What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
I do blame them. I also blame Cameron for not being honest about the situation and making it clear that we don't actually have the control he claims over how much we are taken for.
Interesting in-depth non-partisan article on the different polling techniques used by PPP and Rasmussen. They use the US Senate Brown v Warren race as the main illustration.
Plenty on differences between pollsters in methodology, likely-voter screens, modelling demographic composition of polls etc.
What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
I do blame them. I also blame Cameron for not being honest about the situation and making it clear that we don't actually have the control he claims over how much we are taken for.
@ChrisMasonBBC 92 MPs have put names to amendment to Qn's Sph which 'respectfully regretted that EU referendum bill was not included in Gracious Speech.'
What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
I do blame them. I also blame Cameron for not being honest about the situation and making it clear that we don't actually have the control he claims over how much we are taken for.
We should refuse to pay it.
We can't Richard N is correct that we are signed up to this system by Blair. If we refuse to pay we are in breach of our treaty obligations.
If we stopped paying the EU and also stopped the Int'l Aid budget we would save about 25bn a year. Our deficit would drop to about 4%. What an unforgivable shocking waste.
I put a couple of these through the WAVE Website Accessibility Tool, to check how well they've been designed for access by the disabled (e.g. the blind) who use reader tools.
Conservatives: 0 errors, 26 alerts Labour: 7 errors, 16 alerts LibDems: 2 errors, 1 alert (although their front page is very simple) UKIP: 22 errors, 51 alerts
As an example, my own website front page gets 2 errors and 6 alerts, and the BBC News front page 2 errors, 51 alerts.
You have to be very careful with these figures, as the online tools isn't the best, and it can depend on the accessibility tool the disabled person is using.
But generally the results are not too bad, and certainly better than some websites I have seen.
I assume the libdems.org.uk splash page accounts for the low numbers there...
As the site's technical administrator, I'd just like to say that if I receive sufficient bribesdonations, then I'm happy to reinstate the like/dislike buttons.
As the site's foremost ARSE, I'd just like to say if I receive sufficient gratuitous groveling and mindless fawning, then I'm happy for PBers to push my buttons and to reinstate fortnightly outpouring from my august organ.
Richard Edgar @ITVRichard 5m Wages are falling ever further behind prices, growing 0.8 % in May while inflation is c4 times higher at 2.8%. Mervyn King speaks in an hour
Any idea of the influence of public-sector pay freezes on the national total? Perhaps those not paid by the state are tracking closer to price increases, so wont 'feel' it as acutely. They're still slowly falling behind prices, though, I'm sure.
As I understand it, the public sector pay freeze didn't happen.
If they're cutting the headcounts, and doing it the short-term-cheap way by slowing new hires who tend to be younger, you'd expect the average pay to go up alongside the average age. This would happen in the private sector too, because it's more common to get promoted than demoted.
If you want to reduce young hires while keeping the average pay constant, you'll need to actually cut pay scales for the people who are left, not just freeze them. Thinking of the long term it may be better to fire under-performing older people instead of cutting back new hires, but that costs you more in the short term because firing people is expensive.
What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
I do blame them. I also blame Cameron for not being honest about the situation and making it clear that we don't actually have the control he claims over how much we are taken for.
We should refuse to pay it.
We can't Richard N is correct that we are signed up to this system by Blair. If we refuse to pay we are in breach of our treaty obligations.
What kind of victory is it if the EU just turns round and uses a different method to get the money out of us?
They are getting less than would otherwise be the case.
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
I do blame them. I also blame Cameron for not being honest about the situation and making it clear that we don't actually have the control he claims over how much we are taken for.
British politics being what it is, Cam was unable to say that as the wonderful British public would have tarnished him with being somehow culpable.
As the site's technical administrator, I'd just like to say that if I receive sufficient bribesdonations, then I'm happy to reinstate the like/dislike buttons.
