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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf on the exit of David Miliband + latest South Shields betting
After a morning with a lot of betting moves the William Hill 1/20 is the best South Shields price for LAB. bit.ly/u6wr8r
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I've been too busy to follow all the ramifications of David Milliband's departure. It reminds me of Bryan Gould's exit in the 1990s. Perhaps there simply comes a point when politics no longer has an appeal. That may seem inconceivable to those on here who feel the need to comment on every nuance and shift in the political world (and who probably have never been involved in active politics) but ultimately it's a career with all the rewards and frustrations thereof.
It's hard to see beyond a Labour win and I note the strong BNP performance in 2010 suggesting there's a vote there for someone. UKIP ? Possibly but it's the kind of place where a well-known local running as an Independent might do well.
On the County Council elections, it will be fascinating to see the runners and riders when the entries are announced in a couple of weeks. In a county like Surrey, I will be fascinated to see if UKIP are able to put up candidates in all 81 divisions and whether the Lib Dems will fight more than half the seats. At the moment, I'm glad I've stepped back from frontline political activity - the idea of going out and knocking on doors in this weather is far from appealing. I have known spring elections with the weather glorious and going out on evenings like that can be a real pleasure. People want to talk and are usually more affable even if you know they're not going to support you.
You are quite right that the article by Edward Sciucluna is well written.
What is even more remarkable is that Sciucluna is a member of the recent election winning Maltese Labour Party. The lessons he draws from his experience of the EU "bullying of Cyprus" are most unusual for a Leftie:
The feeling one got on exiting the meeting in the early hours of the day was that never in one’s life would one like to dream the experience let alone live it. That is indeed salutary to any finance minister who needs to be reminded that any fiscal slippage in the country’s public finances is done at a great risk to the country’s economic welfare.
I would put Sciucluna's wisdom down to his education at Oxford University had Ed Balls and Ed Milband not existed as a standing refutation of my line of argument.
Maybe he studied at Magdalen or Brasenose rather than Corpus Christi or Keble?
Further, CC in 1993 included within them the more Labourite larger cities. Lots of these have now been hived off, which should limit the Tory losses compared to 1993.
So he's endorsing Berlusconi then? Shocking twist!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21953896
@JamesKelly should love this ;-)
South Shields
Labour 48%
UKIP 33%
Con 6%
BNP 2%
LD 2%
others 9%
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66529000/gif/_66529019_rising_costs2_1948-2012_624.gif
1/4 oz gold krugerrands and Bitcoin transactions it is then...
(Only kidding, I know SPA is going up for women.)
Thanks Sam.
Looks fairly plausible - probably a bit light on Labour and heavy on UKIP, but wouldn't surprise me if that were the result.
"[Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson] says he reckons even organised criminals would be nice to him."
That said, in the last Fast and Furious movie he was so beefy, even for a former wrestler, that his muscles could be seen from space. As the old joke goes, he was not merely beefy, he contained entire herds.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/21923444
Would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact they should get largest party after the next election.
Paging Gordon Brown
I'm surprised by your reaction. It was obviously forcibly expressed, but the guy was voicing mainstream opinion. I'm not sure I approve of heckling on the whole, but it can't be an entirely bad thing if London Tories are occasionally forced to face the views of the people they are lording it over on a quasi-colonial basis.
Why vote for someone offering hope or change or a fairer system when you can vote for the Labour party up there.
*I've been on zillions of rugby tours with our club. The southern parts of Edinburgh is not a place any of us have ever gone back to. And we are from the - supposedly - poverty-stricken valleys.
What an absolute shithole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_North_and_Leith_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
That would help my Tories < 10% bet. I will seek out his email address and encourage him to stand
I have replied to your calumnious allegation that I misled or intended to mislead PB on the previous thread as you didn't bring forward your reply to my original post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrCki4Cmzw
Hmmm. Maybe, but that's what they said would happen after devolution as well.
Things are sometimes so bad that vicious hatred is needed, but party political decisions and their consequences do so pretty rarely. Not never. But rarely
Non-colonial regimes are not generally noted for imposing right-wing welfare policies on a people that wants to control welfare for itself (as demonstrated by the recent YouGov poll).
I remember thinking, 'and people think Merthyr is bad'. It was on a whole different level.
For IDS to ever gain any traction in places like that would take an absolute miracle. Some of the people I saw there weren't just out of work, they were incapable of working.
I still enjoyed myself though.
So only right-wing parties can manage the economy? That's why every democratic independent country on the planet has a right-wing government, is it?
Moving on...
Thank Christ. If it takes smack-heads and doorless homes (that trusty Union Dividend again!) to spot that the coalition's welfare policies are inhuman, then bring on the smack-heads.
