Is it just me of have an inordinate amount of Kipper-bots suddenly started flooding this site with posts about Mr Bashir? I can only conclude that Kip-HQ has gone into slam-the-man overdrive. Why?
No, it's not just you. A number of good posters are voting by their absence. t'll be the ruination of pb.com.
A shame you're not one of them.
Too too predictable a response.
I shall stick around. Fortunately this place will have an influx of new posters come the election and the kipper clowns will be put in their proper perspective i.e. around 10% give or take.
Up from 3% last time and with the whole political establishment railing against them?
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Suggests that the Farage/UKIP line is unravelling fast. Perhaps Farage cobbled together his character assassination in a panic, just to get himself through the Marr interview. He'd have been better doing the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger routine as I suggested earlier. Not UKIP's finest hour. The whole approach has just made the UKIP leadership look a little cruel and their supporters gullible.
Is it just me of have an inordinate amount of Kipper-bots suddenly started flooding this site with posts about Mr Bashir? I can only conclude that Kip-HQ has gone into slam-the-man overdrive. Why?
No, it's not just you. A number of good posters are voting by their absence. t'll be the ruination of pb.com.
A shame you're not one of them.
Too too predictable a response.
I shall stick around. Fortunately this place will have an influx of new posters come the election and the kipper clowns will be put in their proper perspective i.e. around 10% give or take.
Up from 3% last time and with the whole political establishment railing against them?
And that's a bad performance?
No I think 10% or so would be good in a way. Trouble is, under FTPT it might see them with only one or two MPs.
Let's get to the Greek elections folks. Implications of an outright Syriza victory on the money markets tomorrow? Or do you think they have already factored it in?
It should be mostly factored in. The big unknowns are what sort of renegotiations they'll want and whether the lenders are prepared to play ball in a meaningful way. There is potential for a huge fallout over debt write-off, for example.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Suggests that the Farage/UKIP line is unravelling fast. Perhaps Farage cobbled together his character assassination in a panic, just to get himself through the Marr interview. He'd have been better doing the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger routine as I suggested earlier. Not UKIP's finest hour. The whole approach has just made the UKIP leadership look a little cruel and their supporters gullible.
Incorrect.
They are of the clan Macleod. Born in 1518 in the village of St Osyth on the shores of Loch Thames Estuary. They are immortal.
Yes looks like it doesn't it? The overnight markets are already reacting. I guess a lot depends on whether Syriza will gain an outright mandate to go cold turkey on the austerity.
I think a coalition might take some of the bite out of Syriza so from a Euroscpetic's point of view, a majority is crucial. Similar to how the Lib Dems have hamstrung the Tories on a number of issues.
Annoyingly I never got round to doubling my gold holding when it was in the $1,100s.
Kevin Maguire @Kevin_Maguire 5m5 minutes ago Flibbertigibbet MEP Amjad Bashir was a member of Labour as well as Respect, Ukip and now Cons? Lucky Lib Dem escape. Ta @tomwilson23
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
The grooming cases are much harder to prosecute for many, many reasons, which some people find unwilling to accept. Firstly, the law likes to deal with individual crimes happening at definable times. With multiple abusers makes it is much harder. Secondly, many of the victims don't really want to testify, partly because they know that the court will be an arduous experience and quite a few of the victims lived at the margins of society and will have their past sexual experiences brought in as evidence.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
I'm not sure if I've commented on this topic before, but my brain is clouded by old age, disappointment, unemployment and poverty...
Why did you think Rochester 2014 was the first open primary in UK politics? How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Nigel Farage: "An extra £3bn a year for the NHS, funded out of the fact that we will not be paying daily membership fees to the European Union"
Is this true? Can we just opt out of the EU and use the money for ourselves?
Or will we end up paying as much to be able to trade with the EU?
Or since they need to trade with us just as much, will it not cost us anything to access the EU market?
Non-partisan answers appreciated.
Switzerland pays, as best as I can tell, about 530 million Swiss Francs a year to the EU budget. This is £415m, or £50 per capita. The UK pays £11bn a year on a net basis, which is about £175 per capita. There is a further £9bn (last time I checked) which we pay in and then get back in EU spending, such as farm subsidies to agrobusiness. That would also be better spent on the NHS.
Mexico and South Korea, who also have bilateral trade deals, pay nothing. Canada, as best as I can tell, will pay nothing once that deal is signed.
Doesn't Norway pay a couple of billion euro?
Norway pays a figure but because it is not in the EU itself it does not get anything back. Its gross payment last time I looked made it the 10th largest net contributor. Its about 350 million Euro. The UK GPD is bigger than Norways so our contribution pro rata would be about 2 billion, and we do get 5 billion back from the EU currently. This is less than our current net contribution. Which is about 11 - thanks to Blair giving away our rebate. It may be a good idea. I have nothing against it in principal. But all it means is that the EU is still there and influencing us and we have no say. This may still be the best thing but in terms of any real difference its relatively small. The UK is in fact well down the table of net contributions per capita with Sweden Cyprus and Malta below us.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
The grooming cases are much harder to prosecute for many, many reasons, which some people find unwilling to accept. Firstly, the law likes to deal with individual crimes happening at definable times. With multiple abusers makes it is much harder. Secondly, many of the victims don't really want to testify, partly because they know that the court will be an arduous experience and quite a few of the victims lived at the margins of society and will have their past sexual experiences brought in as evidence.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
I would be in favour. How do you define 'membership'? Is there a subscription? An AGM? Do you get a little plastic card and a badge? A bumper sticker for your tank?
If membership is based on what other people guess that you think or believe - then that's a very dangerous thing. People must not be judged guilty based on something they might think. They can only be guilty of actions.
