we have a major problem with low pay and the cost of in work benefits.
Europe's pool of labour is like fitting a giant turbo to UK growth. We could have a huge boom without significant wage inflation, in contrast to the booms of the past (such as the Lawson boom).
Would wages pick up even if growth got to chinese or Indian levels? I'm no expert, but I guess its conceivable they might not.
I think this timely blog about the "boomless boom" may help with your question
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I haven't since it's introduction, prior though I had a job on a derisory hourly rate.
Thanks for answering Jim - I was expecting answers like that to be fairly standard (if anyone did answer). I was in my thirties though - and I had to get a bus - and thatcher said that if you're on the bus and over thirty - I see a man who's failed in life...
If the suggestion from Mr Ears is correct, then that's different.
For utmost clarity: not "my" suggestion. Just gloriously conspiratorial, evidence-free insinuation posted at Wings. Funny, but for long-time PBers, not as good as Tapestry's stuff. As soon as he got a whiff of something that didn't add up, the illuminati and their puppets would be drafted in to plug the gap. The allegation of inadequate donations oversight by the Electoral Commission is weak in comparison.
But that sort of thing does make me wonder. As DavidL said, the Indyref has been strikingly divisive and it isn't clear that all fissures will heal. Being broadly in favour of Scottish independence, I don't mind that one bit. I get the feeling it will be second or third time of trying so we're in Neverendum territory. In that case, the idea of a referendum giving constitutional clarity and putting the issue to bed, seems as much of a failure as devolution "killing nationalism stone dead" (copyright George Robertson, 1995).
If the (first) referendum fails, there does seem to be a hardcore of Scots nats who really wouldn't put anything past The Establishment. Not just that they're evil/stupid/nasty/self-interested/actually traitors for wanting Scotland to vote "No", but that they are willing to cheat and steal to do so. A cybernat internet meltdown in the event of a "No" may be vicariously amusing, for the psychological insight into cognitive dissonance as much as for the Schadenfreude, but what traditions will permeate in the memory? "We woz robbed", almost certainly, if Quebec is anything to go by. I wonder what the Scottish equivalent will be of "par d'argent puis des votes ethniques". But judging from the more extreme side of what floats up online, I'd bet a small but significant percentage of Scots are going to believe it was rigged, moon-landing style. And a wider proportion are going to believe that the whole system was biased against them (the BBC, the press, the Electoral Commission and legal process, the civil service, the political and business and cultural elite, the whole damned lot). In retrospect it will be seen as a little miracle that so much as 40% (or whatever) of the electorate voted in favour, when the rest were cowed into submission. The true voice of the people, drowned out by the insidious and organised force of Fear Itself.
Maybe the senior leadership of Yes will put their hands up, admit being beaten fair and square, commiserate their campaign workers, pledge to listen to the people, look for "lessons to be learned". Handle themselves with disappointed magnaminity. But in the burning grassroots, watch out for the embers of bitterness and anger at a great injustice. That's where plenty of fuel for a re-run will be found.
Interesting article, but weird. Lots of bizarre Tory mythology from way back when. The most interesting question it raises, is why the article has to be written now.
I don't really think there's too much doubt that 1992 would still have been a "good one to lose". 1992-97 did the Conservatives a lot of damage - not so much Black Wednesday, but the succession of sleaze stories, splits and inadequate ministers.
But if by "Tory mythology" you mean the idea that a timeline involving a 1997 Tory win post-PM Kinnock would somehow have given us a vastly different, more-1950s country today - well, I'd have to agree that that's unlikely.
Who knows...
1997 New UK Prime Minister Ken Clarke and Chancellor Portillo commit the UK to Euro entry. right wing splits to form new party UKIP. 2001 After GE, opposition leader Gordon Brown commits "New Labour" to Euro exit citing Maude's economic madness 2003 Tory party splits (again) following Clarke opposition to Iraq war. 2005 Split Tory party 'wins' election as largest party, governs in coalition with Lib Dems. 2008 Following economic crisis, coalition breaks down, snap GE. Labour landslide. 2018 Chancellor Blair becomes PM after record breaking Brown steps down
Oh come on, tory moderates had about 100 MP's pre 1992 and would have lost seats in a 1992 defeat, so like in 1997 it would have been a right winger not Clarke or Heseltine. Kinnock would have taken the blame for the ERM and the Tories would be back in power in 1997 without their brand destroyed by the ERM or the back to basics scandals, in fact I believe that was the plan with putting Major (being useless and grey) as leader in order to lose the election but Labour found out so they tried to lose as well (Sheffield and tax rises).
And just in, Turkey has requested an emergency NATO meeting about Iraq. Airstrikes might be in the agenda. Oh and Syria has offered military support to Iraq.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I haven't since it's introduction, prior though I had a job on a derisory hourly rate.
Thanks for answering Jim - I was expecting answers like that to be fairly standard (if anyone did answer). I was in my thirties though - and I had to get a bus - and thatcher said that if you're on the bus and over thirty - I see a man who's failed in life...
I was a poor Student waving flags at yuppie go-karters. Oh I wouldn't believe every thing the great lady said. I'm over 30 and love going on buses from time to time.
IE seems to clip the right hand side of the page. It's been doing it for ages, but wonderered if anyone has a remedy (other than sending a big cheque to Mike to fix)?
IE seems to clip the right hand side of the page. It's been doing it for ages, but wonderered if anyone has a remedy (other than sending a big cheque to Mike to fix)?
Try either Crtl + F5 and try clicking on the big green banner at the top.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Edit: petrol was 75p a gallon then, now £6-ish.
I worked for 1 shilling an hour for 44 hours per week in my first job. 1 shilling = 5p. I did get 15 bob a week from Youth Employment to help pay for my digs and I was later still paid a wage while I was studying. Bought my first car for £10 (pre-MOT) - 1934 Austin 10.
However, I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence and I suspect, notwithstanding the fact that I’ve lived in Scotland for twenty-one years and plan to remain here for the rest of my life, that they might judge me ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view. It is true that I was born in the West Country and grew up on the Welsh border and while I have Scottish blood on my mother’s side, I also have English, French and Flemish ancestry. However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste.
The 'good election to lose' idea is mostly about how bad a crash is perceived as being ahead. 2010 was a pretty nasty election to win, as Labour (perhaps from no fault of their own) had left a horror story.
So the Tories won (well ok with LD help), and they inherited a tricky mandate. If Labour had won then I think it's reasonably likely that the financial markets might have reacted less well - I'm sure that the cuts would have been weaker, and we'd have finished up being in a dreadful pickle. Labour though would have been potentially gone forever.
So politically if the above is true it would have been good to lose for the Tories, but an economic disaster, plus the end of a responsible opposition. I'm not sure I'd want to be there. So..2014, good to lose, but only relatively. A disaster on all fronts if the Tories had lost.
Why Labour ever thought it wise to trade in a perfectly capable leader in the form of Blair for the chaotic corrosion of Brown escapes me. Why they also seem to struggle to promote Ed as far, far better than GB - who after all many voted for - also escapes me.
Yesterday in Westminster I saw a well-dressed lady who was hiding her copy of the Financial Times by wrapping it inside her Daily Mail. Thought to myself, that's the wrong way round luv.
