Brent crude trading at $77 a barrel, what price independence ?
Not yet it isn't.
My initial analysis was based upon $90/barrell and $1.80/Stirling. The fact that the Canuck is struggling to raise interest rates and yet the EU and China are seeing dramatic hiccups only make the pleasure so much more enjoyable....
I see the EU is fulfilling my characterisation of the protection racket nicely. Not content with changing the rules of the contract as they go, demanding random shakedowns when it looks like we're making more profit than they realise, and threatening "consequences" if we try to leave... they are now charging loan shark style interest rates.
You're like those people who go abroad, spend the whole time on their phones, then whinge to high heaven when the bill comes in inclusive of all those roaming charges.
You just want to scream: read the contract you signed, stupid.
You were the first one to have a go at the banks' predatory behaviour when they burrow punitive terms in the small print.
The banks deserve everything they get, and more. They drove the decadent casino culture that collapsed the world economy.
The EU on the other hand just did what it was legally obliged to do under the powers granted to it FREELY by EU nations.
Yeh, right. And the stupid buggers both Tory and Labour (Lisbon Treaty) signed up to it. LOL
Brent crude trading at $77 a barrel, what price independence ?
Sweaty palms in Moscow right now, as well as Venezuela and those oh-so-liberal gulf states. Heart of stone, etc, etc.
And their fellow travellers in Labour : "Cost of living crisis" wont see as much traction now..
Paying £1.259 for a litre of diesel right now, and everything seems to be on offer at the supermarkets.
In fact when the inflation figures come out I'm trying to work out just what is causing the increase as my weekly expenses are heading south at the moment.
On topic, how did the individual state polls actually fare in 2012 vs taking a national average and applying a uniform swing? I haven't looked at this systematically but I seem to remember all kinds of weird local swings forecast based on state polling that didn't pan out in practice, like Obama cruising to a win in Ohio while having a fight on his hands in Colorado.
I think the individual state polling (once you adjusted for the various house effects and varying qualities of the differenty pollsters) was pretty much spot-on.
Brent crude trading at $77 a barrel, what price independence ?
Not yet it isn't.
My initial analysis was based upon $90/barrell and $1.80/Stirling. The fact that the Canuck is struggling to raise interest rates and yet the EU and China are seeing dramatic hiccups only make the pleasure so much more enjoyable....
Still eight-weeks-ish left...!
It is a very interesting bet, win or lose. My own thought process was that it may well drop but not to £50 or so.
and then as coincidence would have it, we get the new chief of GCHQ in the papers today
"Technology giants such as Facebook and Twitter have become "the command and control networks of choice" for terrorists and criminals but are "in denial" about the scale of the problem, the new head of GCHQ has said"
It's a truly dire proposal. On its own, it's sufficient reason for me to have left the Conservative Party.
This is going to sound nastier than is meant (not that you probably care!) but I think there's a real ostrich mentality amongst you-kippers. It's amazing for a group that seems to project being 'with it' that there's a failure to engage with the world as it now is. (So tempting to capitalise those last four words at risk of shouting.) This isn't 1945 or 1972 any more. Come on guys, and you mostly are, wake up.
Posts like that make me want to join them. For as long as I can remember there have been calls for the State to have ever more surveillance and control powers. Quite often without the tiresome burden of legal checks and balances, and the 'security risk' of transparency.
No doubt such civil protections are inconvenient to the authorities but, throughout history, and to the present day, there are regular serious abuses of such privileges: suspending habeus corpus to Internment to detention without trial to Hillsborough to Stockwell to WMD dossier to Andrew Mitchell to Kettling to Extraordinary Rendition to phone taps to ID cards to DNA databases.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
I think this is the jab before the uppercut, which will be the granting of full worker's rights to temporary and contract workers. Leftists fancifully think will lead to the "Land of Milk and Honey" and full employment, rather than a huge reduction in employment as many companies move their businesses offshore.
However the thing that really showed how shallow he was(and Harman and Clegg) was the T shirt rubbish . For a start wearing a T shirt with a logo does not make you morally good and secondly it shows a propensity to join in any fad and right-on campaign going which is OK if you are 18 and in the Students Union but when you want to lead the country it shows an alarming shallowness
Well quite, its like the whole #FreeOurGirls thing a few months ago. T-shirts and twitter tags are a nice painless way of the liberal chattering classes showing that they "care" without actually having to get off their asses and do anything about the problem. Everyone can feel they are "making a difference", everyone can show the world their self righteousness, everyone can tell their friends at dinner parties that they "took action", everyone gets nice feeling of adequacy as they group hug on social media, whilst actually not risking or doing a damn thing that matters.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
I think this is the jab before the uppercut, which will be the granting of full worker's rights to temporary and contract workers. Leftists fancifully think will lead to the "Land of Milk and Honey" and full employment........
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
I think this is the jab before the uppercut, which will be the granting of full worker's rights to temporary and contract workers. Leftists fancifully think will lead to the "Land of Milk and Honey" and full employment, rather than a huge reduction in employment as many companies move their businesses offshore.
However the thing that really showed how shallow he was(and Harman and Clegg) was the T shirt rubbish . For a start wearing a T shirt with a logo does not make you morally good and secondly it shows a propensity to join in any fad and right-on campaign going which is OK if you are 18 and in the Students Union but when you want to lead the country it shows an alarming shallowness
Well quite, its like the whole #FreeOurGirls thing a few months ago. T-shirts and twitter tags are a nice painless way of the liberal chattering classes showing that they "care" without actually having to get off their asses and do anything about the problem. Everyone can feel they are "making a difference", everyone can show the world their self righteousness, everyone can tell their friends at dinner parties that they "took action", everyone gets nice feeling of adequacy as they group hug on social media, whilst actually not risking or doing a damn thing that matters.
Absolutely! bang on to rights there.
Yeah! Much better to not do anything at all (apart from whinge on the internet)
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
Bet you were squealing to high heaven about the NANNY STATE! whenever Labour introduced these kind of things.
Saudis clearly targeting the shale oil producers with a cut in price only to US customers whilst raising prices for Europe and Asia. Big problem at these prices.
Russia remains one of the least affected producers as per analyst reports, tend to be more reliable than journalists.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
Mr C, what planet are you on
"Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories"
The two largest parties in Scotland are Labour and the SNP, with the latter tearing chunks out of the former. That's the story in Scotland atm, what on earth have the Tories got to do with it ?