'Poor Willie- still peeved at only getting 233 votes in 2010?'
Seems that 'rent-a-gob' was determined to make a bigger tit of himself than in 2010.
Then it would probably be a good thing if those governments stopped behaving in such a quasi-colonial manner - and as supporters of the principle of "subsidiarity" I would expect most PB Eurosceptics to agree with me.
Colonialism is one of those words which has pretty much lost all meaning. And that's not a Scotland thing, but in general.
No but - The snp/labour won't be able to fall on they old get out of jail card(blame the tories) if big cuts come or the economy turns downward.
Independant scotland,I'm all for it,bring it on.
http://www.globaldashboard.org/2013/03/27/why-would-david-miliband-be-leaving-for-new-york/
On the other hand they might actually run Scotland's economy far better than London Tories.
Just a thought...
Just to note that comments from late 2010 are still on the system and can easily be viewed.
Just as well the Pentland Firth's status as the Saudi Arabia of marine renewable potential is permanent, then. In the meantime, another four decades of oil and gas will keep things ticking over.
Come on now, that's a pretty low bar to be setting your future success by.
And announcing the date of the referendum the same day as Euro-bit player Cyprus is crashing and burning because of its banking sector...pure genius.
See Guido for details.
Can you point me to a single opinion poll from that period pointing to support for a Home Counties parliament with the power to set tax rates?
I suspect you can't.
The Tories are in a coalition with the LibDems. This is as the result of an election which took place with the full consent of the Scottish people, who all had the chance to vote in it, in the same way that all general elections have taken place in Scotland since the introduction of universal suffrage. Of those that did vote, 35% voted either LibDem or Tory. In 2014, the Scots will get a referendum on dissolving the Union their Parliament entered into voluntarily in 1707, having indicated in their devolved eleciton of 2011 (held after the general election) that they would like one. If they vote for independence that is what they get. Until that point they are a constituent part of the UK, having never been forced at any stage to be one. There is absolutely nothing colonial, quasi or otherwise, about Scotland's current status. Scotland has two parties in power in Westminster that Scotland did not vote for. Just as England had a party in power there from 2005 to 2010 that it did not vote for.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
If you want to imagine the performance of the economy of Scotland post independence - see the football team. No Westminster interference for the Sfa - just poor raw materials, no vision and no answers.
Mr. Putney, I missed your reply to my on the last thread, so apologies for my tardy response.
I read that Bottas actually suffered some sort of early problem (bad start, high graining, rubbish pit stop or suchlike) and was dead last at the end of the first few laps. Given he almost scored from there I think the demise of Williams is not close at hand.
In addition, the car last year was very good. The team massively underperformed because Maldonado's erratic and malicious, and Senna was simply too slow.
If scotland went independant,I've always wondered,wouldn't a English government have some stake in the north sea oil fields,all wouldn't just turn 100% scottish ,would it ?
I'm sorry, SO, but that's a load of drivel. I'll tell you what's nasty - voting against the Tories in overwhelming numbers (one member of parliament out of 59) and still getting a Tory government doing evil things to the most vulnerable in our society. And then seeing good people like you act as apologists for such quasi-colonial rule.
Roll on September 2014.
"Just as England had a party in power there from 2005 to 2010 that it did not vote for."
What does that mean? England returned a clear majority of Labour MPs in 2005. If you're saying that the voting system didn't properly reflect the people's votes, that's the case in literally every general election.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/03/who-points-the-finger/
Perhaps that first workless generation can point their fingers at the closure of the mines and the demise of manufacturing, citing depression as their reason not to work. But we are about three generations in now, and still a huge cycle of worklessness in these areas. Why are they blaming the Tories? Is it still their fault? Or are they sheltering in the comfort of their prejudices? Blaming the Tory bogeyman. The answer can be spotted in the bile of that shouty guy; the Tories only have one MP in Scotland. So why blame them?
IDS is trying to change things (he will face mega-resistance, and will need to be brave and resolute, I accept that) and I commend him for it. The easier thing in the world would be to pay these poor people their benefits forever and forget about them - see the career of Gordon Brown. IDS, through a policy of making earning more via a job an incentive over earning less via no job, is taking the challenge on.
And it's one of the biggest challenges facing our country.
This is a subject close to my heart, because I know how embedded and pervasive the culture of benefit-addiction is - I live very near areas where its taken hold. That horrible, fleeting thought of having to get a job to end the pain of relative poverty can be easily drowned out by a few prescription valiums or eight lagers. And are we happy with that, really? Should we really leave these poor people to it for fear of being seen as evil oppressors of the hopeless? These areas of worklessness and benefit-addiction are synonymous with depression and lack of hope, a poverty of the soul. I think it is our duty as fellow citizens to help them, not condemn them. IDS understands that. And he understands there'll be no gain without pain. The hard bit will be conveying that to those who will be affected.
