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I have a big birthday coming up later this year. Where do I book the band?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2327552/Police-search-Commons-office-Deputy-Speaker-Nigel-Evans-rape-claims.html
The survation poll may or may not be an outlier but Cammie pleading with his activists not to desert him and pleading with labour to save the gay marriage bill are symptomatic of omnishambles the sequel.
A swivel eyed loon or an aggressive homosexual?
My musical tastes are unparalleled on PB
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22565267
I have a number of recordings lifted from wax cylinder, including the last surviving true castrato singing in the Vatican Choir.
Be warned!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZLPV6xcHI
I think it was the one allowing register officers refusing to marry some couples
Labour MPs who voted AYE: Frank Field, David Anderson, Mary Glindon, Joe Benton, Jim Dobbin, David Crausby, Goerge Mudie, Virendra Sharma,
LiBDems: Simon Hughes, Sarah Teather, Duncan Hames, Gordon Birtwistle, Paul Burstow, Tim Farron, John Pugh, Alan Beith
So it's not the charging that triggers anything but getting a jail term of a year or more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKBWsy5A2bA
I presume the picture was taking on JohnO's recent tour.
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/05/ukips-populism-could-be-a-greater-threat-to-the-left/
I can't see it working without Mr Cameron being replaced though.
I have visions of him waking up in Bruxelles or Bratislava after the next PB meet.
Alessandro Moreschi, the last surviving true castrato retained by the Vatican Choir, singing Gounod's Ave Maria set to Bach's Prelude in C Major, BWV 846.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slhhg8sI6Ds
From memory this was recorded around the turn of 19th to 20th century directly to wax.
Moreschi was in his late 50s.
This time, UKIP are NOTA, and thats why they will succeed where the SDP failed.
Sam (new acc as iPad won't accept password)
Meanwhile I'm counting my profits from backing (on SPIN) Labour Most Seats, which I repeatedly advised punters here to take in 2011.
Loons must march for equal rights.
Solidarity in the LGBTL community.
How long before a cabinet minister comes out as Loon?
The Tories don't need you, they need the voters that UKIP are now hoovering up: the many millions of CDE rightwingers, the people who voted for Thatcher and Major, or the people who never vote at all."
You're making all kinds of incorrect assumptions about me there.
But note this: (1) In my constituency in 2010 Labour won by 42 votes. The Tories need the votes of me and people like me to win. Nothing they're doing now - despite Cameron's bravery in sticking to his gay marriage pledge - is calculated to make it more likely that I vote for them, despite my loathing of Labour.
(2) Thatcher and Major reached out to voters beyond their core vote. That's what made them successful. All this stuff about alliances with UKIP and the rest is the same old fantasy that if only the Tories were properly right wing they would win and is as realistic as Labour in the 80's thinking that if only they were properly left-wing the British would flock to them. It's fantasy politics fuelled by political titans such as Nadine Dorries whose idea of helping her poor constituents who have to put things back on the shelf because they can't afford them is to decamp to Australia to earn silly money for making a t*t of herself.
Why would retreating to a core vote of c. 25% help the Tories when Labour's core seems to be c. 35%?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22604251
I dont want to worry anyone but didn't the film "The Day After Tomorrow" have scenes of giant twisters presaging a new ice age? Just a thought before you go to bed.
Now, however, it has transpired that the current government is not really any better than the last. I acknowledge that Labour would be worse for the UK economy, but given the incompetence of the present government in implementing their stated policy (the Tories' stated economic policy is in fact perfectly acceptable), it probably wouldn't be significantly worse. Given that the Conservative government's policy is every bit as bad as Labour's on most other areas of policy, and not all that much better on economic policy, at least not the way they go about implementing it, why would I want to vote for a party that I now truly dislike in order to avoid another party which I dislike only marginally more? I have a lot of time for many Conservative backbenchers, but with Cameron in charge I simply cannot bring myself to vote Conservative, and certainly not to campaign for them.
Replace Cameron with someone even half decent, and I'll probably be right back on board. Until then, I'm voting UKIP, regardless of whether that gives Labour a better chance of winning. Frankly, I don't care if Labour win the next election, it is what the Conservative party richly deserve for continuing (and accelerating) Labour's dismantling of the fabric of UK society, and for failing to get rid of Cameron.
UKIP were polling 1 or 2% a year ago I believe.... Correct me if I am wrong...
The have polled 18% with ICM, 20% at the weekend and 22% tonight and now the goalposts have been moved so far that Nick Palmer is flagging up that they haven't passed the Tories yet!
