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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Ashcroft polling on the leaders
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Ashcroft polling on the leaders
Overall, views of the three leaders have changed remarkably little over time. Asked to choose from a selection of words and phrases that might describe them, participants continue to choose “out of touch” for Cameron, with “stands up for Britain” as a positive counterbalance. Miliband remains predominantly “weak” and “out of his depth”, with no very prominent positives.
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Jawaharlal Nehru was a Congress party leader and prime minister for a number of years.
My MP, Gavin Barwell, might be party leader in 10 or 15 years' time if all goes well.
I discovered yesterday that they have something in common, apart from being politicians.
Politicians? Assholes by and large.
That sounds almost plaintive...
But thank you, and congratulations on keeping this fissaporous bunch more or less in check
As in putting down roots do you mean?
I just got around to watching Alex Jones's explosion on Sunday Politics. Quite amazing. I guess some in the US must quite like this sort of performance (and a performance it is), but I'm not so sure it works here in the UK.
For those who have not seen it: http://order-order.com/2013/06/09/watch-alex-jones-meltdown-on-daily-politics/
Andrew Neil showed himself to be the consummate professional in the way he handled this. Many so-called presenters would have simply panicked.
Handouts to the elderly WILL be included in the party’s new welfare spending cap, he revealed, insisting: “That’s our plan.”
This was because the soaring cost of pensions makes up the “large bulk” of the total £210billion social security tab, the Shadow Chancellor argued.
The explosive declaration is Labour’s biggest bid yet to win back shattered credibility on controlling the nation’s purse strings.
Mr Balls said: “It may be the Chancellor when it comes to his cap in a few weeks’ time will look at this and say he wants to exclude pensions spending.
“Personally, I think it’s important to look across the whole welfare state.”
The Tories leapt on the pledge, insisting Labour was planning to cut the new £144-a-week Basic State Pension.
Less than three hours later, Mr Balls sparked confusion when — despite his earlier bold declaration — he took to Twitter to insist Labour was committed to keeping the new pension rate after all.
According to aides, what he meant to cap was “overall spending on pensioners”, not pensions specifically.
But Mr Balls insisted it was still right to “monitor long-term pension spend”.
Tory Treasury Minister Sajid Javid said: “Now we know when Labour say they want to cut welfare, what they mean is cut the basic state pension.” A Tory spokesman added: “It’s about choices. We’ve cut billions from the welfare bill, all opposed by Labour, so that we can protect pensions.
“Balls is all over the place. No wonder he screwed up the economy so spectacularly in the first place.”
Mr Balls also insisted he was ready to stick to the Tories’ Government spending total if Labour wins in 2015.
He added: “I’ll have to be a Chancellor who says no.”
Meanwhile, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne said he and other Labour ministers should have cracked down on the soaring £12billion Incapacity Benefit bill when they had the chance.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4962158/Labour-Wed-cut-pensions.html#ixzz2VmurlTWO
The response by councils, police and prosecutors can be dramatically different depending on where victims live.
Some authorities, such as Rochdale, Gtr Manchester, and Rotherham, South Yorks, have been “inexcusably slow” to realise the threat, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee report found.
It also said there IS a trend of abuse by gangs of men of Pakistani heritage. Last month seven men from Oxford — mainly of Pakistani heritage — were convicted of child sexual exploitation offences.
Investigators must be able to raise concerns freely without fear of being labelled racist, the MPs say.
Committee chairman Keith Vaz — blasting “catastrophic failures” by protection agencies — said: “We were shocked to learn it is still happening, in every part of the country.”
Mr Vaz also calls for specialist child sexual exploitation courts and a ban on big pay-offs and pensions for bungling officials.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4962332/Sex-gangs-still-free-to-groom.html#ixzz2Vmvhl9Il
On other news: the young driver who I tipped in Ginetta Juniors at the end of last year has just made it eight wins out of eight races, on top of his comprehensive victory in the winter series.
The Ginetta Junior series is a same-make competition, which means driver skill and setup levels the playing field considerably and makes such dominance noteworthy. Watch out for him at Le Mans or in F1 in the future.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/alex/
I do like this "euro-nazi plot" idea. they play a long game, these nazis.
I would say he had to use hand gestures to make himself understood over that loud mouth.
Possibly, but Neil still handled it excellently don't you think?
And its back for another series in July - crikey. Aaron Sorkin really has lost the plot with this compared to WWing - at least that wasn't meant to be unbiased.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/406390/Canadian-bid-to-block-Kate-Middleton-s-daughter-becoming-Queen
This is billed on the front page as "NEW BID TO STOP KATE'S BABY GIRL BEING QUEEN". I suppose the clue that all might not be as it seems was in the fact that they preferred to lead with a story about pensions.
(Identifies today's tinfoil hat).
I think we just aren't generally used to this sort of stuff over here so find it very difficult to understand the style. A much more acceptable version is Jesse Ventura - he sounds really very sensible most of the time. That he was a Governor just shows how different things are over there.