Change membership to support. Financial support, promoting the group, recruitment, etc. Someone paying £10 a week to a front group who then funnels the money to the banned organisation would be considered "support".
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
The grooming cases are much harder to prosecute for many, many reasons, which some people find unwilling to accept. Firstly, the law likes to deal with individual crimes happening at definable times. With multiple abusers makes it is much harder. Secondly, many of the victims don't really want to testify, partly because they know that the court will be an arduous experience and quite a few of the victims lived at the margins of society and will have their past sexual experiences brought in as evidence.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Let's get to the Greek elections folks. Implications of an outright Syriza victory on the money markets tomorrow? Or do you think they have already factored it in?
I predict the price of gold increasing due to uncertainty over the EU.
Yes looks like it doesn't it? The overnight markets are already reacting. I guess a lot depends on whether Syriza will gain an outright mandate to go cold turkey on the austerity.
If anything, winning an overall majority should reassure the markets a little as at least it provides some certainty in the short to medium term. Greek parties have been quite good at splits and defections recently and given the challenges a Syriza government faces, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a small majority whittled away quite quickly. Even so, it'd be better than no majority.
However, no majority may well be where we're heading. As things stand, they'll come up just short.
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek results so far: hard left first, Nazis third. Was this really really purpose of monetary union?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek interior minister spokesman says Syriza will have 150 seats
I think that would mean that Golden Dawn would have increased their number of seats since the last election. The Greek people must be truly desperate to vote for a Neo Nazi party.
Syriza are on target for 150 seats which is one short of a majority.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
The grooming cases are much harder to prosecute for many, many reasons, which some people find unwilling to accept. Firstly, the law likes to deal with individual crimes happening at definable times. With multiple abusers makes it is much harder. Secondly, many of the victims don't really want to testify, partly because they know that the court will be an arduous experience and quite a few of the victims lived at the margins of society and will have their past sexual experiences brought in as evidence.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
So Syriza predicted to have majority with speakers casting vote and Golden Dawn to have 16 seats.
Big trouble for UKIP ahead, there might not be an EU to leave by the election......
The parents should be prosecuted. There is no way that they would be unaware of their child having their genitals mutilated.
They are clearly accessories to a crime of ABH/GBH.
Leaving petty political point scoring aside, why are there basically no prosecution for FGM?
I would have thought a relatively small number of prosecutions of parents would rapidly bring the practice to a stop and be electorally popular.
Do you think Jewish and other parents will be put off mutilating the genitals of their male children too?
Tory toff shows his colours
Actually Male Genital Mutilation is quite a serious and growing problem as it becomes more commonplace in the UK, undoubtedly influenced by American fashions (where ironically its prevalence is falling).
Worse still, you and I pay for Male Genital Mutilation as it is conducted on the NHS.
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek results so far: hard left first, Nazis third. Was this really really purpose of monetary union?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek interior minister spokesman says Syriza will have 150 seats
I think that would mean that Golden Dawn would have increased their number of seats since the last election. The Greek people must be truly desperate to vote for a Neo Nazi party.
Syriza are on target for 150 seats which is one short of a majority.
Looks like they're down on votes and lose a seat (or 2), actually.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
So Syriza predicted to have majority with speakers casting vote and Golden Dawn to have 16 seats.
Big trouble for UKIP ahead, there might not be an EU to leave by the election......
Haha!
This is really tight isn't it? I hope in some ways that they get across the line.
Nigel Farage: "An extra £3bn a year for the NHS, funded out of the fact that we will not be paying daily membership fees to the European Union"
Is this true? Can we just opt out of the EU and use the money for ourselves?
Or will we end up paying as much to be able to trade with the EU?
Or since they need to trade with us just as much, will it not cost us anything to access the EU market?
Non-partisan answers appreciated.
Switzerland pays, as best as I can tell, about 530 million Swiss Francs a year to the EU budget. This is £415m, or £50 per capita. The UK pays £11bn a year on a net basis, which is about £175 per capita. There is a further £9bn (last time I checked) which we pay in and then get back in EU spending, such as farm subsidies to agrobusiness. That would also be better spent on the NHS.
Mexico and South Korea, who also have bilateral trade deals, pay nothing. Canada, as best as I can tell, will pay nothing once that deal is signed.
Doesn't Norway pay a couple of billion euro?
Norway pays a figure but because it is not in the EU itself it does not get anything back. Its gross payment last time I looked made it the 10th largest net contributor. Its about 350 million Euro. The UK GPD is bigger than Norways so our contribution pro rata would be about 2 billion, and we do get 5 billion back from the EU currently. This is less than our current net contribution. Which is about 11 - thanks to Blair giving away our rebate. It may be a good idea. I have nothing against it in principal. But all it means is that the EU is still there and influencing us and we have no say. This may still be the best thing but in terms of any real difference its relatively small. The UK is in fact well down the table of net contributions per capita with Sweden Cyprus and Malta below us.
Another of Flightpath's perennial myths - the idea that EEA members have no say over the rules. As I pointed out several weeks ago this is rubbish.
Oh and copying the figures I used earlier to pretend you know something about our EU contributions really doesn't disprove the fact that you are commenting on a subject about which you are utterly ignorant.
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek results so far: hard left first, Nazis third. Was this really really purpose of monetary union?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek interior minister spokesman says Syriza will have 150 seats
I think that would mean that Golden Dawn would have increased their number of seats since the last election. The Greek people must be truly desperate to vote for a Neo Nazi party.
Syriza are on target for 150 seats which is one short of a majority.
Looks like they're down on votes and lose a seat, actually.
Their peak was the first 2012 election.
