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If the opinion polls hold up then at the next election we’ll have four parties polling at least 10% of the vote for the first time in almost a century (the last and only time it previously occurred was in 1918, with the two Liberal factions alongside the Conservatives and Labour all achieving double figures, with 1922 being the only other election to come close).
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Interesting article. I still think 'something' will be done if UKIP poll 20%+ and get zip in return. It's so egregiously undemocratic; at least the yellow peril will get some seats for their efforts, even polling under 10%.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/people-who-are-really-nailing-this-parenting-thing
I wish that Nick Clegg had come up with something halfway sensible in terms of both the role/powers of the revising house and the method of (s)electing members.
As it is, we have been left with a god awful mess.
With attitudes like that it is little wonder so few people are willing to blow the whistle.
Nothing - winners set the rules.
Best idea ever !
It's appalling for those pointing out system failures to be outcasts.
The speakers also simply read their scripts. They don't look up (well who would they look at) and sound so bored.
What a waste of money. If only the referendum had had a question about that.
Also if it's a Labour majority I suspect they'll enjoy the opportunity to talk about Tory dinosaurs opposing democracy.
There is nothing like zero people listening to discourage one from bothering to take it seriously or even turn up when others are playing with their Blackberries and iPads instead of listening.
The smaller parties get squeezed. In England the Lib Dems might struggle a little because every time they appear UKIP will say why not us? The debate gets even more impoverished (can you believe it) with no time at all for subtlety or nuance. And the result doesn't look particularly democratic but as Mr Ghost points out what do the winners care?
For the left, the system is far, far more important than the outcomes it provides. Dogma trumps failure every time.
Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if Ed put extending the state in his manifesto, in the form of re-nationalisation of the railways and/or power provision.
" European countries plan to scale back a proposed financial transactions tax drastically, initially imposing a tiny charge on share deals only and taking much longer than originally intended to achieve a full roll-out."
BOOM: RTRS - EUROPEAN COUNTRIES ARE PLANNING A MAJOR SCALING BACK OF PROPOSED FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS TAX, OFFICIALS SAY
RIP tobin tax...lol
95% tax anyone ?
"One senior EU official told the newswire that this would cut income to roughly €3.5bn or less."
(I am starting to sound like Avery, must stop it)
It's early days yet, and given the amount of uncharted waters ahead, settling now for a result based merely on the last 6 months of polling is a bit of an anticlimax.
Let's look at what's actually going on...
Labour's leader is unconvincing, and a bit invisible, but his party is polling in a comfortable zone of around 35-40%
The Tory and LibDem leaders are alienating their own parties and the chunks of voters that probably brought them in, and are in the doldrums, hovering around their core tribal vote level.
UKIP are enjoying a surge that seems to come from all three main parties, and seem to be on the brink of consolidating their own core tribal vote.
You've got EU work restrictions being lifted on Romanians and Bulgarians in about 6 month's time, and EU elections in about 12 month's time. You've got cuts propagating through the economy over this same period, with a lot of new welfare reforms kicking in in April 2014 - just before the EU elections.
You've got a coalition lashed to each other for a GE in 2015, a year after the EU elections, and a year after the welfare reforms kick in.
All this stuff is overlayed on a substrate of expenses scandal, a distastrous Labour PM - the economic genius sending the country over the precipice, a LibDem leader who's reputation amongst the young is shot, after the student loans thing.
It seems a pretty reasonable bet that the current polling is going to be affected by all this, and in 12-months' time, the polling picture could change yet again.
This is not intended to be a party-political missive, but there is only one party that looks likely to be smiling in May 2014.
Labour losing panicky Europhiles to the LibDems in the EU elections seems quite plausible as the debate gets polarised, and voters look for a simple message - in or out, the Tories and Labour just don't quite give the unequivocalness that UKIP and LDP do on this.
I think this factor will keep the LibDems' head above water, but the Tories are really heading for a serious hiding in next year's Euro elections... I just can't see how they can avoid it... I expect them to be down just below 20% in that election, and only Labour might be able to save them from the ignominy of coming fourth behind the LibDems.
