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Ed Miliband has been urged to demote Ed Balls after the general election, amid simmering tensions in the Labour leadership over how to pay for a cut in university tuition fees.
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Reading the Sunday papers it seems that the past couple of weeks of horse trading are largely to demonstrate to the Greek people that its either the Euro & Austerity, or leaving the Euro. The expectation is that Syriza wont be able to agree internally which way to jump and will head off a party split by calling a referendum in which they will blame the Germans for being inflexible and say they tried their best and its clearly one or the other and the people should decide. Before there would have always been suggestions that there were other options and political opponents would accuse Syriza of dictating a false dichotomy in their referendum, the recent negotiations have demonstrated this isn't the case for all to see.
The current coalition is unusual in not having the minor party in any of the top jobs. It's balanced by having a lot of LibDems lower down, which happened partly because LibDem MPs had a veto on the deal while Tory backbenchers had to suck up whatever Osborne and Hague decided. But that kind of arrangement is unlikely to be practical in the 2015 parliament, because there won't be enough LibDems.
and chasing that....
Sri Lanka 182/6 (41.3 ov)
We have a real contest, it seems!
The other interesting question is who is doing the anti--Balls briefing - Miliband staffers eager to deflect attention from their bumbling tax avoiding boss?
The top jobs, beyond PM, are Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, and normally in a coalition you's expect the minor party to get one of those.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/22/snp-labour-general-election-cameron-miliband
Who do you trust more to raise your living standard:
Ed + Ed: 25
Dave+ George: 33
While the Lib Dems are evenly split, UKIP are much more likely to favour Dave + George (34:9) and Lab are less convinced of their own guys (69) than Con are of theirs (89).
Irrational of course in current circumstances because Labour would be largest party by some distance, and have most of the people with actual government experience, apart of course from Salmond (assuming etc) but rationality and logic don’t always play the part they should in such decisions.
The biggest danger for Labour as I see it is voters who are not wild or even anti the Tories generally speaking, but just don't trust E&E not to fsck up the economy which seems to be doing all right at the moment.
It's easy for UKIPers to say a single loose cannon but you can't have it both ways. If you are happy to benefit from the racist vote you shouldn't be surprised when your supporters and (in this case councillor) show their hand
As others have commented the smart move would be to ignore the SNP and in effect challenge them to bring down a Labour government and potentially inflict another Tory government on the UK and by extension Scotland.
And from my perspective there’s been too little LD “control” on Tory policies, not too much!
That said, I think people - especially people supporting one or other of the main parties - tend to vastly overestimate the attractiveness of running a minority government. Basically you'd be continually haggling with your enemies to be able to get anything through parliament, and the point where the whole thing came crashing down would most likely be at one of the minor parties' convenience not yours, and over an issue of their choosing.
"To be honest, from the interview, both my wife and I thought the woman had some sort of psychiatric problem, and the knee-jerk reaction of sacking wasn’t entirely appropriate. Clearly she shouldn’t be a councillor, but there’s obviously something more there than simple racism."
That was slightly my feeling too. But it really is a case of living by the sword and dying by it. So much wolf whistling by Farage with his fake bonhomie and his outrageous behaviour towards Van Rompuy it's no wonder that loopy racists think they've arrived home
On topic - no odds on Gove ?
He won't have that freedom in most permutations of a hung Parliament.
In the programme, he says: "For Christ's sake, I was never a member of the Gestapo. I was not a member of the Stasi, I never served a term of imprisonment in my life."
Meet the Ukippers is on BBC Two at 22:00 GMT on Sunday 22 February
No taking one for the country, because their country is Scotland not the UK. Every policy would be met with cries of "It's no fair". They would demand extra goodies for Scotland and nothing else - it's their USP after all.
With Ed unable to deliver on everything, this cry would be believed north of the border.A wipe-out for Labour and Independence beckons.
Would Ed risk it?
New Statesman critics from late 2014 is desperate for
the slightly more left wing Miliband to somehow fail to become PM and will happily find
any excuse to try and keep the loser Cameron in office even if
the voters appear to have decided otherwise
Actually bar the Blairite rump left in the party any coalition of Real Labour
people, SNP, Plaid and the Green would be far more cohesive
and comfortable ideologically with each other than any
of the possible post 2015 Tory coalitions who would just like the last
disastrous five years be simply about power for powers sake
and willing to abandon any principle to attain it
I think he finds Miliband's bandwagon jumping incoherent and tiresome and I suspect he would have left if it was not for his wife. This is his problem. He cannot allow himself to be the fall guy for any failure of Miliband's because that will hurt her chances. So he has to solider on supporting rubbish and nonsense tolerating insults from Miliband's apparatchiks. It really can't be any fun for him at all.
