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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Downing Street might have just saved Ed Miliband
If you have bad news to get out, then Friday evening is as good a time as any to do it. MPs have gone back to their constituencies, the public is paying less attention and it falls in that gap between the weekday and weekend media.
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As an aside I am in london the day of the meeting at Dirty Dicks. If anyone objects to me attending then now is the time to voice it. I know online I can be somewhat blunt and caustic so I would rather not show my face should it not be welcome as I am merely a sporadic poster who is mainly a lurker
Of course you'd be more than welcome !
I think Dave and George had half a mind on saving Ed this morning as I heard about the £1.7 Bn !
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11179570/Can-David-Cameron-really-get-a-new-deal-in-Europe.html
"You see, what EU renegotiation boils down to is this. There is a list of things that it would be useful and practical for Britain to get from Europe. Guarantees of continued single market access. The repeal of the “ever closer union” clause. Scrapping the Common Agricultural Policy. Certain tricky and technical amendments to various EU rules, treaties and procedures. Reform of (or, depending on your taste, exit from) the European Court of Human Rights. Safeguards for the City of London. Restrictions on the free movement of people, again depending on your taste – personally, like my deskmate James Kirkup, I’m firmly in favour of free movement, but I appreciate this may be a minority position.
Next, there is a list of things you could sell to the British people as representing genuine EU reform. This overlaps with the first list, but not actually by all that much – given the way Brussels works, the big important legalistic things that would remedy the EU’s worst failings, and ensure that we can pick and choose which pieces of further integration to sign up to, aren't necessarily the same thing as the flashy populist concessions that David Cameron can point to in a referendum campaign.
Now, after any negotiation process, the PM will emerge from Brussels with some items from the first list (suggested by the Government's lawyers) and some items from the second list (suggested by the Government's spin doctors). It's been suggested by Douglas Carswell, and others, that the real secret plan is to just get a few cosmetic concessions and claim victory."
To me it reads like before this deal we were going to pay £1.7bn this year, and get a £850m rebate next year. Now they have split the £1.7bn so we pay £850bn this year, and dont get the £850bn rebate next year (which amounts to the same effect as paying £850bn next year ie. we dont have 850bn we otherwise would have. Some source seem to suggest that we will have to pay the £850bn next year, and then shortly afterwards will get the rebate cheque cancelling it out. Others is seems disagree.
I think all this stuff about no one mentioned the rebate next year is bulls*it to be honest, no one mentioned the rebate last year or for 2016 either, because its a non-remarkable event that has happened since Thatcher negotiated it in 1984, albeit reduced by Blair trying to buy himself the EU Presidency a few years ago.
Only for the miseries in Ukip will this be something else for them to moan about.
Re. the much more interesting Miliband, you don't think, then, that Cameron and Osborne did this deliberately …?
I guess the question I should be asking is will our net contributions to the EU be 850mn lower than they were to be yesterday?
Farage is turning into a master of using this against them, with almost monotonous regularity Farage manages to choose an issue which simultaneously enrages the metropolitan liberals, and has many shire Tories and WWC voters thinking to themselves that there might be something in what he says.
This week we had the "Soldier shooting hostages/enemy combatants" which enrages centrist Tories and lefties, but probably has WWC voters and shire tories thinking that they might have done the same thing in the same position, and probably being damn sure they wouldn't be dragging someone that is fighting for his country through the courts. The Ebaying poppies is probably the same, twitterati aflutter, WWC wonder what was wrong with it, after all we let people ebay Lady Di memorabilia.
His pronouncements on immigration are this to a T, every time he hits on an issue which lots of UKIP wavers probably secretly agree with him on, and the metropolitan elite play right into his hands by parading their disgust on the TV and social media, and demonstrating to Farage's target constituency how he understands them, and the main parties dont.
Will we be better off on 2nd December 2015 - Probably not.
I seems to me we are going to pay the same amount of money just over a longer period. I might be wrong, but the government is being unclear about it for a reason, probably because the clear answer would be embarrassing.