Get the fruitcake on, wind him up, watch him go and then act exasperated and look reassuringly reasonable when he does precisely what you wanted. Though Neil's rather manic hand gesturing and repeated "shut up"s sort of spoiled that effect just a touch. Next to a babbling swivel-eyed loon like Jones it should be a piece of cake to look good. You let him hang himself as he needs no help or encouraging. If the likes of Piers Morgan can do it, anyone can.
Anyone dumb enough to take Alex Jones remotely seriously probably believes that Bliderberg group is run by sinister immigrant cats. ;^ )
Does anyone else?
Anyone out there who thinks their internet activity isn't being monitored in some way is naive.
TSE has been a shining star while OGH has been on his hols. Eagles he owes you a crate of beer.
"The 'Diana to raise Houseprices' writer must be on holiday "
Thank you for brightening my day with a very amusing comment.
Meanwhile if anyone's up for overthrowing the State -
https://network23.org/stopg8/files/2013/05/citymap_g8_webposter.jpg
some bolted on classics in there - I am struggling to believe it's not a parody.
Who cared ?
If you pay nothing then don't act surprised if comical incompetence soon follows.
The purpose of our GCHQ and other spooks is surely to monitor communications and thereby threats to our country and way of life.
I expect them to monitor internet communications and also to penetrate suspicious organisations covertly, at home or abroad. It is what we pay them for! Admissability in court is a different matter.
James Bond would be a very dull series if the character was prevented from entering premeses without a warrent, listening covertly to communications and occassionally getting rough with people.
Me, I think the state is a very mixed bag and deserves huge scrutiny and frankly outright suspicion. I demand value for money and I do not defer to or give unblinking respect to those in positions of state authority.
We must not let the state fall easily into a position of too much security / too much control / too much access to our lives all in the cause of 'security'. Sod 'em. If the price of liberty is a casualty rate from failed intelligence that is a tiny percentage of our road deaths then I'm OK with that.
Remember - THE STATE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.
I'm only across bits of the story - some of it seems to be 'well they would, wouldn't they' and the rest is rather disturbing re its scale/reach and the deliberate side-stepping of supposed laws to protect individuals.
That its sucked in so many big names must be causing a headache - particularly for those who see *trust* as an important brand value. Google lost theirs a long time ago - Apple and Verizon must be squirming.
I recall several years ago, reports of a building in NI that had no windows and was an intercept station re domestic terrorism. I've no idea if it was true but seemed plausible. BBC Monitoring at Caversham does more than most people realise - though the day they caught Asprilla saying he wasn't returning to NUFC, on a local radio station in the backend of nowhere was rather amusing.
" What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about. "
(I wish that was an original comment, but BenF got there before me)
On topic, I do think that the general contempt for politicians is partly media-driven and doesn't generally survive direct contact with the public: every MP is familiar with numerous constituents who tell them that they do a good job and it must be awful to work with all those other sleazebags.
Obviously politicians who fiddle expenses and the like are to blame as well, but the effect of the relentless hostility of most of the media is to breed politicians who remain robotically self-controlled and never say anything interesting, express doubt, admit error or change their minds. Our press is very good at exposing wrong-doing, but also very bad at giving a fair hearing to anything except their own agendas.
It's specific to Britain. I'm familiar with the press across Western Europe and the US, and while every country has its Daily Mail/Sun equivalents, they aren't dominant, and a serious argument gets a hearing.
However, that is not the problem. Whilst good cases can be made for gathering such information, the use of that information needs to be carefully controlled.
The potential for misuse is massive. Heck, we jail people for misuse of the DVLA database, and yet a massively more intrusive database does not seem to have oversight.
And such information, if it exists, will get misused. And that is where my concerns lie.
The Right is a bit like the dislikeable snotty kid on the school playground that whines that they won't be told what to do until they eventually end up eating the dog poo on a stick despite all the warnings and end up vomiting everywhere, usually over everyone else.
I view the state rather like a chisel or a hammer. A functional tool that is very useful to call upon when the job requires (like state kicking off spending in a slump, or providing universal services like policing, fire and rescue, health coverage or education). Most of the time it sits in the box and I don't care for it. But I'm glad its there when its needed.
No fluffy bunnies here.
My view remains that far more people have been killed, tortured or imprisoned by their own government, than by foreign governments. And, statistically, terrorism rates barely a blip, compared to the ability of your own government to inconvenience you.
My opposition to ID cards stems from my belief that it is the government's job to identify itself to the citizenry, rather than the other way around.
Assuming that your friends will be in power is remarkably naive in my view - hence the fuss about the likes of Levenson restricting press freedoms. There are lots of things I don't like about press conduct, but I'd rather keeps the flaws with the freedoms than lose both.
Joe Armitage @Joe_Armitage
DVLA banned 294 local authorities from their database for abuse: m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…. Yet we're meant to trust the state with our emails.
Why should the state care more about a terrorist death than a road death?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3UfxyIdgs
Superb editing by someone who knows their early Star Trek just a little too well....
Have you seen Behind the Candelabra? I've heard its very good.
Governments start taking monitoring powers to supervise terrorists and within a decade use them brazenly for local authorities to investigate the selling of alcohol and tobacco to minors (to give just one example).