"I just get the impression that Balls' heart is not in this. He is a clever guy who had far more influence over the last government than Miliband and who has a much better idea of how government works."
I think you're right. I find Balls much more coherent than Miliband despite his lack of presentational skills
Worth recalling there's a small but not incredible chance Balls could be axed by the electorate before Miliband gets the chance. The majority's just a thousand, and whilst I expect him to hold on, it's not guaranteed.
"The BBC documentary also features UKIP's Thanet South chairman Martyn Heale speaking about the media attention over his brief past membership of the National Front.
In the programme, he says: "For Christ's sake, I was never a member of the Gestapo. I was not a member of the Stasi, I never served a term of imprisonment in my life."
Unlike this guy:
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/local/ukip-parliamentary-candidate-leaves-over-chairman-s-criminal-record-1-6546275
"Rawnsley just like Watt, Wintour, Hodges and the
New Statesman critics from late 2014 is desperate for
the slightly more left wing Miliband to somehow fail to become PM and will happily find
any excuse to try and keep the loser Cameron in office even if
the voters appear to have decided otherwise"
I think only Hodges deserves to be in that list and with him I'd suggest-as we've recently discovered with the Telegraph-he who pays the piper calls the tune. Working out what mercenaries like Hodges actually believe is a waste of energy.
quarters and flatlining it for two years
Introducing a tax on Bedrooms causing suicides whilst cutting
the rate of tax for the richest people in the country
NHS in crisis thanks to unwanted and unelected reorganisation
plans as well as introducing a disastrous phone service staffed
by non medical people directing everyone who calls to A and E
Record numbers of benefit sanctions, Record numbers at previously
unheard of Food Banks..both connected
Wages behind inflation for over four years
Planning to help IS into power in Syria as part of "The Rebels'
only to be stopped by Miliband, Lucas, Galloway, the Nats, Irish
parties and a few sensible Tory rebels
Deficit still high despite the years of failed austerity and
pointless cutting of vital services
Good public sector ft jobs replaced by zero hours and pt and
bogus self employment and 2-80 an hour "apprenticeships"
David Laws might just be worth considering as Chancellor in a Lab/Lib coalition given his experience in banking, although it's not difficult to forecast the tabloid headlines...
That should be Labours next campaign poster
"Taking over a recovering economy that had grown for four
quarters and flatlining it for two years
Introducing a tax on Bedrooms causing suicides whilst cutting
the rate of tax for the richest people in the country
NHS in crisis thanks to unwanted and unelected reorganisation
plans as well as introducing a disastrous phone service staffed
by non medical people directing everyone who calls to A and E
Record numbers of benefit sanctions, Record numbers at previously
unheard of Food Banks..both connected
Wages behind inflation for over four years
Planning to help IS into power in Syria as part of "The Rebels'
only to be stopped by Miliband, Lucas, Galloway, the Nats, Irish
parties and a few sensible Tory rebels
Deficit still high despite the years of failed austerity and
pointless cutting of vital services
Good public sector ft jobs replaced by zero hours and pt and
bogus self employment and 2-80 an hour "apprenticeships""
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-stereotype-map-of-britain-according-to-north-londoners--g1ES8x4Y3g
Imagine the fuss if OGH and Marf posted that...
But Ed M has such a poor team, both in terms of competence and presentation, that he found it very difficult to give that poisoned chalice to anyone else. He did not want to give it to Balls, and seems to have been right to try to keep Balls out.
But it is too late to write on that blank sheet of paper now.
Whilst I still think Labour will be the largest party I find the idea of a government being run by this man truly alarming. We can all only hope it will be brief.
I reckon you chickened out by capitalising the "B" of "Balls" in your tweet. Just think: you could so easily have dismissed it as a typo if needed...