I think if GO had said unfortunately we were going to have to pay it because that was our obligation under the treaty, but he had managed to defer some of the payments and negotiated not having to pay interest, that would be an intellectually honest and honorable view to take, and he would get some credit for having done the best in a poor situation. However Cam went and had a rant about them having to prise the payments out of his cold dead hands, GO was out of luck and he needed something more impressive to tell the public, the problem being, by the sounds of it, that its being economical with the actualité.
No he is a defacto if not de jure Liberal, as are most if not all of the "wets". I suspect they would rather be in coalition with the Libdems than their own backbenchers
It still annoys me immensely though. We are essentially giving money to France because we are enduring the difficulties of austerity and trying to come out the other side whereas France are stagnating under socialism. And we have to reward them? What a crock of sh*t.
I'm gonna beat someone small up today. Especially if Wales lose the rugby.
"David Cameron is not a Francis Urquhart"
No he is a defacto if not de jure Liberal, as are most if not all of the "wets". I suspect they would rather be in coalition with the Libdems than their own backbenchers.
One consequence of the collapse of the Liberal party in the early 20th Century, at a time when small "l" liberalism was a growing force, is that ambitious liberal politicians infest both Tory and Labour as that is the only sure route to power, meaning that both of those parties have heavy liberal wings which in recent years have come to dominate their respective parties, resulting in a correct perception from the electorate that all three main parties are effectively one party.
Effectively we have had two Liberal parties in parliament since Heath and three since Blair, with the result that they have convinced themselves that anything that is not liberal is extreme, while the electorate has grown more and more alienated from them.
I see one party down to almost zero at times.
I see two other parties still bleeding votes.
Perhaps you can use your birthday wish to make it come true, if you blow all the candles out.
G.K Chesterton in Daily News (18 February 1905).
And on the modern liberal (in 1908):
"The new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything.
For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy [I'm sure this would have been Mrs Whitehouse if written later]because they keep it.
As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself.
A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes hi hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men.
Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything"
"Thus he [the liberal] writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy [note 1] because they keep it."
South Yorkshire.....cough...
Note 1: A "Mrs Grundy" was a term used for "A person who is too much concerned with being proper, modest, or righteous: bluenose, prude, puritan, Victorian." He would undoubtably have referred to "Mrs Whitehouse" if written in more recent times.
It's not necessarily a bad thing, either for the Tories or the country, that Cameron has an excuse for being more centrist than some in his Party would like.
Cameron sounds so transparently false about this being a good deal. It isn't.
@DPJHodges: Given Ukip's deal with a party led by a Holocaust denier, Farage has some front demanding a place at the Cenotaph this Sunday.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2826170/Bonfire-plotter-breaks-cover-Ian-Austin-tells-Ed-Miliband-tough-immigration.html
It was the EU parliament by changing the rules to screw UKIP that forced parties to do deals with six other national groupings instead of the original five, this includes E European groups, who let's be honest are hardly going to be the most progressive politicians but it wasn't UKIP that allowed these dumps to join the EU.
Greens and their paedo supporting friends anyone?
I suppose it is one way to keep Labour's trouble away from the front pages. Oh look but Ed has more women in his team stuff was on Twitter last night.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/07/bbc-journalist-olenka-frenkiel-reject-gagging-clause
Is the Guardian being 'helpful'?
"Downing Street might have just saved Ed Miliband"
Cheers Mr Herdson - As I’ve said all along, I don’t think there was ever a realistic chance of Ed going, but there will be some relief in the Labour camp, now that the media has moved on to the next ‘big story’.
Speaking of big stories, what is happening in Mexico sounds truly horrific.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/11217911/Mexico-gang-members-confess-to-killing-missing-43-students.html
The bill was due to a change in methodology in how we estimate national output and is not a reflection of UK performance relative to anyone else.
FWIW, Paul, Chesterton was simply playing the journalist's trick of pretending that everyone he disliked (or pretended to dislike) was the same person. Not exactly profound philosophy.
Strange that until last night neither Ed Balls nor any other Tory hater claimed the EU rebate would apply to the £1.7 billion and certainly no-one speaking from within the EU said so.