I think it could be a weird result, with UKIP and Labour on about 30%, and Tories and LibDems on about 15%. You might call that wacky, now, but you've got to ask the question, who's going to use the EU elections for anything other than a protest?
If that, or anything close to that, actually happens, then GE 2015 could be one of the most interesting and unpredictable GEs in British history. The LibDems being slashed in half in terms of seats is about the only thing approaching a certainty. There are certain threshholds of distributions of votes for all three main parties that could cause the Tories to collapse spectacularly and UKIP could become the third party. It's a really interesting one, because it seems very unlikely that either coalition leader could be deposed before 2015, but you can imagine that if the Tories weaken over the next 12-18 months to hovering below Gordon Brown levels - around 20-25%, that there will be panic in the backbenches, and as UKIP is the anti-establishment party, they are the obvious destination for any rats leaving a sinking ship; and especially attractive to the Tories, as UKIP can take votes from Labour in ways the Tories seem unable to.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/02/pivotal-moment-ed-miliband-radical
"An NHS chief has been sacked from his £250,000-a-year job after it emerged that he was a convicted armed robber.
Craig Alexander, 32, was working as interim borough director for NHS Brent, in north-west London, when it was discovered he had been jailed for three and a half years in September 2007 for holding up a shop at gunpoint and threatening two cashiers.
Alexander, of Walton, Surrey, was trapped by DNA evidence which linked him to the firearm six years after he robbed the Tesco Express store in 2001.
After he was freed from prison he failed to disclose his conviction and managed to land a top six-figure job in the health service.
By the time he was exposed he was managing and overseeing multi-million pound taxpayer-funded budgets and was thought to be earning about £250,000 a year.
It is believed he was found out when a colleague looked him up online after he was rude at work.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333207/Craig-Alexander-NHS-director-250-000-sacked-job-disgruntled-worker-discovered-robbed-shop-gunpoint.html#ixzz2UmHPpTvH
How could he not? Nine European countries, including Germany, bring in the tax in December, hoping Barack Obama will follow after the US election. The Robin Hood Tax campaign says it would raise £20bn a year in Britain, a stupendous sum. "
Looks like thats £20Bn more rEd has to find too..
The report does not explain how the extraterritoriality issue is going to be dealt with either which is the heart of the UK challenge. If it is restricted to only domestically traded financial products it should be a modest boost for London consolidating its role as the share capital of europe.
Surgeries and complaining constituents, living in two places at once, the media piffle, dreary meetings, fawning to leaders et al - jeez - and your colleagues not even bothering to listen to you do your job.
“We are in favour of this. It is a hard thing to do but I think it is the necessary, important and right thing to do. You have got to do it globally though for it to work, or at the very least in Europe.”
http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/miliband-gives-support-on-financial-transaction-tax/1039021.article
I see the writers have a thing for metal music - I can't recall the last time I heard a Nazareth or Rush song used in a TV show. It made me feel all 17yrs old again ;^ )
I'm not convinced I can manage seven series of this - I keep wondering how the brothers are funding this epic creepy road trip and I'm only on Epi 4 of S1...
(As a side note, Kansas features a fair bit in the soundtrack)
They say:
"Resorting to lawyers is seemingly the last refuge of a chancellor who has lost the argument. This legal challenge is morally wrong and threatens to derail the entire progress of the FTT in Europe.
We must stop him."
Well, its a view.
One man band that ukip, wonder whether AJ has been doing the Stephen Twigg job of prepping a party stooge for her question to DJ
*oops she didn't actually ask a question
http://youtu.be/neewy2WaBKg
Effect on Uk should be minimal.
How was he rude I wonder??
'you better not grass me up, you slag...???..'
bit of a giveaway....
The rebels praised appointment as freeing them from short term focus and party obligation of the Commons, 15 year single term limits were mirroring that.
http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/how-it-works/everything-you-need-to-know
'International agreement would be great, but it's not vital'
Hmmm I'm not sure that I agree he should have been sacked.
The old soppy lefty in me is thinking its a good thing he turned away from crime and ad the nous to land a good job... Surely better that the holding up more stores at gunpoint?
