The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
The fact remains that white van man is getting skinned alive through taxation to fund the fabulous lifestyles of Thornbury and her husband, team Balls, etc.etc.etc. The list is endless.
Perhaps Miliband should have gone on record saying, how dare you sneer at the people who pay for your lifestyle....
Thornberry is a QC and her husband also a barrister, so were in the private sector before going into politics surely?
So the dogs didn't go so well either but at least not as bad as Rochester.
The irony with UKIP is the polls I believe show their supporters to be the most pessimistic and downbeat about pretty much everything APART from the future of their own party.
SPIN have just accepted 2 X £200/seat bets from me (no beard) on their GE 2015 seats market.
So that is one place all you pundits can 'get on'. Congratulatios to them.
David - that's because Sporting know their onions when it comes to political betting and unlike a number of those Johnny-come-lately bookies, they've been at it a long time. Incidentally, which party have you backed if one might ask?
"Whitevangate is now turning into a political catastrophe for Milliband and Labour 4 days on and still running ...."
That is nothing. Plebgate is still running after 2 years.
Whitevangate and Plebgate are very similar, in that any offence that Mitchell or Thornbury gave should have been remedied by a simple apology. End of. It is the toxic whiff of snobbery that has given both stories enormous mileage.
Plebgate was fanned by New International, the Labour Party (& the Police Federation)
Whitevangate was fanned by News International and the Labour Party.
It is the fact that the Labour handling of the media has been so inept that is the real cause for concern. There is ample pointers that this is going to come under real strain in the General Election.
It plays much worse for Labour because they are the ones that constantly bang on about PC issues and who claim (in the teeth of the evidence) to be the party of the working man. Even if if it were true, (which is strongly disputed) no one would be that surprised if Thrasher Mitchell (public school, tank regiment, banking) was a bit offhand with people, but a Labour MP, especially a Labour MP from "right-on" Islington and with a working class, council estate background is the very personification of someone that is meant to be in touch with ordinary people..
Thornberry's claims to have grown up on a council estate are at odds with cut glass accent. I'd guess that she spent a couple of months of her childhood in council housing during some marital upheaval.
I understand her parents marriage broke up when she was seven (Wikipedia). Her mother, teacher (and subsequently Labour councillor, moved to the council estate shortly afterwards. There’s a letter in todays Guardian (I know, I know) from someone who was a teaching colleague of her mother’s who knew the family and reports that cash wasn’t plentiful in the house. Thornberry herself went via comprehensive school to Kent. However her father was at one time a senior UN official. Reads as though the break up was somewhat acimonious, but unquestionably Thornberry would have had a “good” education until seven or so, which meant her accent either stayed with her or was revived when she went to University. Or maybe children at comprehensives in Surrey don’t have the same accent as those in Essex!
I think after the Lib Dems got beaten into fifth place by the Bus Pass Elvis party they lost all credibility.
PS - How strange is it that an admittedly thick labour shadow minister has resigned, but Farage can ally himself with a Polish neo nazi and of course one of his senior MEPs can hurl racial abuse at one of her own voters? All with impunity. I can imagine millions of people voting against UKIP.
I can't. UKIP have won an average 36% in this year's by-elections, and topped the poll in the Euros. I've seen no evidence at all that Conservatives have switched to labour to beat UKIP, or vice versa.
P3 done. Will see about the old pre-qualifying piece (takes a little while for markets to warm up, though).
Mr. Bob, it's an oddly hilarious way Dennis has of talking. The glass isn't half full or empty, it has twice exceeded the optimised parameters necessary for most efficient liquid retention.
Mr. Socrates, reminds me of the Arrest Warrant claims that if we left somehow we'd never extradite criminals to or from Europe again.
The choice isn't isolation or the EU, it's governing ourselves or having unelected meddlesome eunuchs from Brussels do it.
And that's without the inherently unsustainable insanity of the eurozone.
As the Eurozone depression rolls into its sixth year, it's utterly crazy that people value incremental barrier reduction with them (Single Market membership over an FTA), at the expense of limiting free trade deals with the rest of the world - the rest of the world that's actually, you know, growing.
The EU is the least attractive economic market in the whole world: it's economically depressed, has huge debts to deal with, is low productivity, has a terrible demographic profile, is strangled in excessive regulation, and has a fatally flawed political system (both supranationally and in most nation states), that is not going to be able to address the issues. We're prioritising slightly reduced trade barriers with them over large reductions in trade barriers with high productivity markets (USA, Canada, Australia), and high growth markets (Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia).
On trade terms alone, EU membership just doesn't make any macroeconomic sense. And leaving would add in the benefits of being able to improve our regulation, switch to a high skill immigration system, reduce our food prices and save £10 billion (and increasing) a year. Oh yeah, and having democracy.
I remember saying UKIP were a significant threat on here five years ago and being much ridiculed by nearly all commenters. I now receive equal ridicule for saying fracking is totally underestimated both as a real threat to people's health and wellbeing across swathes of Britain (65% of the landmass) and its potential to swing votes. The other story being blanked on here and elsewhere is the rise of The Greens, where the left wing votes are heading, with fracking opposition the main reason. As I keep repeating, if UKIP would wake up to this threat/opportunity and oppose fracking/gas drilling near peoples' homes and businesses, they would finally break through to major party status. Will it take five years again for people to realise where politics is going? I hope not.
'We' started it.
When I say 'we', of course I mean me on October the 13th.
That's the rise of The Greens you mentioned on October 13th, Swiss Bob, or the issue of fracking driving their rise in the polls?
The sentence I 'bolded'.
I don't agree with you on 'fracking', I think it vital to energy security and and the economy. I do not go for the horror stories and UK regs are completely different to those in the US ie there are NO secret ingredients in 'fracking fluid'.
Threads like this make me wonder if like the day after the Scottish referendum humiliation and the disappearance of the NATS, May 2015, may see the disappearance of the kippers.
I think they will go the way of the BNP and English Democrats. This country doesn't favour extreme right wing parties. Never has and I don't think it ever will.
They won their 271st seat after the Tories threw the kitchen sink at it. Obviously they're not going anywhere. /s
This is pathetic. The incumbent won rather less well than was being predicted or shown in the polls. This complaint that the Tories threw the kitchen sink at at smacks of desperation. What the hell did you expect them to do?
UKIP has got to learn to stop whingeing.
Mike strongly tipped UKIP to lose in Rochester and is bitter at doing his dough
To explain, you said "Mike strongly tipped UKIP to lose in Rochester " The link had Mike saying "Although UKIP looks a near certainty"
Does that make it clearer?
Oh it crossed my mind you might mean that, but I didn't think you could be that stupid
Insults rather than addressing the point, typical.
"Does that make it clearer?" wasn't an insult? It seemed rather patronising and smug, but maybe that's just your way
Mike said anything over 6/4 on the Tories was value, and right from the off advised backing against UKIP... he accepted defeat when they were 1/33 as you linked to, but so what?
No it wasn't an insult. It was a reaction to you saying 'What' after a quote from you and a link from Mike which completely refuted it. Mike saying a bet was 'value' is not the same as strongly tipping UKIP to lose, now is it?
It didn't refute it in the slightest
"Mike saying a bet was 'value' is not the same as strongly tipping UKIP to lose, now is it?"
He did both
My recollection is that he said it 'looks a lot tighter than current polling suggests.'
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
‘As Labour represents those comfortable at the top of the public sector, it is not Ed Miliband, but Ukip that represents the concerns of most working men and women.’