Quite enjoyed the Wings reaction to the smirking, patronising, English-born, title-seeking, war-criminal-supporting JK Rowling's privileged, ill-informed, dangerous attack on single mums, from the comfort of her leylandii-surrounded cathedral-standard stone mansion. I particularly liked the insinuation that the donation was illegal because she isn't registered with the Electoral Commission, and besides, the million pounds wasn't hers anyway - it actually belonged to other people, who decided it would make more publicity sense to use her name to front it.
I'm not too keen on this nationalism lark in general ("civic" or otherwise, and regardless of national flavour), but on balance if I were living in Scotland I would probably be a Yes voter. Very wealthy donors ploughing money into a cause is the kind of thing that puts me right off, especially if there's a lingering suspicion that they are supporting something that they would calculate makes them better off. But for all that, should the indy polls prove accurate on the big day, I am going to get some bemused enjoyment from the ensuing meltdown and accompanying cognitive dissonance.
If JKR gave her own money, then fair enough. She can probably easily afford it! If the suggestion from Mr Ears is correct, then that's different.
The Weirs, on the same basis, can do what what they like with the money they won. Whether they, or anyone else, should have been able to win that sort of money is a different argument.
Dirty insinuations.
If Rowling had given the money to 'Yes', they'd be praising her to high heaven, regardless of her place of birth.
They fully deserve all the bad publicity they're receiving today.
You only want to lose an election when things are bad or getting worse in the economy so that the other lot get blamed at least as much or even more. 1964, 1974 and 1992 were elections to lose. ...
Unless the government you let in handles it well, in which case your failures get strung round your neck for years (winter of discontent, ERM etc) while the other lot gets on with changing the country to their preference. On the specifics:
1964: Labour won a near-landslide less than two years later. Had Wilson and Castle not messed up with In Place of Strife, and had Labour not been unlucky with the trade figures that came out during the 1970 election, they could easily have won. Suddenly you go from 1964 being a good election to lose to being out of power for over a decade.
1974: I broadly deal with that in the intro but even accepting that the 1974-9 government tarnished Labour badly, it still meant that the Tories had to pick things up in an even worse state than they were when they left office. If 1974 was a good one to lose, why wasn't 1979?
1992: Probably the closest there's been to a good one to lose but even then, would there not still have been a massive split between Thatcherites and wets, perhaps even more than there was, because her toppling would then have been futile. You could easily see five years of infighting against a backdrop in which the ERM crisis gets blamed on the previous Tory government (a narrative the Thatcherites would have assisted with), and the economy recovers from recession. It's far from impossible that 1996/7 could have seen a Kinnock government re-elected.
And 'hacking' makes it sounds like some external party was involved, when it was more likely a passionate employee who has access to the Twitter account.
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
Interesting article, but weird. Lots of bizarre Tory mythology from way back when. The most interesting question it raises, is why the article has to be written now.
It was written in response to comments that came from both Tory and Labour people earlier this week who argued that it would be beneficial to their side to lose. I don't recall the precise quotes - who said them or exactly what was said - but it was enough to prompt me to write it.
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
And 'hacking' makes it sounds like some external party was involved, when it was more likely a passionate employee who has access to the Twitter account.
The Scottish Charity Regulator is looking into it:
And 'hacking' makes it sounds like some external party was involved, when it was more likely a passionate employee who has access to the Twitter account.
The Scottish Charity Regulator is looking into it:
There may be no good elections to lose, but there are perhaps bad elections to win, because of what the restraints of being in government impose: 1974 (2) set up the Labour Party for its brush with self-destruction, 1992, paved the way for the destruction of the pro-European Conservative tradition, the real source of not just that party's problems with the issue, but the whole country's too. Some fear 2015 could be for the Conservatives what 1974 was for Labour. And doubtless 2010 has already assured its place in Liberalism's long list of Pyrrhic victories.
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
Scottish Charities (as do any) need to tread very carefully.....
Some very disturbing headlines in the telegraph about Mosul and Tikrit.
''mass beheadings'' please no.
It's a complete mess. I fear that due to history the international response will be non existent or nearly non existent. I fear we will look at having been over involved and conclude that we should now turn a total blind eye.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
In my first job, in 1992, I was paid the princely sum of £1.25 per hour - less than half the rate it was brought in at for 18-21 year olds (which I then was), seven years later. Overtime was a generous time and a quarter.
Quote: "Its research found that Labour’s lead in nine parliamentary seats would be lost if the results of last month’s council elections were repeated next year....The Fabians fear this “Ukip effect” could deny Labour victory in dozens of the crucial Lab-Con marginals that will decide the election."
As I said before and got accused of writing "drivel" the UKIP surge (in the southwest especially) is coming from former Liberal voters more than ex tory voters, the tory vote is holding up quite well, and this will cost the Liberal party dear.
Even Yeovil, majority 13,000, is not safe based on the Euro elections and could go three ways. Even if Laws holds on they will need to spend valuable on the ground manpower defending him, which will mean less resources for defending the other seats in the SW which are more vulnerable.
Apparently UKIP got 25% in the locals in Yvette Cooper's seat. That adds some context to her anti-UKIP remarks! :-)
"In Ed Miliband’s seat of Doncaster North it reached 34 per cent; it was not much lower in Yvette Cooper’s Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (25 per cent), Rachel Reeves’ Leeds West (28 per cent) and Ed Balls’ Morley and Outwood (23 per cent). The problem is not just on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines, as Ukip reached 27 per cent in Bolton South-east (12 per cent in its mostly Asian ward, around 30 per cent in the rest), and 26 per cent in Wigan."
There may be no good elections to lose, but there are perhaps bad elections to win, because of what the restraints of being in government impose: 1974 (2) set up the Labour Party for its brush with self-destruction, 1992, paved the way for the destruction of the pro-European Conservative tradition, the real source of not just that party's problems with the issue, but the whole country's too. Some fear 2015 could be for the Conservatives what 1974 was for Labour. And doubtless 2010 has already assured its place in Liberalism's long list of Pyrrhic victories.
2010 wasn't as bad for the Liberals as 1910 turned out to be.
But none of those elections were intrinsically bad ones to win; they were just handled badly by the governments and/or their supporters on the backbenches (and in the case of 1970s Labour, their wider movement). After all, Labour might have won an Autumn 1978 election.
1964 - hard to believe 'trade figures'. It was good for Labour to lose in the sense that they could return with the daft policies again. (Tory policies were daft too) 1974 - I think a real example - the Tories would never have changed so much if they'd won. 1992 - maybe. The transition from Maggie to Major was the principal factor in Tory minds, and Labour simply got much better in the next five years. (A good influx of new people and real confidence that they'd be in government in 1997)
So I'd go with 1974 and 2010 as points of argument. In the first the country was damaged hugely in the next parliament, but what eventually emerged changed the spots. In the second the country would have been damaged hugely if Labour had won. 1974 was a great election to lose, and 2010 would seem to have been that way too - but I'm pleased that the good guys won!..
2015 will be a quite important test for the victor. Labour probably will win, but their room for manoeuvre is quite small. GO has engendered the most delicate of economic blooms - hard to say if that's skill or luck, but it will surely look very bad if Labour kill it off. The Tories may well kill this recovery off too if elected.