However the thing that really showed how shallow he was(and Harman and Clegg) was the T shirt rubbish . For a start wearing a T shirt with a logo does not make you morally good and secondly it shows a propensity to join in any fad and right-on campaign going which is OK if you are 18 and in the Students Union but when you want to lead the country it shows an alarming shallowness
Well quite, its like the whole #FreeOurGirls thing a few months ago. T-shirts and twitter tags are a nice painless way of the liberal chattering classes showing that they "care" without actually having to get off their asses and do anything about the problem. Everyone can feel they are "making a difference", everyone can show the world their self righteousness, everyone can tell their friends at dinner parties that they "took action", everyone gets nice feeling of adequacy as they group hug on social media, whilst actually not risking or doing a damn thing that matters.
Absolutely! bang on to rights there.
Yeah! Much better to not do anything at all (apart from whinge on the internet)
Oh Huey boy; on your way to Sierra Leone are you? Come on be big liberal helper, get your hat on and stop pissing about.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
This isn't a sensible balance between civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. This is a gross intrusion of State power into the private lives of British citizens.
The Conservatives were very big on civil liberties in opposition. That seems to have lasted about 18 months into the term of office of this government.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
Extremism Disruption Orders, so far as I can see, will be pretty ineffective at preventing terrorism. They will, however, be used to suppress people whose views are "unfashionable" (George Osborne's term). We've seen time and again that the police, civil servants, local government will test to the limit the powers that they're given.
No, you sit on your sofa and tweet and enjoy your feelings of self-righteousness. I am working in a third world country educating children from families that make less than $5/day.
"My friend Hopi Sen wrote one of his thoughtful analyses of Labour’s current position last week. He correctly identified two “bad ideas” – “the core vote fallacy” and the “imaginary progressive consensus”. The first is that Labour’s core vote is imagined to be bigger than it actually is, and that Labour activists don’t realise our core vote’s views are to the right of those of Labour activists. The second is that we fondly imagine there is a leftwing consensus in the UK that only fails to show through because we have multiple progressive parties and a First-Past-the-Post voting system – Hopi correctly points out the public are on the left on certain issues like the NHS, schools and rail renationalisation but on the right on others like tax, immigration, crime and welfare.
Where I part company with Hopi is in his attack on what he calls the “40% Fantasy”, the 40% strategy advocated by the field director of Ed Miliband’s leadership campaign Marcus Roberts. He correctly says that the two key pillars of reaching 40%, Labour’s 2010 voters and the post-coalition switchers from the Lib Dems, have turned out to be weaker than expected. What he ignores is that no one actually tried to implement the 40% strategy – except perhaps Marcus himself in Southampton Itchen where he is heavily involved in the campaign. It didn’t end up being the Labour Party’s official strategy, which was predicated on a more pessimistic and narrower coalition of basically the two (now weakened) pillars of the 2010 supporters and the ex-Lib Dems. This was supposed to add up to 35% but the rise of UKIP means it is now delivering about 31%. It wasn’t that the 40% strategy was implemented badly, it was rejected."
Just read that article. If he still thinks there is a chance, however remote, of Labour reaching 40% in May next year under Miliband then he's living in cloud-cuckoo land. So many Labour activists are in complete denial about the predicament they're in.
Apart from Hopi Sen who's a very smart and perceptive analyst.
Any news on Caliph Rahman and his benevolence? Surely the papers are public knowledge...?
@pollycurtis: Pickles's report into Tower Hamlets v v critical: misallocated funds and hindered inquiry... @patrickwintour report soon
Statement in the HoC at 12:30
@JohnRentoul: "In..grant making, we conclude that Authority is failing to comply with its best value duty." PwC on Tower Hamlets https://t.co/V3DDURhVpe
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
Bet you were squealing to high heaven about the NANNY STATE! whenever Labour introduced these kind of things.
I don't support some aspects of this particular proposal, but that wasn't actually my point. What I was challenging was the suggestion that the Conservative Party has changed its positioning; under Michael Howard and Maggie, similar proposals were made (allowing for the chnages in technology and type of threat) and in some cases enacted into law. Presumably Sean Fear and others were happy to support the party when Maggie was trying to deny IRA terrorists the 'oxygen of publicity'.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
No, you sit on your sofa and tweet and enjoy your feelings of self-righteousness. I am working in a third world country educating children from families that make less than $5/day.
Bet you were squealing to high heaven about the NANNY STATE! whenever Labour introduced these kind of things.
I don't support some aspects of this particular proposal, but that wasn't actually my point. What I was challenging was the suggestion that the Conservative Party has changed its positioning; under Michael Howard and Maggie, similar proposals were made (allowing for the chnages in technology and type of threat) and in some cases enacted into law. Presumably Sean Fear and others were happy to support the party when Maggie was trying to deny IRA terrorists the 'oxygen of publicity'.
I accept that things like the Prevention of Terrorism Act or Diplock Courts were necessary, in the context of fighting the IRA.
EDO's go way beyond anything that is necessary to defeat the (much smaller) terrorist threat that we face today.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
I'd say that depends on your sector.
I use o\time to cover holidays and temporary ramp ups in my order book. If the economics don't stack up I'll use a temp or check if I can use automation in parts of the factory to replace labour.
Extremism Disruption Orders, so far as I can see, will be pretty ineffective at preventing terrorism. They will, however, be used to suppress people whose views are "unfashionable" (George Osborne's term). We've seen time and again that the police, civil servants, local government will test to the limit the powers that they're given.
I tend to agree, I don't think they've got this particular proposal right. But the overall record of the current government on civil liberties is good, and they don't get enough credit for it. The extension of protection from the criminal law to citizens targetted by squatters, for example, was a major boost to civil liberties and the rule of law. Abolition of ID cards, HIPs, the ContactPoint database, and the creeping DNS database of innocent citizens are further examples. But of course the usual suspects never mention the positive things.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Oil prices would have remained high if Scotland had voted for independence.
You may think that previous sentence is ludicrous but it's no less ludicrous than determining if a 15 year forecast on oil prices is wrong based on oil price movements over the last month.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
Three points:
a) The magic money tree still doesn't exist and so this would come out of any future wage rises/job losses.
b) One assumes it's limited to six/seven years in any case, as nobody should have to keep records longer than that for tax reasons, so goodness knows how you're supposed to work out if person X did overtime in 1998/9 and if so how much, and at what rate, and how much holiday did they have?
c) The lawyers will make their usual fortune as this one runs and runs up the legal food chain.
I don't support some aspects of this particular proposal, but that wasn't actually my point. What I was challenging was the suggestion that the Conservative Party has changed its positioning; under Michael Howard and Maggie, similar proposals were made (allowing for the chnages in technology and type of threat) and in some cases enacted into law. Presumably Sean Fear and others were happy to support the party when Maggie was trying to deny IRA terrorists the 'oxygen of publicity'.
