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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » LAB’s strategy in Heywood and Middleton is blindingly obvious: Talk up UKIP threat to get tactical anti-UKIP votes
Suddenly the Heywood and Middleton by-election two weeks from today is not looking like the foregone conclusion that it appeared when the vacancy was created following the death of the popular MP Jim Dobbin.
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Labour admitting ukip is a real threat is surely a two edged sword?
Lab 1.26
UKIP 3.75
Con 32
LD 130
Other 130
Matched: £10,266
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/market?marketId=1.115492650&eventTypeId=2378961
Labour ought to hold onto this, I'd have thought, though I've no local knowledge.
But Ed Miliband has gifted UKIP some wonderful material for their leaflets and on the doorstep, to prise away Labour voters worried their leader isn't up to the job. "Labour want to forget about the economy and immigration. UKIP doesn't. Do you?"
If they can eat into the Labour vote exploiting such worries, combined with many Tories lending their vote to UKIP, I can see why Labour would be worried. The Tories would be hacked off about losing Clacton, but would take some solace that for probably 90% of the time, Carswell will still vote with them. Labour has no such comfort if they were to lose Heywood and Middleton...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtkVmqYnzZs&feature=youtu.be
Ed forgets the deficit again, and Jon Snow appears to be visibly angry with him as a consequence.
The Sun have been naughty with today's paper. I've got no doubt that Miliband supports Help For Heroes, and the suggestion he does not - just because he refuses to cooperate with the Sun - is nasty. But the Sun's interest in H4H is hardly new: they gave the charity a massive amount of publicity when it was set up back in 2007, and they apparently often feature campaigns for them. It was an obvious trap.
However, this was a trap created not by the Sun, but by Miliband's own backbenchers, whose own attitude towards the Sun is childish and stupid. Miliband will be going into the election with a positively antagonistic relationship with one of the largest selling newspapers, and in fact the entire group.
*If* the Sun asked Miliband's people (which we have to assume they did), then Miliband could simply have spiked this story by wearing a HFH bad at some public function in the last few days during conference. When this story appears: voila! Ready-made pictures proving he does support HFH. Who knows, such pictures may still appear.
So the deficit obsession in the media is the death rattle of an establishment desperately trying to keep people focused on austerity, on cuts, on doing without. So that the people at the top don't have to
Still more to do, but the idea that they've been ignoring these issues is laughable.
(1): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117
(2): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-fast-facts-record-revenues-for-the-uk--2
This is a very interesting thread from OGH. I wonder if it could backfire horribly. If you big up the threat it might generate UKIP momentum?
One other thing in the mix at the moment is the war on ISIL. Again, this is something that is no longer just 'out there.' I think people do see ISIL as a threat that needs to be dealt with. Cameron the statesman taking the country into a sort of war is politically a potentially important factor. It helped bring down Blair. How will Cameron come out of this?
It's the paper economy vs real economy again. Sounds great on paper. Isn't in reality. People live in reality which is why people haven't been talking over themselves to thank Oil for the money they don't have.
"So where are the jobs coming from when we are outpriced by a lot of the world and their technical expertise and education is romping past ours."
Global capitalism is the race to exploit more workers at ever cheaper rates.
We both know that, but only one of us is considering the consequences.
LAB 50, UKIP 25, TORY 15, LD 5, OTH 5.
It's no good being high minded with The Sun about this. They don't simply try and steer a nation, they are also a litmus test. As you rightly point out Miliband has been an absolute fool.
If you take on The Sun as he has done you will lose the election, even in this age of internet media.
Mind you, I am biased. I think The Sun cover is hilarious
"If you take on The Sun as he has done you will lose the election"
New headline? The Sun is to powerful for politicians!
And the horrible thing about it is your undoubted love for this idea.
Sunsucker.
A promised minimum wage of £8 in six years time?
Labour have no solutions.
As an analysis and a political position this has some merit and will undoubtedly have some resonance. As a plan to govern the country it is beyond pathetic. Every decision has to be made in the context of what is still an extremely poor financial position. So far we have had some new taxes for frankly trivial sums which are already at least matched by new spending. And we have £400m of cuts on CB.
He assumes the deficit will be £75bn next year. I have my doubts. The changes in National Statistics added another £5bn to the deficit and there is no signs it is coming down from last year. So his government will be borrowing the thick end of £100bn a year as well as paying £75bn of debt interest.