In spread betting this would be continuing to short the market to average out without rebasing your original view
Not shrewd
The first cut is the cheapest
There are far more people in this country who would vote Conservative if only they were more conservative, than people who would vote Conservative if they were even more indistinguishable than they already are from Labour and the Libdems. The Conservative party doesn't need people like you, it needs people like me.
I'd rather take advice from my valet than from the Conservative Party Conference
Arthur Balfour.
Fine, that's your prerogative: it's your vote. But to vote is to choose, and the choice is the Conservatives under Cameron - who's actually an excellent PM, the best bar Maggie for half a century - or Labour. It's not a choice between Cameron and some fictional perfect leader whom you can't name and in any case whose policies simply could not be significantly different in any of the directions I expect you want, or at least not with any chance of winning in 2015. Want the economy sorted and spending cut? They are doing that, as fast as is practical given the starting position. Want a referendum on the EU? Great, vote Conservative, since there's not a snowflake's chance in hell of getting one any other way. Want education sorted? Great, Gove is on the case. Want to reform the welfare system so it rewards work and doesn't incentivise people to slide into benefit dependency? This is the first government in 50 years to grasp that nettle. Etc etc. (And that's without even mentioning the constraints of coalition, which Cameron's critics conveniently forget).
Interestingly from that first poll in 2009 Labour were down 14% at the election and the Tories down 7%.
Instead of which he has flitted about from one thing to the next as if announcing a deficit cutting programme was the same as actually doing it. You have to sweat the small stuff if you're going to bear down relentlessly on a deficit or costs but Cameron never really gives me the impression that he does any sort of sweating, I'm afraid. This may be unfair but there it is.
I have more than one apple ID which may be nausing things...
Good luck with that one. It didn't win last time with your vote alone. If it can't get the votes of the likes of me next time, it's not going to win. Sorry.
Cycle free , a party can't rely on its core vote to win, but it can't rely without it. Where is Cameron gaining votes to make up for those he is alienating?
Still, the fact that political reporting is prone to moments of exuberance does not excuse Mr Cameron. He suffers because he is not very good at politics. You can tell by the legacy issues he must contend with: he failed to win an election against one of Britain’s least popular prime ministers, then failed to secure his party’s agreement for Coalition; what patronage he has he uses, unwisely, to reward friends; he has followed, rather than led, on Europe; and, as we witnessed last night, he is in the final throes of an utterly avoidable confrontation with his own side over gay marriage.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/author/benedictbrogan/
Even the loyalists are losing patience with him........
Isam (are you the same as sam and samonipad?) - I think I was the first poster to point out that UKIP might approach crossover back when they were on about 14%. In electoral terms I do think their rise is useful for Labour. In political terms (winning the long-term arguments) not. But either way it's fascinating to see a centuries-old political giant like the Conservatives on the brink of disaster. I still think they'll pull back, as we did in 1983, but there must be a real risk of meltdown at this point.
Meanwhile the rest of the parliamentary should be under strict instructions not to die.
Just like a vote for the lib dems was a vote for labour in 2010.
Remind us who you are in coalition with again?
*chortle*
Best improve the spin.
You aren't going to beat back the kippers by pretending they are labour or being nice to them.
Wilson
Heath
Callaghan
Thatcher
Major
Blair
Brown
Even I, who is definitely not his fan, would probably put him third out of that lot. Clearly he is well behind Thatcher and must also be behind Blair because he has modelled himself on Blair and made many of the same mistakes and a whole lot of more that Blair would have never made.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4880665/margaret-thatcher-best-pm-ahead-of-churchill.html
I didn't think ukip would cross over w Tories, in fact I offered odds of 1/7 it not and 4/1 I think on it happening before GE2015... No takers thankfully
Completely agree on the short term gains for labour compromised by long term hardening of the right... Interesting times.... We shall see what lies ahead.... Tim has suggested Ed will tack towards Blue Labour at the election... I think that is sensible.... Many old lab voters (me, mum and dad) have nothing in common with mass immigration, Marxism, gay marriage etc but are trade union, working class etc
I was threatened with not being let in the house if I ever voted Tory as a kid, but now even my mum shakes her head in disbelief at what labour have to offer
Where do we go?
The UK has outperformed all other large EU countries in growth including Germany (excepting 2010-11). At a time when the whole of the EU (not just the Eurozone) is in recession (average), the UK has been growing.