At the LSESU I terrified the left when - as second speaker for the motion - I stood up and condemned government-policy on that very issue. Prof: Why shoot your own feet?
Miss Vance, my apologies, I could've sworn it was an EU ruling [it's certainly bonkers enough for one].
This sort of retroactive change is crackers. And for the news describing it as 'good news' for employees: if SMEs go under, it won't be very good news for those they currently employ.
However the thing that really showed how shallow he was(and Harman and Clegg) was the T shirt rubbish . For a start wearing a T shirt with a logo does not make you morally good and secondly it shows a propensity to join in any fad and right-on campaign going which is OK if you are 18 and in the Students Union but when you want to lead the country it shows an alarming shallowness
Well quite, its like the whole #FreeOurGirls thing a few months ago. T-shirts and twitter tags are a nice painless way of the liberal chattering classes showing that they "care" without actually having to get off their asses and do anything about the problem. Everyone can feel they are "making a difference", everyone can show the world their self righteousness, everyone can tell their friends at dinner parties that they "took action", everyone gets nice feeling of adequacy as they group hug on social media, whilst actually not risking or doing a damn thing that matters.
Absolutely! bang on to rights there.
Yeah! Much better to not do anything at all (apart from whinge on the internet)
EDO's go way beyond anything that is necessary to defeat the (much smaller) terrorist threat that we face today.
Not sure it's a smaller threat. It's a different threat, certainly, but there are plenty of people out there wanting to do disagreeable things to us, and 9/11 showed that they are willing and might be able to do some very nasty large-scale things. One of the scary things is that the London tube bombings were carried out by a relatively small and unsophisticated group; we could easily see more such attacks.
It's easy to get complacent, until the next one happens.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Oil prices would have remained high if Scotland had voted for independence.
You may think that previous sentence is ludicrous but it's no less ludicrous than determining if a 15 year forecast on oil prices is wrong based on oil price movements over the last month.
Not when the entire premise of Scotland being able to finance independence (and being in a sterling zone) was the oil price being at a certain minimum level month in and month out, year on year.
Ipsos:... C 31 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 8 / GRN 8 YG:....... C 33 / L 39 / LD 9 / UK 12 / GRN 6
Midlands
Ashcroft: C 36 / L 28 / LD 8 / UK 20 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 35 / L 30 / LD 8 / UK 23 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 36 / L 33 / LD 8 / UK 15 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 35 / L 33 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 36 / L 34 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 5
North
Ashcroft: C 28 / L 37 / LD 6 / UK 22 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 25 / L 44 / LD 7 / UK 19 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 26 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 11 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 28 / L 41 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 30 / L 42 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 3 YG:.......... C 27 / L 43 / LD 5 / UK 18 / GRN 6
Tories seem to be doing well in the Midlands. Labour to win marginal London seats shocker but if they don't advance in the Midlands (and this includes Wales above) they are not going to pick up many seats. They seem to have given up on the South (viz R&S), so that's out. Seems like they will lose anywhere from a couple to a skinful of seats in Scotland too.
How many marginal seats in London are there that they can plausibly win from the Tories? 6-7? (Hendon, Enfield N, Ilford N, Chiswick, Acton, Croydon C?)
At least two if not three of these are likely to be Mansion Tax averse too.
Just checking, with Oil at $75 a barrel would Scottish tax take per head be higher or lower than the UK as a whole?
One would assume oil-extraction/production tax is a Stirling-constant (so needs to be figured into any Scots' currency). The consumption part of said tax would be devolved to Sovereign-states.
Now if the small-extraction firms are Scots (whilst the global-extraction are English) then the profits are most likely to head Sarf. The major impact on a low oil-price is most likely to occur in Aberdeen (and hence lower Scots' taxes) where construction/maintenance/support is concentrated. Richard Tyndall could confirm this (or not).
"Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories"
The two largest parties in Scotland are Labour and the SNP, with the latter tearing chunks out of the former. That's the story in Scotland atm, what on earth have the Tories got to do with it ?
I'm looking more to the future whereas your description is of course the current situation. My perception - and I may be wrong - is that the Tories will benefit to some extent from indyref, but from a much lower starting level than the SNP. It's of course complicated by tactical voting (to keep out the Tories, Labour or the Yessers depending on the seat and the person) and the degree to which the SNP can continue to decouple the independence issue from their continuing to run Scotland as the new natural party of government (many a Tory would much rather have Mr Swinney in charge of the finances, for instance, than SLAB).
But if people now think that the SNP, or the Tories, now have a reasonable chance of winning a seat under FPTP then Labour begin to lose the advantage of tactical voting to keep a Tory/Nat (as appropriate) out. Same with the LDs. That is a critical issue which may not have been discussed enough (and which may not yet have sunk into the Scottish voters' minds). A SNP vote for Westminster is no longer a wasted vote - ditto, in a few seats, a Tory vote.
Admittedly I may be wrong. The recent opinion polling has been - to my real surprise - contrary to that: 10%-ish of the vote for the Tories, when 16% seems a more reasonable norm.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Indeed. Howevr, (1) independence would not have begun for a couple of years, (2) we'll see what the price is then, and (3) there is a great deal more to the Scottish economy than oil.
Mr. Carnyx, consider also the emotional aspect. Miliband just isn't like, and may even be less liked in Scotland than England. That'll help to diminish the 'vote Labour or you'll get a baby-eating Conservative or nasty Nat' line.
On topic, how did the individual state polls actually fare in 2012 vs taking a national average and applying a uniform swing? I haven't looked at this systematically but I seem to remember all kinds of weird local swings forecast based on state polling that didn't pan out in practice, like Obama cruising to a win in Ohio while having a fight on his hands in Colorado.
I think the individual state polling (once you adjusted for the various house effects and varying qualities of the differenty pollsters) was pretty much spot-on.
Checking the numbers the weird thing about this was that the state polling got the general margin right while the national polls were wildly too generous to Romney. But if you wanted to put the states in order of the winning margin UNS would have predicted it almost perfectly, whereas the state polling was all over the map.
Now admittedly I'm not doing a Nate Silver on this and doing pollster weightings and house effect adjustments, but I still reckon Lord Ashcroft would be better off just applying UNS to a national poll and spending the money he saves on a nice Spitfire.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
Extremism Disruption Orders, so far as I can see, will be pretty ineffective at preventing terrorism. They will, however, be used to suppress people whose views are "unfashionable" (George Osborne's term). We've seen time and again that the police, civil servants, local government will test to the limit the powers that they're given.