The cuts that Osborne has in his budget are severe and so far as Labour are concerned completely unallocated. No attempt was made by anyone for Labour to say where they are going to apply these cuts. They are also not enough. We also need much bigger tax increases. I frankly wonder if it will be possible to maintain current spending on the NHS in real terms. The knock on consequences for everything else are simply too severe.
And Ed does not want to talk about any of this, decisions that will completely dominate his time as PM. It is really shocking. And pathetic. And disgraceful.
At least someone is trying to find a solution. Cam and his crew are happy to sponsor their rich business friends, and look after their every need.
Want some cheap workers, come to Britain and we will top up their wages so you don't have to.
Want to pay your tax abroad? Certainly sir......you know where the dontation box is *wink*
It's also a promise that is SIX YEARS away, as well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11120095/Its-all-over-UK-business-has-well-and-truly-fallen-out-of-love-with-Labour.html
Most, but not all, of the 2m new jobs are earning so little more than Minimum Wage that they are barely paying tax at all. And many of them are then entitled to more generous in work benefits meaning that they become bigger net recipients than they were before.
These arê the issues Miliband or any next government will need to wrestle with and they are hard with serious consequences for millions of people who are not well off. And Ed does not want to talk about it. At all.
People, usually middle class intellectuals, get on their high horse about The Sun. I'm not a fan of Rupert Murdoch, and I'm not necessarily a fan of media influence, but it's ludicrous to be precious about it. They reflect opinions, not simply shape them. Help for Heroes is not a cause any aspiring politician should be careless about.
The terms of the debate are not always that of the "right", however, they get loaned bigger megaphones by their friends to drown out the voices of everyone else.
You see it on this very blog day after day
It's Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Crosby's job to make sure they understand just how dire the situation still is.
I agree that the exact implications in terms of cancelled programs, redundancies and the withdrawal of services have yet to be identified in most cases but the departments should be working on this in the context of the envelope the Treasury has provided. It is going to be far more brutal than anything seen in this Parliament but the necessity has been demonstrated by the fact that above trend growth is not impacting on the deficit. We have a major problem.
Any politician who refuses to accept this is not the biggest problem we face by a distance (since it fits the context for everything else) is simply not fit to hold the position of PM.
Trying seems better than ignoring, but each to their own.
They have forged a very effective election-fighting machine for FPTP, that is very reliant on tactical votes against another party. Normally the Conservatives, but now Nick Clegg or UKIP. Under PR, where such negative tactical considerations are much less important, how would they attract votes?
Nice bit of pedantry there, it reminds me of the good old times on here.
*wipes a nostalgic tear away"
When I read "oil" I just assumed it was another of your bat-sh1t crazy obsessions....
;-)
The debate for our politicians is where the balance is to be found between tax increases and cuts. And Ed refuses to talk about this. Osborne and Cameron want to cut more rather than tax more. They are pretty clear and there is room for a centre left alternative to be made.
FWIW, Whilst I have no problem with supporting servicemen, I'd rather do it through the RBL and Poppy Appeal; there's always been something brash about HFH that I mistrust; part of an American style agenda to glorify the military.
The UK does this well if you know where to look.
For instance, I met up with someone the other day to discuss industrial Lancashire and how we can help.
It was clear from that discussion that there are a lot of high-skill SMEs in the area using precision engineering to make very specialist parts for BAe, the largest industrial employer. Quite different - frankly - from the image I had of Blackburn & Burnley. They are only just beginning to integrate with the local university, so work to be done, but they've at least identified what they need to do.
The next step is to encourage the SMEs to get involved in community engagement as well (they are good employers but don't do that much outside the factory walls)
And with that I am off to take the kids to school.
News emerged yesterday of another Internet bug that might be just as dangerous as Heartbleed. The Bash exploit uses a long-standing bug in the BASH shell, a commonly-used interface to Unix systems.
I must admit I haven't had time to get my head around it yet, but people are saying it is serious, and may cause problems with Internet-enabled devices such as printers and routers.
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q3/649
https://blogs.akamai.com/2014/09/environment-bashing.html
Osborne has already included 2 years of this (£160m) in his figures.
Balls has only promised to extend the freeze for 1 year - he is saving £80m.
(* sorry, I mean a combination of double counting and extrapolation all nicely wrapped up for the media)
So...he's going to end the concept of private property ownership by introducing mansion taxes (which will fall overwhelmingly in Tory voting England) and spend the 1.5 billion (believe that number if you will) on the ENGLISH NHS. And the legislation to push all this through after a putative narrow election victory will be passed with Welsh and Scottish MPs' votes and very likely no English majority.