As the site's foremost ARSE, I'd just like to say if I receive sufficient gratuitous groveling and mindless fawning, then I'm happy for PBers to push my buttons and to reinstate fortnightly outpouring from my august organ.
OK @rcs1000. put the donation button up for the next few days and see if you are bribeddonated enough to re-instate those buttons. Actually I don't see why uou don't put up the donate button as a permanent fixture.
It may well have been but it was the idiot who is in No 10 now who tried to pretend that he was securing some kind of great victory in controlling the EU budget when he must have already known it was nothing of the sort.
He did achieve a significant victory, in that the medium-term budget increase was vetoed (to be fair, with support from Germany and others). In other words, it would be a lot worse without the pressure he applied. He can only work within the structure Blair and Brown foolishly agreed to.
Would it be worse? If the original deal had cut it by 3 billion a year rather than 4.5 billion, the Parliament would have negotiated for an extra 6 billion rather than 7.5 billion. The EU decides what to do first and then gets the money to cover it later.
I'm also sceptical of the "unpaid bills" explanation. The Council's press release says it is for "measures to support economic growth, create jobs and tackle unemployment, especially amount youth people.":
Even if it is for unpaid bills, they can just run over every year.
Also, it's not true that Cameron can only work within the Blair-Brown structure. We can leave the EU and sign a new trade agreement and not have to operate within EU rigged structures at all.
"Why did Afzal [head of the North West prosecution service] succeed where others feared to tread? Afzal himself says: "My Pakistani heritage helped cut through barriers within the black and minority ethnic communities, And white professionals' oversensitivity to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled.”"
The actual head of the authority in charge of getting these convictions has says its down to oversensitivity to political correctness. How on Earth does this not get reported by the mainstream media?
One possible nit - I have seen it reported differently in different places: were the guilty men Pakistani and Somali or British-born of Pakistani and Somali heritage?
Re the budget: given the EU currently has zero soldiers, and a not a single missile. Would it not be an idea just to simply pay exactly was agreed at the budget negotiations previously? I'm sure it would be popular in Germany were Frau Merkel to do the same.
(And for all the treaty requirements, it's worth pointing out that the Italian are currently in breach of a number of ECJ judgements, and so far the EU has failed to invade.)
"Ed Miliband congratulated us [yippee!] for launching a Climate Justice campaign, urging the audience that "governments alone won't achieve a climate change agreement. It needs you, civil society, people of faith and not of faith, all of us.""
Tempting though that strategy is, we're not dodgy, feckles Italians. Upstanding Britons stand by our word and the rule of law and we should abide by our existing obligations. The solution isn't to disobey the treaties. It's to pull out of the treaties.
Re the budget: given the EU currently has zero soldiers, and a not a single missile. Would it not be an idea just to simply pay exactly was agreed at the budget negotiations previously? I'm sure it would be popular in Germany were Frau Merkel to do the same.
(And for all the treaty requirements, it's worth pointing out that the Italian are currently in breach of a number of ECJ judgements, and so far the EU has failed to invade.)
Who on earth thought it was a good idea to give more powers to such an unaccountable mob?
They're not unaccountable, they're directly elected and can be directly unelected.
Also, cutting things like slow-to-spend cohesion funds is an objectively stupid idea. Europe needs bigger fiscal transfers, and rolling over unspent money to the next year makes for better incentives than cancelling it.
"Why did Afzal [head of the North West prosecution service] succeed where others feared to tread? Afzal himself says: "My Pakistani heritage helped cut through barriers within the black and minority ethnic communities, And white professionals' oversensitivity to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled.”"
The actual head of the authority in charge of getting these convictions has says its down to oversensitivity to political correctness. How on Earth does this not get reported by the mainstream media?
Because they don't want to be branded as 'Racist' either.
Look at the vitriol poured onto the heads of posters by the usual suspects here.