The next step in restricting free speech, particularly in regards to immigration and race relations, of course the proponents continue to support immigration that is the source of terrorism.
Now admittedly I'm not doing a Nate Silver on this and doing pollster weightings and house effect adjustments, but I still reckon Lord Ashcroft would be better off just applying UNS to a national poll and spending the money he saves on a nice Spitfire.
Yes, I think that is probably right. We would need a lot more polls than he is able to conduct to get a meaningful, statistically robust, set of data.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Indeed. Howevr, (1) independence would not have begun for a couple of years, (2) we'll see what the price is then, and (3) there is a great deal more to the Scottish economy than oil.
There is more to the Scottish economy than oil, but it was absolutely fundamental to what the SNP was saying about independence, how it would be funded and why rUK would want a currency union. We agree they were wrong about oil, so what else were they wrong about?
Mr. Carnyx, consider also the emotional aspect. Miliband just isn't like, and may even be less liked in Scotland than England. That'll help to diminish the 'vote Labour or you'll get a baby-eating Conservative or nasty Nat' line.
Ah, indeed, Mr the Labour leadership changed too, from Mr Brown to Mr Miliband.
"Changes in public trust ratings since the referendum:
Nicola Sturgeon: +12 Alex Salmond: +9 Gordon Brown: +4 Ruth Davidson: -6 Johann Lamont: -8 Alistair Darling: -11 David Cameron: -14 Ed Miliband: -23
More Lib Dem voters trust Alex Salmond (+5 overall) and Nicola Sturgeon (+13) than don’t. 41% of 2010 Labour voters trust the incoming First Minister either “a lot” or “a fair amount”."
You seem to be comparing Apples with Oranges. The average US state has roughly the same population as twice that of Wales, or 1.5 times that of Scotland. Indeed, California is only a few million short of the population of England!
Actually the average US State (including DC) has roughly 6.3 million people (2014 est.), a bit more than the population of Scotland (5.3 million, 2013 est.).
England = 53 million (Census 2011) California = 38 million (2014 est.)
and then as coincidence would have it, we get the new chief of GCHQ in the papers today
"Technology giants such as Facebook and Twitter have become "the command and control networks of choice" for terrorists and criminals but are "in denial" about the scale of the problem, the new head of GCHQ has said"
It's a truly dire proposal. On its own, it's sufficient reason for me to have left the Conservative Party.
This is going to sound nastier than is meant (not that you probably care!) but I think there's a real ostrich mentality amongst you-kippers. It's amazing for a group that seems to project being 'with it' that there's a failure to engage with the world as it now is. (So tempting to capitalise those last four words at risk of shouting.) This isn't 1945 or 1972 any more. Come on guys, and you mostly are, wake up.
Posts like that make me want to join them. For as long as I can remember there have been calls for the State to have ever more surveillance and control powers. Quite often without the tiresome burden of legal checks and balances, and the 'security risk' of transparency.
No doubt such civil protections are inconvenient to the authorities but, throughout history, and to the present day, there are regular serious abuses of such privileges: suspending habeus corpus to Internment to detention without trial to Hillsborough to Stockwell to WMD dossier to Andrew Mitchell to Kettling to Extraordinary Rendition to phone taps to ID cards to DNA databases.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
"Ostrich mentality" ?
audreyanne • Posts: 578 October 20 • edited October 20
It'll also be interesting to see if:
1. naming the Conservative candidate makes a difference following 2. a full constituency primary 3. having a female 4. the next polls being longer after the Clacton result and 5. the kitchen sink from the Tories compared to the Clacton gimme.
Five solid 'reasons' then for thinking 3/1 is too long on the Conservatives, or that 78% UKIP is far too short.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
I am sure you are probably right about temps but there will be sectors eg seasonal agricultural work where overtime would definitely be curtailed as a result of this ruling. Our current flexible labour markets are an attraction for among others employers looking to relocate in the UK and for small businesses setting up and I'm slightly surprised as a fellow Tory and usually an insightful one at that you are so unabashed by this ruling.
On topic, how did the individual state polls actually fare in 2012 vs taking a national average and applying a uniform swing? I haven't looked at this systematically but I seem to remember all kinds of weird local swings forecast based on state polling that didn't pan out in practice, like Obama cruising to a win in Ohio while having a fight on his hands in Colorado.
I think the individual state polling (once you adjusted for the various house effects and varying qualities of the differenty pollsters) was pretty much spot-on.
Checking the numbers the weird thing about this was that the state polling got the general margin right while the national polls were wildly too generous to Romney. But if you wanted to put the states in order of the winning margin UNS would have predicted it almost perfectly, whereas the state polling was all over the map.
Now admittedly I'm not doing a Nate Silver on this and doing pollster weightings and house effect adjustments, but I still reckon Lord Ashcroft would be better off just applying UNS to a national poll and spending the money he saves on a nice Spitfire.
The UK has alot more effective parties than the USA, so my guess is right now it is alot harder to model.
Households will receive information on how their tax is spent in the form of a leaflet showing an ape-like skinhead wearing a baseball hat labelled BENEFITS CLAIMANT eating a large piece of pie with YOUR MONEY written on it.
The closing para on Farage is a little slice of fried gold.
Real life can be blunter.
"...a billboard — from Gambia. It depicts Jammeh and says, “A vote for him in 2011 is a sacred duty for all Gambians or you die.”
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
Three points:
a) The magic money tree still doesn't exist and so this would come out of any future wage rises/job losses.
b) One assumes it's limited to six/seven years in any case, as nobody should have to keep records longer than that for tax reasons, so goodness knows how you're supposed to work out if person X did overtime in 1998/9 and if so how much, and at what rate, and how much holiday did they have?
c) The lawyers will make their usual fortune as this one runs and runs up the legal food chain.
a. The magic money tree indeed doesn't exist but you could say the same about overtime rates, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay and plenty of other benefits that companies either choose to give or are forced to give. Probably some revision of pay rates within some companies will result following the ruling. If so, that may well be fair if (say) hourly-paid staff working regular overtime are receiving less holiday pay (like for like) as against their monthly-paid salaried colleagues.
b. I quite agree that there does need to be a deadline on legitimate claims but that doesn't undermine the principle either for the future or for that period in the past for which claims may be legitimate.
c. Probably so, but that's no reason to come to a different conclusion. It may be a reason to consider reform of the legal process, and/or for employers and employees to seek resolution without further resort to the courts.
I can't help liking Taki, a bounder but attractive to read: Coffee House retweeted High Life @TakiHighLife 21h21 hours ago Manhattan was always chic in the Upper East and West Sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer. http://specc.ie/1wGUCkb
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Indeed. Howevr, (1) independence would not have begun for a couple of years, (2) we'll see what the price is then, and (3) there is a great deal more to the Scottish economy than oil.
