If the only defector today is a donor nobody's ever heard of, I think the Tories will be relieved, LOL!
Rumour of UKIP press conference at 11am.
Could you imagine if it were another Tory MP who jumped ship just before Camerons conference speech. I think they would be given a rougher ride than Reckless.
Just a bit.... he (presumably a he..... ) would be the Head traitorous pig-dog for such an action...
Results: Annual direct and indirect costs of ever-smokers were higher than for never-smokers in all age groups of both genders. The direct and indirect cost ratios were highest at age 45 for women, and at age 35 and 40 for men, respectively. Taking life expectancy differences into account, direct and indirect lifetime health costs for men aged 35, discounted by 5% per year were 66% and 83% higher in ever-smokers than in never-smokers.
Socrates - you miss the point. Costs are higher for the unhealthy WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE. But overall the fat bastards snuff it way early and save us money. You missed the zero cost of servicing the health needs of the dead. (Let alone their other benefits).
@TGOHF I wouldn't buy that bullshit, but you seem keen. Wages are falling behind inflation, house prices are rising, but we have less debt and are spending more?
If you don't believe data then I can't help you. Households have been paying down their debts and the shortages of mortgages has influenced that. House prices have only risen in the SE - with a lot of foreign buyers not borrowing to buy.
Wages are falling behind inflation, house prices are rising, but we have less debt and are spending more?
Interest rates have been slashed, as has taxation on ordinary/lower incomes.
These both lead to increased disposable pay.
Someone on average wage with an average mortgage, who remortgages at 3% having previously been on 6-7% has been handed a disposable income boost equivalent to several years' payrise.
Are they pretending it isn't happening? 2nd Rochester councillor follows Reckless out the door
Cllr Paul Monck (@The_Monck) 01/10/2014 08:44 No reply to my resignation from Rochester & Strood Conservative Association, yet the chairman has time to unfollow me on Twitter #Shambles
What does he want - a begging letter ? Spoilt nobody crying as he isn't getting the attention he thought his feet stamping would get...
Haha someone replied to his tweet 'what do you want, a medal?' And he said 'yes please!'
Seems closer to the truth that the Tories are trying to pretend everyone's angry with Reckless so don't mention two councillors have quit with him
If the only defector today is a donor nobody's ever heard of, I think the Tories will be relieved, LOL!
Rumour of UKIP press conference at 11am.
Could you imagine if it were another Tory MP who jumped ship just before Camerons conference speech. I think they would be given a rougher ride than Reckless.
Just a bit.... he (presumably a he..... ) would be the Head traitorous pig-dog for such an action...
If anyone defects to day, I'll be adding their face to this picture, and using it in a thread header
@chestnut And those with no mortgage and renting? what have they been handed?
Less than the 70% of households that are homeowners.
Even so, taxes on incomes are falling.
A person on minimum wage is, through rises in that rate and changes in the tax allowance, receiving take home pay that has outstripped inflation since 2010. And poorer people are those most likely to spend all their money, and do it in Britain.
In addition to that, Council Tax, TV Tax, Petrol tax, Gas Bill tax have all fallen.
The significance of the coalitions inflation busting tax free allowances is that they are reducing the nonsense they inherited where the Labour taxman was impoverishing a minimum wage employee to the tune of £1816 a year via the tax regime. The state was saying business must pay X wage and then confiscating nearly £2000 of it from the worker.
"what will Arron Banks’ new friends at UKIP have to say about his wife’s somewhat mysterious acquisition of the right to stay in the UK? Banks married Ekaterina Paderina in 2001, who regular readers will remember was a good chum of LibDem turbo-perve Mike Hancock:"
Not sure the smoking example works. The taxes on cigarettes mean smokers are massive net contributors to the NHS (on contrast to heavy drinkers).
If everyone stopped smoking overnight, the health deficit would become worse. If everybody stopped drinking, it'd become better.
Drinking is heavily taxed.
One needs to look at the fiscal issues as a whole. People with unhealthy lifestyles have low life expectancy. That means they impose a lesser burden on the Pensions budget, as well as requiring fewer years of end of life care.
I believe the evidence suggests that healthier people have fewer years of disability at the end of life than unhealthy people, so the NHS cost will be higher for the latter. I accept your point about pensions, but pensions are increasingly a small amount relative to healthcare provision.
