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Squaring circles is part of the business of politics. One such conundrum David Cameron has to face is how to simultaneously make the party he leads more appealing to centrist floating voters while also attracting back those who’ve defected to UKIP. On the face of it, those are two incompatible objectives:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Milne_Wilson
Third!
Incidentally, the moment it was announced that Michael Gove will have a greater media role for the election I thought it was untrue and offered to appease him. Come January I think Tory management will try and ensure Gove does not feature in the media any more than absolutely necessary.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2697956/Ill-radical-Michael-Foot-declares-Red-Ed-Miliband-reveals-plans-fundamentally-reshape-Labour-party.html
On thread, the changes are interesting and it will be fascinating to see what change, if any the pollsters report among key sections like women voters, teachers etc in the coming months.
Meanwhile as it appears listening to SKY and other reporters that Ukrainian rebels are looting the bodies of the plane crash victims of credit cards, watches etc how much more can Putin withstand before he takes action?
There's clearly a palpable error here and she ain't going to get her money.
But the standard that they will be compared to is poor. Ed is now starting to pay the price of keeping that blank sheet of paper. The Shadow Cabinet seems directionless and hamstrung by the inability to promise more money. Without the promise of money to solve every problem they need to be able to engage their tory counterparts in substance and they are very poorly placed to do that.
To take the example of education what is Labour's policy prescription? I think they oppose any expansion of free schools but they seem content to let those created remain. They are opposed to teachers without a formal training qualification being able to teach. They seem to think Academies have gone far enough, possibly too far. What are they for?
New Labour, which Ed seems to want to distance himself from, was at least initially quite tough on education. We had league tables, an emphasis on discipline in schools and of course the start of the Academy program. If league tables and obsessive testing is not the answer to the urgent need to raise school standards what is?
Tristram Hunt will not be so easily mocked in the Commons as he was by Gove but he still needs positive things to say. It is also noteworthy that he is the 4th shadow education Secretary in 4 years. The difference with Gove, who was shadow for 3years before he took office and knew (rightly or wrongly) exactly what he wanted to do is stark.
No Lib Dem/Labour reshuffle yet. I wonder if/when we'll see them.
Another QTWTAIN.
We overestimate the impact of Westminster changes. I really doubt if most people will have remembered anything at all about the reshuffle except that Gove was demoted (and even that will only have vaguely registered). Will voters be subliminally influenced by hearing Nicky Morgan now and then announcing, say, a new curriculum change?
There's a victim lurking inside all of us, alas. (Unless we're megalomaniacs, of course - not that there could ever be any of those on this board. Could there?)
It would?
I'd say it was entirely marketing thus summing up the root political problem - the key policies e.g. unlimited mass immigration, Europhilia, Banksterism, creation of a police state etc are fixed outside the democratic process leaving the political parties with just scraps to try and differentiate themselves with and political pantomimes to make up the shortfall.
twitter.com/PopulusPolls/status/490105976268521472
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
So all they can do is rely on the Cameroons losing which they were until *maybe* they were saved by all the BRIC oligarch money flooding in although it's too early to say what all the consequences of that might be. (It might turn out to be a bad thing in the end e.g. house prices.)
What he does outwith Russia isn't.
Not effectively dealing with bullies, whether in the playground or the international stage only leads to one thing - more bullying.
Some nations take longer to learn the lesson than others.
"Some nations take longer to learn the lesson than others."
How long and how many lives did it take the UK to learn?
The bullying analogy is specious - or, to follow it through, we are just another child in the playground. We have no locus, any more than we did - to pick an example at random - when Sri Lanka seceded from India.
The problem is, of course, that there is no teacher. It is not solved by our pretending to that status.
(1) Radio calls between the Russian-backed militias talking about having shot down a plane
(2) Radio calls between the Russian-backed militias saying that they've discovered the plane they shot down was civilian
(3) Tweets by the Russian-backed militias boasting of downing the plane that then got rapidly deleted when it emerged it was a civilian one
(4) A Putin press conference where he claimed that responsibility lay not with those who shot down the plane or those providing them weaponry, but the country it happened over. This would mean the UK was responsible for Lockerbie
(5) The Russian government editing Wikipedia articles to claim Ukrainian soldiers were involved
(6) The Russian-backed militias refusing to allow international observers and investigation teams to the site of the crash
Hundreds of regular people have had their lives snatched from them because they went on holiday. Many leading experts on AIDS/HIV have been killed all at once, causing the global effort against the disease to take a real hit. And all because the despot Putin recklessly handed over weaponry to extremist thugs. And for what motive? To pursue his neo-imperialist dream of ressurecting the Soviet Union. The man is just a callous, evil dictator, that cares first and foremost about his own power and that of the corrupt state he reigns over, and doesn't give a damn about how many lives are destroyed in that quest.