There is more to the Scottish economy than oil, but it was absolutely fundamental to what the SNP was saying about independence, how it would be funded and why rUK would want a currency union. We agree they were wrong about oil, so what else were they wrong about?
It's like you don't even listen to Alex Slamond's one liners
"The only kind of inquiry that ever works is the kind that investigates someone other than the Government. Because the subjects were Islamist school governors and an underperforming council, rather than ministers and civil servants, the recent investigation into the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” affair was allowed to be astonishingly effective. They appointed someone – Peter Clarke, a former senior policeman – who knew how to ask questions and actually wanted to know the answers. "
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
I am sure you are probably right about temps but there will be sectors eg seasonal agricultural work where overtime would definitely be curtailed as a result of this ruling. Our current flexible labour markets are an attraction for among others employers looking to relocate in the UK and for small businesses setting up and I'm slightly surprised as a fellow Tory and usually an insightful one at that you are so unabashed by this ruling.
Isn't the point that overtime is extra work (not normally given) that already gets a higher rate associated with it? It seems perverse to then give this as part of holiday pay. Perhaps I don't understand the details enough.
Whatever is deemed fair over that, the real problem would be back-dating it to 1998. That seems a completely unfair hit on businesses that have seeking to be reasonable in the dealings.
Looking back - was the Indy Ref an almighty plot to completely stitch up Scottish Labour ?!?!!!
Because it certainly looks to have worked out that way in practice.
Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories, I wouldn't be at all surprised if indyref was regarded by the SNP as having the secondary aim of sorting SLAB once and for all.
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
It turns out the SNP were completely and utterly wrong on the oil price, doesn't it?
Indeed. Howevr, (1) independence would not have begun for a couple of years, (2) we'll see what the price is then, and (3) there is a great deal more to the Scottish economy than oil.
There is more to the Scottish economy than oil, but it was absolutely fundamental to what the SNP was saying about independence, how it would be funded and why rUK would want a currency union. We agree they were wrong about oil, so what else were they wrong about?
It's like you don't even listen to Alex Slamond's one liners
"Oil is a bonus not a basis"
"You mean "Oil is a bonus not a basis - chuckle chuckle at my own marvellous humour - not surprising that the Westminster establishment blah blah chuckle platitude smugness..."
I can't help liking Taki, a bounder but attractive to read:
I forgot to say you can read of the origin of The Nighthawks Cafe.
Coffee House retweeted High Life @TakiHighLife 21h21 hours ago Manhattan was always chic in the Upper East and West Sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer. http://specc.ie/1wGUCkb
You seem to be comparing Apples with Oranges. The average US state has roughly the same population as twice that of Wales, or 1.5 times that of Scotland. Indeed, California is only a few million short of the population of England!
Actually the average US State (including DC) has roughly 6.3 million people (2014 est.), a bit more than the population of Scotland (5.3 million, 2013 est.).
England = 53 million (Census 2011) California = 38 million (2014 est.)
England = 1.4 x California population
If you take the median, rather than the mean, then the 26th most populous state is Kentucky, at a little under four and a half million, so somewhat smaller than Scotland. Colorado - 22nd by population - is the closest to 5.3m.
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
I am sure you are probably right about temps but there will be sectors eg seasonal agricultural work where overtime would definitely be curtailed as a result of this ruling. Our current flexible labour markets are an attraction for among others employers looking to relocate in the UK and for small businesses setting up and I'm slightly surprised as a fellow Tory and usually an insightful one at that you are so unabashed by this ruling.
Isn't the point that overtime is extra work (not normally given) that already gets a higher rate associated with it? It seems perverse to then give this as part of holiday pay. Perhaps I don't understand the details enough.
Whatever is deemed fair over that, the real problem would be back-dating it to 1998. That seems a completely unfair hit on businesses that have seeking to be reasonable in the dealings.
Many businesses keep full payroll records for only four years so backdating that long ago is a nonsense
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
I am sure you are probably right about temps but there will be sectors eg seasonal agricultural work where overtime would definitely be curtailed as a result of this ruling. Our current flexible labour markets are an attraction for among others employers looking to relocate in the UK and for small businesses setting up and I'm slightly surprised as a fellow Tory and usually an insightful one at that you are so unabashed by this ruling.
I'm not saying I support every aspect of the ruling but I do think that the case brought had some merit and that opponents who argue against it simply because it'll impose costs are the intellectual inheritors of those who campaigned agaisnt the Factory Acts. I'm quite sure that many do so from the best of intentions - to prevent unemployment or protect freedom of contract, for example - but I think their fears aren't that justified providing that the regulation and protection's reasonable (NB - I've not seen the full judgement so would prefer to stick to the principles rather than the judgement in this case).
"Even if you didn't keep records, we'll help you reclaim overtime holiday pay going back 10 years."
"Perhaps we can have that holiday after all."
"Putting right what employers did wrong."
Because I'm fucking sick to the back teeth of PPI and all those adverts for it - the same numpties buying the services of those companies as the ones that got the crap loans in the first place.
"The only kind of inquiry that ever works is the kind that investigates someone other than the Government. Because the subjects were Islamist school governors and an underperforming council, rather than ministers and civil servants, the recent investigation into the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” affair was allowed to be astonishingly effective. They appointed someone – Peter Clarke, a former senior policeman – who knew how to ask questions and actually wanted to know the answers. "
Sir Humphrey Appleby: And to that end, I recommend that we set up an interdepartmental committee with fairly broad terms of reference so that at the end of the day we'll be in the position to think through the various implications and arrive at a decision based on long-term considerations rather than rush prematurely into precipitate and possibly ill-conceived action which might well have unforeseen repercussions.
Ipsos:... C 31 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 8 / GRN 8 YG:....... C 33 / L 39 / LD 9 / UK 12 / GRN 6
Midlands
Ashcroft: C 36 / L 28 / LD 8 / UK 20 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 35 / L 30 / LD 8 / UK 23 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 36 / L 33 / LD 8 / UK 15 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 35 / L 33 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 36 / L 34 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 5
North
Ashcroft: C 28 / L 37 / LD 6 / UK 22 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 25 / L 44 / LD 7 / UK 19 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 26 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 11 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 28 / L 41 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 30 / L 42 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 3 YG:.......... C 27 / L 43 / LD 5 / UK 18 / GRN 6
Tories seem to be doing well in the Midlands. Labour to win marginal London seats shocker but if they don't advance in the Midlands (and this includes Wales above) they are not going to pick up many seats. They seem to have given up on the South (viz R&S), so that's out. Seems like they will lose anywhere from a couple to a skinful of seats in Scotland too.
