Second day Greens ahead of LDs, and now 2 points ahead of them, if this continues the case for their inclusion becomes inarguable. Tories and Labour neck and neck and all to play for!
Anna Soubry thinks she knows better than a trial judge. Silly woman.
Will probably be Soubry's final outing as an MP before Dr Nick boot's her out of Broxtowe!
Interesting comment from Nick last week that he felt that he was about 7% ahead - that lines up with the average 3-4% swing in the Con Lab marginals that Ashcroft seems to be finding. On the back of Nick's extremely strong performance at the last election, that would be one heck of a performance. I still think for all his active campaigning which no doubt plays a part, I still think the demographics have been favouring him and Labour in Broxtowe and with Vernon Coker in Gedling too. They were both reasonably solid Tory seats back in the 1980's.
Watched QT for the first time for a while (for obvious reasons) - better than I remember it, maybe because most of the questions were tricky cross-party ones. AS was confident on the legal question and OK on free speech but stumbled over zero hours contracts. Mehdi was impressive, I thought - he got to give a very long first answer but used the time well.
Watched QT for the first time for a while (for obvious reasons) - better than I remember it, maybe because most of the questions were tricky cross-party ones. AS was confident on the legal question and OK on free speech but stumbled over zero hours contracts. Mehdi was impressive, I thought - he got to give a very long first answer but used the time well.
Hi Nick,
As a keen admirer of the Swiss, what do you make of events there today? Looks almost certain that the Swiss economy will now go into recession, I saw a report estimate that this will knock the best part of 1% off their GDP. Chairman Jordan's position as head of the SNB is now in question, thanks to the abandonment of the peg and the volte face after the previous 3 and a bit years policy defending EURCHF at 1.20 at all costs. It's estimated that the SNB lost around CHF 60 billion on their foreign currency holdings today, although there is a somewhat compensating movement thanks to the increasing value of the bonds they're holding. Even so it's a hell of a hit to take today, and the Swiss exporters are going to be kicking and screaming mad if they're facing parity with the Euro long term.
Had to check about 10 times that it wasn't an Onion article.
Very strange. Who would want their LGBT son or daughter to be taken out of a mainstream school, at a time when every effort is being made to accommodate those with special educational needs within them?
On the Greens, I would still like to see some evidence with real votes in the ballot box to correborate more with the 6-8% that they seem to be getting in the polls. I would think that its a pretty difficult vote to pin down given how skewed their support is amongst younger voters. So any likelihood to vote adjustment and lack of historical precedent makes things doubly difficult. If their level of support is genuine, then along side Pavilion that seems to be trending back their way, you'd think that Norwich South and Bristol West could start to become interesting, more so the Norwich seat. I'll still be fascinated to see how they'll do in Edinburgh East which is their main Scottish target. I would have thought that one of the Glasgow seats would be worth going at to buid up a long term base to build on Patrick Harvie's MSP list seat there.
Feisty exchange on this week regarding Charlie Hebdo front cover
Worth a watch id say
Mirza says Mohammed suffered being mocked without retaliating. A part truth. He was fairly tolerant when in Mecca ( as are the Koranic versrs from this period) but after he left Mecca he became more intolerant, and when he re-conquered Mecca he was much more persecutory, including his approval of the murder of Asma bint Marwan for writing mocking poetry.
The difference was that initially he was in a minority, and later in charge of a victorious army.
Had to check about 10 times that it wasn't an Onion article.
Very strange. Who would want their LGBT son or daughter to be taken out of a mainstream school, at a time when every effort is being made to accommodate those with special educational needs within them?
That suggests that LGBT kids have special educational needs by dint of their sexual orientation.
Feisty exchange on this week regarding Charlie Hebdo front cover
Worth a watch id say
Mirza says Mohammed suffered being mocked without retaliating. A part truth. He was fairly tolerant when in Mecca ( as are the Koranic versrs from this period) but after he left Mecca he became more intolerant, and when he re-conquered Mecca he was much more persecutory, including his approval of the murder of Asma bint Marwan for writing mocking poetry.
The difference was that initially he was in a minority, and later in charge of a victorious army.
Oh dear. Looks like the US died laughing at Dave's new encryption plans. Pointing out not unreasonably that if the good guys can read your messages, so can that bad guys, and the bad guys can use that ability to inject new phoney messages and wreck all sort of important systems on which society relies.
Had to check about 10 times that it wasn't an Onion article.