Just like the anomaly of why dirt-poor people in America vote Republican (when Republicans couldn't give a monkeys toss about them) it remains an absolute mystery to me why the dirt-poor in the UK are programmed to vote for a Labour party who have never has plan or prospects for them other than to keep supplying endless benefits. Like the valium, the temporary comfort of a few quid for fags temporarily takes the problem away. I would've thought a vote for hope would trump a vote for endless depression every time, but no, Labour are still winning here.
It just goes to show how sad and misguided many in these areas are.
Next up, South Shields. More of the same please: a lifetime of depression and misery and nothing but a searing lack of hope.
Well, quite.
Not to mention the fact that the government of the 'colonial' power has been stuffed full of Scottish politicians, including recently two Prime Ministers, two Chancellors, a whole string of Defence Ministers who put in place the Trident system which James K gets so indignant about, and so on.
This hate-filled, grievance-driven irrationality is very odd and not very pleasant. One does have to keep reminding oneself that not all Scots are like James.
London would have a 100% stake in oil fields located in English waters, and a 0% stake in oil fields located in Scottish waters. It's a remarkably simple principle, but a constant source of befuddlement for the London media all the same.
Luckily for the Yes campaign, though, most Tories are like Richard.
Note for non-cretins - there has only been one Scottish Prime Minister since Douglas-Home, and his name was Gordon Brown. Tony Blair was not only English, he self-identified as English.
No, evidently what we should do is the IDS approach, ie. take their benefits away and leave them to starve. Prosperity for all! Yay!
Scotland is a constituent part of the UK by choice. Should Scotland decide to dissolve the Union its Parliament agreed to, then that will happen. There is nothing remotely colonial, quasi or otherwise, about that.
To talk of colonialism feeds into a narrative of suppressed rights and occupation inflicted on Scotland by an alien force. Is that what civic nationalists really think? And if they do, how does that make them any different to xenophobic, right wing nationalists?
Scotland is not oppressed. Scotland is not occupied. Scotland has full control over its future. Thus, Scotland is not a colony, quasi or otherwise.
As to Marf’s allegorical inference then probably yes!
Er, probably because they run the country in spite of having only one MP here? That, for the avoidance of doubt, is the meaning of the term "quasi-colonial".
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/03/should-the-united-kingdom-become-an-independent-country/
When we get our EU referendum, it would be a travesty if the question is placed in the context of what we are leaving rather than what we are gaining, after this Scottish precedent.
The cure worked but the patient died, is that not how it goes? When even the FT today is picking up on a lot of anti euro sentiment in Cyprus you do wonder how long this can last.
Vested interests in the euro debate such as the UKIPgraph will be stirring this up furiously. I somehow doubt that the UKIPgraph has a large readership in SS but such distressing coverage will bleed even on to the BBC and C4. Will it make a difference in the by election? It just might depend on how bad it gets.
Certainly it is not a bad environment for UKIP and neither is the idiotic decisions of the European Parliament about the budget.
So who did you blame when Labour were in power and when you had a Scottish PM (G.Brown)?
No it is not. September 2014 will represent the first occasion that the people of Scotland have EVER been directly consulted on whether they wish to be a constituent part of the UK.
"To talk of colonialism feeds into a narrative of suppressed rights and occupation inflicted on Scotland by an alien force. Is that what civic nationalists really think? And if they do, how does that make them any different to xenophobic, right wing nationalists?"
Are you seriously saying that all anti-colonial movements constitute "xenophobic, right wing nationalism"? This isn't an argument with legs, I fear.
Just you keep remembering that Richard.
James Kelly will quite properly point out that the proper comparison should be with Scotland's Womens Curling Team.
On this basis we can confidently predict that Nicola Sturgeon will replace Alec Salmond as First Minister of Scotland following the independence referendum on 19th September 2014.
" Ed Miliband will have been troubled by the news of his brother David’s resignation. Not because he cares about him, but because it was yet more evidence that even top broadcasters still don’t know which Miliband is which.
On Twitter, both BBC Radio 5 Live and LBC announced that Ed Miliband was quitting politics. For future reference: telling the Milibands apart is just like telling Ant & Dec apart. Ed’s always the one on the left.
From those confident they knew the difference, tributes gushed in. Almost everyone in public life seemed to have a view. “One of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time,” declared Bill Clinton. “One of the most capable progressive thinkers and leaders globally,” announced Tony Blair. “A big loss for the Labour party,” said Max Clifford. “A parliamentary heavyweight,” said Justin Bieber. “British politics will seem that bit smaller,” said Pudsey the performing dog...