It's pretty hard to unelect people on a PR party list system. Andrew Duff openly says the English should be defeated in Europe, sees his party lose large numbers of votes in the Eastern region, and still gets in because he's at the top of the list. The vast majority of people can want to kick someone out but there will still be enough unthinking tribal voters that the top of the list for each of the three big parties will still get in. That's the problem with multi-member constituencies.
Why on Earth are blog posts shortened by the editors? There's no page inches being used up. It seems like the sort of things editors would do because they've always done them and want to justify their jobs.
"Why did Afzal [head of the North West prosecution service] succeed where others feared to tread? Afzal himself says: "My Pakistani heritage helped cut through barriers within the black and minority ethnic communities, And white professionals' oversensitivity to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled.”"
The actual head of the authority in charge of getting these convictions has says its down to oversensitivity to political correctness. How on Earth does this not get reported by the mainstream media?
‘In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country.’
I assume even lefties will be too embarrassed to claim that mass immigration "just happened".
One possible nit - I have seen it reported differently in different places: were the guilty men Pakistani and Somali or British-born of Pakistani and Somali heritage?
The piece has been shortened and edited in a way that doesn't make me entirely happy, but that's journalism. e.g. In the original I specifically said they were Brits of Pakistani and Somali heritage.
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges 14m Labour's lead in Mori down to 3 points. Amazed. Didn't see that coming. After everything was going so well...
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges 3m Gabby Hinsliff tells me Mori in line with poll to be published later this week. In which case I return to being facetious. Ed screwed.
Tempting though that strategy is, we're not dodgy, feckles Italians. Upstanding Britons stand by our word and the rule of law and we should abide by our existing obligations. The solution isn't to disobey the treaties. It's to pull out of the treaties.
Irrespective of whether the right thing is to leave the EU or not, clearly the current situation is not what we agreed to. Sometimes I wonder if your BOOism means you would rather we handed over more money now, so as to (possibly) increase the chance we leave in two years time?
My view is that "sticking by our word" would be handing over exactly what was agreed. And I would have thought the 'Northern' block (the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, and Poland) would be very much on our side with this. The Southerners (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) might also relish a reduction in contributions.
So come on Cameron - pick up the phone, get some allies, and then announce you're paying the agreed amount and not a centime more.
It's pretty hard to unelect people on a PR party list system. Andrew Duff openly says the English should be defeated in Europe, sees his party lose large numbers of votes in the Eastern region, and still gets in because he's at the top of the list. The vast majority of people can want to kick someone out but there will still be enough unthinking tribal voters that the top of the list for each of the three big parties will still get in. That's the problem with multi-member constituencies.
We're talking about the budget, which will be almost entirely party-line. Even if we weren't, although I'd prefer STV or open lists, it would make very little difference in practice. Voters vote for parties, even under FPTP people in safe seats are safe while popular people in marginals only make a difference at the margins.
It may well have been but it was the idiot who is in No 10 now who tried to pretend that he was securing some kind of great victory in controlling the EU budget when he must have already known it was nothing of the sort.
He did achieve a significant victory, in that the medium-term budget increase was vetoed (to be fair, with support from Germany and others). In other words, it would be a lot worse without the pressure he applied. He can only work within the structure Blair and Brown foolishly agreed to.
Would it be worse? If the original deal had cut it by 3 billion a year rather than 4.5 billion, the Parliament would have negotiated for an extra 6 billion rather than 7.5 billion. The EU decides what to do first and then gets the money to cover it later.
I'm also sceptical of the "unpaid bills" explanation. The Council's press release says it is for "measures to support economic growth, create jobs and tackle unemployment, especially amount youth people.":
Even if it is for unpaid bills, they can just run over every year.
Also, it's not true that Cameron can only work within the Blair-Brown structure. We can leave the EU and sign a new trade agreement and not have to operate within EU rigged structures at all.
Cameron couldn't lead a policy decision to leave the EU even if he wanted to because he as PM has to work within the constraints of parliament and there's no majority support for that there.