Very strange. Who would want their LGBT son or daughter to be taken out of a mainstream school, at a time when every effort is being made to accommodate those with special educational needs within them?
That suggests that LGBT kids have special educational needs by dint of their sexual orientation.
That was most certainly not my intention.
It has been the prevailing belief of the last decade that isolating students from their peers is not to their overall benefit. It is therefore strange that doing so in a significant number of cases for LGBT students is going to be worthwhile (it's described a a "pilot" with the implication that it could run more widely).
I know the school is open to non-LGBT children but I cannot imagine the take-up rate will be very large. Presumably the school will be preferentially open to LGBT students in any case.
Feisty exchange on this week regarding Charlie Hebdo front cover
Worth a watch id say
Mirza says Mohammed suffered being mocked without retaliating. A part truth. He was fairly tolerant when in Mecca ( as are the Koranic versrs from this period) but after he left Mecca he became more intolerant, and when he re-conquered Mecca he was much more persecutory, including his approval of the murder of Asma bint Marwan for writing mocking poetry.
The difference was that initially he was in a minority, and later in charge of a victorious army.
religious figures in inconsistency shock!
The later Koranic verses override the earlier verses. It seems that Allah did not dictate his message clearly initially.Seems a bit suspect to me in terms of logic.
Feisty exchange on this week regarding Charlie Hebdo front cover
Worth a watch id say
Mirza says Mohammed suffered being mocked without retaliating. A part truth. He was fairly tolerant when in Mecca ( as are the Koranic versrs from this period) but after he left Mecca he became more intolerant, and when he re-conquered Mecca he was much more persecutory, including his approval of the murder of Asma bint Marwan for writing mocking poetry.
The difference was that initially he was in a minority, and later in charge of a victorious army.
religious figures in inconsistency shock!
The later Koranic verses override the earlier verses. It seems that Allah did not dictate his message clearly initially.Seems a bit suspect to me in terms of logic.
Almost as if they weren't dictated by God at all...
The Bible on the other hand...
However, lucky old Joseph Smith got to see the original golden documents (though sadly only for a loan) - though it does seem old God might have cribbed some of that from the Bible, oddly enough...
Oh dear. Looks like the US died laughing at Dave's new encryption plans. Pointing out not unreasonably that if the good guys can read your messages, so can that bad guys, and the bad guys can use that ability to inject new phoney messages and wreck all sort of important systems on which society relies.
PODWAS
Totally agreed Indigo. Yet another bad decision from Cameron to go along with the debates. Either he's not thinking straight or is getting incredibly bad advice from the Spad's or a combination of the two!
Had to check about 10 times that it wasn't an Onion article.
Very strange. Who would want their LGBT son or daughter to be taken out of a mainstream school, at a time when every effort is being made to accommodate those with special educational needs within them?
That suggests that LGBT kids have special educational needs by dint of their sexual orientation.
That was most certainly not my intention.
It has been the prevailing belief of the last decade that isolating students from their peers is not to their overall benefit. It is therefore strange that doing so in a significant number of cases for LGBT students is going to be worthwhile (it's described a a "pilot" with the implication that it could run more widely).
I know the school is open to non-LGBT children but I cannot imagine the take-up rate will be very large. Presumably the school will be preferentially open to LGBT students in any case.
it does seem an odd move. In the article it claims they can save lives because a girl committed suicide struggling to come to terms telling her parents.... I think said parents might have some clue if the daughter expressed a desire to move to a special LGBT school? so struggling to see how this would help. Really not convinced that govt should be funding this (or faith schools for that matter)
Anna Soubry thinks she knows better than a trial judge. Silly woman.
Will probably be Soubry's final outing as an MP before Dr Nick boot's her out of Broxtowe!
Interesting comment from Nick last week that he felt that he was about 7% ahead - that lines up with the average 3-4% swing in the Con Lab marginals that Ashcroft seems to be finding. On the back of Nick's extremely strong performance at the last election, that would be one heck of a performance. I still think for all his active campaigning which no doubt plays a part, I still think the demographics have been favouring him and Labour in Broxtowe and with Vernon Coker in Gedling too. They were both reasonably solid Tory seats back in the 1980's.