Will this have any impact in Labour heartlands that rely on public sector employment like the NE and S Wales?
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Careful!!! Mike and Southam Observer are VERY touchy about the use of the word "import"
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
The fact remains that white van man is getting skinned alive through taxation to fund the fabulous lifestyles of Thornbury and her husband, team Balls, etc.etc.etc. The list is endless.
Perhaps Miliband should have gone on record saying, how dare you sneer at the people who pay for your lifestyle....
I'd imagine that the narrative will develop towards GPs on £250,000 a year that don't work out of hours, ex-public sector workers picking up pensions higher than the average wage, two tiers of MPs to do what should be one job in Scotland, Wales and NI, lecturers who earn £70k a year who strike over austerity but disrupt students exams, mansion tax as an MPs allowance.
There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.
They won their 271st seat after the Tories threw the kitchen sink at it. Obviously they're not going anywhere. /s
This is pathetic. The incumbent won rather less well than was being predicted or shown in the polls. This complaint that the Tories threw the kitchen sink at at smacks of desperation. What the hell did you expect them to do?
UKIP has got to learn to stop whingeing.
What is pathetic about it? He is not the one who is whingeing, he is just making an observation that this was not a target seat and the Tories tried their damned hardest to try and win but failed. He was merely stating a couple of facts!
Accusing someone of desperation over that comment is rather strange, now if UKIP lost then yes he would be whingeing, but they didn't. They won.
Mike strongly tipped UKIP to lose in Rochester and is bitter at doing his dough
The main thing that Mike Smithson never mentions is that there was a 42% swing to UKIP from 0% in Rochester and Strood.
We also heard a lot over the last couple of week about how Reckless was going to get annihilated because he didn't have any personal vote despite being the incumbent. Well that 42% came from somewhere, so either 42% of R&S actually rather like him, or 42% of R&S rather like what UKIP are saying, or some combination of the two.
Or neither. There are a least half a dozen other more plausible explanations. Have a think about it.
The irony with UKIP is the polls I believe show their supporters to be the most pessimistic and downbeat about pretty much everything APART from the future of their own party.
Haha!!! It's true that apart from Farage's beer and fag-fuelled gurning I've honestly never encountered such a group of miserable whiners as the you-kippers on here. They (you) really need to lighten up a tad. The world's not all awful, you know. There are actually some fun things about it too …
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
‘As Labour represents those comfortable at the top of the public sector, it is not Ed Miliband, but Ukip that represents the concerns of most working men and women.’
Will this have any impact in Labour heartlands that rely on public sector employment like the NE and S Wales?
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Careful!!! Mike and Southam Observer are VERY touchy about the use of the word "import"
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
The UKIP haters have to make up UKIP's positions (wanting to repatriate black people, believing leaving the EU will solve all our problems, wanting to end all immigration), because our actual position is so sensible and reasonable they know they'll lose if they enter a debate on it.
Thornberry is a QC and her husband also a barrister, so were in the private sector before going into politics surely?
As I read it Thornberry was a human rights barrister, so her lifestyle would have been entirely funded by legal aid.
The sort of system that has just granted a Pakistani man leave to sue the British army for unlawful detainment in Iraq.
Here husband was a judge as I understand it, so ditto. All taxpayer money.
Tax payer money all the way. And sneering at the people who scrimp and scrape to get by and pay your huge salary and pension.
A lot of white van men do contracting for the public sector by the same definition. What is the difference between painting a law court and arguing within it? Both are private contractors paid for by the government.
How desperate could they be if Darling was a contender
You mean they're not desperate?
Re Reckless on Sky this morning. If it's to announce the defection of a Labour MP I'm going to look like the Seer of Peithagoras (and Mr Herdson is going to look very silly).
Sky were claiming UKIP were hoping for Labour defectors too (shortly).
''There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.''
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
I'd say Ms Emily's voice was more broken glass myself, but surely nothing can top the Two Worst Weeks Of My Life - on the dole by Yvette Cooper when she was student signing on?
"Whitevangate is now turning into a political catastrophe for Milliband and Labour 4 days on and still running ...."
That is nothing. Plebgate is still running after 2 years.
Whitevangate and Plebgate are very similar, in that any offence that Mitchell or Thornbury gave should have been remedied by a simple apology. End of. It is the toxic whiff of snobbery that has given both stories enormous mileage.
Plebgate was fanned by New International, the Labour Party (& the Police Federation)
Whitevangate was fanned by News International and the Labour Party.
It is the fact that the Labour handling of the media has been so inept that is the real cause for concern. There is ample pointers that this is going to come under real strain in the General Election.
It plays much worse for Labour because they are the ones that constantly bang on about PC issues and who claim (in the teeth of the evidence) to be the party of the working man. Even if if it were true, (which is strongly disputed) no one would be that surprised if Thrasher Mitchell (public school, tank regiment, banking) was a bit offhand with people, but a Labour MP, especially a Labour MP from "right-on" Islington and with a working class, council estate background is the very personification of someone that is meant to be in touch with ordinary people..
Thornberry's claims to have grown up on a council estate are at odds with cut glass accent. I'd guess that she spent a couple of months of her childhood in council housing during some marital upheaval.
Late night on Thursday Suzanne Evans was saying they didn't want to become too 'tory' so a labour defector would be more important than another tory...
By the way OGH is a star - I got 7/4 and 100 on it so averaging up on my Isam bet at 11/10. Both look value now.
Mike Smithson@MSmithsonPB·5 mins5 minutes ago William Hill http://goo.gl/jBN1WA now make CON 4/6 to win back Rochester. Yesterday morning they were 2/1
Thornberry is a QC and her husband also a barrister, so were in the private sector before going into politics surely?
As I read it Thornberry was a human rights barrister, so her lifestyle would have been entirely funded by legal aid.
The sort of system that has just granted a Pakistani man leave to sue the British army for unlawful detainment in Iraq.
Here husband was a judge as I understand it, so ditto. All taxpayer money.
Tax payer money all the way. And sneering at the people who scrimp and scrape to get by and pay your huge salary and pension.
A lot of white van men do contracting for the public sector by the same definition. What is the difference between painting a law court and arguing within it? Both are private contractors paid for by the government.
About quarter of a million quid a year probably ;-)
A lot of white van men do contracting for the public sector by the same definition. What is the difference between painting a law court and arguing within it?
About a quarter of a million, I reckon,
And I don;t know the numbers but I'm betting white van man overwhelmingly works in the private sector.
Thornberry is a QC and her husband also a barrister, so were in the private sector before going into politics surely?
As I read it Thornberry was a human rights barrister, so her lifestyle would have been entirely funded by legal aid.
The sort of system that has just granted a Pakistani man leave to sue the British army for unlawful detainment in Iraq.
Here husband was a judge as I understand it, so ditto. All taxpayer money.
Tax payer money all the way. And sneering at the people who scrimp and scrape to get by and pay your huge salary and pension.
A lot of white van men do contracting for the public sector by the same definition. What is the difference between painting a law court and arguing within it? Both are private contractors paid for by the government.
WVM doesn't pass laws requiring his services are more and more in demand and that the public purse has to pay for it?
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
‘As Labour represents those comfortable at the top of the public sector, it is not Ed Miliband, but Ukip that represents the concerns of most working men and women.’
Will this have any impact in Labour heartlands that rely on public sector employment like the NE and S Wales?