How many marginal seats in London are there that they can plausibly win from the Tories? 6-7? (Hendon, Enfield N, Ilford N, Chiswick, Acton, Croydon C?)
At least two if not three of these are likely to be Mansion Tax averse too.
Spread of Labour's top 50 targets North 12 Midlands 12 South 9 London 5 East 4 Yorkshire 4 Scotland 2 Wales 2
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
When? I see absolutely no difference whatsoever between the position of the Conservative Party over the last fifty years and the position now, namely a sensible balance between protecting civil liberties and keeping citizens safe. What's more it's similar to the position of all modern Western democracies.
Extremism Disruption Orders, so far as I can see, will be pretty ineffective at preventing terrorism. They will, however, be used to suppress people whose views are "unfashionable" (George Osborne's term). We've seen time and again that the police, civil servants, local government will test to the limit the powers that they're given.
The next step in restricting free speech, particularly in regards to immigration and race relations, of course the proponents continue to support immigration that is the source of terrorism.
At the same time we will continue to point fingers at countries like Russia. Make a "racist" joke in a tweet. Go to jail. Make a joke about Mandela, the police come round.
Contrast the worldwide furor over Pussy Riot desecrating a cathedral in Russia to the jailing of two Scots who put pieces of bacon outside a mosque.
And the British Vishinsky is likely to be the next MP for Camden...
Ipsos:... C 31 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 8 / GRN 8 YG:....... C 33 / L 39 / LD 9 / UK 12 / GRN 6
Midlands
Ashcroft: C 36 / L 28 / LD 8 / UK 20 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 35 / L 30 / LD 8 / UK 23 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 36 / L 33 / LD 8 / UK 15 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 35 / L 33 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 36 / L 34 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 5
North
Ashcroft: C 28 / L 37 / LD 6 / UK 22 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 25 / L 44 / LD 7 / UK 19 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 26 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 11 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 28 / L 41 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 30 / L 42 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 3 YG:.......... C 27 / L 43 / LD 5 / UK 18 / GRN 6
Tories seem to be doing well in the Midlands. Labour to win marginal London seats shocker but if they don't advance in the Midlands (and this includes Wales above) they are not going to pick up many seats. They seem to have given up on the South (viz R&S), so that's out. Seems like they will lose anywhere from a couple to a skinful of seats in Scotland too.
How many marginal seats in London are there that they can plausibly win from the Tories? 6-7? (Hendon, Enfield N, Ilford N, Chiswick, Acton, Croydon C?)
At least two if not three of these are likely to be Mansion Tax averse too.
Spread of Labour's top 50 targets North 12 Midlands 12 South 9 London 5 East 4 Yorkshire 4 Scotland 2 Wales 2
Labour are also being (realistically) targetted in: Great Grimsby (UKIP); Southampton Itchen (Con); Scotland (Various)
Is there a live-feed for the Persecution of "The Caliph Rhaman 'He Of Allah' The Benevolent"? I am sure certain Scots-born Yorkshire [sic] lawyers will be sucking on their expensed pencils....
"I thought my workplace was providing free male sex toys, but it turned out to be an automatic pencil-sharpener. It really hurt, and to make things worse, everyone laughed at me. Thanks to Smug, Git and Prick Solicitors I got a £30,000 payout."
Edited extra bit: NB Not saying there shouldn't be protection against negligent/incompetent employers, just that the claim culture seems to have gone far too far (in this sphere and others).
Brent crude trading at $77 a barrel, what price independence ?
Sweaty palms in Moscow right now, as well as Venezuela and those oh-so-liberal gulf states. Heart of stone, etc, etc.
And their fellow travellers in Labour : "Cost of living crisis" wont see as much traction now..
Paying £1.259 for a litre of diesel right now, and everything seems to be on offer at the supermarkets.
In fact when the inflation figures come out I'm trying to work out just what is causing the increase as my weekly expenses are heading south at the moment.
There are things that you might not spend money on, ever, or at this moment in time. Home furnishings, school fees, footwear?
The other thing to note is that inflation over the last quarter has been just 0.08%, or an annual rate of 0.3%, whereas the headline CPI number of 1.2% for the last year as a whole includes the earlier nine months when inflation was higher. By the time of the election the annual inflation rate could be below 1%.
Ipsos:... C 31 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 8 / GRN 8 YG:....... C 33 / L 39 / LD 9 / UK 12 / GRN 6
Midlands
Ashcroft: C 36 / L 28 / LD 8 / UK 20 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 35 / L 30 / LD 8 / UK 23 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 36 / L 33 / LD 8 / UK 15 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 35 / L 33 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 36 / L 34 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 5
North
Ashcroft: C 28 / L 37 / LD 6 / UK 22 / GRN 6 ComRes: C 25 / L 44 / LD 7 / UK 19 / GRN 3 ICM:........ C 26 / L 41 / LD 8 / UK 11 / GRN 4 Ipsos:...... C 28 / L 41 / LD 7 / UK 16 / GRN 6 Populus:...C 30 / L 42 / LD 8 / UK 17 / GRN 3 YG:.......... C 27 / L 43 / LD 5 / UK 18 / GRN 6
Tories seem to be doing well in the Midlands. Labour to win marginal London seats shocker but if they don't advance in the Midlands (and this includes Wales above) they are not going to pick up many seats. They seem to have given up on the South (viz R&S), so that's out. Seems like they will lose anywhere from a couple to a skinful of seats in Scotland too.
How many marginal seats in London are there that they can plausibly win from the Tories? 6-7? (Hendon, Enfield N, Ilford N, Chiswick, Acton, Croydon C?)
At least two if not three of these are likely to be Mansion Tax averse too.
Spread of Labour's top 50 targets North 12 Midlands 12 South 9 London 5 East 4 Yorkshire 4 Scotland 2 Wales 2
Labour are also being (realistically) targetted in: Great Grimsby (UKIP); Southampton Itchen (Con); Scotland (Various)
Anywhere else? The other Southampton seat? Will any Labour London seats flip over the Mansion Tax? Hamptead (Tories would have won it on 1992 boundaries). Derby North?
If Labour are floundering on about 30% they will almost certainly lose some seats. A strong UKIP showing could see them losing Bolton W, Dudley N.
"Tower Hamlets, the east London council, sold off public buildings to associates of the Mayor and handed out grants to ineligible bodies, a damning Government report has found. The winning bidder to buy Poplar Town Hall offered a lower price than other bidders and “had an association” with the controversial Mayor Lutfur Rahman, according to an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The Mayor personally intervened in the awarding of council contracts, which lacked signed paperwork or audit trails, the report found."