Not bad considering a number of the politicians are in prison for various offences. I believe they were also implicated in the murder a left wing musician. If that had happened to a political party here they would have been finished.
Is it just me of have an inordinate amount of Kipper-bots suddenly started flooding this site with posts about Mr Bashir? I can only conclude that Kip-HQ has gone into slam-the-man overdrive. Why?
I think thats a little silly. The politcal divide in this country is increasingly between the established parties, Lib, Lab, Con and the "anti" establishment parties SNP, DUP, UKIP & Green.
As UKIP are the most significant of these in the largest by far of the four countries of the UK and actually came first in the last UK national election its hardly surprising that this is reflected here.
What is obvious is that they provide an outlet for views and polices which all "right minded" urbane types thought had been purged from UK politics and they are a bit nonplussed by events.
I would be in favour. How do you define 'membership'? Is there a subscription? An AGM? Do you get a little plastic card and a badge? A bumper sticker for your tank?
If membership is based on what other people guess that you think or believe - then that's a very dangerous thing. People must not be judged guilty based on something they might think. They can only be guilty of actions.
Change membership to support. Financial support, promoting the group, recruitment, etc. Someone paying £10 a week to a front group who then funnels the money to the banned organisation would be considered "support".
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Let's get to the Greek elections folks. Implications of an outright Syriza victory on the money markets tomorrow? Or do you think they have already factored it in?
I predict the price of gold increasing due to uncertainty over the EU.
Yes looks like it doesn't it? The overnight markets are already reacting. I guess a lot depends on whether Syriza will gain an outright mandate to go cold turkey on the austerity.
If anything, winning an overall majority should reassure the markets a little as at least it provides some certainty in the short to medium term. Greek parties have been quite good at splits and defections recently and given the challenges a Syriza government faces, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a small majority whittled away quite quickly. Even so, it'd be better than no majority.
However, no majority may well be where we're heading. As things stand, they'll come up just short.
Yep very true: the markets often prefer clarity don't they?
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
The grooming cases are much harder to prosecute for many, many reasons, which some people find unwilling to accept. Firstly, the law likes to deal with individual crimes happening at definable times. With multiple abusers makes it is much harder. Secondly, many of the victims don't really want to testify, partly because they know that the court will be an arduous experience and quite a few of the victims lived at the margins of society and will have their past sexual experiences brought in as evidence.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
No, you didn't just not mention it, you didn't know it had ever happened. You said Rochester was the first ever. Big difference.
And LOL at the owlish pseudo-profundity of efforts like "the markets often prefer clarity don't they?" Never heard that before.
Let's get to the Greek elections folks. Implications of an outright Syriza victory on the money markets tomorrow? Or do you think they have already factored it in?
It should be mostly factored in. The big unknowns are what sort of renegotiations they'll want and whether the lenders are prepared to play ball in a meaningful way. There is potential for a huge fallout over debt write-off, for example.
There will be no headline cut. The Greeks owe €xbn, and that won't change.
(And it won't change because this is the IMF we're talking about. The IMF does not "do" haircuts.)
What will almost certainly happen is what happened with the last IMF-led bailout in Belize, with a combination of a cut in coupon payments and an extension of loan terms.
If all the paper held by the ECB, the EU and the IMF was extended to 40 years, and the coupon was cut by 1%, it would be the equivalent of a 40% haircut in the real value of money owed, but it would allow the SYRIZA and the IMF/the EU/the ECB to claim victory. The ECB can offer an additional carrot to Greece - play ball and get included in QE. And the EU can offer infrastructure funds, possibly through the EIB administered fund.
The price for this - of course - is that Greece continue to run a primary budget surplus and/or remains under IMF-led supervision.
What happens tomorrow is... almost nothing. Negotiations will last at least three months between SYRIZIA (or the SYRIZIA led coalition) and (principally) the IMF. I would expect European markets to be weak tomorrow, because - while a SYRIZA/Potemos or PASOK coalition was largely priced in - SYRIZIA on its own was not.
It is worth noting this will have almost no impact on the other PIIGS. Italy and Spain can borrow in the market at around 1.5% for 10 years, Ireland can borrow at 1.2%, and even Portugal is only paying 3% or so. That being said, it probably brings home to the markets that an 'insurgent' party can win, so if peripheral bond yields were to move out a bit tomorrow, that would not be a surprise.
Is that even trying to be funny, or to make any kind of point?
Does rather remind me of the unfunny polemical cartoons by Cummings in the 1980s accompanying opinion page Thatcherite ants about Labour or the Miners by hard right tory polemicists like the late Sir George Gardiner.
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek results so far: hard left first, Nazis third. Was this really really purpose of monetary union?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago Greek interior minister spokesman says Syriza will have 150 seats
I think that would mean that Golden Dawn would have increased their number of seats since the last election. The Greek people must be truly desperate to vote for a Neo Nazi party.
Syriza are on target for 150 seats which is one short of a majority.
Actually Golden Dawn has lost vote share, and is down on an average of 10% on their 2012 vote in all areas.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
So Syriza predicted to have majority with speakers casting vote and Golden Dawn to have 16 seats.
Big trouble for UKIP ahead, there might not be an EU to leave by the election......
Haha!
This is really tight isn't it? I hope in some ways that they get across the line.
Indeed, I actually found myself agreeing with Peter Hain this morning that Syriza victory would be a significant (and long overdue) defeat for neo liberal economics.
I make the point about FGM because it can only happen with the connivance of parents, and therefore they are accessories. It should be a relatively simple matter to bring criminal proceedings against them.
That doesn't make the cover ups - and there were cover-ups - acceptable, nor does it make the crimes committed any less terrible. But the nature of the abuse makes it hard to secure convictions in many cases, and makes prosecutors and policemen unwilling to spend time on cases they see as likely losers.