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Careful!!! Mike and Southam Observer are VERY touchy about the use of the word "import"
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
So nothing wrong with importing Polish plumbers, Hungarian sandwich makers and Lithuanian cabbage pickers then if the jobs cannot be filled locally?
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
I have said it before and unfortunately have to say it again... some of those who don't like UKIP on here have called "peak kipper" several times already... they are people who keep on short selling a stock that keeps going up... in real life they would have gone skint by now, but as there is no downside to constant repetition of selling "peak kipper" they keep doing it and pretend they hadn't said it before.
Its like selling the spread on goals on in a football match everytime a goal goes in. When its 5-3 and you go in to sell again, its time to think your original goals quote was too low
This is the first time I've called Peak Kip.
To add to earlier comments, it's simple swingback as much as anything.
In every parliament, there will be a swing against one or more parties. This has been a complex one in that respect and has not followed the usual pattern, partly because there's a coalition government and partly because Labour's badly led.
Even so, it wouldn't be the first parliament to exhibit unusual swings (i.e. not govt to opp, followed by opp to govt): 1979-83 and 2001-5 saw the main swing being to the third party, 1997-2001 saw it from the opposition to the government. Yet what all have in common is that as the election approached, all of those swings unwound, either entirely or in part. The biggest swing of this parliament has been to the fourth party: UKIP. It is of course always possible that they could break precedent but the odds based on history (and natural campaign and political dynamics) is that they too will fall back from current levels.
Blimey - I leave the PB bubble and all fun and games start happening... Newly-elected UKIP MP Mark Reckless has accused party leader Nigel Farage of a policy U-turn over EU migration. In an interview with the Times, the Rochester and Strood MP says: "The policy changed on Wednesday and I'm a bit sore about how I came out of that." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30157507?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Very predictable. Farage's approach to policy making will eventually split UKIP unless he steps down. It is just a question of time. But we may well have to wait a while for this. Carswell and Reckless boast about their "principles" and the need for delivering on manifesto commitments. After GE 2015 this could be popcorn time for viewers.
Whether the 7% margin is enough to put would-be defectors off depends on the type of seat they hold. If they're in a more UKIP friendly seat than Reckless, as well as having more of a personal vote, then they could expect to win the by-election more comfortably and thus be reasonably sure of holding next year.
Farage said on LBC yesterday there wouldn't be any defections this or next week, so it wouldn't surprise me if he has set a November deadline for any defectors who also want a by-election.
''There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.''
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
While I would always advise the child of a successful parent (or parents) to go into something different, since they’ll always run the risk of comparison, if one does why should it be assumed that they have no ability, and only got to their position as a result of their parents influence?
So why do I think they've hit peak? To list a few,
1. Because of the way the media reacted, which was not consistent with a party on the rise but of one which had failed to meet expectations. 2. Because there won't be any more significant elections between now and May, as parliamentary vacancies are likely to be left open until the dissolution, and without those elections, UKIP will find it hard to keep up the momentum. 3. Because it's hard for small parties to keep their vote share, never mind add to it, when voters are asked to take an electoral decision about who governs and who represents them, which has to work against parties without a meaningful track record in general elections. 4. Because the nature of the broadcasting rules will favour the status quo, and UKIP hasn't done enough to be given equivalent status to the Tories and Labour. 5. Because as I've said, they're riding two very different horses and I don't think that under the scrutiny of an election, that's easily sustainable - and UKIP is a party without a corporate experience of operating under that kind of pressure. 6. Because they've dropped off in the polls and I can't see what's likely to push them back up again.
1/ I could not imagine better media reaction than that shown on the front pages of today's newspapers. To the voter, it looks like UKIP has a chance of power at the next election. 2/ That remains to be seen. 3/ We are in uncharted waters. The anti-establishment and anti-Tory vote has gone straight from the Lib Dems to UKIP. Many factors have caused this shift, including the Lib Dems being part of a coalition with the Tories, which has neutered the Lib Dem anti-Tory brand, and the incompetence of Nick Clegg as a debater. There is no good reason to assume these factors will change before the election. This coincides with perceived ineptitude of the Labour Party and its leadership and a hangover from the Great Recession. Add that to widespread feelings that the people of Britain get a raw deal from Europe. Comparisons with other small parties in the past are not relevant because never before has there been a perfect storm and a vacuum in politics to see a party like UKIP do so well. 4/ UKIP will be at the debates. Yes, Farage may not be given as much screen time, but he impresses as coming across as being on the side of the people, while the Lab/Con leaders will have enough rope to hang themselves. Look how he destroyed Nick Clegg in the European election debates and turned that into votes. 6/ How about the election they just won for starters? There is widespread anti-political establishment feelings, as also shown in the rise of the SNP and Greens. UKIP is filling a void. That void could continue to grow.
amol rajan@amolrajan·2m2 minutes ago Astonished at how many v senior Labour ppl tell me Chuka has got post-Ed leadership sown up. At this rate there'll be a coronation in March
Thornberry is a QC and her husband also a barrister, so were in the private sector before going into politics surely?
As I read it Thornberry was a human rights barrister, so her lifestyle would have been entirely funded by legal aid.
The sort of system that has just granted a Pakistani man leave to sue the British army for unlawful detainment in Iraq.
Here husband was a judge as I understand it, so ditto. All taxpayer money.
Tax payer money all the way. And sneering at the people who scrimp and scrape to get by and pay your huge salary and pension.
A lot of white van men do contracting for the public sector by the same definition. What is the difference between painting a law court and arguing within it? Both are private contractors paid for by the government.
About quarter of a million quid a year probably ;-)
Market forces! As favoured by Carswell and Farage...
While the Thornberry affair will continue the steady degradation of Labour's wwc support it will do Labour no harm among the urban middle classes. In this it will mirror the effects of the Brown-Duffy incident in 2010.
It should never be forgotten that a significant part of the middle class, of all political persuasions, really dislike the wwc for being wwc. Especially so among the metropolitan upper middle classes.
Many things, from support of immigration to a toleration of the rape of wwc children spring from this class hatred.
Likewise I suspect its a driving force for the visceral hatred many Tories have towards UKIP and especially magnified when a posh Tory switches to UKIP. 'One of us' has become 'one of them', not just 'betrayal' of party but something more fundamental, 'betrayal' of upbringing, of background, of class.
This is the new brave PR Face of UKIP. I wonder if this is one reason Mr. Reckless never made it far up the greasy pole with his former team?
James Tapsfield@JamesTapsfield·7 mins7 minutes ago Suspect this isn't going to be a tough crowd for Mark Reckless
Mark Pritchard @MPritchardMP·3 mins3 minutes ago At Bruges Group. Apparently Mark Reckless has refused to take joint Q&As with me. Hardly a ringing endorsement for his new party's policies!
Whether the 7% margin is enough to put would-be defectors off depends on the type of seat they hold. If they're in a more UKIP friendly seat than Reckless, as well as having more of a personal vote, then they could expect to win the by-election more comfortably and thus be reasonably sure of holding next year.
Farage said on LBC yesterday there wouldn't be any defections this or next week, so it wouldn't surprise me if he has set a November deadline for any defectors who also want a by-election.
Indeed, and there is still the interesting question of who they are keeping the Portsmouth seats warm for.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
The irony with UKIP is the polls I believe show their supporters to be the most pessimistic and downbeat about pretty much everything APART from the future of their own party.