But I thought the data that was being collected was not the contents of emails, but subsidiary information, for instance the sender/recipient info and websites visited?
Dangerous, but not quite as dangerous as the contents.
(If they are collecting the data, we ought to overwhelm them by piping the data from the Square Kiloemetre Array telescope into their system when it gets up and running. http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2013/03/the-square-kilometer-array-the-world’s-ultimate-big-data-challenge.html
We don't need Lloyds or RBS to be hived off to the self same private sector that broke them just to please the Tory election timetable. They're both not ready (and RBS should be nationalised full stop) so give it up Osborne.
I've just picked up the cliff-notes and it seems to be the same story that blew up about 5yrs ago and didn't really get anywhere. TBH, if I was a whistleblower - I'd really wonder how to best avoid being snooped on given the prevalence of CCTV, ANPR et al.
Perhaps the only thing that saves most of us - even with evil intents - is the vastness of the data, the degree of difficulty in trying to piece actions together in advance and the limited resources on hand to do the job.
Being a smart lone-wolf would be very hard to intercept in advance.
Sure; i respect patient confidelity; though this is not absolute. If example a patient admitted to me an intention to carry out a serious crime then this is potentially over ridden by duty to society.
It is beside the point though. GCHQ does not provide medical services. It is for spying.
I feel that I've let you all down by not doing a single thread about electoral reform or electoral voting systems during this stint as editor.
But the good news, Mike's asked me to do my night hawks on a regular basis going forward.
So that means you're going to get your fix of very subtle pop music references in night hawks on a regular basis starting next month.
The state is not your friend: It exists to purpetuate it's own existence. I'd rather a hundred terrorists were free to roam my country then to be held as a potential criminal myself (as Sven would love to do)....
During his election campaign in 2008 Barack Obama promised to listen to all Americans when he became President.
He's living up to his promise.
The BOS Labour selection result by AV...
Round 1: Goyal 84 Coyle 60 Livingstone 38 Edwards 29 Cryan 11
Round 2: Goyal 85 Coyle 65 Livingstone 42 Edwards 29
Round 3: Goyal 86 Coyle 75 Livingstone 58
Round 4: Coyle 104 Goyal 103
If the state was impartial then why have they suppressed a "suicide" in some wood from a few years back? Could it be that the state does not treat all murders deaths equally...?
Must do better next time...!
Do we now assume that TSE will be experiencing the early symptoms of alopecia that are known to be associated with those who run PB.com?
:facepalm:
Back to the advanced hair studio for me soon.
We need to be told which way IOS voted! I must say I'm quite surprised by that voting pattern. It will be a constituency to watch but Simon will at least defy IOS' prediction by getting to the starting line.
David Cameron to reinforce importance of Britain's EU membership
PM to join forces with Kenneth Clarke prior to G8 summit to argue EU membership guarantees Britain a seat at the 'top table'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jun/10/david-cameron-ken-clarke-eu-membership
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/06/08/is-this-proof-the-virgin-queen-was-an-imposter-in-drag/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22833136
A quick look at the group's membership shows it's overwhelmingly lefty:
http://www.appgmigration.org.uk/members
Seriously, is there no restriction on immigration that lefties won't oppose? The primary purpose rule is "racist". Removing sponsorship rights from universities abusing the rules "causes uncertainty". Clamping down on dodgy Further Education colleges "removes a source of revenue". And now, making sure that people who come to the UK won't end up on the public teat is "anti-family". It's almost like they just instinctively want to bring in as many people as possible. I'm sure that's entirely unrelated to the fact immigrants tend to vote for left-wing parties.
I find it particularly distasteful they use individual cases as if they're generic to pull on the heart strings. I'm sorry, but if you have a child with someone before you've sorted out their immigration status, it's pretty irresponsible, and it's not the government's duty to make it ok. Let's also be honest that many of the non-EEA spouses of low earners will be arranged marriages. I don't see such people particularly losing out if they have to find a wife from the UK.
And dying in a wood and the details being suppressed for many decades just makes most of us wonder why.
It would never have been published under Beaverbrook!
Your nighthawks is especially appreciated (with its links) for those of us who are office bound but do not have enough time in the day to follow PB and the rest of the political news.
in a crisis the former.
any other time:
the former.
EDIT for anyone interested - The Killing is back on.
What a massive conflict of interest... it's becoming clear just how biased the whole report is. Yet the BBC treat it like some neutral body, when they clearly have an agenda.
Same with the Cultists: Don't fear them. I will continue to drink the finest alcohol (Domelsch and - alternatively - Scrumpy-Jack), cook some wonderful pork meals and, even, talk to those who are 'out and proud'. Deranged folk screaming "Jihad" and such-like deserve our sympathy (and a cut in benefits): Internment is not the answer to such nonsense....
France is in the EU last time I looked.
Eureka - yes for the first few series then it got silly
Supernatural - yes for about 4 series then I lost the plot :-)
Warehouse 13 - yes but like you I felt it was rubbish after the first couple of series.
Fringe - no, what's it about?
Continuum - is that a Stargate spin off?
How about Alphas, not a bad retake on X men, Heroes mutant X etc.