Good reasons to feel good about losing! Not a word of validity in it though - awful for Labour to just miss, and have a rag-tag bunch fix their wrongs, and awful for the Tories if they lost that they can't even survive shared power for a short time in 20 years.
2015 will be a good election to lose for those that plan on having more history than future.
Ah, the Guardian. How can any sentient being think it is a serious paper nowadays?
Guardian: David Cameron's spokesman said on Wednesday it was up to consumers whether they choose to eat prawns that had been produced through the work of slaves.
What the spokesman actually said (as reported in the very same Guardian article!):
Asked whether supermarkets should stop stocking seafood produced with the help of forced labour, Cameron's spokesman said: "Consumer standards and retail standards and social responsibility is often driven by consumers and rightly so."
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
Ah, the Guardian. How can any sentient being think it is a serious paper nowadays?
Guardian: David Cameron's spokesman said on Wednesday it was up to consumers whether they choose to eat prawns that had been produced through the work of slaves.
What the spokesman actually said (as reported in the very same Guardian article!):
Asked whether supermarkets should stop stocking seafood produced with the help of forced labour, Cameron's spokesman said: "Consumer standards and retail standards and social responsibility is often driven by consumers and rightly so."
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
I think to Cameron and his modern Conservative party it shows the need for increasing the size of the DfID budget even more and cutting defence back further.
P.S. Had to laugh the other day when it was suggested that the UK might send 25 tanks to an exercise in Poland this summer. It would help to make a statement to Russia and deter it from taking further action against the Ukraine, apparently. Yeah, right, 25 tanks is going to really put the wind up Russia's sails. Then there was the Russian Navy battlegroup sailing through the Channel the other week - we sent an air defence ship to escort it, our ship had no anti-ship weapons on board, save a single gun. Why bother? The Russians could have blown our ship out of the water, turned left and occupied London without breaking a sweat. Capabilities are not intentions and all that, fair go, but, really, the state of our defences are now so pathetic we might as well not bother.
I think that's the idea. The europhile political class want to dissolve Britain into a region of the EU and part of that means getting rid of things like national identity and national armed forces. That can't say it out loud so they do it by salami slicing instead.
Ah, the Guardian. How can any sentient being think it is a serious paper nowadays?
Guardian: David Cameron's spokesman said on Wednesday it was up to consumers whether they choose to eat prawns that had been produced through the work of slaves.
What the spokesman actually said (as reported in the very same Guardian article!):
Asked whether supermarkets should stop stocking seafood produced with the help of forced labour, Cameron's spokesman said: "Consumer standards and retail standards and social responsibility is often driven by consumers and rightly so."
david, But the disasters were pre-programmed: the commitment to an EEC referendum that would inevitably split the party by Labour, in 1974, the inability to resolve the challenge of Maastricht/ERM/EMU by the Conservatives in 1992, a manifesto and campaign completely unsuited to a subsequent participation in any coalition probably, but certainly with the Conservatives, by the Liberals in 2010, a commitment to an EU referendum that will inevitably split the party now by the Conservatives. Screwing up in government, events events etc. is surely part of the wear and tear, but campaigning to win having taken a poison pill that must be activated by victory is quite another matter.
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
The anti-UKIP tactical voting in Newark is simply supposition based on a misreading of the constituency in the first place.
The cybernats have probably finished up costing thousands of votes for the Yes campaign. How can people believe their cause is advanced by showering abuse on people, or calling JK Rowling a "whore".
Possibly, but then again there are probably many others who object to La Rowling using her vast wealth to meddle in politics, believing rightly or wrongly that there may be causes more deserving of her largesse.
She earned it she can spend it as she wishes
Absolutely, but Scots are equally entitled to their views on how she chooses to spend it.
' The couple were unable to tell whether another member of their charity or a hacker could have posted the message. Mr Wood admitted that at least 10 people, including present and former members, had access to the login details for the account. Online users claimed the malicious post originated on Mr Wood's private Facebook page, but the retired IT lecturer denied the allegations "It was completely hacked and nothing to do with us. I think someone must have hacked both accounts at the same time, because they are linked together," he said.'
Of course they did.
Still, it should be fairly easy to find out the IP address from where the tweets originated.
we have a major problem with low pay and the cost of in work benefits.
Europe's pool of labour is like fitting a giant turbo to UK growth. We could have a huge boom without significant wage inflation, in contrast to the booms of the past (such as the Lawson boom).
Would wages pick up even if growth got to chinese or Indian levels? I'm no expert, but I guess its conceivable they might not.
I think this timely blog about the "boomless boom" may help with your question
In any recovery, business investment tends to be very much a lag element. First comes the upsurge in consumption; only when companies are certain that rising demand is sustainable will they start to invest again. So there is good reason to believe that in time, both investment and real wages will return to pre-crisis norms. Already, there are some encouraging straws in the wind.
He should perhaps have paid more attention to the ONS Economic Review for June 2014. In the section on GDP there is a chart which shows contributions to the annual growth of the expenditure measure of GDP since Q1 2007.
To quote ONS's gloss on their findings:
It suggests that much of the recovery of GDP growth since 2012 has been based on stronger household consumption. Investment – which fell sharply during the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009 – has made an erratic contribution to output growth over this period. However, in the two most recent quarters, growth in fixed investment has picked up strongly, driven by both business investment and private dwellings investment, which increased on an annual basis by 8.7% and 11.6% respectively in Q1 2014. Government spending has also made a small but consistent positive contribution over recent quarters. [My emphasis].
The last line is also significant. Osborne may have deliberately abated the fall in government spending in year 5 of his term, but this masks a very substantial (£20 bn) switch from current to capital spending.
I agree that the lack of real wages growth being visible in the statistics is baffling. The double check of matching increases in household consumption to falls in the saving ratio and increases in household borrowing shows that household net disposable income is rising faster than the real wages statisics suggest.
On productivity gains, my feeling is that this will be the main media issue of next year. Employers will respond to a tightening labour market by switching priorities from new recruitment to greater labour efficiency. Indeed we are already seeing the levels of business investment needed to enable such a switch.
Ah, the Guardian. How can any sentient being think it is a serious paper nowadays?
Guardian: David Cameron's spokesman said on Wednesday it was up to consumers whether they choose to eat prawns that had been produced through the work of slaves.
What the spokesman actually said (as reported in the very same Guardian article!):
Asked whether supermarkets should stop stocking seafood produced with the help of forced labour, Cameron's spokesman said: "Consumer standards and retail standards and social responsibility is often driven by consumers and rightly so."
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Will there be US airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq to prevent Baghdad falling if this goes on?
If Baghdad falls.... f*** me.
Obama won't want to touch Iraq again with a barge pole unless he has to somehow.
Just had a interesting tour round a biological manufacturing facility with some Israeli friends of mine...
They are hacked off with Obama, not focused on Mosul (more concerned about Syria, but think that this is entirely down to Obama's failure to enforce his red lines) and highly amused by Eric Cantor.
Any of the above may or may not be reflective of the fact that they are closely associated with the Clinton 2016 campaign....