Haha!!! It's true that apart from Farage's beer and fag-fuelled gurning I've honestly never encountered such a group of miserable whiners as the you-kippers on here. They (you) really need to lighten up a tad. The world's not all awful, you know. There are actually some fun things about it too …
This is the new brave PR Face of UKIP. I wonder if this is one reason Mr. Reckless never made it far up the greasy pole with his former team?
James Tapsfield@JamesTapsfield·7 mins7 minutes ago Suspect this isn't going to be a tough crowd for Mark Reckless
Mark Pritchard @MPritchardMP·3 mins3 minutes ago At Bruges Group. Apparently Mark Reckless has refused to take joint Q&As with me. Hardly a ringing endorsement for his new party's policies!
May be Mr Reckless is unsure what UKIPs policies are today, so cannot risk stepping beyond a pre-approved speech? Odd that Pritchard the Conservative is more certain about what he can say.
''There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.''
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
While I would always advise the child of a successful parent (or parents) to go into something different, since they’ll always run the risk of comparison, if one does why should it be assumed that they have no ability, and only got to their position as a result of their parents influence?
The level of nepotism within Labour is now farcical.
Usual southern centric bollox, loony southern party with 2 defectors in parliament is supposed to be big news. Shows how poor and pathetic Tories and Labour are when these half wits have them scared.
Disappointed you didn't turn up to Dirty Dicks last night. You'd have added a certain je ne sais quoi.
It rebuts the anti UKIP faction that says the party is monolithic and cannot abide debate. In reality there is constant criticism and discussion of policy and the leadership in UKIP, as we are free to speak our minds, while wanting the same outcome - a free and changed Britain.
''There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.''
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
While I would always advise the child of a successful parent (or parents) to go into something different, since they’ll always run the risk of comparison, if one does why should it be assumed that they have no ability, and only got to their position as a result of their parents influence?
The level of nepotism within Labour is now farcical.
Or the result of children admiring their parents. Have a look at the adoption meeting in Southend in the 50’s when 23 year old Paul Channon was selected as the Tory candidate to succeed his father..
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Careful!!! Mike and Southam Observer are VERY touchy about the use of the word "import"
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
So nothing wrong with importing Polish plumbers, Hungarian sandwich makers and Lithuanian cabbage pickers then if the jobs cannot be filled locally?
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
No, because I think the jobs you mention can be filled locally, unless the unemployment rate is 0%
The level of nepotism within Labour is now farcical.
It doesn't matter whether Kinnock is good or not. That is not the point. What I said is that Kinnock might be vulnerable to attack from this angle by an aggressive opponent with a local candidate.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
GP posts are unfilled in Clacton, In Dover a private company has pulled out of a practice because it is not the easy money that they have wanted:
Money is not the only motivator of course, but when there are skill shortages then the less desireable jobs will be filled by migrants or expensive agency staff.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
GP posts are unfilled in Clacton, In Dover a private company has pulled out of a practice because it is not the easy money that they have wanted:
Money is not the only motivator of course, but when there are skill shortages then the less desireable jobs will be filled by migrants or expensive agency staff.
But if that is what UKIP want...
Oned of the reasons GPposts in Clacton are unfilled is that there is a significantly elderly population who are heavy users of NHS services. There’s also, according to our local GP, a problem with recruiting GP’s in many parts of Essex.
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Careful!!! Mike and Southam Observer are VERY touchy about the use of the word "import"
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
So nothing wrong with importing Polish plumbers, Hungarian sandwich makers and Lithuanian cabbage pickers then if the jobs cannot be filled locally?
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
No, because I think the jobs you mention can be filled locally, unless the unemployment rate is 0%
But they could not be filled, at least not by people who are up to the job and reliable.
How would UKIP address the issue, besides banning the Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians from coming?
So nothing wrong with importing Polish plumbers, Hungarian sandwich makers and Lithuanian cabbage pickers then if the jobs cannot be filled locally?
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
Plumbers and food processing jobs can both be done locally. And I'd like to think that "cabbage picking" by hand is the sort of thing we should have developed past by now. LibLabCon people seem obsessed with preserving low wage activity.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
Re GP jobs not filled, it is possible that this is not financial. People are obviously attracted to the high salaries. More likely is that people hate to be locked inside a bureaucracy that delivers medical 'treatments' which are known not to work, and in many cases, are downright dangerous. Alternative medicine's message is getting out, and the NHS has nothing to say. Hospital acquired infections for example could be treated and prevented with colloidal silver, but the NHS only uses CS in the burns unit to prevent infections. The NHS is an organisation with targets, including how many people are to die. Magnesium intravenously applied would save 80% of critical heart patients. Yet this treatment is also not permitted. Hospitals are death factories. I wouldn't want to work in the 'health' system even if they paid £1 million a year. I'd rather earn nothing and be able to speak the truth.
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
I have said it before and unfortunately have to say it again... some of those who don't like UKIP on here have called "peak kipper" several times already... they are people who keep on short selling a stock that keeps going up... in real life they would have gone skint by now, but as there is no downside to constant repetition of selling "peak kipper" they keep doing it and pretend they hadn't said it before.
Its like selling the spread on goals on in a football match everytime a goal goes in. When its 5-3 and you go in to sell again, its time to think your original goals quote was too low
This is the first time I've called Peak Kip.
To add to earlier comments, it's simple swingback as much as anything.
In every parliament, there will be a swing against one or more parties. This has been a complex one in that respect and has not followed the usual pattern, partly because there's a coalition government and partly because Labour's badly led.
Even so, it wouldn't be the first parliament to exhibit unusual swings (i.e. not govt to opp, followed by opp to govt): 1979-83 and 2001-5 saw the main swing being to the third party, 1997-2001 saw it from the opposition to the government. Yet what all have in common is that as the election approached, all of those swings unwound, either entirely or in part. The biggest swing of this parliament has been to the fourth party: UKIP. It is of course always possible that they could break precedent but the odds based on history (and natural campaign and political dynamics) is that they too will fall back from current levels.
Hi, yes I wasn't particularly referring to you, but all the same, this is said whenever UKIP achieve their best level of success yet, and from here it looks like wishful thinking
In the media in general, outside the bubble, this is seen as a very good result for UKIP. The problem is on PB that the big hitters all predicted a Con win, or advised a bet on Con, so its in their interests to say that the result was closer than expected. Truth is, when the election was announced, a 7% UKIP win would have been laughed at
I agree UKIP are unlikely to poll at the peak of their polling 2010-2014, but the firms are so far apart on their estimates that could mean anything (or it means they wont poll 25% if you were going to be cautious))
I think after the Lib Dems got beaten into fifth place by the Bus Pass Elvis party they lost all credibility.
That was at a local by-election and as you say, even that caused much embarrassment / laughter (depending on which side, if any, you support). But were it to happen at a Westminster by-election, that would be a different matter altogether. It would be the sort of event that consistently gets referenced in the popular media, HIGNFY and so on, and does serious and lasting damage to the image of a party which is already struggling.
This is getting tedious David. I would have voted Tory in Rochester on Thursday to keep UKIP out. This is what you get with first past the past and your repeated posts don't appear to comprehend how the electoral system works.
My view is that most people do not have strongly formed views and will find the most agreeable party to support them in voting against what they dislike or fear most. When Farage talks about attracting the labour vote he is after the nastiest most ignorant slice of that vote. He has stumbled into the easy comfort zone of whistling up the hate filled vote;
There is thankfully only a narow prejudiced minority who fall for UKIP. Voting Tory now does not mean that you risk voting for prejudiced bigots. What you do of course is vote for a party which will give you a referendum on the EU. Reading malcolmg we can see that the SNP is going the other way - falling back into unilateralist, loony left, old religion socialist prejudice.