*shakes heads, disapprovingly*
He also has only a dim grasp of historical parallels. At the present moment, he is proposing a Roosevelt-style plan to kick-start the economy. There are two small problems:
(1) The Second Great Depression was actually a demand crisis that caused a debt crisis, so stimulating demand to try and deal with the debts made sense. This is a debt crisis causing a demand crisis, so adding more debt to try and get out of it, even that is possible, is probably not the best idea.
(2) Roosevelt's plan, although most people don't realize this, failed. As late as 1938 the American economy remained in recession. Meanwhile under the more orthodox monetary and fiscal disciplinary policy of Neville Chamberlain, the British economy had mostly recovered by 1934. Even allowing for the fact that many very bad problems still remained (Jarrow, Merthyr, Whitehaven, Glasgow) that's not a bad record and compares favourably with most other countries.
So I would say that whether Balls' heart is in it or not, he is absolutely the wrong choice to be shadow chancellor and he is surely one of the reasons why Labour are effectively losing the economic argument. At the same time, removing him either at this stage or immediately after the election would look like panic, and it's hard to imagine that ending well.
All in all, it's Ed Miliband's misfortune that he had to appoint him at all.
In the Con/LD situation, of course, there are one or two fundamental differences on policy that made this approach unfeasible
I spoke to my mother last night - lifelong Guardian reader, retired teacher, firm anti-Tory - and she surprised me last night when she said that she felt "sorry for Miliband, but he's been such a fool about so many things".
It's not going to happen, is it?
The advantage of ditching Balls now would be to run a very easy to understand anti-austerity platform, in the style of Syrizia. Effectice electorally, but cloud cuckoo land economically.
Penalising the group with the highest turnout in favour of people who don't vote. LOL
* I haven't read beyond the headline, but I assume that he is actually suggesting a restriction of higher rate pension relief. Which is not quite the same thing as the headline suggests...
2) That's plausible, but it should not be forgotten that the 45p rate raises more money than the 50p rate did
3) The NHS was in deep crisis before, and could not have continued as it did without more disasters like Mid Staffordshire. Putting Andy Burnham back in charge would be a seriously bad idea.
4) With regard to food banks, the majority were set up before 2010 or in development (I helped with this). The real story is not that they have grown but that they were badly needed before and the Blair government made it difficult to set them up.
5) Wages have struggled, but under Labour they were actually falling dramatically outside the public sector.
6) The whole idea of Syria was to put the Syria Democratic Alliance into power. With the failure of US/UK intervention, this has collapsed allowing the better funded IS to take over.
7) Yes, the deficit is still too high.
8) Good public sector ft jobs - I had one of these for a few months. I did no work. Is it sensible to pay people large sums of money for no reason? With regard to apprenticeships, it's always better in terms of career development to do something even for a low wage than nothing for a high sum, although I would like that hourly pay to be higher.
Taking over a recovering economy that had grown for four
quarters and flatlining it for two years
A recovery paid for by massive borrowing as a pre election boost. Try again.
Introducing a tax on Bedrooms causing suicides whilst cutting
the rate of tax for the richest people in the country
There is no bedroom tax. What there is, is an extension of a Labour party policy imposed on the private sector rental market. Tax is higher on the top 10 per cent now than at any time in the last parliament. Top rate of tax is 45% which is higher than all but the last few weeks of the previous parliament.
NHS in crisis thanks to unwanted and unelected reorganisation
plans as well as introducing a disastrous phone service staffed
by non medical people directing everyone who calls to A and E
The funding for the NHS was ring fenced over this parliament, Darling confirmed that Labour would cut funding
Record numbers of benefit sanctions, Record numbers at previously
unheard of Food Banks..both connected
Benefit sanctions are imposed on people who abuse the benefit system, don't abuse, dint get sanctioned. Food banks weren't unheard of in the last parliament, you just ignored them.
Wages behind inflation for over four years
Wages now rising faster than inflation, following years of dragging the economy back from the terrible state it was left in by the party who have never left office with unemployment lower than when they came into office.
Planning to help IS into power in Syria as part of "The Rebels'
only to be stopped by Miliband, Lucas, Galloway, the Nats, Irish
parties and a few sensible Tory rebels
Blatant lie
Deficit still high despite the years of failed austerity and
pointless cutting of vital services
Deficit lower than Darlings plans (what little he revealed of his plans)
Good public sector ft jobs replaced by zero hours and pt and
bogus self employment and 2-80 an hour "apprenticeships"
Non productive jobs stripped from the public sector and new private sector jobs created. Have you in all honesty noticed any changes in the services provided by your local council?