It's true that 'the government' could in theory propose such a policy but not now in practice.
A word of caution: Ipsos-MORI does tend to produce rather volatile figures, for reasons I've never quite understood (it might be their certainty-to-vote filter).
It's pretty hard to unelect people on a PR party list system. Andrew Duff openly says the English should be defeated in Europe, sees his party lose large numbers of votes in the Eastern region, and still gets in because he's at the top of the list. The vast majority of people can want to kick someone out but there will still be enough unthinking tribal voters that the top of the list for each of the three big parties will still get in. That's the problem with multi-member constituencies.
We're talking about the budget, which will be almost entirely party-line. Even if we weren't, although I'd prefer STV or open lists, it would make very little difference in practice. Voters vote for parties, even under FPTP people in safe seats are safe while popular people in marginals only make a difference at the margins.
While it may make little difference in practice, party lists take power away from ordinary voters and hand them to party machines. Therefore, I would suggest they should be avoided at all costs.
"Ed Miliband congratulated us [yippee!] for launching a Climate Justice campaign, urging the audience that "governments alone won't achieve a climate change agreement. It needs you, civil society, people of faith and not of faith, all of us.""
It's not so much Labour in a mess, more that the three major parties all have their own differing problems, and there's a new kid on the block, that's popular.
"Ed Miliband congratulated us [yippee!] for launching a Climate Justice campaign, urging the audience that "governments alone won't achieve a climate change agreement. It needs you, civil society, people of faith and not of faith, all of us.""
Climate Justice. WTF does that even mean? Fair and reasonable climate for all? Getting the climate you deserve?
Yuck.
I think it means finding the man (or woman) responsible for our current weather, and locking said person up for a long, long time. Preferably in the same cell as Chris Huhne.
@SeanT I find your column very uncomfortable. I'm not sure how I should react to the points that you make, particularly your final point, and I get the impression that you aren't either.
This means that it is an exceptionally good column.
Who on earth thought it was a good idea to give more powers to such an unaccountable mob?
They're not unaccountable, they're directly elected and can be directly unelected.
Also, cutting things like slow-to-spend cohesion funds is an objectively stupid idea. Europe needs bigger fiscal transfers, and rolling over unspent money to the next year makes for better incentives than cancelling it.
That's only true to a point. Countries which operate closed list systems, whether regionally or nationally, give almost no control to their electorates in respect of the top-named x candidates in the more popular parties. Those MEPs are accountable only to their parties.
It's one reason why a really useful change to the way the EU operates would be single-member constituencies for the parliament (another being to select the Commission from the parliament and to make it directly accountable there). There needs to be a change to the whole Brussels mindset and greatly increasing democratic pressure would go no small way in that direction. At the moment, the pressure is only coming from a few national governments.
I like John Rentoul, he does a Dave is crap piece.
Then the mori poll comes out
Update: Mind you, if the Ipsos MORI poll, published during PMQs, putting Labour’s lead at three points is not an outlier, perhaps banging on about Europe was Cameron’s judo plan all along.
"Ed Miliband congratulated us [yippee!] for launching a Climate Justice campaign, urging the audience that "governments alone won't achieve a climate change agreement. It needs you, civil society, people of faith and not of faith, all of us.""
Climate Justice. WTF does that even mean? Fair and reasonable climate for all? Getting the climate you deserve?
Yuck.
I think it means finding the man (or woman) responsible for our current weather, and locking said person up for a long, long time. Preferably in the same cell as Chris Huhne.
It's a single poll, from a very volatile pollster. 34% is undoubtedly a poor showing for Labour, but 31% is a fairly dismal showing for the Conservatives.
Climate Justice. WTF does that even mean? Fair and reasonable climate for all? Getting the climate you deserve? Yuck.