PS - How strange is it that an admittedly thick labour shadow minister has resigned, but Farage can ally himself with a Polish neo nazi and of course one of his senior MEPs can hurl racial abuse at one of her own voters? All with impunity. I can imagine millions of people voting against UKIP.
You must be barking if you read anything about SNP from the bollox I post.
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
I think it was a joke to be fair! I certainly took it that way
The Daily Mail posted the Danifesto this morning, the preferred political policies of White Van Dan, and the level of bile to be seen is breathtaking, the left wing circlejerk tendency is falling over themselves to call him a racist and a bigot. His views dont seem untypical of many WWC voters, the gap between them and the metropolitan elite twitterati now seems both public and unreconcilable - Good luck with that one Ed!
@BBCDouglasF: Radical Indy Campaign has gathered 3000 in Glasgow: launching 'People's Vow' against austerity, for nationalis'n, republic, enviro't #RIC
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
It was irony..... we really do need one of those buttons or text posted in another colour to help....
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
It was irony..... we really do need one of those buttons or text posted in another colour to help....
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
I think it was a joke to be fair! I certainly took it that way
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
Re GP jobs not filled, it is possible that this is not financial. People are obviously attracted to the high salaries. More likely is that people hate to be locked inside a bureaucracy that delivers medical 'treatments' which are known not to work, and in many cases, are downright dangerous. Alternative medicine's message is getting out, and the NHS has nothing to say. Hospital acquired infections for example could be treated and prevented with colloidal silver, but the NHS only uses CS in the burns unit to prevent infections. The NHS is an organisation with targets, including how many people are to die. Magnesium intravenously applied would save 80% of critical heart patients. Yet this treatment is also not permitted. Hospitals are death factories. I wouldn't want to work in the 'health' system even if they paid £1 million a year. I'd rather earn nothing and be able to speak the truth.
Its largely better opportunities elsewhere. I have said a couple of times here, my brother-in-law is a partner in a rural GP practise, they are currently running with half the doctors they need, despite having the budget because they are not getting the applicants, and the few they do get, dont take the job. When he asked a couple of applications who were decent enough to phone to say "no thanks" if they had any reasons, they both told him because they had been offered jobs in Australia for twice the money, and doing half the hours. The only way to get more doctors is sadly to pay them a lot more money, and the newspapers scream about GPs on over 100K right now (which my BiL certainly isn't).
I think after the Lib Dems got beaten into fifth place by the Bus Pass Elvis party they lost all credibility.
That was at a local by-election and as you say, even that caused much embarrassment / laughter (depending on which side, if any, you support). But were it to happen at a Westminster by-election, that would be a different matter altogether. It would be the sort of event that consistently gets referenced in the popular media, HIGNFY and so on, and does serious and lasting damage to the image of a party which is already struggling.
This is getting tedious David. I would have voted Tory in Rochester on Thursday to keep UKIP out. This is what you get with first past the past and your repeated posts don't appear to comprehend how the electoral system works.
My view is that most people do not have strongly formed views and will find the most agreeable party to support them in voting against what they dislike or fear most. When Farage talks about attracting the labour vote he is after the nastiest most ignorant slice of that vote. He has stumbled into the easy comfort zone of whistling up the hate filled vote;
There is thankfully only a narow prejudiced minority who fall for UKIP. Voting Tory now does not mean that you risk voting for prejudiced bigots. What you do of course is vote for a party which will give you a referendum on the EU. Reading malcolmg we can see that the SNP is going the other way - falling back into unilateralist, loony left, old religion socialist prejudice.
PS - How strange is it that an admittedly thick labour shadow minister has resigned, but Farage can ally himself with a Polish neo nazi and of course one of his senior MEPs can hurl racial abuse at one of her own voters? All with impunity. I can imagine millions of people voting against UKIP.
UKIP aren't allied with any neo-Nazis. The Conservatives are, however, allied with a group that commemorates SS soldiers.
Reckless is quoted as saying, "Labour are party of public-sector privilege."
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
It's a pretty bold attack line.
"The party of public sector privilege" when all the cuts are about the public sector finances.
Deficit figures show that it is pensions, including public sector ones, that Osborne can't get control of.
Then you have the alternative line to the cost of living crisis that on average we are getting wealthier, but it is those sitting in generous final salary pension schemes (mainly public sector) that are most profiting. Automatic, time served, pay progression still exists.
UKIP are going after the people that Labour have ignored.
Mr and Mrs Average who work in the private sector (83%), not the public one (17%).
They aren't multi millionaires (a few thousand people) , but they don't want handouts for empty bedrooms either (a few hundred thousand). They own their own home or are buying it, they drive rather than use state rail.
They are not part of a minority that is agitating for rights, but are part of a majority who are perhaps fed up with hearing about minority rights and having theirs diminished.
.
So nothing wrong with importing Polish plumbers, Hungarian sandwich makers and Lithuanian cabbage pickers then if the jobs cannot be filled locally?
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
No, because I think the jobs you mention can be filled locally, unless the unemployment rate is 0%
But they could not be filled, at least not by people who are up to the job and reliable.
How would UKIP address the issue, besides banning the Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians from coming?
I am not speaking for UKIP, but I would cut the benefits of anyone who was qualified to take a job but refused to do so, at least part time
So, if you are three months unemployed, and fit for work, you should take any unskilled job available in the job centre three days a week. You get 60% of the full time pay, and I would still pay 50% of the dole as long as they still signed on
If they don't take that offer they get their benefits halved
I think people have to be careful not to start painting all white van men as plucky heroes and all well educated lawyers as bad guys
Snob.
This is the sort of post that causes posters like InnocentAbroad to leave. What are you trying to achieve with it? To make isam feel bad? To make yourself feel superior?
It was irony..... we really do need one of those buttons or text posted in another colour to help....
Emoticons would assist but seem to be unavailable on this format :-)
Golly, I've just seen a quote from Ms Emily. Doesn't get out much, does she? Her house is worth £3m...
When accused of sneering, she claimed she had ‘never seen anything like’ the house and said her critics were prejudiced against Islington, which has become a byword for champagne socialism.
That Charles Moore piece MikeK linked was excellent:
Those who berate the Ukip nostalgists the most are those who most uncritically believe that the European Union is the future. Isn’t there more and more evidence that they are wrong? We have now lived beside the eurozone long enough to realise that it truly, madly, deeply does not work. It cannot correct its original flaw: most of its members cannot be like Germany, and so the single currency has become a machine for joblessness, recession and political alienation across half the Continent. Far from being modern, the eurozone is the product of a mid-20th-century, top-down, bureaucratic Utopianism. It cannot deal with the connected, competitive, global character of the 21st century.
Thanks to all who came to Dirty Dicks last night - great fun, as ever, and lots of new faces. Nice to see Peter the Punter in a rather "daring" yet tasteful outfit, and he has very good legs a for a man of his age.
I didn't think the service at the bar was that great last night - Perhaps prior to the next gathering we can canvass opinions on location.
Usual southern centric bollox, loony southern party with 2 defectors in parliament is supposed to be big news. Shows how poor and pathetic Tories and Labour are when these half wits have them scared.
Disappointed you didn't turn up to Dirty Dicks last night. You'd have added a certain je ne sais quoi.