So how does Europe respond? Press releases stating outrage? A few travel bans on a handful of Russian figures? Economic sanctions on things worth a few percent of Russian exports?
A tap on the wrist won't do here. This is a Lusitania-style event and Putin is playing Europe for fools. We need full sanctions on Russian gas exports and a blocking of the Dardanelles. That will bring Russia to its knees. If Cameron and the Eurocrats want to show European co-operation is good for something now is the time.
But then it's not surprising you are such an ignoramus, given that you seek to support Putin's colonialism and irredentism.
Preventing Russian reoccupation of eastern Europe is of course in our interests, don't forget it has land borders with Nato members and there are substantial Russian-speaking minorities in some of them.
Personally I would ban all direct flights to Russia, given Putin's casual attitude to civil air safety.
Since the US off shored their industrial economy US military power now relies on keeping the dollar as reserve currency and maintaining the petrodollar.
The downside of this for other countries is it means the US exports inflation.
So Russia/China have been moving away from the dollar and petrodollar and that ball is now reaching escape velocity as other countries join in.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332882/China-Russia-abandon-dollar-new-bilateral-trade-agreement.html
(The media are mostly ignoring the China aspect to make it look like it's just Putin.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-china-usa-asean-idUSKBN0FK0CM20140715
So basically the US has to scare Russia into stopping the de-dollarization or they lose sole superpower status.
(Of course they could avoid the risk of starting WWIII and just rebuild their economic base instead but the banksters are too greedy to do that.)
Astute observers of this situation will notice that Putin still maintains deniability about the militias he is backing. That means he has left himself an out to save face if he wants to back down. Thus we should allow him to take that out. He could easily turn round now and seal the border and stop providing support for these thugs. Then we de-escalate.
Slightly off topic – to date something in the order of 55 MPs from the three major parties have declared they will be standing down at the next election – the figure strikes me as unusually high, but is this a ‘record’ in modern times?
Expect more requests from old-Soviet bloc countries for more Nato presence near their borders with Russia but that is as far as it will go.
Clearly Russia is a country that is not overly wedded to international norms and has something of the 'rogue state' about it. And their leader is a very naughty boy.
Russia's great power and its absolute weakness comes in two forms: Energy and demographics.
If Europe wanted to it could move towards replacing its dependence on Russia for energy. But that would mean embracing nuclear and fracking and all the things the watermelons cry themselves to sleep about. So for example Germany has a profound choice to make - and right now they seem happier being dependent on Russia than on managing their own energy future. If we are to 'bring Russia to its knees' (even if that is a good or desirable thing) the route to achieving it is via energy policy.
Unless we just want to wait. Russia is dying. And drunk. And running out of money.
They don't have to honour any prices in shop windows, or on the goods in aisles.
Nor, even if she surmounts that hurdle, is she entitled to "snap up" goods at a price she knows to be completely wrong. Difficult to argue that she thought Germany were legitimately 600/1 to win.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10976479/To-get-on-in-Camerons-government-dont-be-brave-like-Gove-and-Co.html
"This week, David Cameron should have decided for himself who was best person to be Education Secretary, not whom the public liked or disliked. Instead he surrendered that judgement because a general election is just nine months away. His decision might backfire, if it ends up being seen as a craven abdication of leadership.
Over time, YouGov will track Cameron’s fortunes in the run-up to next spring’s campaign. If the Prime Minister loses ground because of what he has done, he will be in no position to complain. Those who live by the polls must be prepared to die by the polls."
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/peter-kellner/cabinet-reshuffle-should-the-polls-decide-politics-michael-gove-education-secretary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invitation_to_treat
It's certainly vulnerable to economic pressure from the West - the sanctions announced on June 17th include Gazprombank(s) plus Novatek and Rosneft. That's the real shot across Putin's bow - it's effectively excluding those firms from access to medium and long term dollar financing.
Overall, I don't think it will change the political landscape too much; it's still most likely that young Ed will be leading us into {the broad sunday uplands | the abyss }.
I thought that Putin's response was predictable as was everyone's else.
The Ukranian rebels - hide the evidence and claim it wasn't us guv.
Russia - it's all fault of the Ukranian Government for not giving in to the rebels.
Ukranian Government - Gotcha!
The West - bugger, all that gas and easy money at risk.