Obama's failure to enforce his red lines? His red line was chemical weapons use, and his threat to intervene cause Syria to agree to give up its chemical weapons. 90%+ of them have already left the country.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Edit: petrol was 75p a gallon then, now £6-ish.
I worked in Wimpy @ £33.50 a week [ 6 gays ]. So I make it about 70p an hour. 1977.
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
The anti-UKIP tactical voting in Newark is simply supposition based on a misreading of the constituency in the first place.
It is far from supposition, Richard.
I noticed the impact within an hour of the declaration. antifrank, who is far more forensic than me in his analysis, proferred a similar conclusion by midday and within forty eight hours the Nabavi of All Sussez had proved antifrank's hypothesis using his unique access to secret but impeachable data.
We now need to wait for the professional psephologists to confirm early and innovative PB thinking.
What is far more significant however are papers on the subject provided by commentators as diverse as Owen Jones and Dan Hodges. It is when these mighty persuaders get in on the act that scientific proof cedes to artistic truth.
It matters little whether tactical voting took place or not in Newark: the great gods of the left and centre have endorsed it as an acceptable response to the Farage threat. Their followers will now take note of party orders as the General Election looms.
Anti-UKIP tactical voting has been enlisted to the official British set of values. I expect it to boom even faster than the Faragasm in the next few months. College will need to be at his most self-disciplined to keep it down.
Alex Salmond is fighting to save one of his most senior advisers after a mother he is alleged to have targeted in a nationalist smear campaign called his apology an “insult”.
You only want to lose an election when things are bad or getting worse in the economy so that the other lot get blamed at least as much or even more. 1964, 1974 and 1992 were elections to lose. And by the way, ISIS has captured the Turkish consulate in Iraq holding the staff and the consul hostage and are in the process of encircling Baghdad. Not long for a major war in the middle east to break out now.
I was wondering if this whole ISIS thing might be the Turks looking to stomp the Kurds.
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
Doubt it. The anti tory tactical vote already vote Liberal there massively squeezing the labour vote, thats why Labour only got 2,991 votes in 2010 despite a large "labour" vote in Yeovil Town (which is about half the constituency by population - labour got 7,077 in 2001 and 5,256 in 2005).
I'm sure some said tactical voters will continue to vote Lib to keep out either tory or UKIP, others will vote Labour out of disgust for the Liberals joining the coalition. Problem is that the anti Westminster tactical vote has decamped from Liberal to UKIP. This makes it a three way split with a reasonable chance of the tories coming through in the middle and Yeovil liberals having to spend all their time defending their home patch rather than helping out in Taunton, Somerton and Frome, Mid Dorset, Wells etc.
Don't think anyone in Yeovil would be daft enough to vote Conservative to stop UKIP as Tory's probably have the best chance of beating Laws of the opposing candidates. However it may well galvanise apathetic Tories to come out and vote Conservative to stop UKIP winning.
2010:
Libs 31,842 Con 18,807 Lab 2,991 UKIP 2,357 BNP 1,162
T/O 57,159
My 2015 prediction:
Con 16,600 +/- 1000 UKIP 16,500 +/- 1000 Libs 16,400 +/- 1000 Labour 8,000 Green 1,000 BNP 50
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
The anti-UKIP tactical voting in Newark is simply supposition based on a misreading of the constituency in the first place.
It is far from supposition, Richard.
I noticed the impact within an hour of the declaration. antifrank, who is far more forensic than me in his analysis, proferred a similar conclusion by midday and within forty eight hours the Nabavi of All Sussez had proved antifrank's hypothesis using his unique access to secret but impeachable data.
We now need to wait for the professional psephologists to confirm early and innovative PB thinking.
What is far more significant however are papers on the subject provided by commentators as diverse as Owen Jones and Dan Hodges. It is when these mighty persuaders get in on the act that scientific proof cedes to artistic truth.
It matters little whether tactical voting took place or not in Newark: the great gods of the left and centre have endorsed it as an acceptable response to the Farage threat. Their followers will now take note of party orders as the General Election looms.
Anti-UKIP tactical voting has been enlisted to the official British set of values. I expect it to boom even faster than the Faragasm in the next few months. College will need to be at his most self-disciplined to keep it down.
So like I said then. All supposition. :-) You could have just said I was right and saved yourself all that typing.
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
What kind of Army did we train and leave behind that a bunch of rag bags literally drive in to a town and take over. Of course, Tikrit being the home town of Saddam Hussein is not exactly a support base for the Shia government.
So now we have a bizarre situation. A Shia government in Iraq, an Alevi [ neo Shia ] government in much of Syria. In between , we have radical Sunnis not seen anywhere since the fall of the Taliban.
Cutting immigration, English language tests, queues at airports, sacrificing liberties to the EU, missing illegal immigrants, backlogs on passport controls... she's had a terrible record in office.
Mr. Jim, the current theory is that some [MODERATED] workmen a street away managed to cut through the cabling.
The enormo-haddock have been dispatched to wreak vengeance.
Mr Dancer how is it that workmen are so often so careless? I think you should develop piranha of a similar proportion to the enormo-haddock as I fear you may need the capacity for escalation.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Edit: petrol was 75p a gallon then, now £6-ish.
I worked in Wimpy @ £33.50 a week [ 6 gays ]. So I make it about 70p an hour. 1977.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Alex Salmond is fighting to save one of his most senior advisers after a mother he is alleged to have targeted in a nationalist smear campaign called his apology an “insult”.
Two power cuts today, the latter lasting six bloody hours. Apart from the fall of Tikrit, have I missed anything?
Mass executions, ISIS on the way to Baghdad (they have reached the outskirts of Karbala), NATO having a meeting about it, Syria offering Iraq military help and the SNP in a pickle with insulting a mother for supporting NO.
You only want to lose an election when things are bad or getting worse in the economy so that the other lot get blamed at least as much or even more. 1964, 1974 and 1992 were elections to lose. And by the way, ISIS has captured the Turkish consulate in Iraq holding the staff and the consul hostage and are in the process of encircling Baghdad. Not long for a major war in the middle east to break out now.
I was wondering if this whole ISIS thing might be the Turks looking to stomp the Kurds.
Then again that makes no sense because the Peshmerga are quite capable of standing their ground so if there's no fighting in Mosul where are the Peshmerga bods.
The workmen are stupid ****s. The next door house (to the work, a demolition, not my house) has lost water at least once because of their incompetence.
Mr. Speedy, hmm. Will that make an Iran-Iraq-Syrian alliance, I wonder...
You only want to lose an election when things are bad or getting worse in the economy so that the other lot get blamed at least as much or even more. 1964, 1974 and 1992 were elections to lose. And by the way, ISIS has captured the Turkish consulate in Iraq holding the staff and the consul hostage and are in the process of encircling Baghdad. Not long for a major war in the middle east to break out now.
I was wondering if this whole ISIS thing might be the Turks looking to stomp the Kurds.
Then again that makes no sense because the Peshmerga are quite capable of standing their ground so if there's no fighting in Mosul where are the Peshmerga bods.
Something very fishy about all this.
They are trying to defend the whole territory, ISIS is close to Kirkuk and Arbil. The battlefront is huge, ranging from Karbala and Tikrit to Aleppo and Arbil, ISIS controls roughly the same territory as ancient Assyria with 15 million people and has advanced 100 miles in 3 days in Iraq on all directions.