Not sure about that, to be honest. Broxtowe's had a huge amount of new housing in recent years which wouldn't normally be helpful to Labour, but as Ashcroft's poll showed the demographic vote is odd - we do better in the AB group and less well in the DE group than the national average. I think there is a candidate element to that - there are chunks of the constituency where the dominant papers are the Telegraph and the Times, and they vote Tory in local elections but like their candidates to be polite to them in an old-fashioned way (the detailed politics are in some cases secondary, hence the Tories for Palmer). My Tory predecessor Jim Lester was (indeed is) a mild-mannered chap who people still remember with affection. I don't think I ever met an anti-Lester voter.
If any non-Muslim had described Muslims as "living like animals" they would be sacked as a journalist and never be invited on a mainstream TV channel again. But the hypocrisy of the left allow him to get away with it. What's shameful is that the BBC, supposedly an impartial public service, helps enforce this double standard.
hunchman Indeed, Broxtowe could be gained by Labour even if the Tories remain the largest party nationwide
Broxtowe could be gained almost whatever the national result.
Or .... not gained...
It will be one to watch.
Soubry was the best of a pretty poor panel tonight. QT was a lot better last week with a more thoughtful panel. Starkey and Hassan are equally obnoxious in how they ponticate and talk over the other panel members.
Had to check about 10 times that it wasn't an Onion article.
Very strange. Who would want their LGBT son or daughter to be taken out of a mainstream school, at a time when every effort is being made to accommodate those with special educational needs within them?
Selection by anything other than ability.
The only thing that works
If these schools get good marks I wonder if parents will be pretending their children are gay/transgender to get them in a la religious schools
Did you guys all watch QT? I made do with "The Dark Knight" on ITV2
I'll catch up with it on iPlayer, but I do find it a desperately tired old format. As an LSE alumni, hope Starkey was on top form, and stirred up some controversy like he usually does so well!
Interesting comments Nick, are most of the residents in the new housing in Broxtowe people moving out from Nottingham? Or coming from all parts?
As a keen admirer of the Swiss, what do you make of events there today? Looks almost certain that the Swiss economy will now go into recession, I saw a report estimate that this will knock the best part of 1% off their GDP. Chairman Jordan's position as head of the SNB is now in question, thanks to the abandonment of the peg and the volte face after the previous 3 and a bit years policy defending EURCHF at 1.20 at all costs. It's estimated that the SNB lost around CHF 60 billion on their foreign currency holdings today, although there is a somewhat compensating movement thanks to the increasing value of the bonds they're holding. Even so it's a hell of a hit to take today, and the Swiss exporters are going to be kicking and screaming mad if they're facing parity with the Euro long term.
I've not being paying much attention lately but their sudden reversal seems remarkably sudden and un-Swiss: presumably they just felt the position was untenable. It's nice for me as my old Swiss life insurance policy matures in three weeks' time, so I'm apparently going to get more from it than I expected. Nice gnomes.
QT was good tonight, and because a combination of the topics and excellent contributions from both the panel and audience sucked the tribal politics out of the debate. A win win.
Watched QT for the first time for a while (for obvious reasons) - better than I remember it, maybe because most of the questions were tricky cross-party ones. AS was confident on the legal question and OK on free speech but stumbled over zero hours contracts. Mehdi was impressive, I thought - he got to give a very long first answer but used the time well.
Rod It is Labour's 8th target seat, so Labour would have to have had a very bad night not to win it
Not so. Nick would have a bad night, obviously, but it's perfectly within the realms of possibility that Labour could have a good night overall at the same time.
I actually think the reverse is far more likely, btw.
Did you guys all watch QT? I made do with "The Dark Knight" on ITV2
I'll catch up with it on iPlayer, but I do find it a desperately tired old format. As an LSE alumni, hope Starkey was on top form, and stirred up some controversy like he usually does so well!
Interesting comments Nick, are most of the residents in the new housing in Broxtowe people moving out from Nottingham? Or coming from all parts?
Good night all.
Some of both. Lots of people who've made a bit of money move out from the city in search of green spaces (which is why new housing on green belt is very controversial), but the city is doing well so we get newcomers to the area who are happy to commute. It's an interesting mix - leafy suburbs, small towns, former mining communities, prosperous retirement villages - but mostly much less politically intense than London. The ethnic vote is small and independent-minded, spreading across the parties much like the non-ethnic vote. There isn't anywhere that either main party gets more than 60% or less than 30%, so focusing is difficult - effectively you have to fight several different elections at once. It's good fun.
Rod It is Labour's 8th target seat, so Labour would have to have had a very bad night not to win it
Not so. Nick would have a bad night, obviously, but it's perfectly within the realms of possibility that Labour could have a good night overall at the same time.