It simply means people will make more use of temps and cut back on overtime.
On the other hand now that the price of labour is being jacked up it could long term push a point or two on to productivity, machines have just improved their payback.
Those sort of arguments are always heard when any restrictions on the labour market are proposed. They're rarely fully justified and certainly aren't this time. Excessive or continuous use of overtime is an abuse and if someone is regularly working x hours a week, they should receive the benefits for doing that rather than x-y hours a week.
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
Three points:
a) The magic money tree still doesn't exist and so this would come out of any future wage rises/job losses.
b) One assumes it's limited to six/seven years in any case, as nobody should have to keep records longer than that for tax reasons, so goodness knows how you're supposed to work out if person X did overtime in 1998/9 and if so how much, and at what rate, and how much holiday did they have?
c) The lawyers will make their usual fortune as this one runs and runs up the legal food chain.
I would have sought remedy by variation using contract law,which,in my experience,ends up as a solution based on consolidation of overtime into the basic wage i.e.treat overtime as part of "statutory".This averaged over the course of the year into the basic pay helps to solve the low pay which caused the problem in the first place.There is enormous payback to employer in coming to this arrangement in terms of improved morale and motivation.reduction in legal and associated costs and a lot less aggravation.
"Tower Hamlets, the east London council, sold off public buildings to associates of the Mayor and handed out grants to ineligible bodies, a damning Government report has found. The winning bidder to buy Poplar Town Hall offered a lower price than other bidders and “had an association” with the controversial Mayor Lutfur Rahman, according to an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The Mayor personally intervened in the awarding of council contracts, which lacked signed paperwork or audit trails, the report found."
Too busy persecuting those guilty of thought crime.
Comments
@OliverCooper: François Hollande is experiencing a little local difficulty: Le Pen 29%, Sarkozy 26%, Hollande 14% (Ifop poll).
Still eight-weeks-ish left...!
In fact when the inflation figures come out I'm trying to work out just what is causing the increase as my weekly expenses are heading south at the moment.
No doubt such civil protections are inconvenient to the authorities but, throughout history, and to the present day, there are regular serious abuses of such privileges: suspending habeus corpus to Internment to detention without trial to Hillsborough to Stockwell to WMD dossier to Andrew Mitchell to Kettling to Extraordinary Rendition to phone taps to ID cards to DNA databases.
The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of the individual citizen against the overbearing State, rather than defer in hock and awe to the arguments of the 'security' lobby.
Its the UK Employment Appeal Tribunal.....
http://www.justice.gov.uk/tribunals/employment-appeals
You'll be blaming the EU for the rain next......
And everyone knows thats got nothing to do with the EU and is because of gay marriage.....
On the other hand, I don't suppose the SNP can claim all the credit for their cunning plan; they could hardly have believed it would work out so well in that respect (subject to the actual results of the elections in 2015 and 2016). The implications of allying with the Tories, and acting as their frontpersons/penal battalions, providing the personpower to Tory money, were so blatantly obvious years ago to anyone with half a brain cell that I really wonder what SLAB, and/or their Labour HQ, were thinking. It was not wise to spend decades inculcating a hatred of the Tories and then spend two years not only allied with them but making sure that Tory dominion continues unabated over Scotland - not least because the loss of Labour seats in Scotland would help Labour lose a Westminster election.
There must surely have been an assumption that the initial 30%-ish support for indy was a high water mark and largely down to SNP voters and that it would go down under a deluge of spindoctored Better Togetherism, whle the Labour masses would come to heel.
On other indyref news, Wings over Scotland is having an interesting ongoing dialogue with the Daily Record over just who wrote the infamous Vow.
Russia remains one of the least affected producers as per analyst reports, tend to be more reliable than journalists.
Mr C, what planet are you on
"Given the way that Scottish politics seems to be splitting between the SNP and allies, and the Tories"
The two largest parties in Scotland are Labour and the SNP, with the latter tearing chunks out of the former. That's the story in Scotland atm, what on earth have the Tories got to do with it ?
The Conservatives were very big on civil liberties in opposition. That seems to have lasted about 18 months into the term of office of this government.
Statement in the HoC at 12:30
@JohnRentoul: "In..grant making, we conclude that Authority is failing to comply with its best value duty." PwC on Tower Hamlets https://t.co/V3DDURhVpe
I'm not convinced by the 'they'll get temps in' argument. Temps aren't ideal to fill even for the most basic jobs, never mind anything more complex, as apart from the likely drop in quality, they produce far more management activity for hiring, training and releasing.
Tell me, are you really a cross dresser?
Excuse me, Mike, but there are some questions you simply should not ask a girl.
You'll be asking her age next.
EDO's go way beyond anything that is necessary to defeat the (much smaller) terrorist threat that we face today.
I use o\time to cover holidays and temporary ramp ups in my order book. If the economics don't stack up I'll use a temp or check if I can use automation in parts of the factory to replace labour.
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/peter-hill/530959/Peter-Hill-on-British-jihadists-Tower-of-London-poppies-and-Angela-Merkel
You may think that previous sentence is ludicrous but it's no less ludicrous than determining if a 15 year forecast on oil prices is wrong based on oil price movements over the last month.
a) The magic money tree still doesn't exist and so this would come out of any future wage rises/job losses.
b) One assumes it's limited to six/seven years in any case, as nobody should have to keep records longer than that for tax reasons, so goodness knows how you're supposed to work out if person X did overtime in 1998/9 and if so how much, and at what rate, and how much holiday did they have?
c) The lawyers will make their usual fortune as this one runs and runs up the legal food chain.
This sort of retroactive change is crackers. And for the news describing it as 'good news' for employees: if SMEs go under, it won't be very good news for those they currently employ.
It's easy to get complacent, until the next one happens.
Tories seem to be doing well in the Midlands. Labour to win marginal London seats shocker but if they don't advance in the Midlands (and this includes Wales above) they are not going to pick up many seats. They seem to have given up on the South (viz R&S), so that's out. Seems like they will lose anywhere from a couple to a skinful of seats in Scotland too.
How many marginal seats in London are there that they can plausibly win from the Tories? 6-7? (Hendon, Enfield N, Ilford N, Chiswick, Acton, Croydon C?)
At least two if not three of these are likely to be Mansion Tax averse too.
Now if the small-extraction firms are Scots (whilst the global-extraction are English) then the profits are most likely to head Sarf. The major impact on a low oil-price is most likely to occur in Aberdeen (and hence lower Scots' taxes) where construction/maintenance/support is concentrated. Richard Tyndall could confirm this (or not).