Think today might have been the day that YES lost the indyref. Not because Rowling gave the Better Togetherers £1m, but because of the awful, sordid abuse they dished out to her - much of it viciously misogynistic. Cow, bitch, whore, c*nt, etc. And lots of it, not just a few nutters.
They cannot help themselves. As I said before, the Nat cause is evincing symptoms of a psychosis. I really do wonder how they will react to defeat.
Cutting immigration, English language tests, queues at airports, sacrificing liberties to the EU, missing illegal immigrants, backlogs on passport controls... she's had a terrible record in office.
Her leadership ambitions have certainly taken a battering over the last week.
Think today might have been the day that YES lost the indyref. Not because Rowling gave the Better Togetherers £1m, but because of the awful, sordid abuse they dished out to her - much of it viciously misogynistic. Cow, bitch, whore, c*nt, etc. And lots of it, not just a few nutters.
They cannot help themselves. As I said before, the Nat cause is evincing symptoms of a psychosis. I really do wonder how they will react to defeat.
And it will be a bad defeat. 65 - 35 ?
I can't recall who said it (may have been in a blog or here on PB), but because it has been so divisive, Scotland has been forever changed. Maybe this was the intent of the SNP all along, to sow the seeds so that a future referendum will produce a victory. All a bit of a shame really.
I think Salmon has made a major strategic error. He should have pushed for a referendum on self government with the same approximate powers as the Isle of Man have and Southern Rhodesia had, ie local control of everything except foreign policy.
He would probably have won that and got effective independence without all the problems. Also if it worked well it would then be much easier to win "dominion" status ie independence on the same basis as Australia and Canada in a few years, if it was wanted.
Richard T is of course correct in that it's hard to quantify to what extent the anti-UKIP tactical voting call bolstered the Conservative vote in Newark. I suspect less than some might hope and what we saw (and with 1,000 activists it's entirely possible) was the maximising of the Conservative vote.
Every Tory vote was wrung out of that seat by Grant's Grenadiers but it's an effort which can't be repeated in a General Election.
UKIP may or may not suffer from the "nasty party" tag but it does have an issue with the "wasted vote" argument which blighted the Liberals and Liberal Democrats for decades. When confronted with the obvious conclusion that the Government would either be Conservative or Labour, those who dallied with the third party between elections would run back to their "normal" place.
For those who gleefully argue that UKIP is hurting Labour as much as the Tories, the argument still holds true and it will be fascinating to see the comparative between UKIP performances in Conservative and Labour areas next year. I do agree the likelihood is UKIP will pile up votes where they don't need them (the same may be true of the Conservatives).
The workmen are stupid ****s. The next door house (to the work, a demolition, not my house) has lost water at least once because of their incompetence.
Mr. Speedy, hmm. Will that make an Iran-Iraq-Syrian alliance, I wonder...
If the west doesn't come to the rescue quickly then Iraq will have no choice but to formally enter in such an alliance.
To give an idea of the seriousness of the situation: ISIS has advanced 100 miles in 3 days in all directions and has quite an arsenal and funds since being constantly funneled money and weapons for the syrian rebels, also since the fall of Mosul they got half a billion dollars in cash from the local central bank branch, 26 F-16 fighter jets, dozens of Blackhawk attack helicopters, plus american tanks, american artillery, american APC's, american Humvees, the oil fields, the pipelines and the refineries of Northern and Central Iraq. ISIS is mostly run by american weapons and cash going the wrong way.
The iraqi army has disintegrated, though the airforce is still there and they are scrambling to get the shia militias up and running again.
But time is running against them, at this rate we will see Saigon 1975 all over again with the US embassy evacuated by helicopter and the black flag flying over its ruins.
I will give Briskin points to anyone, other than Smarmy, willing to admit to the same.
I worked for 62p an hour as a sales assistant back in 1978/79. Don't know what that would be at today's prices. (and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Edit: petrol was 75p a gallon then, now £6-ish.
I worked in Wimpy @ £33.50 a week [ 6 gays ]. So I make it about 70p an hour. 1977.
we have a major problem with low pay and the cost of in work benefits.
Europe's pool of labour is like fitting a giant turbo to UK growth. We could have a huge boom without significant wage inflation, in contrast to the booms of the past (such as the Lawson boom).
Would wages pick up even if growth got to chinese or Indian levels? I'm no expert, but I guess its conceivable they might not.
I agree that the lack of real wages growth being visible in the statistics is baffling. The double check of matching increases in household consumption to falls in the saving ratio and increases in household borrowing shows that household net disposable income is rising faster than the real wages statisics suggest.
I presume you have allowed for the significant increase in the number of people receiving that average wage - laughable how often innumerate journalists try to say consumption growth is problematically high compared to earnings growth when they ignore that even after allowing for benefits, the net increase in employment contributes 1-1.5% to consumption, even if average wages were flat.
Mr. Speedy, it's astounding so much cash and equipment was just left there.
On the news last night it suggested 3,000 fighters claimed Mosul. Whilst a hefty number, it's hardly the hordes of Darius, and rather indicative (I would guess) of how weak the Iraqi government is.
The US won't, I feel, get involved. Obama's been shown not merely reluctant on the global stage, but perhaps cowardly (given the red line of Syria). We won't get involved.
Cutting immigration, English language tests, queues at airports, sacrificing liberties to the EU, missing illegal immigrants, backlogs on passport controls... she's had a terrible record in office.
I doubt that May or any of the other current contenders will win the tory leadership on the grounds that Cameron won't be going anywhere. I suspect the tories are going to win a small majority and a workable one with supply and confidence from the DUP thanks to Labour weakness and their core defecting to UKIP. This will enable the tories to hang onto most of their 2010 gains and win a few more plus win a slew of rural liberal seats.
Welcome to a world of beecroft in full hire and fire at will etc. What will happen in 2020 after Gideons taxpayer funded property boom implodes will be far more interesting and I don't suppose any of them will be too keen to lead the tories after 2020.
Should UKIP win seats in 2015 I expect them to be among the most hostile to the Tories in the house with the chance of supply/confidence or coalition being zero.
Think today might have been the day that YES lost the indyref. Not because Rowling gave the Better Togetherers £1m, but because of the awful, sordid abuse they dished out to her - much of it viciously misogynistic. Cow, bitch, whore, c*nt, etc. And lots of it, not just a few nutters.
They cannot help themselves. As I said before, the Nat cause is evincing symptoms of a psychosis. I really do wonder how they will react to defeat.
And it will be a bad defeat. 65 - 35 ?
Yes it will, the SNP are bad losers and they are showing it already.
The workmen are stupid ****s. The next door house (to the work, a demolition, not my house) has lost water at least once because of their incompetence.
Mr. Speedy, hmm. Will that make an Iran-Iraq-Syrian alliance, I wonder...
If the west doesn't come to the rescue quickly then Iraq will have no choice but to formally enter in such an alliance.