No, not that sort of justice. Smiting. Lightning coming out of nowhere - especially indoors. Weeping and gnashing of little pointy teeth. Graves opening, and zombies of death pouring out to devour the brains of the unrighteous eco-zealots.
Millibandspeak: "people of faith and not of faith". Gawd help us if someone who produces this gobbledygook ever gets his two left thumbs on the levers of power.**
** Don't mind a small majority where EdM can show us he's a Hollande-type super incompetent.
It's a single poll, from a very volatile pollster. 34% is undoubtedly a poor showing for Labour, but 31% is a fairly dismal showing for the Conservatives.
A single poll - to match the other ICM single poll.
It's pretty hard to unelect people on a PR party list system. Andrew Duff openly says the English should be defeated in Europe, sees his party lose large numbers of votes in the Eastern region, and still gets in because he's at the top of the list. The vast majority of people can want to kick someone out but there will still be enough unthinking tribal voters that the top of the list for each of the three big parties will still get in. That's the problem with multi-member constituencies.
We're talking about the budget, which will be almost entirely party-line. Even if we weren't, although I'd prefer STV or open lists, it would make very little difference in practice. Voters vote for parties, even under FPTP people in safe seats are safe while popular people in marginals only make a difference at the margins.
While it may make little difference in practice, party lists take power away from ordinary voters and hand them to party machines. Therefore, I would suggest they should be avoided at all costs.
I agree they're best avoided. Britain should standardize on STV for the Euros, instead of having a good system for Northern Ireland and a crap one for everyone else.
Ref the new Poll - Others *excluding UKIP* are implicitly on 12%. That's very high. Assuming about 4% for SNP+PC and 1% for the far right, that must mean about 6-7% for the rest, which I'd guess would be mostly where Labour's support is going? Greens perhaps?
I think we need an ARSE poll to confirm if this Mori and ICM are outliers.
The figures I've just quoted below are from last week. I hope to issue a fortnighty ARSE and according there will be a further outpouring early next week.
Who on earth thought it was a good idea to give more powers to such an unaccountable mob?
They're not unaccountable, they're directly elected and can be directly unelected.
Also, cutting things like slow-to-spend cohesion funds is an objectively stupid idea. Europe needs bigger fiscal transfers, and rolling over unspent money to the next year makes for better incentives than cancelling it.
That's only true to a point. Countries which operate closed list systems, whether regionally or nationally, give almost no control to their electorates in respect of the top-named x candidates in the more popular parties. Those MEPs are accountable only to their parties.
It's one reason why a really useful change to the way the EU operates would be single-member constituencies for the parliament (another being to select the Commission from the parliament and to make it directly accountable there). There needs to be a change to the whole Brussels mindset and greatly increasing democratic pressure would go no small way in that direction. At the moment, the pressure is only coming from a few national governments.
The problem is that increased democracy in the European parliament - i.e. actually giving them a role rather than merely copious expense accounts - is that it takes a way from the sovereignty of individual member states. We therefore have an unaccountable Europe, where the decisions are made opaquely and indirectly. Increasing European-level democracy would have the effect of making decision making more open (and address the Farage criticism), but would - at the same time - really be taking us down the route to a European super-state.
I think we need an ARSE poll to confirm if this Mori and ICM are outliers.
The figures I've just quoted below are from last week. I hope to issue a fortnighty ARSE and according there will be a further outpouring early next week.
Thank you.
Will your ARSE be carrying polling on Caledonian independence as well?
It's a single poll, from a very volatile pollster. 34% is undoubtedly a poor showing for Labour, but 31% is a fairly dismal showing for the Conservatives.
The political significance is that people who don't understand polling, which apparently includes a surprising number of politicians, won't know that, and will make it harder for Ed Miliband to hold whatever the line is that he's trying to hold.
I put a couple of these through the WAVE Website Accessibility Tool, to check how well they've been designed for access by the disabled (e.g. the blind) who use reader tools.