Bottom line is it is time we Tories pushed for a 2-tier EU and let all the chummies play at happy families with their own money instead of ours.
Luxembourg - some tweets yesterday in Spanish on odd deal with MNCs, I believe. Perhaps someone should tell Russell Brand.
No pension for those EU employees critical of the EU isn't it?
So Cameron, Miliband etc are not going to say much. I wonder if Farage will and what his EU pension position is, will be?
Osborne has negotiated the best deal that he could possibly achieve. He was due to pay on 1st December £1.7bn. Sometime late next year he would then have got half that money back when the rebate was calculated. He was threatened with fairly penal interest if he did not pay on 1st December and there were some vague threats about interest on the underpayments going backwards.
What he has got is that on 1st December all of the money remains in our pocket without any charge of interest. He has got the right to deduct the rebate from the figure before it is paid rather than afterwards so the actual payment will indeed be half. And he has got the right to look very carefully at the figures before it is paid although I suspect any glaring errors would have been picked up already.
I call that a result. If I was negotiating that sort of repayment schedule for a client who was not really in a position to dispute the debt I think my client would call it a result too. These are the rules of the club and the price of admission. Whether that is a price worth paying is a different and bigger question.
I am also not absolutely sure that the pressure is completely off Ed. Much depends on the Yougov tomorrow. And whether any member of the shadow cabinet is willing to set the ball rolling by resigning. If there is continuing pressure it will come from Scotland where he is extremely unpopular and there is a significant cohort of frightened MPs.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/06/luxembourg-jean-claude-juncker-pressure-tax-deals
07/11/2014 22:31
Islamist extremists were apparently plotting to murder the Queen pic.twitter.com/MzBvkgblDw
I am also quite glad we don't have a PM who throws good looking journalists off the roof of Westminster. Not so sure about some of the less good looking though...
Probably not a good move for the PM but given the current crop of so called journalists, I would call the vast majority reporters, commentators or press release type setters, you could through the whole sorry lot off the roof with the result that the quality of 'journalism' would increase.
Two egregious examples. Look at the state of the Telegraph and the Spectator. Both have become risible.
08/11/2014 07:35
The Daily Mail sees through pro-EU Osborne's spin pic.twitter.com/56z2iA05uu
I will have one last go
1. The EU demanded £1.7bn in a single lump sum payment on Dec 1st. Does anyone dispute that claim?
2. The EU would charge interest if payment in full was not made on that date. Does anyone dispute that claim?
3. We are not paying that. Does anyone dispute that claim?
4. We are due a rebate on that payment. Does anyone dispute that claim?
This is where it gets confused.
No single EU commissioner, politician, journalist, commentator or expert stated that the rebate would apply before yesterday. Does anyone dispute that claim?
Critics now say (classic aftertiming) that the rebate would have applied anyway. The Treasury say that is not the case.
Lets assume for the sake of argument the critics are right.
It's STILL a better deal.
The standard EU practise is that rebates are paid a year in arrears, so we would give them £1.7bn now and they would give us £850m a year from now. This rebate applies up front so we never part with more than £850m.
Keeping the money in our account instead of lending it to the EU for a year saves us money.
Cash later is cheaper than cash now, so deferring the payment saves us money.
We pay no interest, which saves us money
Farage was wrong. Osborne cut a deal, maybe not as good as he claimed, but better than no deal at all.
Ed is still in post. Sounds like a win
EDIT: DavidL beat me to it...
I see the Tory meme is that somehow the rebate wasn't known about which is utter drivel. Before anyone could mention this the Tories were already off hystericaly whingeing to uncritical press allies about how unfair it all was.
Any swing voter thinking about voting Tory in May ought to take note of the lying, hysteria and obfuscation from these bunch of amateurs.
Very few people believed it was kosher, I'm not saying many people correctly identified what would happen but plenty did not think the bill would be paid in whole, or on Dec 1st, that it was smoke and mirrors, a scam etc.
It's no surprise the public don't know the ins and outs of how these payments are calculated and made. Miliband should have known, Farage, probably.