To give an idea of the seriousness of the situation: ISIS has advanced 100 miles in 3 days in all directions and has quite an arsenal and funds since being constantly funneled money and weapons for the syrian rebels, also since the fall of Mosul they got half a billion dollars in cash from the local central bank branch, 26 F-16 fighter jets, dozens of Blackhawk attack helicopters, plus american tanks, american artillery, american APC's, american Humvees, the oil fields, the pipelines and the refineries of Northern and Central Iraq. ISIS is mostly run by american weapons and cash going the wrong way.
The iraqi army has disintegrated, though the airforce is still there and they are scrambling to get the shia militias up and running again.
But time is running against them, at this rate we will see Saigon 1975 all over again with the US embassy evacuated by helicopter and the black flag flying over its ruins.
Yes but this is largely the consequence of running away too quickly by drawing entirely wrong conclusions. We have in essence compounded one policy calamity with a far worse one.
Mr. Speedy, it's astounding so much cash and equipment was just left there.
On the news last night it suggested 3,000 fighters claimed Mosul. Whilst a hefty number, it's hardly the hordes of Darius, and rather indicative (I would guess) of how weak the Iraqi government is.
The US won't, I feel, get involved. Obama's been shown not merely reluctant on the global stage, but perhaps cowardly (given the red line of Syria). We won't get involved.
Airstrikes is a viable option, since the US is already at war with islamic terrorism it will be acceptable by the public, either that or the US will relive the Fall of Saigon with its iconic symbolism.
Think today might have been the day that YES lost the indyref. Not because Rowling gave the Better Togetherers £1m, but because of the awful, sordid abuse they dished out to her - much of it viciously misogynistic. Cow, bitch, whore, c*nt, etc. And lots of it, not just a few nutters.
They cannot help themselves. As I said before, the Nat cause is evincing symptoms of a psychosis. I really do wonder how they will react to defeat.
And it will be a bad defeat. 65 - 35 ?
Yes it will, the SNP are bad losers and they are showing it already.
It is not that simple, not by a long chalk. The astonishing ease with which its been executed with such small numbers must surely give a massive boost to a whole host of islamist groups all over the world.
david, But the disasters were pre-programmed ... a commitment to an EU referendum that will inevitably split the party now by the Conservatives. Screwing up in government, events events etc. is surely part of the wear and tear, but campaigning to win having taken a poison pill that must be activated by victory is quite another matter.
As far as I can see the commitment to a referendum following negotiations is the only thing that will NOT split the Tory party. Arefwrendum takes it out of the realms of party splits and puts it in the hands of the poor bemused public.
There may be no good elections to lose, but there are perhaps bad elections to win, because of what the restraints of being in government impose: 1974 (2) set up the Labour Party for its brush with self-destruction, 1992, paved the way for the destruction of the pro-European Conservative tradition, the real source of not just that party's problems with the issue, but the whole country's too. Some fear 2015 could be for the Conservatives what 1974 was for Labour. And doubtless 2010 has already assured its place in Liberalism's long list of Pyrrhic victories.
..... After all, Labour might have won an Autumn 1978 election.
'One reason he (Bashar Assad) has had some success is that the insurgents are as split as ever and also quite a number of the radicals who are not massive in numbers but are certainly capable in fighting terms have mysteriously left the country..and gone to Iraq.'
None of what is happening in Iraq now is a surprise. The Sunni radicals shifted some focus and manpower a while back. The performance of the Iraqi army and police appears to be desperate. Two divisions have vanished into thin air, one of them leaving most of its equipment that ISIS got its hands on.
ISIS do have support from their Sunni brothers, who are not necessarily fans of ISIS and certainly never joined the radical front during the days of insurgency against the Americans.They can't stand the Shi'ite hegemony however under Al Maliki. This may reflect why those divisions disappeared without much of a fight if they had a fair number of Sunnis in their number. The only other reason is that they simply weren't very good or weren't well led, take your pick.
Will ISIS march on Bagdhad? Stories have it they are going to try but its a stretch and you'd assume that the Iraqi forces, who appear to be forming up on a retrenchment around the capital are not going to prove a walkover. Certainly many of their more capable units are in the city. Al Maliki has also started to home in on the sectarian war aspect as part of his talk.
Ironically the one group that could have taken on the ISIS forces in Mosul, the Kurdish Peshmerga, were warned off by Al Maliki.
Comments
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100027441/britains-boomless-boom-baffles-the-experts/
(and 50p an hour prior to that as a "summer job" pumping petrol)
Edit: petrol was 75p a gallon then, now £6-ish.
But that sort of thing does make me wonder. As DavidL said, the Indyref has been strikingly divisive and it isn't clear that all fissures will heal. Being broadly in favour of Scottish independence, I don't mind that one bit. I get the feeling it will be second or third time of trying so we're in Neverendum territory. In that case, the idea of a referendum giving constitutional clarity and putting the issue to bed, seems as much of a failure as devolution "killing nationalism stone dead" (copyright George Robertson, 1995).
If the (first) referendum fails, there does seem to be a hardcore of Scots nats who really wouldn't put anything past The Establishment. Not just that they're evil/stupid/nasty/self-interested/actually traitors for wanting Scotland to vote "No", but that they are willing to cheat and steal to do so. A cybernat internet meltdown in the event of a "No" may be vicariously amusing, for the psychological insight into cognitive dissonance as much as for the Schadenfreude, but what traditions will permeate in the memory? "We woz robbed", almost certainly, if Quebec is anything to go by. I wonder what the Scottish equivalent will be of "par d'argent puis des votes ethniques". But judging from the more extreme side of what floats up online, I'd bet a small but significant percentage of Scots are going to believe it was rigged, moon-landing style. And a wider proportion are going to believe that the whole system was biased against them (the BBC, the press, the Electoral Commission and legal process, the civil service, the political and business and cultural elite, the whole damned lot). In retrospect it will be seen as a little miracle that so much as 40% (or whatever) of the electorate voted in favour, when the rest were cowed into submission. The true voice of the people, drowned out by the insidious and organised force of Fear Itself.
Maybe the senior leadership of Yes will put their hands up, admit being beaten fair and square, commiserate their campaign workers, pledge to listen to the people, look for "lessons to be learned". Handle themselves with disappointed magnaminity. But in the burning grassroots, watch out for the embers of bitterness and anger at a great injustice. That's where plenty of fuel for a re-run will be found.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2654737/Fears-chaos-London-drivers-join-protest-phone-app-allows-users-hail-cabs.html
And just in, Turkey has requested an emergency NATO meeting about Iraq.
Airstrikes might be in the agenda.
Oh and Syria has offered military support to Iraq.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/10891509/JK-Rowlings-anti-Scottish-independence-statement-in-full.html
However, I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence and I suspect, notwithstanding the fact that I’ve lived in Scotland for twenty-one years and plan to remain here for the rest of my life, that they might judge me ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view. It is true that I was born in the West Country and grew up on the Welsh border and while I have Scottish blood on my mother’s side, I also have English, French and Flemish ancestry. However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste.
http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/news-events
So the Tories won (well ok with LD help), and they inherited a tricky mandate. If Labour had won then I think it's reasonably likely that the financial markets might have reacted less well - I'm sure that the cuts would have been weaker, and we'd have finished up being in a dreadful pickle. Labour though would have been potentially gone forever.