I actually think the reverse is far more likely, btw.
A good night for Dr Nick and a bad night for Ed The Red would be fine with me.
QT was good tonight, and because a combination of the topics and excellent contributions from both the panel and audience sucked the tribal politics out of the debate. A win win.
Watched QT for the first time for a while (for obvious reasons) - better than I remember it, maybe because most of the questions were tricky cross-party ones. AS was confident on the legal question and OK on free speech but stumbled over zero hours contracts. Mehdi was impressive, I thought - he got to give a very long first answer but used the time well.
No doubt mindful of where he was among a very white Lincoln audience Hasan was careful tonight and avoided equivocating on the issue of free speech something that David Aaronovitch strongly criticised him for doing earlier this week in yesterday's Times. However far more impressive was the liberal Muslim female comedian on This Week. We need more like her.
OT just seeing people on Twitter talking about registering to vote, I'm wondering: We'd been thinking the recent changes would reduce registration of younger people and make the electorate lean even more elderly/conservative, but if they've made registering on paper a bit of a pain in the arse while registering online is fairly smooth and efficient, maybe the electorate is actually going to tilt internet-literate and socially-networked? Comparatively I guess this means cosmopolitan/liberal.
Oh dear. Looks like the US died laughing at Dave's new encryption plans. Pointing out not unreasonably that if the good guys can read your messages, so can that bad guys, and the bad guys can use that ability to inject new phoney messages and wreck all sort of important systems on which society relies.
PODWAS
Totally agreed Indigo. Yet another bad decision from Cameron to go along with the debates. Either he's not thinking straight or is getting incredibly bad advice from the Spad's or a combination of the two!
One of the biggest issues in protecting businesses and citizens from espionage, sabotage and crime – hacking attacks are estimated to cost the global economy up to $400bn a year – was a clear imbalance between the development of offensive versus defensive capabilities, “due to the slower than expected adoption … of encryption and other technologies”, it said.
Comments
They didn't want you as their MP !
Worth a watch id say
As a keen admirer of the Swiss, what do you make of events there today? Looks almost certain that the Swiss economy will now go into recession, I saw a report estimate that this will knock the best part of 1% off their GDP. Chairman Jordan's position as head of the SNB is now in question, thanks to the abandonment of the peg and the volte face after the previous 3 and a bit years policy defending EURCHF at 1.20 at all costs. It's estimated that the SNB lost around CHF 60 billion on their foreign currency holdings today, although there is a somewhat compensating movement thanks to the increasing value of the bonds they're holding. Even so it's a hell of a hit to take today, and the Swiss exporters are going to be kicking and screaming mad if they're facing parity with the Euro long term.
The difference was that initially he was in a minority, and later in charge of a victorious army.
Oh dear. Looks like the US died laughing at Dave's new encryption plans. Pointing out not unreasonably that if the good guys can read your messages, so can that bad guys, and the bad guys can use that ability to inject new phoney messages and wreck all sort of important systems on which society relies.
PODWAS
It has been the prevailing belief of the last decade that isolating students from their peers is not to their overall benefit. It is therefore strange that doing so in a significant number of cases for LGBT students is going to be worthwhile (it's described a a "pilot" with the implication that it could run more widely).
I know the school is open to non-LGBT children but I cannot imagine the take-up rate will be very large. Presumably the school will be preferentially open to LGBT students in any case.
The Bible on the other hand...
However, lucky old Joseph Smith got to see the original golden documents (though sadly only for a loan) - though it does seem old God might have cribbed some of that from the Bible, oddly enough...
Or .... not gained...
Really not convinced that govt should be funding this (or faith schools for that matter)
http://iceagenow.info/2015/01/iceland-lava-field-biggest-200-years/
Having been to Iceland 3 times, I always like to keep an eye on what is happening in that most fascinating of countries!
Soubry was the best of a pretty poor panel tonight. QT was a lot better last week with a more thoughtful panel. Starkey and Hassan are equally obnoxious in how they ponticate and talk over the other panel members.
The only thing that works
If these schools get good marks I wonder if parents will be pretending their children are gay/transgender to get them in a la religious schools
Interesting comments Nick, are most of the residents in the new housing in Broxtowe people moving out from Nottingham? Or coming from all parts?
Good night all.
I actually think the reverse is far more likely, btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pd0Hv2Ir8I