In Rotherham,
Oh god you really are an insufferable bore.
Are you're the sort of sick nasty piece of work that just hand waves away the brutal suffering of tens of thousands of children. You're truly disgusting.
Haha no I'm really not but I shan't tell you why. It's just that you are so single-tracked, or rather like a record that's stuck. You are, essentially, just an insufferable old bore. Here's a test for you: spend a week posting 10 topics on which you have never previously commented. It might do you good. And it'll certainly help pb.com.
How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Bloody hell Ishmail that really is scraping the bottom of your goldfish bowl in desperation. That I didn't mention the Totnes open primary above the Rochester open primary the best you could come up with? Funniest post today, which is saying a lot. Hehe. Most amusing.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago #ekloges2015 Official projection SYRIZA 36.5 (150) ND 27.7 (76) To Potami 6.3 (17) GD 5.9 (16) KKE 5.6 (15) PASOK 4.8 (13) ANEL 4.7 (13)
No, you didn't just not mention it, you didn't know it had ever happened. You said Rochester was the first ever. Big difference.
And LOL at the owlish pseudo-profundity of efforts like "the markets often prefer clarity don't they?" Never heard that before.
I confess, mea culpa, Ishmail. I had overlooked its importance. I am afraid it failed to reach the news wires of Thailand where I was living at the time. Shocking to think, I know, that a Totnes primary vote in 2009 didn't send the international news wires humming, but there we have it. Bloody hell you are a desperate, desperate, figure today. I look forward to when your own originality and wit return.
Let's get to the Greek elections folks. Implications of an outright Syriza victory on the money markets tomorrow? Or do you think they have already factored it in?
It should be mostly factored in. The big unknowns are what sort of renegotiations they'll want and whether the lenders are prepared to play ball in a meaningful way. There is potential for a huge fallout over debt write-off, for example.
There will be no headline cut. The Greeks owe €xbn, and that won't change.
(And it won't change because this is the IMF we're talking about. The IMF does not "do" haircuts.)
What will almost certainly happen is what happened with the last IMF-led bailout in Belize, with a combination of a cut in coupon payments and an extension of loan terms.
If all the paper held by the ECB, the EU and the IMF was extended to 40 years, and the coupon was cut by 1%, it would be the equivalent of a 40% haircut in the real value of money owed, but it would allow the SYRIZA and the IMF/the EU/the ECB to claim victory. The ECB can offer an additional carrot to Greece - play ball and get included in QE. And the EU can offer infrastructure funds, possibly through the EIB administered fund.
The price for this - of course - is that Greece continue to run a primary budget surplus and/or remains under IMF-led supervision.
What happens tomorrow is... almost nothing. Negotiations will last at least three months between SYRIZIA (or the SYRIZIA led coalition) and (principally) the IMF. I would expect European markets to be weak tomorrow, because - while a SYRIZA/Potemos or PASOK coalition was largely priced in - SYRIZIA on its own was not.
It is worth noting this will have almost no impact on the other PIIGS. Italy and Spain can borrow in the market at around 1.5% for 10 years, Ireland can borrow at 1.2%, and even Portugal is only paying 3% or so. That being said, it probably brings home to the markets that an 'insurgent' party can win, so if peripheral bond yields were to move out a bit tomorrow, that would not be a surprise.
Easiest way would be if the Germans coughed up the reparation settlement
Is that even trying to be funny, or to make any kind of point?
Does rather remind me of the unfunny polemical cartoons by Cummings in the 1980s accompanying opinion page Thatcherite ants about Labour or the Miners by hard right tory polemicists like the late Sir George Gardiner.
I had forgotten about him, but a quick google shows your judgment to be sound.
Someone has dropped a hint to Preston that Ed wants the student vote. The Beeford has learnt that student fees will drop by £3k. Will Ed be using the Mansion Tax or The tax on bankers' bonuses. Those Scottish nurses might not get their jobs if this happens. Can't link to the story at the moment.
Given that KKE (The Communist Party of Greece) are set to win 15 seats, I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference whether Syriza get 147 or 151 seats.
Given that KKE (The Communist Party of Greece) are set to win 15 seats, I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference whether Syriza get 147 or 151 seats.
KKE won't work with Syriza due to a difference of opinions. Maybe that will change when they get a chance of being a kingmaker.
Given that KKE (The Communist Party of Greece) are set to win 15 seats, I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference whether Syriza get 147 or 151 seats.
KKE won't work with Syriza due to a difference of opinions. Maybe that will change when they get a chance of being a kingmaker.
Popular front of Judea and Judean Popular Front differences?
Given that KKE (The Communist Party of Greece) are set to win 15 seats, I'm not sure it makes a great deal of difference whether Syriza get 147 or 151 seats.
I don't think I've ever seen such love for party leaders as there has been on this thread for Farage and Salmond. I feel quite moved
I think that by tomorrow lunchtime we will all recognize this as a "let's all laugh at David Cameron" situation, and other factions can enjoy a brief cessation of hostilities while we do just that.
My reading of The River is that they are a pro-EU party who might have been partners for ND but this result looks like last autumn's NZ result. There's only one game in town even if SYRIZA aren't over the winning line.
Look on the brightside. If Greece falls out of the Euro, holsidays will be cheap!
Actually that is a great point, because if they leave and tourism booms then expect Portugal, Italy and Spain to jump ship pronto.
If Syriza do take Greece down the Default line it could also spread like contagion.
I would have thought that would depend very much on what happens to Greece after a default. The creditors may want to hang one "to encourage the others".
Is that even trying to be funny, or to make any kind of point?
Sense of humour failure? Farage has made so many allegations he better watch out for the lawyers.