So politically if the above is true it would have been good to lose for the Tories, but an economic disaster, plus the end of a responsible opposition. I'm not sure I'd want to be there. So..2014, good to lose, but only relatively. A disaster on all fronts if the Tories had lost.
Why Labour ever thought it wise to trade in a perfectly capable leader in the form of Blair for the chaotic corrosion of Brown escapes me. Why they also seem to struggle to promote Ed as far, far better than GB - who after all many voted for - also escapes me.
If Rowling had given the money to 'Yes', they'd be praising her to high heaven, regardless of her place of birth.
They fully deserve all the bad publicity they're receiving today.
1964: Labour won a near-landslide less than two years later. Had Wilson and Castle not messed up with In Place of Strife, and had Labour not been unlucky with the trade figures that came out during the 1970 election, they could easily have won. Suddenly you go from 1964 being a good election to lose to being out of power for over a decade.
1974: I broadly deal with that in the intro but even accepting that the 1974-9 government tarnished Labour badly, it still meant that the Tories had to pick things up in an even worse state than they were when they left office. If 1974 was a good one to lose, why wasn't 1979?
1992: Probably the closest there's been to a good one to lose but even then, would there not still have been a massive split between Thatcherites and wets, perhaps even more than there was, because her toppling would then have been futile. You could easily see five years of infighting against a backdrop in which the ERM crisis gets blamed on the previous Tory government (a narrative the Thatcherites would have assisted with), and the economy recovers from recession. It's far from impossible that 1996/7 could have seen a Kinnock government re-elected.
And 'hacking' makes it sounds like some external party was involved, when it was more likely a passionate employee who has access to the Twitter account.
Yes 5.5
No 1.2
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27793975
''mass beheadings'' please no.
"In Ed Miliband’s seat of Doncaster North it reached 34 per cent; it was not much lower in Yvette Cooper’s Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (25 per cent), Rachel Reeves’ Leeds West (28 per cent) and Ed Balls’ Morley and Outwood (23 per cent). The problem is not just on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines, as Ukip reached 27 per cent in Bolton South-east (12 per cent in its mostly Asian ward, around 30 per cent in the rest), and 26 per cent in Wigan."
- See more at: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2014/05/30/after-the-deluge/
Should Dave be thanking Ed Miliband? without the latter's intervention we might be actively weighing in on the side of these islamists.
But none of those elections were intrinsically bad ones to win; they were just handled badly by the governments and/or their supporters on the backbenches (and in the case of 1970s Labour, their wider movement). After all, Labour might have won an Autumn 1978 election.
1974 - I think a real example - the Tories would never have changed so much if they'd won.
1992 - maybe. The transition from Maggie to Major was the principal factor in Tory minds, and Labour simply got much better in the next five years. (A good influx of new people and real confidence that they'd be in government in 1997)
So I'd go with 1974 and 2010 as points of argument. In the first the country was damaged hugely in the next parliament, but what eventually emerged changed the spots. In the second the country would have been damaged hugely if Labour had won. 1974 was a great election to lose, and 2010 would seem to have been that way too - but I'm pleased that the good guys won!..
2015 will be a quite important test for the victor. Labour probably will win, but their room for manoeuvre is quite small. GO has engendered the most delicate of economic blooms - hard to say if that's skill or luck, but it will surely look very bad if Labour kill it off. The Tories may well kill this recovery off too if elected.
Good reasons to feel good about losing! Not a word of validity in it though - awful for Labour to just miss, and have a rag-tag bunch fix their wrongs, and awful for the Tories if they lost that they can't even survive shared power for a short time in 20 years.
2015 will be a good election to lose for those that plan on having more history than future.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/10893567/JK-Rowling-subjected-to-Cybnernat-abuse-after-1m-pro-UK-donation.html
Troubling news from Iraq once again and it remains to be seen if anyone will fight for Maliki or whether it will be akin to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 after the Americans had withdrawn (and there are some parallels).
I also wonder if UKIP might come to regret "winning" the 2014 European elections as it seems they are now in everyone's tactical voting sights (and presumably those who think Yeovil is going to be lost know confidently that David Laws isn't going to benefit from the anti-UKIP tactical vote just as the Tory candidate did in Newark).
What do you think the 'Squeezed Middle' that Ed Miliband / Oxfam are courting, will do?
But the disasters were pre-programmed: the commitment to an EEC referendum that would inevitably split the party by Labour, in 1974, the inability to resolve the challenge of Maastricht/ERM/EMU by the Conservatives in 1992, a manifesto and campaign completely unsuited to a subsequent participation in any coalition probably, but certainly with the Conservatives, by the Liberals in 2010, a commitment to an EU referendum that will inevitably split the party now by the Conservatives. Screwing up in government, events events etc. is surely part of the wear and tear, but campaigning to win having taken a poison pill that must be activated by victory is quite another matter.
I once worked at McDonalds for I think 89p per hour. (1981)
6 years later I found myself dealing in many millions (not quite paid that way mind you)
The couple were unable to tell whether another member of their charity or a hacker could have posted
the message. Mr Wood admitted that at least 10 people, including present and former members, had access to the login details for the account.
Online users claimed the malicious post originated on Mr Wood's private Facebook page, but the retired IT lecturer denied the allegations
"It was completely hacked and nothing to do with us. I think someone must have hacked both accounts at the same time, because they are linked together," he said.'
Of course they did.
Still, it should be fairly easy to find out the IP address from where the tweets originated.
In any recovery, business investment tends to be very much a lag element. First comes the upsurge in consumption; only when companies are certain that rising demand is sustainable will they start to invest again. So there is good reason to believe that in time, both investment and real wages will return to pre-crisis norms. Already, there are some encouraging straws in the wind.
He should perhaps have paid more attention to the ONS Economic Review for June 2014. In the section on GDP there is a chart which shows contributions to the annual growth of the expenditure measure of GDP since Q1 2007.
To quote ONS's gloss on their findings:
It suggests that much of the recovery of GDP growth since 2012 has been based on stronger household consumption. Investment – which fell sharply during the economic downturn in 2008 and 2009 – has made an erratic contribution to output growth over this period. However, in the two most recent quarters, growth in fixed investment has picked up strongly, driven by both business investment and private dwellings investment, which increased on an annual basis by 8.7% and 11.6% respectively in Q1 2014. Government spending has also made a small but consistent positive contribution over recent quarters. [My emphasis].
The last line is also significant. Osborne may have deliberately abated the fall in government spending in year 5 of his term, but this masks a very substantial (£20 bn) switch from current to capital spending.
I agree that the lack of real wages growth being visible in the statistics is baffling. The double check of matching increases in household consumption to falls in the saving ratio and increases in household borrowing shows that household net disposable income is rising faster than the real wages statisics suggest.
On productivity gains, my feeling is that this will be the main media issue of next year. Employers will respond to a tightening labour market by switching priorities from new recruitment to greater labour efficiency. Indeed we are already seeing the levels of business investment needed to enable such a switch.
Two power cuts today, the latter lasting six bloody hours. Apart from the fall of Tikrit, have I missed anything?
A job that has since gone into history
The enormo-haddock have been dispatched to wreak vengeance.