Completely wrong every study done has shown that the total life healthcare costs of smokers, drinkers and the obese are less than that of "healthy people". From memory an article I linked before the healthy person cost a total of 260000 over a lifetime whereas the smoker cost 220000. This is before you factor in the costs reductions of dying younger on pension costs and social care
Surely it depends on who you classify as 'drinkers'? A decent proportion of the costs to society from drinking will be from those who would also be classified as 'healthy people' - say for example a man or woman who binge drinks regularly until they're in their late 20s, having regular, if minor brushes with the law and the odd trip to A&E. They then get married, have kids and lead a blameless bourgeois existence and are perfectly 'healthy' by the time those extra costs start to kick in.
I can understand why an irredeemable alcoholic might save the government money, as they're liable to die young and avoid elderly care, but isn't that a relatively small amount of the societal 'costs' that are always attributed to drinking? Our 'drink problem' has never been that we're a nation of alcoholics, more that every now and again vast swathes of us like to get absolutely battered.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn · 3 mins3 minutes ago David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
A 'jumbo rabbit'? Something to do with NI would be best (ie matching to back up to the income tax personal allowance for example).
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn · 3 mins3 minutes ago David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
A 'jumbo rabbit'? Something to do with NI would be best (ie matching to back up to the income tax personal allowance for example).
Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound · 1 min1 minute ago Tory press office not planning to distribute Cameron speech until it is done because it apparently contains a couple of major rabbits
@tnewtondunn: David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
If so, it would tie in nicely with today’s announcement of £3.2bn worth of contracts for UK naval bases at Devonport, Faslane and Portsmouth. Plenty of skilled working class (C2) there I’d imagine?
I can neither confirm nor deny that Cameron seeks to eliminate the debt by selling tickets to the firing of Ed Balls into the heart of the sun, by some sort of giant artillery gun.
@tnewtondunn: David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
If so, it would tie in nicely with today’s announcement of £3.2bn worth of contracts for UK naval bases at Devonport, Faslane and Portsmouth. Plenty of skilled working class (C2) there I’d imagine?
@TheScreamingEagles "but a big move to close down UKIP drippage on EU renegotiation / immigration / ECHR will not come today. " Have they run out of fag packets then?
Surely it depends on who you classify as 'drinkers'? A decent proportion of the costs to society from drinking will be from those who would also be classified as 'healthy people' - say for example a man or woman who binge drinks regularly until they're in their late 20s, having regular, if minor brushes with the law and the odd trip to A&E. They then get married, have kids and lead a blameless bourgeois existence and are perfectly 'healthy' by the time those extra costs start to kick in.
It's this 21 unit limit I find difficult. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to drink that much a day :-)
"Quite a clever trick, politically, if he can pull it off. Cameron intends to use one of his major strengths to pull the rug from under Labour's greatest strength, and therefore make it his own."
As an ex ad man I'm surprised Cameron doesn't understand that while Labour are the market leader in health any attention that Cameron gives it will inevitably help them not the Tories.
Salmond has managed to successfully portray the SNP as the defenders of the NHS at Labour's expense. Attacking an opponent's strength is often a good strategy.
Salmond had no previous reputation of depriving the NHS of funds. So it was not so difficult for him.
The Tories' problem is different: the public perceive that they do not care about the NHS and are always interested how to bring in the private sector through the back or, indeed, the front door !
Under what government was the first DGH put under contract to a private company?
(Clue : Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Circle Healthcare)
How is Hinchingbrooke Hospital performing according to the measures introduced by the last Labour government?
If the only defector today is a donor nobody's ever heard of, I think the Tories will be relieved, LOL!
Rumour of UKIP press conference at 11am.
Could you imagine if it were another Tory MP who jumped ship just before Camerons conference speech. I think they would be given a rougher ride than Reckless.
Just a bit.... he (presumably a he..... ) would be the Head traitorous pig-dog for such an action...
If anyone defects to day, I'll be adding their face to this picture, and using it in a thread header
If the only defector today is a donor nobody's ever heard of, I think the Tories will be relieved, LOL!
Rumour of UKIP press conference at 11am.
Could you imagine if it were another Tory MP who jumped ship just before Camerons conference speech. I think they would be given a rougher ride than Reckless.
Just a bit.... he (presumably a he..... ) would be the Head traitorous pig-dog for such an action...
If anyone defects to day, I'll be adding their face to this picture, and using it in a thread header
@tnewtondunn: David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
What tax move could you make that would help C2 voters especially?
That sounds like blatant spin to me.
As I said, it's silly that NI now kicks in at a lower level than income tax does. For a while it actually matched up, one of the few good things Gordon Brown did, but it decoupled after Brown was forced to push up the IT personal allowance (thanks Gord), after the 10p tax-shambles.