I think Marf had better watch out. Nowhere did Farage say that Bashir was a terrorist. He said instead that Bashir had consorted with a well known Pakistani terrorist. A world of difference.
That sounds threatening to Marf and is not appropriate on PB. Please be careful with your use of language.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
Look on the brightside. If Greece falls out of the Euro, holidays will be cheap!
And Greek inflation will be rampant. That will spread their austerity nicely. A falling or collapsing currency and inflation are an alternative to attempting to live within your means, but does it make that much sense?
As an aside, it's worth role playing what would happen if SYRIZA unilaterally defaulted on Greek debt.
Firstly, the biggest private holders of Greek debt are Greek banks. These would immediately be under financial stress, and would need to go to the ECB for ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance).
Secondly, Greek businesses and individuals - being rational - would immediately seek to withdraw or transfer ever single Euro they could out of Greece. Would you want to hold Euros in your bank account, or Euros in your hand, if you considered Grexit likely? The runs on banks would make Northern Rock look modest.
So: you have the combination of banks assets (i.e. the Greek government debt they own) in freefall at the same time that deposits are fleeing out the door. That is ugly.
Now, what would the ECB do? Well, they are constrained by their rules - they would no longer be able to accept Greek government bonds as collateral, and I think they would be prohibited from offering ELA to Greek banks if it was considered likely that Greece was about to exit the Euro.
Essentially, a unilateral default would almost certainly cause an exit from the Euro, because the ECB would not be allowed to prop up Greek banks.
Let's play this through. The Greek government suspends all banking institutions and recreates the Drachma, and then 'prints' money to allow banks to remain solvent. After a week (or more) of chaos, Greece come 'back to life' with the New Drachma as its currency.
There are a couple of problems here:
1. Greek companies and banks who owe Euros to foreign counterparties would still owe Euros. (And we can reasonably assume that the Drachma has fallen 40-50%.) If you are a trading company with big foreign operations, you will be in severe difficulty as the value of your assets has dropped 40+% while the value of your liabilities has remained constant.
2. The price of imported goods and services would soar. It's worth remembering that almost half of consumer spending goes straight on imported goods and services, so a 40% devaluation would mean the price of these goods would increase c. 80%. This is effectively a massive cut in the real value of wages and pensions.
3. The Greek government would still owe the IMF, the ECB and the EU Euros. Previous governments have issued bonds under New York law (rather than Greek law), and that severely limits their ability to be unilaterally defaulted on. The IMF would still come after the Greek government - they wouldn't say "hey, pay us back in Greek drachma now", they'd say "ok, you gave up on the Euro. you still owe us x." It is not in the interest of any of these parties to make it easy on the Greek government, and assets held by the Greek government abroad (or Greek government owned planes that landed in New York, for example) would be ripe for expropriation.
That doesn't mean that Euro exit is not still the best long-term option for Greece, but the short term pain would be enormous.
Does anybody here know how many people voted in the elections to the EU parliament back in May, and where that ranks in terms of the largest elections ever held? I have made a sizeable bet with a friend but we're struggling to find the data.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
Except a party of southern public school boys and ex financiers are hardly subversive. Why vote UKIP when they are just establishment also-rans. To really upset the establishment, vote Green.
Is that even trying to be funny, or to make any kind of point?
Sense of humour failure? Farage has made so many allegations he better watch out for the lawyers.
I think Marf had better watch out. Nowhere did Farage say that Bashir was a terrorist. He said instead that Bashir had consorted with a well known Pakistani terrorist. A world of difference.
That sounds threatening to Marf and is not appropriate on PB. Please be careful with your use of language.
I think the phrase is verb. sap. Although I am sure that someone like Mr Bashir (like others of his faith) would NEVER consider taking action against a cartoonist that offends them.
Is that even trying to be funny, or to make any kind of point?
Sense of humour failure? Farage has made so many allegations he better watch out for the lawyers.
I think Marf had better watch out. Nowhere did Farage say that Bashir was a terrorist. He said instead that Bashir had consorted with a well known Pakistani terrorist. A world of difference.
That sounds threatening to Marf and is not appropriate on PB. Please be careful with your use of language.
I think the phrase is verb. sap. Although I am sure that someone like Mr Bashir (like others of his faith) would NEVER consider taking action against a cartoonist that offends them.
What happened to free speech? Its OK when Marf draws a silly cartoon attacking someone else but not when she does one slagging Saint Nigel?
As an aside, it's worth role playing what would happen if SYRIZA unilaterally defaulted on Greek debt.
Firstly, the biggest private holders of Greek debt are Greek banks. These would immediately be under financial stress, and would need to go to the ECB for ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance).
Secondly, Greek businesses and individuals - being rational - would immediately seek to withdraw or transfer ever single Euro they could out of Greece. Would you want to hold Euros in your bank account, or Euros in your hand, if you considered Grexit likely? The runs on banks would make Northern Rock look modest.
So: you have the combination of banks assets (i.e. the Greek government debt they own) in freefall at the same time that deposits are fleeing out the door. That is ugly.
Now, what would the ECB do? Well, they are constrained by their rules - they would no longer be able to accept Greek government bonds as collateral, and I think they would be prohibited from offering ELA to Greek banks if it was considered likely that Greece was about to exit the Euro.
Essentially, a unilateral default would almost certainly cause an exit from the Euro, because the ECB would not be allowed to prop up Greek banks.
Let's play this through. […]
That doesn't mean that Euro exit is not still the best long-term option for Greece, but the short term pain would be enormous.
Thanks for your post RCS: very interesting on the likely scenarios.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
That is hilarious. A party led by a public schoolboy banker is going to shake up the other public schoolboy bankers. Brilliant.