So Cameron and Osborne screech and wail about not paying. Just like the troublesome trucks on Thomas the Tank Engine. We CAN'T. We WON'T. And then Osborne agrees to pay anyway!
The story on Ed is "media led attempt to depose him fails due to lack of interest in the Labour party". The story on this rebate is " Cameron undermined by Osborne, insists we won't pay, Osborne pays anyway and lies anout it".
I know which one does the most damage. The UKIP avalanche gathers pace.
The quality of that opinion and comment was once hidden by solid reporting of the facts. It is now rather more exposed. And even more exposed when people can readily search prior inconsistent opinions and forecasts that used to be safely hidden around a poke of chips. Its not very good is it?
Here's a question for you. I gave £2 for a poppy a week ago and now I've lost it. (This happens most years.) Should I get another one, and, if so, how much should I put in the tin?)
On topic, Ed never was going anywhere, and tonight's YG won't affect it - it will though be interesting as a measure of the extent to which Labour's current vote is vulnerable to a storm about Ed, and then next week's YGs will be a measure of whether any effect lasts. "A bit" and "no" is my guess, but we'll see.
The Government has clearly lost the spin arguments over the rebate, and I'd think that will slightly reinforce UKIP and slightly weaken Cameron's competence rating. I agree with Audrey that people won't burrow into the details, but the general impression isn't great. UKIP's real chance is that a post-Rochester poll e.g. by Survation shows them ahead of the Tories: the media would think that was a fun thing to go on about.
I've done some blogging myself, writing well is not easy and I'm definitely out of practice, sometimes I can hardly believe some of the articles I wrote were actually written by me.
But for professional journalists, people who have studied English and journalism to be so consistently rubbish is quite a shock, worst of all they seem to have no principles at all, they will write any old crap that their employers ask them.
I don't really want to beat on anyone personally but there's a writer at the Speccie who writes such crap it's awe inspiring, I remember one of her pieces that was lifted straight from GF, which I called her out on, not sure she's done it again, another piece was on PMQs, everything she suggested that might be discussed was not, brilliant political insight.
The BBC is trying hard to keep it going by scrapping around Manachester to find a possibly Spanish political lecturer to cast a negative picture. Although not asked the obvious question regarding why he and others including Balls did not point out the rebate before the deal was done yesterday.
However it does all help to keep the ever increasing pathetic Ed in place which all helps in securing a Con victory next May
Farage is a populist. He's good at that. But he'd be a terrible minister.
Elections - and yes, @RichardTyndall, I know this isn't the case in theory, but it is currently in reality - are about choosing governments.
Cameron is the best of an - admittedly fairly mediocre - selection
On topic, Ed never was going anywhere
We're all mightily relieved that Ed has been saved.
What's the current score? EU 5 Bullingdon Tories 0?
What people are not happy about is the spin being applied, which attempts to hide the fact that £1.7bn is still the amount due. A recalculated rebate woud have been given anyway and rather than this be a separate issue, it has been discounted from this additional amount due.
The only gain is that the payment is being made later with no interest and we are getting the rebate earlier. Also the £1.7bn figure will be looked at again and if it is too high, we will get another refund. Cameron/Osborne should have just played this with a straight bat, just stating the facts.
Where Farage has front is the Cenotaph ceremony is a national act of remembrance. Farage is not a nationally elected leader. He has a party that is doing well in the polls, but that is it. Once he's an MP he'd be welcome.
But until then, stop trying to make political capital about what should be a moment of humility and quiet reflection
The problem with the internet age is that instead of using inflammatory headlines to sell copies, articles are linked and recommended on their own merits, and sites measure their effectiveness by site traffic, and so we end up in the world of "clickbait". Now online publications, especially those funded by advertising (i.e most of them) regularly churn out inflammatory and grossly misleading articles, which tend to retreat closers to reality in the last paragraph, or at least disclaim themselves, just to drive site traffic. The signal-to-noise ratio suffers massively as a result.
For those of us on here actually talking to voters on actual doorsteps, I'm not sure this is going to be particularly helpful bringing ex Tory Kippers home, as those of you not talking to actual voters keep insisting will happen.