Many of these admirers – known as “Dave-otees”, to distinguish them from their rival fans, the “Ed-cases” – wore T-shirts emblazoned with inspiring quotations from their hero’s speeches.
“We Need to Use Public Sector Power as a Coherent Driver of the Private Sector Investment Equation,” read one T-shirt. “Imagine That We Didn’t Just Preach Subsidiarity in the Distribution of Power in Europe But Actually Practised It at Home,” read another. " http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9957311/Sketch-David-Miliband-a-nation-mourns.html
Again, can you point me to an opinion poll showing that Provence wants a parliament with the kind of sweeping powers that the recent YouGov poll shows that Scotland wants?
Luckily some very close friends of mine are Scots, and I can dance a Reel of the 51st with the best of them!
Oh please just vote for independence so we can stoip listening to whinging scots like yourself going on about colonialism and how its NOT FAIR -basically sod off and do your own thing and STOP WHINGING
You're telling me.
"Luckily some very close friends of mine are Scots"
Are any from the non-Tory majority, Richard?
The Scots have had the opportunity to vote for independence over the course of many years. And as soon as the SNP got a majority in the Scottish Parliament, the Scots got the chance to have a referendum. They could have voted for one previously, they chose not to. Just as they could have voted SNP in countless general elections, but chose not.
No, I am not saying that all anti-colonial movements are about "xenophobic, right wing nationalism". I am saying 1. that Scotland is not a colony, quasi or otherwise, so the independence movement in Scotland cannot be considered an anti-colonial one (except inasmuch as it opposes colonialism in parts of the world where it does actually exist) and 2. that xenophobic, right-wing nationalism thrives on making ill-founded claims about oppressive outside forces denying a people its legitimate rights.
The reactionary voice of the ages - outrage at evildoings by right-wing governments constitutes "whinging".
I love this bit from the Scottish Country Dancing Society website:
"Captured, together with the vast majority of the British 51st (Highland) Division while defending the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940, Atkinson spent the rest of the war as a POW in Germany. His idea of a reel with a St Andrews cross in its key formation was intended to symbolise Scotland, and the Highland Division, in adversity.
Atkinson's letter home with instructions for the dance was intercepted by the German security service, the Abwehr, who spent the rest of the war trying to break the code! However, another version of the dance reached Scotland where it was published while Atkinson was still a POW and became instantly popular."
My grandfather was in the 51st and came home from Dunkirk with 1 trouser leg, the other having been blown off without injuring his leg, something I have never understood.
As Richard says, I have to continuously remind myself that you are an abnormal Scotsman. Most are reasonable, loyal Britons. If most were like you I'd be demanding a vote on Scottish independence myself so I could formally vote to tell you to sod off.
Incidentally, in the extremely unlikely chance Scotland does vote for independence, I think it should be an utter imperative that we promise never to give you any financial aid in any future crisis.
I support you , you should be grateful , I just want Scotland to leave because I cannot stand whinging about its all England's fault and all that overhyped rubbish about colonialism -just vote yes and GO!! (take your rotten to the core banks with you as well)
Reality of the claim
Given that Scotland is not a sovereign state, it has no effective maritime boundaries; and any claims Scotland may assert are subsumed as part of claims made by the United Kingdom. It could be argued that there is no definitive 'Scottish' sector of the North Sea in the same way there is a Norwegian sector or a Danish sector, or indeed a UK sector. However due to the existence of two separate legal systems in Great Britain — that of Scots law pertaining to Scotland and English law pertaining to England and Wales, constitutional law in the United Kingdom has provided for the division of the UK sector of the North Sea into specific Scottish and English components.[5] The Continental Shelf Act 1964 and the Continental Shelf (Jurisdiction) Order 1968 defines the UK North Sea maritime area to the north of latitude 55 degrees north as being under the jurisdiction of Scots law[6] meaning that 90% of the UK's oil resources were under Scottish jurisdiction
If independance comes,scots law vs scotland had no maritime boundaries(uk)
scotlands navy vs English navy to sort it out ;-)
A South Shields by-election on May 2 might be tricky. Writ needs to be moved 3 weeks before and you can't do that during MPs' Easter hols.
Commons back 15 April - earliest possible date 9th May......(and State Opening on the 8th...)
....I expect Miliband Sr thought about his timing very carefully.....
RT @jason_manc: ONS just tweeted that it takes 3 years to fully know GDP. Long time considering implications of "dbl/triple dip" by fractions of a percent!