Look on the brightside. If Greece falls out of the Euro, holsidays will be cheap!
Actually that is a great point, because if they leave and tourism booms then expect Portugal, Italy and Spain to jump ship pronto.
If Syriza do take Greece down the Default line it could also spread like contagion.
I would have thought that would depend very much on what happens to Greece after a default. The creditors may want to hang one "to encourage the others".
How brilliant was it for Argentina to have defaulted?
Can't get massively excited about the Bashir defection. But the mewling from the kippers has been a treat to behold.
Couple of thoughts:
1. Are there any other rum buggers UKIP are thinking of booting out? Just so we don't get surprised by the next defector being unveiled by them as having been expelled yesterday as they found he had 666 on his scalp.
2. Exactly how much did Bashir know about UKIP's general election strategy? A two hour debriefing by Cameron suggests - quite a bit.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
That is hilarious. A party led by a public schoolboy banker is going to shake up the other public schoolboy bankers. Brilliant.
Yeah cos all public schoolboys and bankers are moulded into political clones innit.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
That is hilarious. A party led by a public schoolboy banker is going to shake up the other public schoolboy bankers. Brilliant.
You mean the UKIP leader has actually had a real job? That won't do at all.
Look on the brightside. If Greece falls out of the Euro, holsidays will be cheap!
Actually that is a great point, because if they leave and tourism booms then expect Portugal, Italy and Spain to jump ship pronto.
If Syriza do take Greece down the Default line it could also spread like contagion.
I would have thought that would depend very much on what happens to Greece after a default. The creditors may want to hang one "to encourage the others".
How brilliant was it for Argentina to have defaulted?
Actually, Argentina has had a pretty good 8 years to 2012...
That being said: 1. Argentina actually did a negotiated change of bond terms with the majority of its bondholders, and 2. roughly two-thirds of Argentina's exports are commodities, and the period 2004-2012 were amazing for both agricultural, mineral and energy commodities.
Commodities are all down very sharply in the last few years, and Argentina's economy is now falling apart fast.
That doesn't mean that Euro exit is not still the best long-term option for Greece, but the short term pain would be enormous.
Five years ago I said here that Greece has a third world level of wealth creation but a belief that it deserves a first world level of wealth consumption.
It seems that the resolution of this imbalance is about to happen.
Either the EU gives in and funds economically unjustifiable living standards in Greece or Greek living standards change from being comparable to Italy's to being comparable to Turkey's.
Nigel Farage: "An extra £3bn a year for the NHS, funded out of the fact that we will not be paying daily membership fees to the European Union"
...
....
...
Norway pays a figure but because it is not in the EU itself it does not get anything back. Its gross payment last time I looked made it the 10th largest net contributor. Its about 350 million Euro. The UK GPD is bigger than Norways so our contribution pro rata would be about 2 billion, and we do get 5 billion back from the EU currently. This is less than our current net contribution. Which is about 11 - thanks to Blair giving away our rebate. It may be a good idea. I have nothing against it in principal. But all it means is that the EU is still there and influencing us and we have no say. This may still be the best thing but in terms of any real difference its relatively small. The UK is in fact well down the table of net contributions per capita with Sweden Cyprus and Malta below us.
Another of Flightpath's perennial myths - the idea that EEA members have no say over the rules. As I pointed out several weeks ago this is rubbish.
Oh and copying the figures I used earlier to pretend you know something about our EU contributions really doesn't disprove the fact that you are commenting on a subject about which you are utterly ignorant.
I would not dream of copying figures from you. How many MEPs does Norway have How many commissioners does it have? How many votes does it have? A trade deal with the EU involves the single market involves free movement of labour and contributions to various funds. We are not transatlantic Canada - whose trade deal anyway involves something far more deep than simply tariffs - we are part of Europe. We can 'leave' the EU but we still have to deal with it and in any meaningful way there would be very little difference - if we are lucky. If we lose out on internal investment if we loose out on currency fluctuations then we would not be lucky. I happen to think we can get a good deal; but the point is that we can negotiate and have a referendum. With the Tories.
Someone has dropped a hint to Preston that Ed wants the student vote. The Beeford has learnt that student fees will drop by £3k. Will Ed be using the Mansion Tax or The tax on bankers' bonuses. Those Scottish nurses might not get their jobs if this happens. Can't link to the story at the moment.
As an aside, a friend of mine who knows the Greek political scene believes we will see Tsipiras come back from negotiations with the IMF/EU/ECB with concrete concessions, but which require Greece to remain under IMF supervision.
He thinks a third of the SYRIZA party will find this unacceptable, and will refuse to endorse it, leading to SYRIZA splitting and new elections in the late spring.
Can't get massively excited about the Bashir defection. But the mewling from the kippers has been a treat to behold.
Couple of thoughts:
1. Are there any other rum buggers UKIP are thinking of booting out? Just so we don't get surprised by the next defector being unveiled by them as having been expelled yesterday as they found he had 666 on his scalp.
2. Exactly how much did Bashir know about UKIP's general election strategy? A two hour debriefing by Cameron suggests - quite a bit.
I don't actually Have a dog in the UKIP defection fight but according to Sky News earlier Farrage offered him the run at a plum seat as an MP just a few days ago. Now he's always been a rotten one according to resident UKIP posters? Facing both ways at once by the looks.
Mmmmmm....