You're forgetting transgender Maid Martin (formerly Marion).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/22/labour-robin-hood-tax-government
'President Obama may support an FTT in his second term and we should actively encourage him to do so, but even without US support, Europe is right to forge ahead.'
http://blogs.channel4.com/faisal-islam-on-economics/osborne-has-had-a-thatcher-handbag-eu-moment-over-tobin-tax/15480
Excellent first post and can't say I disagree with your thoughts.
For the Lib Dems I feel it will be a night of mixed fortunes with Danny Alexander's seat the test of their Scottish woes. Further south, they will do better in CON-LD battlegrounds though, LD to hold Eastleigh, but Solihull could be the solitary Conservative gain at GE 2015.
I had a BF who was rather keen on them - I only recall Carry On My Wayward Son. The rest sounded the same to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0
FTP.
taffys said:
" Professor Sir Brian Jarman has accused ministers and officials of ignoring data on high death rates for a decade.
You're wasting your time Plato. The thread this morning show that left wing supporters are utterly impervious to any criticism of the NHS.
That is because The System Is Right. The dogma of state provision is far, far more important than the outcomes it provides.
Same on education.
Labour accuse Gove of fibbing, but that is nothing to the outrageous lie of grade inflation that happened under them.
----------------------------------
Yep! And if the outcome is death: well c'est la vie.
Science Fiction Pioneer and Grand Master Jack Vance, 1916-2013
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/jack-vance-obituary-1916-2013
However the problem is that he failed to disclose his conviction, which made the entire recruitment process unfair. And it is a very important thing to disclose.
(I'd be interested to know how he covered up the 3.5 years recent gap in his CV. That points to either a gratuitous lie or a very poor recruitment process that did not check things. And for a £250,000 PA job I would expect it to have been checked).
"A former colleague, who did not want to be named, said the contracted agency employee pocketed £1,000 a day during his 17 months in the job."
If he was 'pocketing' £1,000 a day he'd be on a lot more than £250,000.....
In fact it took 100 years, from the first great reform act of 1832 to the granting of suffrage to women over 21 in 1928.
That last one in particular should give pause for thought to those who accuse muslims of treating women like second class citizens.
More fundamentally, these were cooked up by a backroom committee and then cherry-picked by Clegg. Something like this needs to be built through consensus - getting the powers and responsibilities right first and then figuring out the appropriate structure.
tim said:
@MikeK
Which Labour Council is trying to cover up its malpractice, Staffordshire has been Tory since 2009
------------------------------------
Apologise for that, but it seems that council malpractice passes seamlessly from Labour or L/dem to Tories. No difference; all the same! Vote UKIP!
£250,000 seems very high for a relatively junior role. £100 - £120K seems much more reasonable.
When did the baby eaters take charge again?
The commission was first alerted by the "apparently high mortality rates in patients admitted as emergencies".[1] When the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which is responsible for running the hospital, failed to provide what the commission considered an adequate explanation, a full-scale investigation was carried out between March and October 2008.[1] Released in March 2009, the commission's report severely criticised the Foundation Trust's management and detailed the appalling conditions and inadequacies at the hospital. Many press reports suggested that because of the substandard care between 400 and 1200 more patients died between 2005 and 2008 than would be expected for the type of hospital,[2][3] though in fact such ‘excess’ death statistics did not appear in the final Healthcare Commission report.[4]
One can't compare pro-rata interim rates with perm ones. Even if this chap was on £150k - that he wasn't vetted out for armed robbery isn't negated.
What is more surprising is that this man was thought to have a CV that qualified him for such a post. Of course there could have been lies told there too, and not just by omission.
To put it mildly, the Depeche Mode concert at the London O2 last night was awesome!
OK, this was the third time I've seen DM live, the previous times being 2006 and 2009. There was a downside which I'get out of the way: well I booked on the late side, and was stuck directly opposite the stage way up in row R right near the ceiling! I wish I had brought binoculars LOL - and also was close to the loud speakers making the sound just a little too loud for my liking but it was more a case of reverb rather than pure decibels, the fans around me certainly weren't put off.