Here's a little tester for PBers to cogitate upon within the febrile mix of the weekend political wash-up and their own prejudices :
Which of the Conservatives, Labour and LibDems will lose most seats at the general election ?
Is that net loss? I can see Labour losing quite a few, particularly in Scotland, but gaining quite a few elsewhere to make up for it. Tough though. I don't see the Tories losing more than 20 or so, maybe 30, and I'd say the same for the LDs, currently more likely to be 30 or a few higher than toward the 20s.
''There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.''
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
While I would always advise the child of a successful parent (or parents) to go into something different, since they’ll always run the risk of comparison, if one does why should it be assumed that they have no ability, and only got to their position as a result of their parents influence?
That's a fair point, to assume they 'only' got it because of their parent's influence or popularity may be wrong, but I think it would be reasonable to look into the matter on such occasions, in the same way a very young PPC might be very able, wise for their age (as age does not always beget wisdom) and just right for the post, but would be more expected to demonstrate that they are indeed right for it despite their age. When you have Tony Benn's grandaughter Emily Benn, who was not even 18 when first selected to fight a seat for 2010, and selected again in 2015 and yet has penned newspaper articles about not being a professional politician and so no, it would be a very remarkable instance of someone so young to be so mature and so able, to get through the selection process at age 17, and it not have something to do with her name. She might have been a great MP at 21, and a great one in future, and presumably her personal qualities were apparent to those who selected her, so it would not 'only' be because of her family legacy and wrong to assume she has no ability, but it certainly would not be unreasonable to think that who she was played a major part of the determination, even if they swear it didn't.
But they could not be filled, at least not by people who are up to the job and reliable.
How would UKIP address the issue, besides banning the Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians from coming?
There is an argument then that more of the welfare budget should be spent on training to get people off the sofa and into work. I do not mean here the sort of training currently offered by the likes of A4E.
Every job centre should have a small business advisor style person who can arrange for someone to get on an HGV course, a course in plumbing, a course in brick laying etc. They should also offer courses on how to run a small business.
As it is now welfare is to comfortable a life style for many and they make the (quite correct in human terms) assessment that they would only be a few quid a week better off working and that when you divide the difference between the wage and the dole by the hours worked they are being effectively paid 20p an hour. Time limit benefits after which you go on a foodstamp style level and you would give both the carrot of training for a better job and the stick of otherwise having your lifestyle go downhill.
These jobs could be done by the residents of the dole queue and to decide otherwise is to consign these people to the scrapheap (obviously there will always be those who genuinely are hopeless cases but if we can weed out the merely indolent then we can concentrate our efforts on those hard cases)
It rebuts the anti UKIP faction that says the party is monolithic and cannot abide debate. In reality there is constant criticism and discussion of policy and the leadership in UKIP, as we are free to speak our minds, while wanting the same outcome - a free and changed Britain.
What it actually does is highlight the motivating factor for his defection. Invisible back bencher in the conservative party, gets much higher profile by being big fish in small pond. The same is true of Carswell. Neither of them where going any higher within the Tory party.
Golly, I've just seen a quote from Ms Emily. Doesn't get out much, does she? Her house is worth £3m...
When accused of sneering, she claimed she had ‘never seen anything like’ the house and said her critics were prejudiced against Islington, which has become a byword for champagne socialism.
Golly, I've just seen a quote from Ms Emily. Doesn't get out much, does she?
When accused of sneering, she claimed she had ‘never seen anything like’ the house and said her critics were prejudiced against Islington, which has become a byword for champagne socialism.
She gets out enough to post a picture of another house covered in flags a couple of years ago.
Thanks to all who came to Dirty Dicks last night - great fun, as ever, and lots of new faces. Nice to see Peter the Punter in a rather "daring" yet tasteful outfit, and he has very good legs a for a man of his age.
I didn't think the service at the bar was that great last night - Perhaps prior to the next gathering we can canvass opinions on location.
And many thanks to yourself for organising yet another excellent night, though I agree about the service. The side-room is a good location, but until the throng died down the bar was loud and difficult to get drinks from.
am not speaking for UKIP, but I would cut the benefits of anyone who was qualified to take a job but refused to do so, at least part time
So, if you are three months unemployed, and fit for work, you should take any unskilled job available in the job centre three days a week. You get 60% of the full time pay, and I would still pay 50% of the dole as long as they still signed on
If they don't take that offer they get their benefits halved
I can't argue with that, especially if it was part time so they still had loads of time for job applications and interviews.
What I always find odd about JSA is that you can't claim it if you are volunteering. Sure, you are working - but not earning. Why don't we support people, at least for a set period of a few months or a year, who are willing to work and gain skills at no wage?
We might have passed the peak UKIP. Well would expect them to get some further rise in the opinion poll ratings as a result of Rochester victory and the increased publicity.But after that unless there are further defection by elections ( does any body know the official rules on how far out from a GE by elections can be called?),then UKIP,s profile will fall and the opinion poll ratings are likely to drop back to mid to low teens,territory that on UNS would deliver no gains and two losses of existing MP,s,.The other factor which could help the UK ratings is favorable publicity during the actual GE campaign in April but that is unlikely to take UKIP beyond the high teens. If this is UKIP peak then who gains most from the fall in the UKIP opinion poll ratings.The same party who has suffered most from the rise of UKIP -ie the Tories.Finally spare a thought for the LibDems.They are currently virtually invisible as an entity.They will need tom increase their opinion poll ratings to save a reasonable number of seats.And the only thing that can do that is their GE campaign itself.
You have a point. UKIP have surprised the establishment (and me, although I was never so confident as the decry their imminent fall) several times: European elections, local elections, two by-elections and sustained polling when none of that was happening. The party's problem is that it will need many more surprises to ensure its own longevity.
It will need at least five seats at the general election, it cold really do with at least being considered (by the press) as a coalition contender - that relies on a result outside UKIP's direct actions, of course - and Farage will need to stick with the party (I really think so, but a successful change of leader would merely be another surprise!) and hold it together throughout.
This is like getting to Everest base camp. A worthy achievement of itself, but few would be content to think that scaling the mountain would be the easy bit.
To be honest, I cannot say I've ever seen a house with three flags on it before either (2, yes, I have had 2 out myself), so merely saying that would probably have passed muster, but referring to as remarkable seemed to make it more of a total surprise rather than just an unusual number, and of course the white van set off people's snobbery alarms.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
Re GP jobs not filled, it is possible that this is not financial. People are obviously attracted to the high salaries. More likely is that people hate to be locked inside a bureaucracy that delivers medical 'treatments' which are known not to work, and in many cases, are downright dangerous. Alternative medicine's message is getting out, and the NHS has nothing to say. Hospital acquired infections for example could be treated and prevented with colloidal silver, but the NHS only uses CS in the burns unit to prevent infections. The NHS is an organisation with targets, including how many people are to die. Magnesium intravenously applied would save 80% of critical heart patients. Yet this treatment is also not permitted. Hospitals are death factories. I wouldn't want to work in the 'health' system even if they paid £1 million a year. I'd rather earn nothing and be able to speak the truth.
Its largely better opportunities elsewhere. I have said a couple of times here, my brother-in-law is a partner in a rural GP practise, they are currently running with half the doctors they need, despite having the budget because they are not getting the applicants, and the few they do get, dont take the job. When he asked a couple of applications who were decent enough to phone to say "no thanks" if they had any reasons, they both told him because they had been offered jobs in Australia for twice the money, and doing half the hours. The only way to get more doctors is sadly to pay them a lot more money, and the newspapers scream about GPs on over 100K right now (which my BiL certainly isn't).