Speaking as a resident UKIP waverer, I'd say that is completely beside the point. UKIP is obviously an amateurish autocracy with a high fruitcake count, but what do you expect of a wholly new political party (not one cobbled together from proper politicians, like the SDP)? You have to go back to the 1700s to get comparative data on the conservatives. As for Farage, his antics make one stretch the eyes (air crashes on election day, Brixton, Mike Read, ...) but so what? It all seems to be fully priced in. And as for Bashir being a rotter, it's retrospectively a tiny bit embarrassing but I have no doubt there are other Ukip candidates as questionable as he is, but so what? (See above about being a young and amateurish party). It isn't Ukip who had him at 10 Downing Street for 2 hours as a point-scoring exercise.
Exactly, what the main parties have been slow to realise, and still haven't realised, is that UKIP are not expected to form the next government, they are seen as a popular uprising against a remote and incestous establishment that is esconced in a gilded ivory tower and the purpose of voting UKIP is to ram a battering ram into the door of that tower. If you are looking for people to man a large and heavy battering ram you want enthusiastic people who go for it and don't mind (and sort of expect) them to be a bit rough round the edges and swear and be blunt to the point of offensiveness so it will hardly put you off.
That is hilarious. A party led by a public schoolboy banker is going to shake up the other public schoolboy bankers. Brilliant.
You mean the UKIP leader has actually had a real job? That won't do at all.
Comments
Official results @ 20% of votes
SYRIZA 35.2
ND 29.14
G Dawn 6.3
Potami 5.65
KKE 5.3
PASOK 5.2
Ind Greeks 4.6
Kinima 2.5
#Greece
#ekloges2015
7:11 PM - 25 Jan 2015
Syriza would need around 37% for a majority on those figures.
If Kinima make it in, as some predict, it gets worse, with Syriza needing around 38%...
And that's a bad performance?
SYRIZA 35.3
ND 29
G Dawn 6.3
Potami 5.7
KKE 5.3
PASOK 5.1
Ind Greeks 4.7
Kinima 2.5
Coalition rather than outright?
From behind the sofa.
"@ekathimerini: At 20% of votes: SYRIZA 35.2% ND 29.14 GD 6.3 Potami 5.65 KKE 5.3 PASOK 5.2 Ind Grks 4.6 Movement 2.5 #greece #ekloges2015"
They are of the clan Macleod. Born in 1518 in the village of St Osyth on the shores of Loch Thames Estuary. They are immortal.
David (Herdson), thanks for that. Interesting times.
Annoyingly I never got round to doubling my gold holding when it was in the $1,100s.
Flibbertigibbet MEP Amjad Bashir was a member of Labour as well as Respect, Ukip and now Cons? Lucky Lib Dem escape. Ta @tomwilson23
A good one from Maguire.
Why did you think Rochester 2014 was the first open primary in UK politics? How can you claim to know more about politics than my goldfish does, when you patently, as the site archive shows, had no knowledge of Totnes 2009 until I brought it to your attention?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago
Greek results so far: hard left first, Nazis third. Was this really really purpose of monetary union?
Andrew Neil @afneil 4m4 minutes ago
Greek interior minister spokesman says Syriza will have 150 seats
The UK GPD is bigger than Norways so our contribution pro rata would be about 2 billion, and we do get 5 billion back from the EU currently. This is less than our current net contribution. Which is about 11 - thanks to Blair giving away our rebate. It may be a good idea. I have nothing against it in principal. But all it means is that the EU is still there and influencing us and we have no say. This may still be the best thing but in terms of any real difference its relatively small.
The UK is in fact well down the table of net contributions per capita with Sweden Cyprus and Malta below us.
In much more interesting and significant news (no offence Ishmy):
metapolls.net @metapolls 42s43 seconds ago
#ekloges2015 Official projection
SYRIZA 36.5 (150)
ND 27.7 (76)
To Potami 6.3 (17)
GD 5.9 (16)
KKE 5.6 (15)
PASOK 4.8 (13)
ANEL 4.7 (13)
However, no majority may well be where we're heading. As things stand, they'll come up just short.
Syriza are on target for 150 seats which is one short of a majority.
Big trouble for UKIP ahead, there might not be an EU to leave by the election......
Worse still, you and I pay for Male Genital Mutilation as it is conducted on the NHS.
Their peak was the first 2012 election.
This is really tight isn't it? I hope in some ways that they get across the line.
Oh and copying the figures I used earlier to pretend you know something about our EU contributions really doesn't disprove the fact that you are commenting on a subject about which you are utterly ignorant.
As UKIP are the most significant of these in the largest by far of the four countries of the UK and actually came first in the last UK national election its hardly surprising that this is reflected here.
What is obvious is that they provide an outlet for views and polices which all "right minded" urbane types thought had been purged from UK politics and they are a bit nonplussed by events.
And LOL at the owlish pseudo-profundity of efforts like "the markets often prefer clarity don't they?" Never heard that before.
(And it won't change because this is the IMF we're talking about. The IMF does not "do" haircuts.)
What will almost certainly happen is what happened with the last IMF-led bailout in Belize, with a combination of a cut in coupon payments and an extension of loan terms.
If all the paper held by the ECB, the EU and the IMF was extended to 40 years, and the coupon was cut by 1%, it would be the equivalent of a 40% haircut in the real value of money owed, but it would allow the SYRIZA and the IMF/the EU/the ECB to claim victory. The ECB can offer an additional carrot to Greece - play ball and get included in QE. And the EU can offer infrastructure funds, possibly through the EIB administered fund.
The price for this - of course - is that Greece continue to run a primary budget surplus and/or remains under IMF-led supervision.
What happens tomorrow is... almost nothing. Negotiations will last at least three months between SYRIZIA (or the SYRIZIA led coalition) and (principally) the IMF. I would expect European markets to be weak tomorrow, because - while a SYRIZA/Potemos or PASOK coalition was largely priced in - SYRIZIA on its own was not.
