-as-labour-leader-1.1809400
The only way the LibDems were ever going to be in power was in coalition. They certainly were encouraging it in their advocacy of PR, which is one of the reasons it was resoundingly rejected by the electorate.
Furthermore, isn't it strange that the 'Party of Europe' didn't actually bother to look at coalitions in Europe? They seem to parcel out the departments on a party basis. Why didn't the LibDems insist on that here?
I think this is what you call a success-disaster. The Tories were expected to win at a canter so the LibDems could make whatever promises they liked, only the debate crippled Cameron and denied him a majority. Although the LibDems lost seats, they became kingmakers and ended up having to deliver on their lies.
I do hope Nigel Farage is watching.
http://www.barkinganddagenhampost.co.uk/news/michael_gove_to_turn_warren_school_into_academy_despite_parents_wishes_1_3597295
And it is certainly NOT banned.
Tuition fees have seen more students applying than ever - universities are feeling the heat as students demand better value.
Moaners will moan regardless.
Mr. Isam, I read To Kill A Mockingbird at school. Utterly tedious. The main lesson I took from it was that dressing as ham makes you impervious to knife attacks.
Mind you, I found almost everything (except MacBeth) we read boring. I think the structure of reading in class, as well as being too young to get many Shakespeare references, was not conducive to enjoying books I otherwise might.
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/25/mockingbird-mice-and-men-axed-michael-gove-gcse
Tuition fees, good/bad/whatever. The point is that pledging to scrap something in a manifesto then voting to treble them as soon as you get power, is filth.
Obviously this arrangement worked out great for anyone in Cameron's inner circle as none of them had to move over and make way for a LibDem. The people who got screwed by the arrangement were ambitious Tory backbenchers, who were locked out of government for the duration.
not so Sir H. All those Tories moaning about the NHS computer disaster being money down the drain don't moan when Willetts creates a much bigger fkup. Omerta.
Still one day we'll have Willetts head on a pike on the approach to London. Total twat.
*maybe because I've yet to see a current/ft teacher interviewed.
We had 57 MPs to the Tories 306. We were always going to have to give up large chunks of our manifesto to what the Tories wanted.
In hindsight tuition fees was a bad one to give up (possibly partly driven that Clegg was never behind the policy in the first place) given how it resonated, and a worse decision was to then agree to have it under Cable's purview as it went through. If we couldn't hold tuition fees then we should've put it in a Tory department and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
There's a weird effect that education loses it's attractions when it becomes easy to attain. In fact it loses its attraction if it becomes cheap and the audience is poorly educated. Now there's a thing about that tag - I mean poorly educated only if you don't retain the natural lifelong passion for knowing stuff, and of course you have that unless you have received a bad education. I'm sorry to say this, but most people (in the UK) have received a bad education.
It takes a special policy to increase fees and at the same time increase the cost to the taxpayer.
Ruthlessness is in short supply these days.It makes me feel old.
When was the last time a party got >50% of the votes at a national UK election? Not last Thursday, that's for sure.
It wasn't really a front line policy before the election. It go elevated in status a lot afterwards during the controversy. It's why I wonder if it had been something else given up that that would've been elevated instead.
YouGov did best, ComRes worst by some distance, justifying their popular tag, "Comedy Results". ICM and YouGov both understate UKIP (ICM quite significantly), while all other pollsters overstate their support. Overstatement of Labour support and understatement of Conservative support are both almost universal, the notable exception being ICM overstating the Conservative share by 2.1%.
Perhaps the most significant numbers in terms of extrapolating to next year's General Election are the error figures for the gaps between the parties. All pollsters overstate Labour's lead over Conservative - ICM are closest to accurate in this respect, overstating the Labour lead by just 1.5 points, while the average overstatement of Labour's lead is 3.17 points. ComRes again have the worst record here, overstating the Labour lead by 5.5 points. In terms of the Conservative lead over Libdem, this is on average understated by pollsters by 2.43 points, only ICM overstate the Con>Lib lead, by 1.9 points.
Mike / PB team, happy to share my summary page if you want to look into the results any further.
Originally bozo Willetts said only a handful of unis would charge £9k ( Oxbridge ) average charges would be closer to £6k. In the end they nearly all charged £9k.
Now Oxbridge want fees of £16k. Cue a massive rise in fees, cries of elitisim and the hard economic reality that if we aren't paying education in taxes we'll be paying it in our prices and with interest on top. Grads have to live.
1) It almost guarantees more LibDem seats than FPTP gives them, assuming the LibDems are more transfer-friendly than their opponents.