Anyone spot a teeny tiny democratic deficit in this plan?
As such, and this is my point, this is NOT driven by Murdoch or The Sun. This is what people in the country resonate with. What you call a stunt is actually very very real, to those service people and to 'ordinary' people in this country. All you highlight with your post is how out of touch you are: a snootiness that has no connection with voters.
If you go into politics you have to work the media. You can of course bend them to your way. For a time Thatcher was outstanding at that. Blair was brilliant. Clinton was the Grand Master of them all.
What you emphatically do NOT do, is fight them. Miliband is an idiot.
Labour happy to turn a blind eye to tax abuse. Relaxed about the "filty rich". Osborne cracking down a lot harder on tax evasion and on non-doms.
Are you sure you are criticisng the right party?
If you want "training" as opposed to cheap labour, it might have helped if all your oh so clever business men had thought to train a few more apprentices, rather than get ready trained ones from abroad.
"Hey uncle Peitr, run me up a set of trade papers and an HGV driving license on your computer. No need to be too careful about the quality, the Brit bosses never check "
Miliband is promising - or at least leading people to believe - that it'll be alright on the night and we don't need to do anything to fix the problem.
Assuming a 7 year economic cycle, by 2020 (under Labour) we could still be running a £50bn+ deficit *at the top of the cycle*. That's horrificly bad economic management.
"If you take on The Sun as he has done you will lose the election"
Lovely thought. In their own words will the last person who doesn't want to live in a Murdocracy please switch out the light
Continuing the see-saw analogy, Ed's position is that the other end of the see-saw does not exist and he can make it work by jumping up and down on the spot.
Then lots of sweeties - small but they add up (free TV licenses for oaps, tighter restrictions on winter heating etc). Tax middle class benefits - like child benefit and/or restrict to the first 3 kids. And then look carefully at things like international aid: there's clearly a role for some but not sure £11bn
Hoping that people will turn out to vote for a candidate they don't support, in the hope of that candidate beating a long-shot alternative that they like even less seems a complete non-starter.
No, profit seeking is to blame.
One of the bus depots in Glasgow hired on 8 polish drivers on a cheaper contract than the original workers, and took great delight in telling the staff how good they were....The staff laughed when they brought the buses back (late and bashed), and the upshot was that they became 8 extra cleaners.
The shop steward is a friend of mine.
The problem I have with both major parties is that they are both, in their own way, being dishonest with the electorate. They're letting people think we can have it all, and we can't. So, yes, it's disgraceful and pathetic.
Isn't there a risk, though? If the Conservative voters are also aware of the higher profile Clacton by-election and the probable defeat of the blues there, they may consider that it'd be better for their party of UKIP won two seats (one extra from Labour) than just one from the Conservatives.
I don't want it to be the first foothold for the anti-EU/immigration party.
Tories should be doing the same there as on thread suggestion.
Come on Rev Oswald....
[this has nothing to do with my counter-intuitive betting position]
It is as if they do not care and are trying to throw the election! The problem is that they may actually win.
I cannot see it getting better for Labour in the next eight months.
Don't try to buck the issue. Our companies have basically been doing as little training as possible. Since the glory days of Thatcherism, right through Phony Blairs years, they have looked to the cheapest option like good little Thatcherites. Now as those people are retiring, they are whining that there is a shortage of trained personnel for them to hire.
How much foresight would that have taken? The answer is none at all if they had opened their ears and listened.
If the Labour team are resorting to these tactics, does it not suggest their early canvas returns are not going as well as at GE? Or are they just road-testing a general tactic for use next May?
How very elitist of you all, Cameron and his cronies appear "ordinary" to me.
Yes, that was the foreseeable outcome of the "Thatcher revolution", and ably carried on by the heir to her throne.
That said, when you have his disadvantages you just have to be spot on with your PR.. Is Miliband overriding his PR team, or are they less than useless?
How could he possibly miss.. when kissing his wife???.. I mean jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
Funny to watch another Shapps car crash - those idiotic twitter posters pretending £2m properties equate to a threat "your family home".
Whine away. This measure has broad support.
http://t.co/LGmmhjrNJY
It's massively out of the ordinary in most of the UK though.
That's why Ed is out-of-touch in just the same way as Cameron is meant to be.
"Nobody will care, it'll be knocked off the news by Isis"
PB Tories after speech
"THIS DAY WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Since you have an interest in such things, did you hear about the panning Cameron's cancer drug fund is getting today?