UKIP's Small Business spokesman @MargotLJParker slams Employment Tribunal ruling http://www.ukip.org/ukip_s_small_business_spokesman_slams_tribunal_ruling …
But if people now think that the SNP, or the Tories, now have a reasonable chance of winning a seat under FPTP then Labour begin to lose the advantage of tactical voting to keep a Tory/Nat (as appropriate) out. Same with the LDs. That is a critical issue which may not have been discussed enough (and which may not yet have sunk into the Scottish voters' minds). A SNP vote for Westminster is no longer a wasted vote - ditto, in a few seats, a Tory vote.
Admittedly I may be wrong. The recent opinion polling has been - to my real surprise - contrary to that: 10%-ish of the vote for the Tories, when 16% seems a more reasonable norm.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11207252/Libyan-troops-based-in-Britain-accused-of-committing-series-of-sex-attacks.html
See the state polling averages here.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html
Now admittedly I'm not doing a Nate Silver on this and doing pollster weightings and house effect adjustments, but I still reckon Lord Ashcroft would be better off just applying UNS to a national poll and spending the money he saves on a nice Spitfire.
Why not read the article that you linked to, before doing the Kipper Shriek. It shouldn't be too difficult.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/down-at-the-dataface/ is an interesting posting of data from the recent Yougov - such as the trust rating changes since indyref:
"Changes in public trust ratings since the referendum:
Nicola Sturgeon: +12
Alex Salmond: +9
Gordon Brown: +4
Ruth Davidson: -6
Johann Lamont: -8
Alistair Darling: -11
David Cameron: -14
Ed Miliband: -23
More Lib Dem voters trust Alex Salmond (+5 overall) and Nicola Sturgeon (+13) than don’t. 41% of 2010 Labour voters trust the incoming First Minister either “a lot” or “a fair amount”."
@MSmithsonPB: LAB in third place amongst the 570 sample 60+ age group in today's YouGov
CON 44, LAB 20, LD 7, UKIP 23, GRN 2
England = 53 million (Census 2011)
California = 38 million (2014 est.)
England = 1.4 x California population
audreyanne • Posts: 578
October 20 • edited October 20
It'll also be interesting to see if:
1. naming the Conservative candidate makes a difference following
2. a full constituency primary
3. having a female
4. the next polls being longer after the Clacton result and
5. the kitchen sink from the Tories compared to the Clacton gimme.
Five solid 'reasons' then for thinking 3/1 is too long on the Conservatives, or that 78% UKIP is far too short.
"...a billboard — from Gambia. It depicts Jammeh and says, “A vote for him in 2011 is a sacred duty for all Gambians or you die.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/391722/oslo-journal-part-vii-jay-nordlinger
b. I quite agree that there does need to be a deadline on legitimate claims but that doesn't undermine the principle either for the future or for that period in the past for which claims may be legitimate.
c. Probably so, but that's no reason to come to a different conclusion. It may be a reason to consider reform of the legal process, and/or for employers and employees to seek resolution without further resort to the courts.
Coffee House retweeted
High Life @TakiHighLife 21h21 hours ago
Manhattan was always chic in the Upper East and West Sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer. http://specc.ie/1wGUCkb
"Oil is a bonus not a basis"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11205648/Whether-Fiona-Woolf-heads-it-or-not-the-child-abuse-inquiry-will-fail.html
"The only kind of inquiry that ever works is the kind that investigates someone other than the Government. Because the subjects were Islamist school governors and an underperforming council, rather than ministers and civil servants, the recent investigation into the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” affair was allowed to be astonishingly effective. They appointed someone – Peter Clarke, a former senior policeman – who knew how to ask questions and actually wanted to know the answers. "
Whatever is deemed fair over that, the real problem would be back-dating it to 1998. That seems a completely unfair hit on businesses that have seeking to be reasonable in the dealings.
I forgot to say you can read of the origin of The Nighthawks Cafe.
Coffee House retweeted
High Life @TakiHighLife 21h21 hours ago
Manhattan was always chic in the Upper East and West Sides, but bohemian and gritty and artistic downtown. No longer. http://specc.ie/1wGUCkb
Would you have been happier if they were from the US, rather than 'Bongo Bongo' land?
"Even if you didn't keep records, we'll help you reclaim overtime holiday pay going back 10 years."
"Perhaps we can have that holiday after all."
"Putting right what employers did wrong."
Because I'm fucking sick to the back teeth of PPI and all those adverts for it - the same numpties buying the services of those companies as the ones that got the crap loans in the first place.
James Hacker: You mean no.
North 12
Midlands 12
South 9
London 5
East 4
Yorkshire 4
Scotland 2
Wales 2
At the same time we will continue to point fingers at countries like Russia.
Make a "racist" joke in a tweet. Go to jail.
Make a joke about Mandela, the police come round.
Contrast the worldwide furor over Pussy Riot desecrating a cathedral in Russia to the jailing of two Scots who put pieces of bacon outside a mosque.
And the British Vishinsky is likely to be the next MP for Camden...
Westminster: 12.30?
Personal injury ones are fantastically awful.
"I thought my workplace was providing free male sex toys, but it turned out to be an automatic pencil-sharpener. It really hurt, and to make things worse, everyone laughed at me. Thanks to Smug, Git and Prick Solicitors I got a £30,000 payout."
Edited extra bit: NB Not saying there shouldn't be protection against negligent/incompetent employers, just that the claim culture seems to have gone far too far (in this sphere and others).
The other thing to note is that inflation over the last quarter has been just 0.08%, or an annual rate of 0.3%, whereas the headline CPI number of 1.2% for the last year as a whole includes the earlier nine months when inflation was higher. By the time of the election the annual inflation rate could be below 1%.
The other Southampton seat? Will any Labour London seats flip over the Mansion Tax? Hamptead (Tories would have won it on 1992 boundaries). Derby North?
If Labour are floundering on about 30% they will almost certainly lose some seats. A strong UKIP showing could see them losing Bolton W, Dudley N.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/local-elections/11207299/Tower-Hamlets-damning-report-lays-bare-cronyism-and-misuse-of-public-money.html
"Tower Hamlets, the east London council, sold off public buildings to associates of the Mayor and handed out grants to ineligible bodies, a damning Government report has found.
The winning bidder to buy Poplar Town Hall offered a lower price than other bidders and “had an association” with the controversial Mayor Lutfur Rahman, according to an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The Mayor personally intervened in the awarding of council contracts, which lacked signed paperwork or audit trails, the report found."