Anyway, that was the downside, the plus-side was a great performance by Dave Gahan and the lads (Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher plus their two session players). But a brief mention for the warm-up act: They were the Danish producer Trentemoller and his band, which was quite well-received (a far cry from when DM fans used to allegedly "coin" warm-up acts in the early 1990s!). They had some nice electro tunes, and also covered Lullaby, the 1989 hit by The Cure.
Now for the main course! The set list was rather unusual in that they included EIGHT tracks from their current album Delta Machine out of a total set of 23 songs! When I last saw DM (again at the O2, in 2009), they only performed three songs from their then current album Sounds of the Universe. I think Delta is a far stronger album than Universe, which probably also influenced the band's selection. Naturally, no track from Universe was played last night.
The opener last night was appropriately Welcome to My World from the new album, which is slow to begin with but has a nice build-up. Then of the other seven Delta Machine songs, probably the most well received were singles Heaven and Soothe My Soul, plus Soft Touch/Raw Nerve and the official finishing track Goodbye. Their more classic tracks included Personal Jesus with its famous guitar riff, and the electro Enjoy the Silence, both of which probably most non-fans may have heard of, as well as In your room, Behind the wheel, and the more recent Precious.
The encore included no less than five classic tracks, including song-writer Martin Gore's lead vocal on Home, as well as Halo, the early 80s classic Just can't get enough, I feel you, and the final track was Never let me down again, always a DM crowd-pleaser.
Dave and Mart are in fine voice for 50-somethings, and it would be a surprise if my favourite band didn't tour again in a few years. All in all a great concert, and I confess to still having a sore throat at lunchtime today after belting out to the songs along with the crowd last night!
Notes for @antifrank:
Yes, I saw the dogs in the projection from Precious! And last night it was actually Dave who quipped to the audience like Bruce Forsyth "you were so much better than last night!", during the encore! While Googling "Depeche Mode set list London 2013" I stumbled across this site, which reveals that Tuesday's concert set was a little bit different than last night:
29th:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/depeche-mode/2013/o2-arena-london-england-13d999f9.html
28th:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/depeche-mode/2013/o2-arena-london-england-13d99dc1.html
How the taxpayers money is ladled out willy-nilly is appalling. I suspect the largess isn't quite as gob-smacking as it once was. I had a colleague in DWP who was largely useless and yet paid £1500pd for 18 months. He spent his time fiddling endlessly with Excel spreadsheets and was supposedly running a massive Proj Mgt dept that missed every deliverable - he sat 8ft from me and I've no idea what he actually did all day. He was only canned when the arse fell out of the economy.
A major return on the cross-rail investment.
And hopefully another step in the disengagement of our economic fortunes from that of the EZ.
"As through this world you travel, you'll meet some funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
Wish for more Tory MPs (or Labour ones for that matter) properly in favour of Lords reform and we can do something sensible instead of reform the Lords in a way to suit those who don't want it changed.
The Mail today is quite counter-intuitive today - they're savagely attacking Britain for using EU rules to prevent Italy from being more environmentally-friendly - huge article plus editorial calling Cameron a hypocrite. (Summary impression from a glance: The Mail has been campaigning against plastic bags, Italy wants to ban them, Britain says it's an evil restraint of trade on the noble British plastic bag exporting industry.) The Mail is being consistent with Euroscepticism - why shouldn't the Italians do what they like, etc. - but it's unusual to see the Mail pitching in for Johnny Foreigner against us.
Sounds like you had much fun. It made me think about the concerts I've enjoyed the most and least.
Top 3 were Gary Glitter, Scorpions and Hot House Flowers for atmosphere/bouncing along
Bottom 3 were Ozzfest, Rush and Motorhead for being [in order] boring/late, cold/soulless venue and far too loud to even hear it
Most impressive stage show was Alice Cooper's first tour to the UK in donkey's back in the 80s - very hard to beat that one.