Or maybe time to recognise that the GP model is outdated broken and not fit for purpose in 21st C. We could make better use of the skills by changing our outdated passion for our own GP.
The problem for UKIP voters is the same as for other parties. They want to punish others but not suffer themselves.
Go ahead and cut GPs salaries and pensions, and Nurses and Social Workers. All of these are posts that are underfilled at present, yet poor NHS services are a core part of the campaigns in Clacton and Rochester. 25% of GP training posts this year are unfilled already.
Import Romanian GPs and Portuguese nurses to plug the gaps maybe...
Firstly, no one would object to the import of highly skilled labour. Secondly, if you get a grip on population growth you go some way to drive down demand.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
Re GP jobs not filled, it is possible that this is not financial. People are obviously attracted to the high salaries. More likely is that people hate to be locked inside a bureaucracy that delivers medical 'treatments' which are known not to work, and in many cases, are downright dangerous. Alternative medicine's message is getting out, and the NHS has nothing to say. Hospital acquired infections for example could be treated and prevented with colloidal silver, but the NHS only uses CS in the burns unit to prevent infections. The NHS is an organisation with targets, including how many people are to die. Magnesium intravenously applied would save 80% of critical heart patients. Yet this treatment is also not permitted. Hospitals are death factories. I wouldn't want to work in the 'health' system even if they paid £1 million a year. I'd rather earn nothing and be able to speak the truth.
Its largely better opportunities elsewhere. I have said a couple of times here, my brother-in-law is a partner in a rural GP practise, they are currently running with half the doctors they need, despite having the budget because they are not getting the applicants, and the few they do get, dont take the job. When he asked a couple of applications who were decent enough to phone to say "no thanks" if they had any reasons, they both told him because they had been offered jobs in Australia for twice the money, and doing half the hours. The only way to get more doctors is sadly to pay them a lot more money, and the newspapers scream about GPs on over 100K right now (which my BiL certainly isn't).
Are Australian GPs really earning £200,000 a year? I know there's the need to buy silence, but that's a lot to pay for it.
To add to earlier comments, it's simple swingback as much as anything.
In every parliament, there will be a swing against one or more parties. This has been a complex one in that respect and has not followed the usual pattern, partly because there's a coalition government and partly because Labour's badly led.
Even so, it wouldn't be the first parliament to exhibit unusual swings (i.e. not govt to opp, followed by opp to govt): 1979-83 and 2001-5 saw the main swing being to the third party, 1997-2001 saw it from the opposition to the government. Yet what all have in common is that as the election approached, all of those swings unwound, either entirely or in part. The biggest swing of this parliament has been to the fourth party: UKIP. It is of course always possible that they could break precedent but the odds based on history (and natural campaign and political dynamics) is that they too will fall back from current levels.
Hi, yes I wasn't particularly referring to you, but all the same, this is said whenever UKIP achieve their best level of success yet, and from here it looks like wishful thinking
In the media in general, outside the bubble, this is seen as a very good result for UKIP. The problem is on PB that the big hitters all predicted a Con win, or advised a bet on Con, so its in their interests to say that the result was closer than expected. Truth is, when the election was announced, a 7% UKIP win would have been laughed at
I agree UKIP are unlikely to poll at the peak of their polling 2010-2014, but the firms are so far apart on their estimates that could mean anything (or it means they wont poll 25% if you were going to be cautious))
I don't think a UKIP win would have been laughed at, following on as it did from a genuine UKIP storming success at Clacton. But the reality is that the result *was* closer than the polls reported, which isn't quite the same as 'expected' but near enough.
As has been pointed out before, this isn't the first time that UKIP has undershot highly favourable polls but still made solid progress. What I think is different this time is firstly that there won't be any elections now before the GE (there's no point scheduling one into next year, less than three months from the dissolution), so it'll be hard for UKIP to keep up the momentum, and secondly that the natural drift from protest voting to government-deciding will take effect as the election draws nearer.
Comments
Not quite the Vote UKIP get Labour.
The irony with UKIP is the polls I believe show their supporters to be the most pessimistic and downbeat about pretty much everything APART from the future of their own party.
Incidentally, which party have you backed if one might ask?
However her father was at one time a senior UN official. Reads as though the break up was somewhat acimonious, but unquestionably Thornberry would have had a “good” education until seven or so, which meant her accent either stayed with her or was revived when she went to University. Or maybe children at comprehensives in Surrey don’t have the same accent as those in Essex!
Mr. Bob, it's an oddly hilarious way Dennis has of talking. The glass isn't half full or empty, it has twice exceeded the optimised parameters necessary for most efficient liquid retention.
The EU is the least attractive economic market in the whole world: it's economically depressed, has huge debts to deal with, is low productivity, has a terrible demographic profile, is strangled in excessive regulation, and has a fatally flawed political system (both supranationally and in most nation states), that is not going to be able to address the issues. We're prioritising slightly reduced trade barriers with them over large reductions in trade barriers with high productivity markets (USA, Canada, Australia), and high growth markets (Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia).
On trade terms alone, EU membership just doesn't make any macroeconomic sense. And leaving would add in the benefits of being able to improve our regulation, switch to a high skill immigration system, reduce our food prices and save £10 billion (and increasing) a year. Oh yeah, and having democracy.
I don't agree with you on 'fracking', I think it vital to energy security and and the economy. I do not go for the horror stories and UK regs are completely different to those in the US ie there are NO secret ingredients in 'fracking fluid'.
He was spot on.
As I read it Thornberry was a human rights barrister, so her lifestyle would have been entirely funded by legal aid.
The sort of system that has just granted a Pakistani man leave to sue the British army for unlawful detainment in Iraq.
Her husband was a judge as I understand it, so ditto. All taxpayer money.
Tax payer money all the way. And sneering at the people who scrimp and scrape to get by and pay your huge salary and pension.
But if we have a urgent shortage of a skill then qualified foreigners are the answer.
No one is proposing stopping immigration, its about time UKIP haters stopped wasting their breath on that one
There is so much scope for attacking embedded privilege among top politicians as well. They coin it, then parachute their husbands, wives or children into the same well paid work.
Newly-elected UKIP MP Mark Reckless has accused party leader Nigel Farage of a policy U-turn over EU migration.
In an interview with the Times, the Rochester and Strood MP says: "The policy changed on Wednesday and I'm a bit sore about how I came out of that."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30157507?ocid=socialflow_twitter
Step forward Stephen (spelling corrected) Kinnock....The prospective labour candidate for Aberavon.
By the way OGH is a star - I got 7/4 and 100 on it so averaging up on my Isam bet at 11/10. Both look value now.
Mike Smithson@MSmithsonPB·5 mins5 minutes ago
William Hill http://goo.gl/jBN1WA now make CON 4/6 to win back Rochester. Yesterday morning they were 2/1
http://aqicn.org/city/london/
About a quarter of a million, I reckon,
And I don;t know the numbers but I'm betting white van man overwhelmingly works in the private sector.
It seems that UKIPs policies are not different to present...
To add to earlier comments, it's simple swingback as much as anything.
In every parliament, there will be a swing against one or more parties. This has been a complex one in that respect and has not followed the usual pattern, partly because there's a coalition government and partly because Labour's badly led.