FDR did have success in getting the economy out of recession but did not achieve sustained growth because he was constantly battling against deflationary pressures with fiscal policies alone. Keynes tried to explain it to them but they didn't seem to get it until the monetary expansion required by WW2 made it obvious to everyone.
One of the more astonishing results from the recent batch of Scottish opinion polls is the revelation that Ed Miliband is actually less popular in Scotland than David Cameron. Survation's poll for the Daily Record suggested that 23% of Scots think David Cameron would make the best Prime Minister as opposed to 19% who favour the UK Labour leader.
This confirmed similar findings in the Lord Ashcroft constituency polls a fortnight ago. But looking at Scotland's political make up, where the Tories have been moribund for the last three decades, this is surely quite extraordinary. I'm at a loss to explain it myself. Can Scots really favour a privileged, Eton-educated Tory over Labour's state-educated son of a Marxist academic?
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/is-loser-eds-only-hope-the-snp.119013382
FDR did not achieve success because his policies didn't work. It probably didn't help that he was surrounded by a bunch of crooks who took large sums of money of the government and did nothing with them, but his proposals simply did not cut it because he was not sorting out the fundamental weakness of the US economy - an overproduction in agriculture.
To me, it feels a credible claim.
I'm persuaded that there is a real chance that EdM will try to make a change, although he may be forced out of that idea by the continual questions pre election. Just supposing there is a change though I wonder who actually is the least bad candidate? Rachel Reeves has her good points, but seems to flounder on economic issues (despite her background - echoing Balls). Burnham seems to me to always avoid the details, and nice guy though he appears to be I really don't think he's up to the job (a bit like Alan Johnson), so we finish up with Chuka I guess.
However it'd make more sense to ditch the main problem, EdM, and start again.
The latest poll today has Con 33(+1), Lab 34 (-1),LD 8(+1),UKIP 13(-2),GRN 6 (-1).
Small movements on the face of it.The remarkable thing is how little the polling has changed over the period since Mid October.The range of scores is CON 31-33(median 32),LAB 32-35(median 32),LD 6-8(median 7),UKIP 13-18 (median15),GRN 5-7,(median 6).
So is it possible to determine any trend?
In relation to the median Labour are currently +2,Cons+1,LD +1,UKIP -2,GRN unchanged.
UKIP are at their lowest level,Tories and LD at their highest level(And also on the You Gov Sun series.
I would conclude that we are beginning to see a slight deflation of the UKIP bubble a slight move forward for the becalmed Lib Dems, but little significant change in the relative positions of Lab and Con.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/labour-mp-austin-mitchell-even-if-we-selected-a-raving-alcoholic-sex-paedophile-we-wouldnt-lose-grimsby-10061754.html
http://cicerossongs.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/implosion-of-british-power.html
Check the hashtag #GE15 - the SNP completely own it.
Can you imagine how that sharp-faced slick salesman would go down with normal people?
But you really couldn't make it up.
Nice of Mitchell to give UKIP a boost in Grimsby though.
So it is still too early to tell whether the defining feature of the general election in Scotland will be a hard-headed examination of how to ditch the Tories, or a sense that 7 May is round two of the closely fought bout on 18 September. All will no doubt become clear in the next ten and a bit weeks.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/leaders-labour-or-snp-the-election-dilemma-1-3697951
On reflection, the final sentence may be optimistic.....
Scotland has something the rest of the UK doesn't - a credible leader on the centre-left. Not hard to see why Labour is getting mullered up there.
Mr. Pulpstar, there's a danger, I think, in over-reading how important Twitter is. Volume of tweets will not represent the overall population well.
That said, I still think the SNP will slaughter Labour.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/blair-mcdougtroll
Speaking personally:
1997 when John Major left office pension fund worth £100,000
1997-2010 under Gordon Brown pension fund worth £66,000
2010-2015 under George Osborne £140,000
So for me its no contest. Labour are thieving bastards who have already cheated my generation out of the comfortable retirement we were lectured about saving for by Blair and Brown. Last time they stole £125 billion from private pension funds. Thank goodness I can start drawing on my pension later this year. If Labour wins, others may not be so lucky.