Conservatives: 0 errors, 26 alerts Labour: 7 errors, 16 alerts LibDems: 2 errors, 1 alert (although their front page is very simple) UKIP: 22 errors, 51 alerts
As an example, my own website front page gets 2 errors and 6 alerts, and the BBC News front page 2 errors, 51 alerts.
You have to be very careful with these figures, as the online tools isn't the best, and it can depend on the accessibility tool the disabled person is using.
But generally the results are not too bad, and certainly better than some websites I have seen.
I assume the libdems.org.uk splash page accounts for the low numbers there...
Yep, I didn't notice in my quick test; silly of me. Splash pages are the work of the devil. Their real page scores 5 errors, 48 alerts.
And the SNP page: 5 errors, 17 alerts. Greens: 4 errors, 14 alerts English PC: 8 errors, 81 alerts.
So far the Conservatives are winning hands-down *if* you trust the analyser. Other usability issues may abound, however.
Comments
But of course you are right on the main point that, because of Brown's and Blair's incompetence, we don't have the control we should have to prevent the EU's profligacy hitting the UK taxpayer. Blame them.
http://www.euractiv.com/priorities/ministers-reach-compromise-top-e-news-519737
Plenty on differences between pollsters in methodology, likely-voter screens, modelling demographic composition of polls etc.
The EU Parliament is getting frisky, isn't it? They're getting concessions as a precondition to begin talks...
@ChrisMasonBBC
92 MPs have put names to amendment to Qn's Sph which 'respectfully regretted that EU referendum bill was not included in Gracious Speech.'
A former Liberal Democrat - who has defected to Labour - is now trying to sell his personalised number plate, L16 DEM.
"Perf1d10u5"
If you want to reduce young hires while keeping the average pay constant, you'll need to actually cut pay scales for the people who are left, not just freeze them. Thinking of the long term it may be better to fire under-performing older people instead of cutting back new hires, but that costs you more in the short term because firing people is expensive.
Labour betrayed its most loyal working-class supporters. And it doesn't even care
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/michaelheaver/100216882/labour-betrayed-its-most-loyal-working-class-supporters-and-it-doesnt-even-care/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2013
It just would not have worked politically.
Which is a shame.
I'm also sceptical of the "unpaid bills" explanation. The Council's press release says it is for "measures to support economic growth, create jobs and tackle unemployment, especially amount youth people.":
http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ecofin/137116.pdf
Even if it is for unpaid bills, they can just run over every year.
Also, it's not true that Cameron can only work within the Blair-Brown structure. We can leave the EU and sign a new trade agreement and not have to operate within EU rigged structures at all.
Phew.
"Why did Afzal [head of the North West prosecution service] succeed where others feared to tread? Afzal himself says: "My Pakistani heritage helped cut through barriers within the black and minority ethnic communities, And white professionals' oversensitivity to political correctness and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled.”"
The actual head of the authority in charge of getting these convictions has says its down to oversensitivity to political correctness. How on Earth does this not get reported by the mainstream media?
One possible nit - I have seen it reported differently in different places: were the guilty men Pakistani and Somali or British-born of Pakistani and Somali heritage?
In practice, this is my worry about DC. The Tebbit style Tories had nowhere else to go. Now they do. If only this could happen to Labour.
(And for all the treaty requirements, it's worth pointing out that the Italian are currently in breach of a number of ECJ judgements, and so far the EU has failed to invade.)
BBC Radio 4 rapped over 'cox sackers' on-air comment
Listener complained that email read out during afternoon show contained 'grossly offensive' play on words
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/may/15/bbc-radio-4-cox-sackers
"Ed Miliband congratulated us [yippee!] for launching a Climate Justice campaign, urging the audience that "governments alone won't achieve a climate change agreement. It needs you, civil society, people of faith and not of faith, all of us.""
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100217038/cafods-love-in-with-ed-miliband/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22536197
Zut alors.