Even so, it wouldn't be the first parliament to exhibit unusual swings (i.e. not govt to opp, followed by opp to govt): 1979-83 and 2001-5 saw the main swing being to the third party, 1997-2001 saw it from the opposition to the government. Yet what all have in common is that as the election approached, all of those swings unwound, either entirely or in part. The biggest swing of this parliament has been to the fourth party: UKIP. It is of course always possible that they could break precedent but the odds based on history (and natural campaign and political dynamics) is that they too will fall back from current levels.
Charles Moore explains to those who do not or will not understand. A good primer.
Farage said on LBC yesterday there wouldn't be any defections this or next week, so it wouldn't surprise me if he has set a November deadline for any defectors who also want a by-election.
amol rajan@amolrajan·2m2 minutes ago
Astonished at how many v senior Labour ppl tell me Chuka has got post-Ed leadership sown up. At this rate there'll be a coronation in March
It should never be forgotten that a significant part of the middle class, of all political persuasions, really dislike the wwc for being wwc. Especially so among the metropolitan upper middle classes.
Many things, from support of immigration to a toleration of the rape of wwc children spring from this class hatred.
Likewise I suspect its a driving force for the visceral hatred many Tories have towards UKIP and especially magnified when a posh Tory switches to UKIP. 'One of us' has become 'one of them', not just 'betrayal' of party but something more fundamental, 'betrayal' of upbringing, of background, of class.
James Tapsfield@JamesTapsfield·7 mins7 minutes ago
Suspect this isn't going to be a tough crowd for Mark Reckless
Mark Pritchard @MPritchardMP·3 mins3 minutes ago
At Bruges Group. Apparently Mark Reckless has refused to take joint Q&As with me. Hardly a ringing endorsement for his new party's policies!
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/abu-dhabi-pre-qualifying.html
Tempted by Massa top 3 at just over 3, but decided against it.
An outstanding first contribution. Welcome to PB.
Driving down demand for NHS services is going to become a big issue. The average number of visits to a GP each year per capita has risen by over a third in the last twenty years, even before we get into population expansion.
As for the privilege piece of the narrative - it won't be aimed at the lower echelons, it will be aimed at people sitting in the 40% plus tax bracket.
Does that translate as "the smell of stale pee"??
Rafael Behr@rafaelbehr·54
Persuaded by testimony of Lab MPs who say (a) tweet cut through as supremely toxic (b) nice to see Ed showing grip.
Dan Hodges retweeted
Ben Bradshaw@BenPBradshaw·4
@rafaelbehr stick to your guns. On this you're right & @JohnRentoul, unusually, wrong.
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges·3 mins3 minutes ago
@BenPBradshaw @rafaelbehr @JohnRentoul So Ed was wrong to sack her?
It doesn't matter whether Kinnock is good or not. That is not the point. What I said is that Kinnock might be vulnerable to attack from this angle by an aggressive opponent with a local candidate.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-29893453
Money is not the only motivator of course, but when there are skill shortages then the less desireable jobs will be filled by migrants or expensive agency staff.
But if that is what UKIP want...
Which of the Conservatives, Labour and LibDems will lose most seats at the general election ?
How would UKIP address the issue, besides banning the Poles, Lithuanians and Hungarians from coming?
In the media in general, outside the bubble, this is seen as a very good result for UKIP. The problem is on PB that the big hitters all predicted a Con win, or advised a bet on Con, so its in their interests to say that the result was closer than expected. Truth is, when the election was announced, a 7% UKIP win would have been laughed at
I agree UKIP are unlikely to poll at the peak of their polling 2010-2014, but the firms are so far apart on their estimates that could mean anything (or it means they wont poll 25% if you were going to be cautious))
twitter.com/BestoftheMail/status/536120839130054657
https://twitter.com/Mr_Eugenides/status/535928493121732608/photo/1
- Supporting an English parliament
- Limiting mass immigration
- Winning back powers from Brussels
- Abolishing anti-white job quotas as a policy
Will he do any of those things? Will he hell.
So, if you are three months unemployed, and fit for work, you should take any unskilled job available in the job centre three days a week. You get 60% of the full time pay, and I would still pay 50% of the dole as long as they still signed on
If they don't take that offer they get their benefits halved
Those who berate the Ukip nostalgists the most are those who most uncritically believe that the European Union is the future. Isn’t there more and more evidence that they are wrong? We have now lived beside the eurozone long enough to realise that it truly, madly, deeply does not work. It cannot correct its original flaw: most of its members cannot be like Germany, and so the single currency has become a machine for joblessness, recession and political alienation across half the Continent. Far from being modern, the eurozone is the product of a mid-20th-century, top-down, bureaucratic Utopianism. It cannot deal with the connected, competitive, global character of the 21st century.
Nice to see Peter the Punter in a rather "daring" yet tasteful outfit, and he has very good legs a for a man of his age.
I didn't think the service at the bar was that great last night - Perhaps prior to the next gathering we can canvass opinions on location.
Every job centre should have a small business advisor style person who can arrange for someone to get on an HGV course, a course in plumbing, a course in brick laying etc. They should also offer courses on how to run a small business.
As it is now welfare is to comfortable a life style for many and they make the (quite correct in human terms) assessment that they would only be a few quid a week better off working and that when you divide the difference between the wage and the dole by the hours worked they are being effectively paid 20p an hour. Time limit benefits after which you go on a foodstamp style level and you would give both the carrot of training for a better job and the stick of otherwise having your lifestyle go downhill.
These jobs could be done by the residents of the dole queue and to decide otherwise is to consign these people to the scrapheap (obviously there will always be those who genuinely are hopeless cases but if we can weed out the merely indolent then we can concentrate our efforts on those hard cases)
Mark Pritchard @MPritchardMP·4 mins4 minutes ago
Despite saying he could stay until 12.40pm - Mark Reckless does a runner from EU debate.
twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/269113381968048129
What I always find odd about JSA is that you can't claim it if you are volunteering. Sure, you are working - but not earning. Why don't we support people, at least for a set period of a few months or a year, who are willing to work and gain skills at no wage?
If this is UKIP peak then who gains most from the fall in the UKIP opinion poll ratings.The same party who has suffered most from the rise of UKIP -ie the Tories.Finally spare a thought for the LibDems.They are currently virtually invisible as an entity.They will need tom increase their opinion poll ratings to save a reasonable number of seats.And the only thing that can do that is their GE campaign itself.
You have a point. UKIP have surprised the establishment (and me, although I was never so confident as the decry their imminent fall) several times: European elections, local elections, two by-elections and sustained polling when none of that was happening. The party's problem is that it will need many more surprises to ensure its own longevity.
It will need at least five seats at the general election, it cold really do with at least being considered (by the press) as a coalition contender - that relies on a result outside UKIP's direct actions, of course - and Farage will need to stick with the party (I really think so, but a successful change of leader would merely be another surprise!) and hold it together throughout.
This is like getting to Everest base camp. A worthy achievement of itself, but few would be content to think that scaling the mountain would be the easy bit.
As has been pointed out before, this isn't the first time that UKIP has undershot highly favourable polls but still made solid progress. What I think is different this time is firstly that there won't be any elections now before the GE (there's no point scheduling one into next year, less than three months from the dissolution), so it'll be hard for UKIP to keep up the momentum, and secondly that the natural drift from protest voting to government-deciding will take effect as the election draws nearer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30159049
Won't go down well with Saddiq