Pushing that back up to match the income tax would be a very good move, balanced by possibly increasing the rate for higher earning workers, or playing around with other thresholds.
Was it UKIP that complained that recalling Parliament was a deliberate ploy to deflect attention from their conference. This is the same UKIP that is doing everything they can to ruin the tory conference.
The major rabbits will be that the Tories will not enter a coalition in 2015, whatever the outcome and that in the EU referendum the Tories will campaign to leave if renegotiaton on areas a,b,c ( Cameron will give more detail ) is not successful. There will be no plans for tax changes, given the deficit is proving more difficult to reduce to zero. Cameron may also say that parliament will have English only days, where only English law is being looked at. But I think this is more difficult than he thinks partly because of the HOL, unless he wants to scrap it.
Was it UKIP that complained that recalling Parliament was a deliberate ploy to deflect attention from their conference. This is the same UKIP that is doing everything they can to ruin the tory conference.
You mean UKIP are hypocritical liars who moan like whores for no reason?
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I've done a thread about the Indyref that praises George Osborne's masterful strategy.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
The last time he pulled a rabbit out of the hat, it was deficit-reducing in the short term. If he could pull that stunt again, he'd be a miracle worker.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
The last time he pulled a rabbit out of the hat, it was deficit-reducing in the short term. If he could pull that stunt again, he'd be a miracle worker.
Oh overall I'm sure the week will be deficit reducing. It's just that the poor sods having their in-work benefits taken off them wont realise it's been used to allow rich people pass on pension pots tax free (though that policy appears to be not quite what was advertised) and probably a tax cut for all that doesnt benefit them nearly as much as the benefit wheeze loses them.
"A majority (57%) of the British public think the Conservatives’ management of the NHS has been bad for Britain, while two thirds (65%) think that the party’shandling of immigration has been bad for Britain."
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I've done a thread about the Indyref that praises George Osborne's masterful strategy.
You'll love it.
I can write that: "George Osborne fucked up handling the tax regime of North Sea Oil so badly in th eopening years of the government that it resulted in a panicked attempt to get the oil companies back on board which led to a year of record investment in NSO which offset against Offshore Tax Take meant in the year of the referendum there was a surprisingly large dip in NSO revenue" fin.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I've done a thread about the Indyref that praises George Osborne's masterful strategy.
You'll love it.
I can write that: "George Osborne fucked up handling the tax regime of North Sea Oil so badly in th eopening years of the government that it resulted in a panicked attempt to get the oil companies back on board which led to a year of record investment in NSO which offset against Offshore Tax Take meant in the year of the referendum there was a surprisingly large dip in NSO revenue" fin.
Ah but I'm using polling evidence, where as you're using Nat wishful thinking/anecdote.
Was it UKIP that complained that recalling Parliament was a deliberate ploy to deflect attention from their conference. This is the same UKIP that is doing everything they can to ruin the tory conference.
It was the Conservative party that choreographed a spate of UKIP to Tory 'I just can't stand the racism any more' defections before and during the European elections. If they can't take it, they shouldn't dish it out.
The DVLA blamed traffic (no pun intended, presumably) with 30,000 extra visitors. Shouldn't they have expected this to happen when they made car tax (VED) renewals online only from today? What are these people smoking?
@tnewtondunn: David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
What tax move could you make that would help C2 voters especially?
That sounds like blatant spin to me.
As I said, it's silly that NI now kicks in at a lower level than income tax does. For a while it actually matched up, one of the few good things Gordon Brown did, but it decoupled after Brown was forced to push up the IT personal allowance (thanks Gord), after the 10p tax-shambles.
Pushing that back up to match the income tax would be a very good move, balanced by possibly increasing the rate for higher earning workers, or playing around with other thresholds.
Leaving aside the merits of that change I fail to see how it targets C2 voters.
I would benefit as an AB voter, as would many C1 voters.
You'd think people would be more sceptical of such spin these days, but much of the media has swallowed Miliband's absurd small change to save the NHS policy without critical comment.
Income tax cuts or "Hated Jobs Tax" cuts are the only way to go - no one understands the darned personal allowance increase
Headline writers and dimmer backbenchers might be confused but at the end of the month, people either will or will not have more money in their pay-packets and that is what really matters.
Perhaps Cameron will use his speech to announce that a national crime force will be created to get to the bottom of industrial-scale child rape from grooming gangs?