It's the same with PR and AV. Many oppose PR, and AV has been used as a compromise since it preserves single-member constituencies and doesn't make majority governments less likely (two of the most used arguments against PR). Then, during the AV referendum, the opponents of reform argued people should vote against AV because it wasn't PR!
Now you are saying they pulled the same trick with Lords Reform. Clegg produced a deeply unsatisfactory set of proposals in an attempt to compromise with the stated objections of those irreconcilably opposed to reform. All he achieved by doing so was to also lose the support of most people in favour of reform.
If the Lib Dems can learn anything from this it must be that there is no compromising with some people, and you simply have to work to win majority support for your best ideas, rather than aiming for a consensus with people who have no interest in budging an inch.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/10089145/Ed-Miliband-is-policy-light-says-major-Labour-donor.html
It's simple. Spend. Lots.
http://tinyurl.com/nvujca3
"As for Merkel, sometimes she looks placid, sometimes she looks cross and disappointed, sometimes she smiles politely at foreigners over coffee and cakes. So she reminds people of Mum, and those who want to keep holding her hand think they know what she wants. Others, in despair, confess they have no idea what she wants. These days, she seems to have no policy of her own. Instead, after a suitable delay, she takes on opposition policies in a diluted form. Intellectual critics complain that she has no ‘idea’, no ‘concept’. And to describe what she does, or rather doesn’t, they have coined a frightful new German word: Entinhaltlichung. ‘It means what it says,’ a Berlin friend tells me: ‘Decontentification.’"
Entinhaltlichung - Decontentification
That's my political word of the day.
Or week, or month, or year...
This won't work for the more hirsute amongst us (or, in my case, the more ape-like):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2333203/Moto-X-Motorola-reveals-plans-ink-pills-replace-ALL-passwords.html
At least one company is looking at heart rate and blood pressure monitors that are permanently worn either in clothing or skin and could give various alerts in real time.
Similar to this potentially useful technology for use in hospitals:
http://www.toumaz.com/page.php?page=Saint-Johns-Health-Center
Technology is amazing. Although perhaps I should not mention the urine-sampling and BMI-measuring toilet..
◦Average public perception: 41% of Britain’s welfare budget goes on benefits to unemployed people. Reality: just 3% does.
◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%.
◦Perception: an unemployed couple with two school-age children receive £147 a week in jobseeker’s allowance. Reality: £111.45p.
◦Perception: only 21% think this family would be better off if one of them got a 30-hour-a-week job on the minimum wage; and this 21% thinks, on average, the gain would be £59 a week. Reality: the family would be £138 a week better off.
There is plainly a link between the perceptions of scrounging, and the lack of public knowledge about the financial advantages of working, even for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, compared with life on the dole.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/01/07/welfare-reform-who-whom/
A good summary of the issues for those that can be bothered wading through it is here: http://www.euromove.org.uk/index.php?id=18535
The key bit for those that can't is probably this:
"The UK, along with France and some other EU Member States, has since 1994 had a test of habitual residence before accepting certain benefit claims; this was further tightened in 2004 with the introduction of the test of a right to reside in the UK which effectively meant that non-British and non-Irish EU nationals could not claim some benefits until they had been in the UK for five years. The right to reside test forms part of the habitual residence test.
The case of a Latvian pensioner (Ms Galina Patmalniece) went to the Supreme Court because her claim to a UK state pension had been denied on the grounds that she did not have a right to reside in the UK. Ms Patmalniece’s claim was that the only reason her claim was refused was because of her nationality and it was therefore discriminatory and as such contrary to EU law. She lost her case when the Court upheld the decision in March 2011, rejecting the suggestion that denying her claim was direct discrimination even though it accepted that it was indirect discrimination.
The Commission had already expressed its unhappiness with the right to reside test being applied to EU nationals by the UK authorities and in September 2011 the Commission took the view that the UK’s residence test breached EU law."
A couple of obvious points. The law the UK is seeking to uphold comes from the Labour government in 2004. The UK courts upheld that law. Is Tim really saying that Labour now thinks that the government should simply give in and admit that Labour got it wrong?
I'm struggling to see how that question is a logical response to Tim's post, Sunil.