Tempting though that strategy is, we're not dodgy, feckles Italians. Upstanding Britons stand by our word and the rule of law and we should abide by our existing obligations. The solution isn't to disobey the treaties. It's to pull out of the treaties.
Also, cutting things like slow-to-spend cohesion funds is an objectively stupid idea. Europe needs bigger fiscal transfers, and rolling over unspent money to the next year makes for better incentives than cancelling it.
Good article. Perhaps tim and SouthamObserver could learn something by reading it.
Look at the vitriol poured onto the heads of posters by the usual suspects here.
It's pretty hard to unelect people on a PR party list system. Andrew Duff openly says the English should be defeated in Europe, sees his party lose large numbers of votes in the Eastern region, and still gets in because he's at the top of the list. The vast majority of people can want to kick someone out but there will still be enough unthinking tribal voters that the top of the list for each of the three big parties will still get in. That's the problem with multi-member constituencies.
Why on Earth are blog posts shortened by the editors? There's no page inches being used up. It seems like the sort of things editors would do because they've always done them and want to justify their jobs.
Is the only result I can find from before the last month.
‘In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country.’
I assume even lefties will be too embarrassed to claim that mass immigration "just happened".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324112/Lord-Mandelson-Immigrants-We-sent-search-parties-hard-Britons-work.html
Perhaps Labour should bang on about Europe more ?
Tories +2
Labour -4
LD nc
UKIP -2
Oh er Sandy !!!!!!!!!
Labour's lead in Mori down to 3 points. Amazed. Didn't see that coming. After everything was going so well...
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges 3m
Gabby Hinsliff tells me Mori in line with poll to be published later this week. In which case I return to being facetious. Ed screwed.
My view is that "sticking by our word" would be handing over exactly what was agreed. And I would have thought the 'Northern' block (the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, and Poland) would be very much on our side with this. The Southerners (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) might also relish a reduction in contributions.
So come on Cameron - pick up the phone, get some allies, and then announce you're paying the agreed amount and not a centime more.
Labour are only picking up a third of the votes the coalition parties are shedding.
That's not good for an opposition.
It's true that 'the government' could in theory propose such a policy but not now in practice.
Yuck.
Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister.
This means that it is an exceptionally good column.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
It's one reason why a really useful change to the way the EU operates would be single-member constituencies for the parliament (another being to select the Commission from the parliament and to make it directly accountable there). There needs to be a change to the whole Brussels mindset and greatly increasing democratic pressure would go no small way in that direction. At the moment, the pressure is only coming from a few national governments.
Then the mori poll comes out
Update: Mind you, if the Ipsos MORI poll, published during PMQs, putting Labour’s lead at three points is not an outlier, perhaps banging on about Europe was Cameron’s judo plan all along.
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/05/15/a-triumph-for-david-cameron/
Con 290 .. Lab 280 .. LibDem 43 .. SNP 10 .. PC 3 .. Ukip 2 .. Respect 1 .. Green 1 .. Ind 1 .. Speaker 1 .. NI 18
Truly the man to lead this nation.
That sort of justice. Get the popcorn in.
** Don't mind a small majority where EdM can show us he's a Hollande-type super incompetent.
Gives a Labour majority of 30 and no UKIP MPs
So it's a bit of a quandary all round.
Will your ARSE be carrying polling on Caledonian independence as well?
And the SNP page: 5 errors, 17 alerts.
Greens: 4 errors, 14 alerts
English PC: 8 errors, 81 alerts.
So far the Conservatives are winning hands-down *if* you trust the analyser. Other usability issues may abound, however.
Labour supporters have hardened their attitude towards social justice because Labour did. Miliband must reverse this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/15/ed-miliband-change-voters-minds-poverty
3pts? In mid-term? Let's see the Lefties exert themselves with Look Squirrel over the next few hours talking about anything else.
Cheered me up no end this afternoon :^ )
Excellent timing.