It would be a bit tasteless to announce it during a conference, but given that it would be a complete abdication of duty of a prime minister to just let this massive level of abuse slide into obscurity, I'm sure Cameron won't do that. I'm sure the PM wouldn't want Rotherham-style levels of abuse elsewhere to go undiscovered due to political concerns...
Mr. Eagles, these things happen. In the Top Gear Burma special, Hammond actually made a funny joke [the one about cutting with peas what Clarkson thought was drugs but turned out to be rice].
SNP membership rush has slowed down, Only 5000 new members in the last 2.5 days. 75,000 now.
Do you know what's Scottish labour membership is ?
Wiki:
'In September 2010, the party issued 13,135 ballot papers to party members during the Labour Party (UK) leadership election. However, these did not necessarily equate to 13,135 individual members – due to the party's electoral structure, members can qualify for multiple votes. The party has declined to reveal its actual membership figures since 2008, and did not publish the number of votes cast in the leadership election, only percentages.'
Some have estimated it to be as low as 5000. They still call themselves 'Scotland's largest political party'.
The DVLA blamed traffic (no pun intended, presumably) with 30,000 extra visitors. Shouldn't they have expected this to happen when they made car tax (VED) renewals online only from today? What are these people smoking?
The whole idea's bollocks - estimates expect that they'll lose over £100 million in revenue to save £10 million.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I've done a thread about the Indyref that praises George Osborne's masterful strategy.
You'll love it.
I can write that: "George Osborne fucked up handling the tax regime of North Sea Oil so badly in th eopening years of the government that it resulted in a panicked attempt to get the oil companies back on board which led to a year of record investment in NSO which offset against Offshore Tax Take meant in the year of the referendum there was a surprisingly large dip in NSO revenue" fin.
Ah but I'm using polling evidence, where as you're using Nat wishful thinking/anecdote.
Osborne's mishandling of the NSO tax regime is a matter of record.
I did ask last week why everyone was so incurious about what rabbits the Conservatives might pull out of their hats, noting that it is easier to play that game in government.
I for one was 100% sure they'd take the goal of eliminating the deficit seriously and wouldnt be reduced to playing politics with the nation's finances. I'm devastated to learn that instead they've allowed Osborne to engage in his passion for strategising again.
I've done a thread about the Indyref that praises George Osborne's masterful strategy.
You'll love it.
I can write that: "George Osborne fucked up handling the tax regime of North Sea Oil so badly in th eopening years of the government that it resulted in a panicked attempt to get the oil companies back on board which led to a year of record investment in NSO which offset against Offshore Tax Take meant in the year of the referendum there was a surprisingly large dip in NSO revenue" fin.
Ah but I'm using polling evidence, where as you're using Nat wishful thinking/anecdote.
Osborne's mishandling of the NSO tax regime is a matter of record.
But in the context of the Indyref, did that have an impact? One of George's other strategies did win the referendum.
Comments
Did you miss that bit?
These both lead to increased disposable pay.
Someone on average wage with an average mortgage, who remortgages at 3% having previously been on 6-7% has been handed a disposable income boost equivalent to several years' payrise.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02719/cambridge5_2719560b.jpg
Hollande doing an Osborne and saying he'll pay it all down sometime later.
What will Mrs Merkel say ?
And those with no mortgage and renting? what have they been handed?
Some bloke no-one's heard of will now write his cheques to Nigel not Dave, frankly who cares ?
And they are now better off now? I wonder why so many are upset given the largesse being heaped upon them?
Found Arron Banks! This is awkward. That £250k in donations #UKIP is talking about looks a lot like £25k...
It says, x's defection on the day of Dave's speech, has to be the most stunning act of betrayal since Marcus Junius Brutus picked up a knife.
*I know, that's a horrendous tautology and I should be bethwacked with a breeze block for misusing the English language like that.
Can you tell the difference between a political speech and a 90s pop song? Take our quiz to find out
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11132068/Quiz-Boy-band-lyrics-or-a-politicians-speech.html
Even so, taxes on incomes are falling.
A person on minimum wage is, through rises in that rate and changes in the tax allowance, receiving take home pay that has outstripped inflation since 2010. And poorer people are those most likely to spend all their money, and do it in Britain.
In addition to that, Council Tax, TV Tax, Petrol tax, Gas Bill tax have all fallen.
The significance of the coalitions inflation busting tax free allowances is that they are reducing the nonsense they inherited where the Labour taxman was impoverishing a minimum wage employee to the tune of £1816 a year via the tax regime. The state was saying business must pay X wage and then confiscating nearly £2000 of it from the worker.