Fracking would ease our dependence on imported energy and save money. The Yanks have managed it without wiping out a proportion of the population, but the Greens would rather we froze in our nicely decorated (with organic colour) cave.
If they'd been so strong in the 1960s, we'd have sat back and allowed Norway to take all the North Sea oil because we didn't want to endanger the oceanic creepy-crawlies.
A travesty that he didn't get MOTM in the first test
If you wanted to play it safe, Rosberg's pole price on Betfair has gone down a bit.
Edited extra bit: might be worth laying Raikkonen for top 10 on the basis he might not even make qualifying, but there's just a tenner available at evens.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/germany-pre-qualifying.html
Qualifying looks quite interesting.
Cameron is a classic One-nation Tory. Yes some people have gone to UKIP. As a party we miss the likes of Sean F but not many of those with more extreme views whom we are well shot of. We are yet to see what effect UKIP has on the Tories in a full scale election, not a bunch of polls. The Tories performed far better in the Euro and local government elections than the vast majority on here and the wider chatterati had expected.
As for party membership, the Tory party is not somehow immune from the rest of society. Parties membership rises when they are in opposition because they provide a focus for those who disagree with the government. The converse is equally true.
UKIP is new and shiny as far as many are concerned so they are joining it. However clearly many do not like what they see once it has secured election as we saw twice this week when it lost by-elections. OGH will no doubt confirm whether it is any more successful at defending by-elections now than it was before the May elections this year.
Young people do not join things the way their parents and grandparents did. Church membership is falling. Voluntary organisations, community groups, hobby clubs are all folding because they cannot attract new members and committee members. The Tory party is not immune from that.
However many more young people appear to be happy to lend some of their time to support the David Cameron Tory party than at any time since the early days of Margaret Thatcher. We saw that with the 600 strong hit squad which landed in Newark to campaign. We have seen it all over Scotland at council by-election after by-election over the past 3 years. Tory Associations in the traditional format are disappearing. They are often being replaced by District or Regional groups which are being boosted by short bursts of volunteer activity. In Scotland the 2015Team campaign has seen people who are not party members donate around £250k. That is the way ahead.
Awesome post - watermelons to a T.
From someone called Charles Moore in todays Telegraph.
At last Cameron strikes small blow for democracy.
He's got a75% chance of being remembered as the guy the failed to get a majority twice... Against Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. What's so great about that?
I wonder if the idea is that Putin can claim that these are crazy, uncontrollable people.
Will Jimmy average more than Cook with the bat this series !
In 1988 in a ghastly error the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian airliner on a routine flight killing all 290 people on board. I don't recall any demands for the USA to be punished or subject to economic sanctions.
I think Harry does excellent work on the LE results, however SNP and Mebynon Kernow are tough to read -
Here are my suggestions:
516651 Mebynon Kernow
7f7f00 SNP
Scottish Nationalists 595 (25% -6%)
Mebynon Kernow 58 (5%)
So instead of the rebels being a problem for the Ukraine and its Western allies, Putin now finds all nations that had passengers on the crashed plane will blame Russia. Also all air travellers around the world will be wary of Russia.
Reality is in opinion polls most people see the US as a rogue state and with very good reason.
There remain a considerable amount of points which aren't being widely discussed in our press.
1. Early eye-witness accounts of the crash reported military jets 'shooting down' or at least flying alongside the passenger aircraft before it came down. Kiev saying that these were Russian jets, the rebels saying they were Ukrainian. No mention of this is being made now. This is borne out by tweets from a Spanish air traffic controller from Kiev Airport,
2. Russia claims that Ukraine had BUK missile launchers deployed in the area. If this is proved, it begs the question 'why'. The rebels have no aircraft. It wouldn't be the first time Ukrainian forces have shot down a passenger aircraft; they also did in 2001.
3. Why did MH17 take a more northerly route this time, rather than the same as its previous days? In addition to this unexplained re-route, according to Malaysia Airlines, MH17 requested to fly at an altitude of 35,000 ft. Ukrainian air traffic control told them to fly at a lower altitude of 33,000ft.
It would appear to me there are 3 possibilities:
A) It was shot down in a case of mistaken identity by over-armed and trigger-happy rebels, but questions over its flight path remain.
C) Tinfoil hat time. It was shot down by Ukrainian forces in a well coordinated attempt to implicate Russia, and unite the world against it. Diverted from its usual path, escorted by jets, targeted and destroyed. The ground well prepared, and the smoking gun 'tapes' translated into 6 languages and ready to be deployed.