I noticed the impact within an hour of the declaration. antifrank, who is far more forensic than me in his analysis, proferred a similar conclusion by midday and within forty eight hours the Nabavi of All Sussez had proved antifrank's hypothesis using his unique access to secret but impeachable data.
We now need to wait for the professional psephologists to confirm early and innovative PB thinking.
What is far more significant however are papers on the subject provided by commentators as diverse as Owen Jones and Dan Hodges. It is when these mighty persuaders get in on the act that scientific proof cedes to artistic truth.
It matters little whether tactical voting took place or not in Newark: the great gods of the left and centre have endorsed it as an acceptable response to the Farage threat. Their followers will now take note of party orders as the General Election looms.
Anti-UKIP tactical voting has been enlisted to the official British set of values. I expect it to boom even faster than the Faragasm in the next few months. College will need to be at his most self-disciplined to keep it down.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10893524/Mother-rejects-Alex-Salmond-advisers-apology-in-smear-row-as-an-insult.html
Doubt it. The anti tory tactical vote already vote Liberal there massively squeezing the labour vote, thats why Labour only got 2,991 votes in 2010 despite a large "labour" vote in Yeovil Town (which is about half the constituency by population - labour got 7,077 in 2001 and 5,256 in 2005).
I'm sure some said tactical voters will continue to vote Lib to keep out either tory or UKIP, others will vote Labour out of disgust for the Liberals joining the coalition. Problem is that the anti Westminster tactical vote has decamped from Liberal to UKIP. This makes it a three way split with a reasonable chance of the tories coming through in the middle and Yeovil liberals having to spend all their time defending their home patch rather than helping out in Taunton, Somerton and Frome, Mid Dorset, Wells etc.
Don't think anyone in Yeovil would be daft enough to vote Conservative to stop UKIP as Tory's probably have the best chance of beating Laws of the opposing candidates. However it may well galvanise apathetic Tories to come out and vote Conservative to stop UKIP winning.
2010:
Libs 31,842
Con 18,807
Lab 2,991
UKIP 2,357
BNP 1,162
T/O 57,159
My 2015 prediction:
Con 16,600 +/- 1000
UKIP 16,500 +/- 1000
Libs 16,400 +/- 1000
Labour 8,000
Green 1,000
BNP 50
T/O: 58,550.
So now we have a bizarre situation. A Shia government in Iraq, an Alevi [ neo Shia ] government in much of Syria. In between , we have radical Sunnis not seen anywhere since the fall of the Taliban.
Bush-Blair: Thanks, but no thanks !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27789916
Cutting immigration, English language tests, queues at airports, sacrificing liberties to the EU, missing illegal immigrants, backlogs on passport controls... she's had a terrible record in office.
Early recruitment to "the Gas Board"?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10893524/Mother-rejects-Alex-Salmond-advisers-apology-in-smear-row-as-an-insult.html
Gunn is Salmond's McBride. He'll have to go. The taxpayer shouldn't pay the wages of this thug.
Something very fishy about all this.
The workmen are stupid ****s. The next door house (to the work, a demolition, not my house) has lost water at least once because of their incompetence.
Mr. Speedy, hmm. Will that make an Iran-Iraq-Syrian alliance, I wonder...
The battlefront is huge, ranging from Karbala and Tikrit to Aleppo and Arbil, ISIS controls roughly the same territory as ancient Assyria with 15 million people and has advanced 100 miles in 3 days in Iraq on all directions.
He would probably have won that and got effective independence without all the problems. Also if it worked well it would then be much easier to win "dominion" status ie independence on the same basis as Australia and Canada in a few years, if it was wanted.
Every Tory vote was wrung out of that seat by Grant's Grenadiers but it's an effort which can't be repeated in a General Election.
UKIP may or may not suffer from the "nasty party" tag but it does have an issue with the "wasted vote" argument which blighted the Liberals and Liberal Democrats for decades. When confronted with the obvious conclusion that the Government would either be Conservative or Labour, those who dallied with the third party between elections would run back to their "normal" place.
For those who gleefully argue that UKIP is hurting Labour as much as the Tories, the argument still holds true and it will be fascinating to see the comparative between UKIP performances in Conservative and Labour areas next year. I do agree the likelihood is UKIP will pile up votes where they don't need them (the same may be true of the Conservatives).
To give an idea of the seriousness of the situation:
ISIS has advanced 100 miles in 3 days in all directions and has quite an arsenal and funds since being constantly funneled money and weapons for the syrian rebels, also since the fall of Mosul they got half a billion dollars in cash from the local central bank branch, 26 F-16 fighter jets, dozens of Blackhawk attack helicopters, plus american tanks, american artillery, american APC's, american Humvees, the oil fields, the pipelines and the refineries of Northern and Central Iraq. ISIS is mostly run by american weapons and cash going the wrong way.
The iraqi army has disintegrated, though the airforce is still there and they are scrambling to get the shia militias up and running again.
But time is running against them, at this rate we will see Saigon 1975 all over again with the US embassy evacuated by helicopter and the black flag flying over its ruins.
On the news last night it suggested 3,000 fighters claimed Mosul. Whilst a hefty number, it's hardly the hordes of Darius, and rather indicative (I would guess) of how weak the Iraqi government is.
The US won't, I feel, get involved. Obama's been shown not merely reluctant on the global stage, but perhaps cowardly (given the red line of Syria). We won't get involved.
Welcome to a world of beecroft in full hire and fire at will etc. What will happen in 2020 after Gideons taxpayer funded property boom implodes will be far more interesting and I don't suppose any of them will be too keen to lead the tories after 2020.
Should UKIP win seats in 2015 I expect them to be among the most hostile to the Tories in the house with the chance of supply/confidence or coalition being zero.
Or simply use this.
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwide-national-inflation.php
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27805019
It is not that simple, not by a long chalk. The astonishing ease with which its been executed with such small numbers must surely give a massive boost to a whole host of islamist groups all over the world.
Today Mosul....tomorrow....???
Mr Wilders must be cock a hoop.
'One reason he (Bashar Assad) has had some success is that the insurgents are as split as ever and also quite a number of the radicals who are not massive in numbers but are certainly capable in fighting terms have mysteriously left the country..and gone to Iraq.'
None of what is happening in Iraq now is a surprise. The Sunni radicals shifted some focus and manpower a while back. The performance of the Iraqi army and police appears to be desperate. Two divisions have vanished into thin air, one of them leaving most of its equipment that ISIS got its hands on.
ISIS do have support from their Sunni brothers, who are not necessarily fans of ISIS and certainly never joined the radical front during the days of insurgency against the Americans.They can't stand the Shi'ite hegemony however under Al Maliki. This may reflect why those divisions disappeared without much of a fight if they had a fair number of Sunnis in their number. The only other reason is that they simply weren't very good or weren't well led, take your pick.
Will ISIS march on Bagdhad? Stories have it they are going to try but its a stretch and you'd assume that the Iraqi forces, who appear to be forming up on a retrenchment around the capital are not going to prove a walkover. Certainly many of their more capable units are in the city. Al Maliki has also started to home in on the sectarian war aspect as part of his talk.
Ironically the one group that could have taken on the ISIS forces in Mosul, the Kurdish Peshmerga, were warned off by Al Maliki.