The deficit (PSND) has been reduced by 46% with the cyclically adjusted current budget reduced by a third. The static picture forecast for short term deficit reduction in March (based on a forecast annual 0.6% growth) will be replaced by much better short term deficit reduction figures in June when it will be clear the annual OBR forecast for growth has been exceeded in the first half.
Employment at the same time has been held at record levels with a million jobs transferred from the public to private sector. Unemployment is being reduced overall although there will be short periods of small reversal.
The banking sector is being reformed and recapitalised, with shares in the Lloyds Bank Group already trading at levels above book. Share sales to reduce net debt are now a real short term probability.
The FTSE-100 index is trading at record all time highs and the cost of government borrowing has been kept at levels not seen for over a century. Quantitative Easing has been relatively minor with only £50 billion of bond purchases in the last year.
Trade is being rebalanced away from an EU dependency and manufacturing exports in key sectors, e.g car manufacture, are at record levels. Even the decline in oil and gas extraction has been arrested following increased investment and tax incentives in the sector.
Inflation has been kept under control if not at ideal levels. Taking out price inflation due to administrative repricing (rail fares, tuition fees etc) the underlying rate is 1.8% with little short term inflationary pressures from the labour market.
All in all the management of the economy under the Coalition has been near exemplary in the prevailing conditions. This may not be clear today but will become increasingly apparent over the next two years as UK performance diverges further from that of France and even Germany.
Given that the UK had near the highest levels of deficit and debt in Europe when exiting the recession the success of the coalition government is all the more remarkable.
Standards of living may have fallen and still be falling but they can't start rising organically without the inherited structural problems in the economy first being solved, which is exactly what the Coalition government have been doing.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/20/1210395/-Meet-the-Republican-who-is-demanding-that-the-government-let-poor-people-starve
I'd imagine most of the 10 seats identified would still fall to UKIP given Labour were well out of it in most and the UKIP and Tory figures are almost identical to the County Council voteshare projections as long as they pro rata up given the higher GE turnouts. Given that Boston and Skeggy was the most emphatic potential UKIP win it would still seem to be the most likely to fall
http://survation.com/2013/05/ukip-won-in-8-westminster-constituencies-last-thursday/
The Eurozone is about to crash with Spain the first to fail beyond the powers of EU recovery. The social and political consequences of the fall will be truly frightening and there will need to be massive global intervention to stabilise Europe.
The relative safety of the UK will be clear to voters and the dangers of getting the economy wrong will be staring them in the face from across the channel.
Faragist isolationism will not be an option. The US, backed by the resources of global sovereign net lenders will demand the UK's participation in the stabilisation of the EU in return for insisting that the union is radically reformed to accommodate the variant interests of its members, including the UK.
There will be no time or tolerance at an international level for Beppe Grillo or Nigel Farage type political clowning.
Afriyie, Adam
Aldous, Peter
Baker, Steve
Beith, rh Sir Alan
Benton, Mr Joe
Bingham, Andrew
Brady, Mr Graham
Bridgen, Andrew
Brine, Steve
Buckland, Mr Robert
Burley, Mr Aidan
Chope, Mr Christopher
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Cooper, Rosie
Crausby, Mr David
Davies, David T. C. (Monmouth)
Davies, Glyn
Davies, Philip
Dobbin, Jim
Durkan, Mark
Evans, Jonathan
Field, rh Mr Frank
Gale, Sir Roger
Gillan, rh Mrs Cheryl
Glindon, Mrs Mary
Gray, Mr James
Hendry, Charles
Hollobone, Mr Philip
Hughes, rh Simon
Jackson, Mr Stewart
Johnson, Gareth
Jones, Mr Marcus
Kelly, Chris
Latham, Pauline
Leadsom, Andrea
Lee, Dr Phillip
Liddell-Grainger, Mr Ian
Loughton, Tim
Lumley, Karen
Main, Mrs Anne
Maynard, Paul
McCartney, Karl
McDonnell, Dr Alasdair
McIntosh, Miss Anne
McVey, Esther
Mills, Nigel
Morris, David
Mulholland, Greg
Murphy, rh Paul
Nuttall, Mr David
O'Brien, Mr Stephen
Offord, Dr Matthew
Pincher, Christopher
Qureshi, Yasmin
Redwood, rh Mr John
Rees-Mogg, Jacob
Ritchie, Ms Margaret
Rosindell, Andrew
Shelbrooke, Alec
Smith, Henry
Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline
Stewart, Bob
Vickers, Martin
Wallace, Mr Ben
Walter, Mr Robert
Wheeler, Heather
Whittaker, Craig
Whittingdale, Mr John
Wiggin, Bill
Williamson, Gavin
Tellers for the Ayes:
Mr Rob Wilson
and
Charlotte Leslie
And if you think that people will rally round a bunch of cnuts like the Tory leadership, who seemingly are to politics what village idiots are to education, who abuse their potential supporters and who are considered elitist, detached and out of touch you are delusional.