2) Arguably it would have been an incremental change on the way to a more proportional system. (*) Start by ordering the candidates and redistributing them. (AV). Then come back and make another change to use bigger seats with multiple MPs, which you could phase in gradually, and you have STV.
Same thing on Lords reform, the proposals were watered down as far as they could be to try and get the Conservative backbenchers (that Cameron couldn't deliver) onside. As it turned out they weren't willing to have elections to the upper house in any form.
Congratulations Alanbrooke, that is the first time I have read or heard a sound economic argument against tuition fees.
Not that I agree with your conclusions, I think there are a lot more "hard economic realities" which bite if we don't have tuition fees, and that if a tuition fee system is sensibly organised it does not need to have any inflationary effect, but every other argument I have encountered on the anti-tuition fees side of the debate have all been either unashamedly based on emotion, or betray fundamental misunderstanding of economic theory and reality. This is the first exception I have come across and I take my hat off to you sir.
UKIP's Worst rest of UK result - London 16.9%
Seem a pretty clear distinction to me.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-councillor-in-homophobia-and-racism-row-over-elton-john-pervert-and-immigrant-scum-comments--just-48-hours-after-being-elected-9433361.html I suspect over the next year or so we'll see a lot of stories of "Lazy UKIP MEPs never turn up" and "UKIP councillor facebook outrage"
The map I saw showed London an island of lukewarm support for UKIP amidst a sea of stronger support, with vote share weakening a little in Wales and the north of England before diminishing a shade more in Scotland.
STEMM subjects are, however, vital to the future of the national and as such the taxpayer should rally round and fund them and contribute to their students' living allowances.
1. Lab and Cons are neck and neck with 12 months to go. That's dreadful for Labour
2. UKIP don't perform anything like so well in GE polls, just as they didn't in the locals
3. UKIP returning support breaks 2:1 to the Cons
4. The economy is strong and getting stronger.
+
5. Governing parties also tend to gain support in the run up
6. EdM is weird (the voters)
They will put on a 5-12% lead between now and GE2015 for a win.
On the back of the Indyref debate, almost all the polls identified Scots as being the most committed to voting.
It's incidentally being very heavily ramped by the BBC (e.g. in the interview with Ms Sturgeon today). I couldn't possibly imagine why.
Would you mind awfully if I called you a blithering idiot and recommended a reading list?
I envy you enormously in that whether you take my advice or not there's this simply amazing world before you. I know you half know this anyway in that you've evidenced some reading of the classics, and perhaps a really careful reading of some.
The book that made literature shine for me was "The Citadel" by AJ Cronin. Since I read that though there are many books that have made the world shine more generally - Pride and Predjudice, Les Miserables, Trollope, Dickens, and a virtual infinity of others.
When you've properly sorted yourself out and realised that literature is one of the great pleasures of life then I'd recommend setting aside a few weeks/months to the novels of Patrick O'Brian. The world will never be the same again when you realise he's stolen all that time and yet you'd happily pay the price twice-over.
I'm always rather skeptical of how much revisionist history there is in terms of someone "looking prime ministerial".
Mr. Omnium, I'd say recommend away, but a combination of immense poverty (even worse than I thought...) and having a largely unread Complete Works of Shakespeare means that I'm not really able to buy anything and am very likely to go on a Shakespeare binge once I finish my current book (the last of the many I got for Christmas).
(granted I was 12 when John Major became Prime Minister, so I'm not sure I qualify on the older stakes)
It was the 1992 General Election that sparked my interest in politics.
One thing, I can't see Ed Miliband ever beating John Major's 1992 record of the most votes ever received by a party at a General Election.
Willetts has screwed up the numbers and gaylord Cameron would rather grandstand noblesse oblige with African autocrats than fund our own kids.
Which ever way you cut it education has to be paid for, simply pushing the bills on to future generations and charging them interest for the pleasure is moronic. The bill will come back to society in higher salaries. How's that pension looking ?
To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the finest books ever written, spawning one of the finest films ever made, Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch is phenomenal.
He won an Oscar, deservedly so.
The lowest Labour Poll result is right.
Major was portrayed as dull and grey by the satirists of the day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK-TDfempwY
I'm surprised you bring John Major in. He was Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the space of a few months and seemed a pretty safe pair of hands as PM against Hesseltine's tarzanic posturing at the time. I don't think anyone really thought of him as 'weird,' and he had the common touch that is always an asset for a Conservative: genuinely being able to talk about his working class council estate roots.
EdM is never going to be PM. The Conservatives have just got to pray Labour don't wake up and smell the coffee.
Well, if the deficit is ever to be eliminated then some things HMG spends money on will have to go. Overseas Aid, beyond emergency relief, should be one candidate for the axe and non-STEMM HE should be another.