I thought he had quit Labour (not that I really care!) but hadn't realised he'd joined the Tories.
There's a huge difference between @TGOHF reposting a tweet and "The Conservatives" trying to create a smear. It's what, I believe, they call a "category error"
(unless, of course, @TGOHF is actually one Mr. D. Cameron, 10 downing street, London SW1)
They all said it couldn't be done. Now it's done they claim it was inevitable.
The steady rise in UKIP's support began in the middle of 2012, and I find it fascinating to see what has occurred since then. The chart below shows how each upward blip in UKIP's poll rating is mirrored by a downward blip for the Tories, The converse is equally true, which suggests there are a group of people whose support is jumping between these parties.
The long-term picture tells a different story however. Some 600 YouGov polls have been taken over the period in question and it is interesting to see how overall support for the various parties has changed over this period (expressed as moving averages).
Tory support has fallen 0.3 points from 32.4 to 32.1
LibDem support has fallen 0.9 points from 8.2 to 7.3
Labour support has fallen 10.6 points from 43.6 to 33
UKIP support has risen 8.7 points from 7.6 to 16.3
This possibly suggests that UKIP is picking up its long-term support from other parties, or that permanent Tory defectors are being replaced with new support coming from former Labour voters.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/ra9m78f8z9rpyv1/YouGov Polls since June 2012.jpg#
Here's an update ...
A modern liberal is a modern man (or woman).
He dislikes Ukip and can see straight through these ferrets and the weasels of uninformed debate.
He thinks the rich should pay more tax. But he is not rich, He has a reasonable income but there are so many demands on anyone who wants to live a civilised life.
He supports the downtrodden. But only the deserving down-trodden, held down by old-fashioned thinking.
He works in the media or in advertising, possibly in politics but at a lowish level. His debating skills are awesome. At dinner parties, he listens to then ebb and flow of the argument before setting them on the right path.
He is never racist, sexist, homophobic but sees it often in others.
He is analytical and can see right to the crux of complicated matters. But he understands that many things are not black and white. Unfortunately, seeing the greys means having to chastise those who only see black and white. That’s why he prefers the company of eductated people. And that’s why he lives in London.
He bleieves in global warming. Having perused a few articles, he has grasped the esentials and feels the necessity of explaining to the confused where they are wrong.
He is not religious, having cast off that crutch when he entered his own enlightenment at puberty. Why should he be bound by rules made for the foolish and worship some sky fairy. He knows what is right and wrong, having considered the matter deeply by his thirteenth birthday. He is his own man and has little time those who cannot come to sensible conclusions on their own.
But he tries not to be impatient because he is a democrat and must understand other’s misguided views. Yet not pander to them.
Yes, it is very hard being part of the modern, liberal elite.
The Spectator articles are still good value. Coffee House and the Telegraph I completely agree with you - never bother with either any more, and I used to be an avid reader of both.
Getting to quite like the Times, though, especially when I get it free at Heathrow...
Let's try it. You lend me £1m and I will give you £1m a year from today.
By your maths neither of our cash positions will be changed as a result
BenMonomics in the real World...
Why do you think the rules should be changed to accommodate your party?
I reckon it will lose the tories a bucketload more votes.
Perhaps it will then dawn finally dawn on Dave and Ozzie that business as usual will no longer do.
Re the Times. I had a subscription but then I found the mods joining in the comments, arguing with subscribers, deleting and editing their comments to make people look stupid.
How do I know, one of the women was posting under her own name and I found her Twitter profile, which said she worked for the Times.
I cancelled my subscription and complained. Response there was none, they never even refunded me.
If you think £2 is the going rate, then you should pay £2 (even though you already have). If you can't afford another £2 then you should pay whatever you can afford.
It's an act of remembrance, not a commercial transaction.
I think you owe me an apology.
UKIP voters aren't, in the main, voting UKIP because of the EU budget or the regulations about the shape of bananas.
You've mentioned it a couple of times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow's_mite
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/11/why-nick-boles-is-a-danger-to-the-conservative-party/