As for participating in the 'stabilisation of Europe' what with? More vapour pounds? This country has more debt overall (bank, domestic and government combined) than every other developed nation except Japan. IIRC we owe 489% of GDP. If the Eurozone crashes chances are we're going down with it and there ain't nothing that any of those god forsaken politicians in Westminster will be able to do about it. The country will be screwed.
If we want or need sheltering from the fall-out of EU collapse then the US (backed by the sovereign lenders) will insist on our continued commitment.
The choice will be very stark and brutal. Fall into line or stand alone. If you choose the latter don't expect any help from the US or the lender countries on investment or trade or in the provision of stabilisation finance.
It will certainly focus the minds of the swivel eyed loons in pubs on the Kentish shores.
As for the US well its not the first time we've entered into a fight for our survival without their help and I'm sure it won't be the last......
As for the gratuitous attack on the good people of Kent? What else do you expect from the Tory rabble these days? However, I do hope the Tories lead the campaign to act as the USA's puppets because being as obnoxious and repellent as they increasingly are they will surely ensure through voters negative reactions to them that we are not burdened by a broken EU.
Frankly if your doomsday scenario occurs I suspect most people will not give a flying fcuk what the (US who will have its own debts to worry about) is doing. They will be too busy trying to get through the day. Either way it won't change the reality that the people of this country will not want Cameron as their leader. They' ll choose MIliband and that has nothing to do with UKIP. Farage and UKIP didn't make Cameron or his coterie the people they are and thats what the problem is.
As for the US well its not the first time we've entered into a fight for our survival without their help and I'm sure it won't be the last......
As for the gratuitous attack on the good people of Kent? What else do you expect from the Tory rabble these days? However, I do hope the Tories lead the campaign to act as the USA's puppets because being as obnoxious and repellent as they increasingly are they will surely ensure through voters negative reactions to them that we are not burdened by a broken EU.
It is a doomsday scenario I admit. But I assess the probability of it happening to be around 40%. Far too high to ignore or be complacent about.
You have to ask yourself how long a democratic government can sustain adult unemployment levels of near 30% and youth unemployment in excess of 50%. In an economy which is contracting by 0.5% per quarter with 700,000 empty and unsaleable properties all valued in bank books at at least twice their value. Spain can't survive by baby step improvements in its economy: it has to rapidly turn around its problems just to maintain civil order. And it is running out of time and the resources to effect the changes needed.
In my view we are months away from tanks on the streets of European capitals and emergency powers granted to the military and taken to protect beseiged governments. We are unlikely to see inter-country conflict or even popular revolution leading to regime change but we will see clear popular threats to democratic governance and the rapid aggravation of existing economic problems which result from such civil disturbance. Property will be destroyed and lives lost.
And all this will force transcontinental intervention. The US, China, Russia and the petrodollar countries all rely themselves on a stability of the EU and the return of the continent to growth is in global interests.
More than that, the stabilisation of Europe is dependent on structural reforms to the global economy: trade and exchange rate reforms; the development of domestic markets in the BRICS countries; greater co-ordination of global economic policy etc.
Crises resolve political deadlocks and the upcoming crisis in Europe will draw in the global economic powers and accelerate the needed reforms.
The UK simply will not be able to isolate itself from this process. Even if the will of the people is to run for cover, realpolitik will force engagement. It is not the UK becoming the puppet of the US as in the 20th century that we need to worry about, it is having our strings pulled by the new sovereign lenders right across the globe. We may not like it but neither beggars nor borrowers have the luxury of being choosers.
And you are the one who has pointed out the extent of our debts!
"In a judgment published on Friday afternoon, Owen acknowledged that his ruling meant the inquest scheduled to begin on 2 October could end up being "incomplete, misleading and unfair". He took the highly unusual step of inviting the government to hold a secret public inquiry into Litvinenko's killing, which would involve the sensitive excluded evidence heard behind closed doors."
"a secret public inquiry"? that's a new one on me