It is worth noting this will have almost no impact on the other PIIGS. Italy and Spain can borrow in the market at around 1.5% for 10 years, Ireland can borrow at 1.2%, and even Portugal is only paying 3% or so. That being said, it probably brings home to the markets that an 'insurgent' party can win, so if peripheral bond yields were to move out a bit tomorrow, that would not be a surprise.
As I said earlier the magic number is
40.4% * (100% - E%)
where E% is the total excluded parties' percentage vote.
or 40.4% * I% if that's easier
where I% is the total included parties' percentage vote...
G Dawn 15
Ind Gr 8
KKE 15
ND 77
Pasok 20
Potami 18
Syriza 146 in the election game thingy.
Would recommend going long feta cheese.
Seggi dopo 33% voti scrutinati
Syriza 147 (+76)
ND 79 (-50)
GD 17 (-1)
Potami 16 (+16)
KKE 15 (+3)
Pasok 13 (-20)
IndGr 13 (-7)
#ekloges2015
So close.
I wonder if Greece will give birth to a monster?
To quote Wikipedia "KKE actively participated in the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2010."
Would recommend going long feta cheese.
Syriza need 38.12% if Kinima make the cut, 36.91% if they don't...
Splitters!!!!
NEPIT showing 148 to 78 now. SYRIZA on the cusp of power.
Only possible allies for SYRIZA seem to be Potami & Independent Greeks. Working with either not a simple proposition #Greece #ekloges2015
Firstly, the biggest private holders of Greek debt are Greek banks. These would immediately be under financial stress, and would need to go to the ECB for ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance).
Secondly, Greek businesses and individuals - being rational - would immediately seek to withdraw or transfer ever single Euro they could out of Greece. Would you want to hold Euros in your bank account, or Euros in your hand, if you considered Grexit likely? The runs on banks would make Northern Rock look modest.
So: you have the combination of banks assets (i.e. the Greek government debt they own) in freefall at the same time that deposits are fleeing out the door. That is ugly.
Now, what would the ECB do? Well, they are constrained by their rules - they would no longer be able to accept Greek government bonds as collateral, and I think they would be prohibited from offering ELA to Greek banks if it was considered likely that Greece was about to exit the Euro.
Essentially, a unilateral default would almost certainly cause an exit from the Euro, because the ECB would not be allowed to prop up Greek banks.
Let's play this through. The Greek government suspends all banking institutions and recreates the Drachma, and then 'prints' money to allow banks to remain solvent. After a week (or more) of chaos, Greece come 'back to life' with the New Drachma as its currency.
There are a couple of problems here:
1. Greek companies and banks who owe Euros to foreign counterparties would still owe Euros. (And we can reasonably assume that the Drachma has fallen 40-50%.) If you are a trading company with big foreign operations, you will be in severe difficulty as the value of your assets has dropped 40+% while the value of your liabilities has remained constant.
2. The price of imported goods and services would soar. It's worth remembering that almost half of consumer spending goes straight on imported goods and services, so a 40% devaluation would mean the price of these goods would increase c. 80%. This is effectively a massive cut in the real value of wages and pensions.
3. The Greek government would still owe the IMF, the ECB and the EU Euros. Previous governments have issued bonds under New York law (rather than Greek law), and that severely limits their ability to be unilaterally defaulted on. The IMF would still come after the Greek government - they wouldn't say "hey, pay us back in Greek drachma now", they'd say "ok, you gave up on the Euro. you still owe us x." It is not in the interest of any of these parties to make it easy on the Greek government, and assets held by the Greek government abroad (or Greek government owned planes that landed in New York, for example) would be ripe for expropriation.
That doesn't mean that Euro exit is not still the best long-term option for Greece, but the short term pain would be enormous.
Also O/T
Labour and SNP now Evens the pair in West Dunbartonshire.
That's a seat where Labour start off 40% ahead of the SNP - SLAB is going to be in for a rough night in May methinks.
Cheers.
Its OK when Marf draws a silly cartoon attacking someone else but not when she does one slagging Saint Nigel?
Greece uses largest remainders, and Syriza are currently not going to get an extra seat as a consequence...
Couple of thoughts:
1. Are there any other rum buggers UKIP are thinking of booting out? Just so we don't get surprised by the next defector being unveiled by them as having been expelled yesterday as they found he had 666 on his scalp.
2. Exactly how much did Bashir know about UKIP's general election strategy? A two hour debriefing by Cameron suggests - quite a bit.
They're on 35.81% with 42.6% reporting.
Falling short...
That being said: 1. Argentina actually did a negotiated change of bond terms with the majority of its bondholders, and 2. roughly two-thirds of Argentina's exports are commodities, and the period 2004-2012 were amazing for both agricultural, mineral and energy commodities.
Commodities are all down very sharply in the last few years, and Argentina's economy is now falling apart fast.
It seems that the resolution of this imbalance is about to happen.
Either the EU gives in and funds economically unjustifiable living standards in Greece or Greek living standards change from being comparable to Italy's to being comparable to Turkey's.
How many MEPs does Norway have
How many commissioners does it have?
How many votes does it have?
A trade deal with the EU involves the single market involves free movement of labour and contributions to various funds. We are not transatlantic Canada - whose trade deal anyway involves something far more deep than simply tariffs - we are part of Europe. We can 'leave' the EU but we still have to deal with it and in any meaningful way there would be very little difference - if we are lucky. If we lose out on internal investment if we loose out on currency fluctuations then we would not be lucky.
I happen to think we can get a good deal; but the point is that we can negotiate and have a referendum. With the Tories.
He thinks a third of the SYRIZA party will find this unacceptable, and will refuse to endorse it, leading to SYRIZA splitting and new elections in the late spring.
Sounds eminently possible.