Madness.
http://order-order.com/2014/10/01/ukip-banks-on-mystery-donation-figure-and-dont-mention-his-mrs-and-mike-hancock/
"what will Arron Banks’ new friends at UKIP have to say about his wife’s somewhat mysterious acquisition of the right to stay in the UK? Banks married Ekaterina Paderina in 2001, who regular readers will remember was a good chum of LibDem turbo-perve Mike Hancock:"
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/01/irvine-welsh-george-osborne-trainspotting-speech_n_5911770.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11131145/Sex-drugs-and-hairdressing-what-weve-learnt-about-the-economy.html
SeanT we need you!
I can understand why an irredeemable alcoholic might save the government money, as they're liable to die young and avoid elderly care, but isn't that a relatively small amount of the societal 'costs' that are always attributed to drinking? Our 'drink problem' has never been that we're a nation of alcoholics, more that every now and again vast swathes of us like to get absolutely battered.
David Cameron does indeed have a jumbo rabbit in his #CPC14 speech today. A big new tax move to help C2 voters especially, I hear.
A 'jumbo rabbit'? Something to do with NI would be best (ie matching to back up to the income tax personal allowance for example).
Tory press office not planning to distribute Cameron speech until it is done because it apparently contains a couple of major rabbits
Tory press office not planning to distribute Cameron speech until it is done because it apparently contains a couple of major rabbits
Will it make up for the in-work benefits Osborne took off them on Monday?
Not that I would know about such a thing.
...but a big move to close down UKIP drippage on EU renegotiation / immigration / ECHR will not come today.
One upping Ed's free owls policy
That sounds like blatant spin to me.
"but a big move to close down UKIP drippage on EU renegotiation / immigration / ECHR will not come today. "
Have they run out of fag packets then?
Surely it depends on who you classify as 'drinkers'? A decent proportion of the costs to society from drinking will be from those who would also be classified as 'healthy people' - say for example a man or woman who binge drinks regularly until they're in their late 20s, having regular, if minor brushes with the law and the odd trip to A&E. They then get married, have kids and lead a blameless bourgeois existence and are perfectly 'healthy' by the time those extra costs start to kick in.
It's this 21 unit limit I find difficult. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to drink that much a day :-)
(Clue : Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Circle Healthcare)
How is Hinchingbrooke Hospital performing according to the measures introduced by the last Labour government?
Pushing that back up to match the income tax would be a very good move, balanced by possibly increasing the rate for higher earning workers, or playing around with other thresholds.
Someone will need to explain what that means to tim if he's still confused.
I'm shocked.
You'll love it.
"A majority (57%) of the British public think the Conservatives’ management of the NHS has been bad for Britain, while two thirds (65%) think that the party’shandling of immigration has been bad for Britain."
"George Osborne fucked up handling the tax regime of North Sea Oil so badly in th eopening years of the government that it resulted in a panicked attempt to get the oil companies back on board which led to a year of record investment in NSO which offset against Offshore Tax Take meant in the year of the referendum there was a surprisingly large dip in NSO revenue" fin.
11.45 according to the Beeb, TSE may be trying to indoctrinate you beforehand
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29430979
The DVLA blamed traffic (no pun intended, presumably) with 30,000 extra visitors. Shouldn't they have expected this to happen when they made car tax (VED) renewals online only from today? What are these people smoking?
I would benefit as an AB voter, as would many C1 voters.
You'd think people would be more sceptical of such spin these days, but much of the media has swallowed Miliband's absurd small change to save the NHS policy without critical comment.
They stopped publishing after 2008.
It would be a bit tasteless to announce it during a conference, but given that it would be a complete abdication of duty of a prime minister to just let this massive level of abuse slide into obscurity, I'm sure Cameron won't do that. I'm sure the PM wouldn't want Rotherham-style levels of abuse elsewhere to go undiscovered due to political concerns...
I thought Gove was brilliant as Danger Mouse's sidekick.
'In September 2010, the party issued 13,135 ballot papers to party members during the Labour Party (UK) leadership election. However, these did not necessarily equate to 13,135 individual members – due to the party's electoral structure, members can qualify for multiple votes. The party has declined to reveal its actual membership figures since 2008, and did not publish the number of votes cast in the leadership election, only percentages.'
Some have estimated it to be as low as 5000. They still call themselves 'Scotland's largest political party'.
Leftie Barstewards