Patrick Wintour @patrickwintour · 58s59 seconds ago Labour will protect the principle of media plurality so that no media outlet can get too big Sent from my iPhone specially for you
Presumably this does not include the BBC though.
Is it any wonder the BBC resides up Labour's arse?
Harry Cole @MrHarryCole · 15m 15 minutes ago Labour's war on drivers continues. Funding train freeze for year by binning much needed A27 and A358 upgrades.
Patrick Wintour @patrickwintour · 58s59 seconds ago Labour will protect the principle of media plurality so that no media outlet can get too big Sent from my iPhone specially for you
Presumably this does not include the BBC though.
Is it any wonder the BBC resides up Labour's arse?
That's not just a lefty thing by the way, their head is even further up Labour's arse than normal in Scotland.
@Antifrank - I know it's very rude to ask, but how many noughts are you looking at if all your SNP eggs come home to roost?
You are about to become a PB legend!!!
If all my SNP eggs come home to roost, I don't think I'll make as much money as Calum, but it should be in five figures.
I keep wondering whether I should start hedging, but I've yet to see anything that makes me feel that I should. The odds on the SNP all over the place still look good to me.
I agree. I can't see a reason for voting Labour in Scotland.
I was speaking to a family member in Scotland over the weekend on this subject. Life long labour voter, came from a working class, union background in the ayrshire mining villages.
I jokingly suggested that they'd be voting for Ed, I was stunned at the response, it was angry loathing, hatred even. Said they'd never vote for Labour as long as they lived, said there wasn't a single working class person in the labour party.
Real anger behind it, it was the same tone of voice they used 30 years ago to speak about Thatcher.
All doubt about the death of the Scottish labour party has been removed for me; there's no recovery or redemption for them. Wouldn't shock me to see them
Yep, Labour will need a lot of time to rebuild in Scotland and/or an SNP government in Edinburgh that spends money that it raises and cannot deflect blame elsewhere. At some stage, though, the SNP has a call to make: it is a party whose first principal is separation, or is it one that seeks to govern above all else? Scotland will move into its post post-referendum stage, but probably not until after the Holyrood vote next year.
@Antifrank - I know it's very rude to ask, but how many noughts are you looking at if all your SNP eggs come home to roost?
You are about to become a PB legend!!!
If all my SNP eggs come home to roost, I don't think I'll make as much money as Calum, but it should be in five figures.
I keep wondering whether I should start hedging, but I've yet to see anything that makes me feel that I should. The odds on the SNP all over the place still look good to me.
I agree. I can't see a reason for voting Labour in Scotland.
I was speaking to a family member in Scotland over the weekend on this subject. Life long labour voter, came from a working class, union background in the ayrshire mining villages.
I jokingly suggested that they'd be voting for Ed, I was stunned at the response, it was angry loathing, hatred even. Said they'd never vote for Labour as long as they lived, said there wasn't a single working class person in the labour party.
Real anger behind it, it was the same tone of voice they used 30 years ago to speak about Thatcher.
All doubt about the death of the Scottish labour party has been removed for me; there's no recovery or redemption for them. Wouldn't shock me to see them <20% on election day.</p>
It's a warning shot, or rather a warning execution to Labour Wales and Labour England. The betrayal of the working class has taken 20 years to filter into the consciousness properly, the Scots are, as often, ahead of the game, as they were with the decline of Toryism. You'll do well to find anything that is not SNP after Mays election that isn't peripheral (borders and Northern Islands) or urban (handful maybe in the Forth-Clyde cities)
Our four million pound turnover company that employs over 20 people and that has been built from scratch since 2003 will not be leaving no matter who wins next month. Good luck to Financier and others, though, in their never-ending quest to find the lowest taxes and least regulation.
Given your previous words on how you would not vote Labour if Balls was involved (as a result of your disgust at the McBride scandal), how do you explain your increasingly shrill support for Labour?
And are you really sure that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls understands enough about business to create an environment under which your business will continue to prosper?
(And 'OK' is not an answer).
I disagree with your fundamental premise. I am not a Labour shrill. My vote is not for Labour, but against the Tories, with whom I have a fundamental philosophical difference. In my constituency to get rid of the Tory MP you vote Labour. I do it with the belief that Labour will not form the next government, but that every vote is vital to prevent a de facto Tory majority that will take this country down a path that I don't want it to follow. FPTP forces these choices. I don't think any government will make much difference to our business. We are UK based and are committed to the UK but operate globally, mostly outside the UK and the decisions we make will determine how we fare. We began and thrived under the last Labour government and have continued to do well under the Coalition.
I said you were being 'shrill', not that you were a 'shill'. There's an important difference which I think you know, despite your mangled sentence.
There are plenty of other choices. You said you would not vote for Labour in this situation, and now you will, and your only excuse is hatred.
OK.
Exactly what I expected you to say. ;-)
Given that you are not interested in engagement but only in telling me how venal and dreadful I am, what other response is there? It's boring. Let's just accept I am deeply unpleasant, hypocritical and vile, and both move on.
Harry Cole @MrHarryCole · 15m 15 minutes ago Labour's war on drivers continues. Funding train freeze for year by binning much needed A27 and A358 upgrades.
How many constituencies are Labour likely to win in the A27 and A358 corridors?
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
"THE Scottish private sector economy went back into reverse in March as the services sector contracted for the second time in three months, a key survey has revealed."
"The Bank of Scotland PMI (purchasing managers' index) , which measures the month-on-month change in combined manufacturing and services output north of the Border, fell from 50.2 in February to 49.4 in March on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
The corresponding March PMI for the UK as a whole is 58.8."
"Mr MacRae last month cited the impact of the recent reduction in the drink-drive limit in Scotland as a key factor in the stagnation of the economy north of the Border during the three months to February."*
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
I am still sticking to 38 LD seats
My switching model is currently showing 33 LD seats, including 3 in Scotland.
Con 255 Lab 284 including 2 in Scotland (Renfrew and Glasgow NE) UKIP 2 Grn 1 SNP 54
=596 so what about the other 36 (excluding NI)..
33 LD and 3 PC
I've got it 275 Labour to 269 Tory with 2 greens and 27 Lib Dems, SNP PC and UKIP the same
@lucymanning: Ed Miliband says he stands here as son of immigrants deeply grateful & love for country gave us. Lab poster in hall http://t.co/Yqw5clKiaW
I'm coming to feel that it would make more sense to have CGT on the value added to all houses, whether primary residences or not, at the time of sale.
I think this would just be a recipe for bringing the whole housing market to a crashing stop in a way stamp duty already has.
Around where I live, there are a couple of decent primary schools, but secondary provision is pretty poor. So your kids typically live near their primary and their schoolmates but it all changes when they hit 11, at which point they, or you and they, are looking at a substantial commute to a school some distance away.
The obvious thing to do is move nearer the new school, without trading up or down in size. But it's basically impossible because of stamp duty. A 3.5-bed semi around here was £650k in 2006 but is £1.3 million today. To sell that and buy another house for £1.3 million five miles away is going to cost you £73,750 in stamp duty alone. Chuck in the cost of the sale, conveyancing, moving etc and it is going to knock a big hole in £150,000. For that kind of money, you can instead just about send two kids to a private school from age 11. So that's what people do, with a predictable effect on house supply and price that makes the economics of not selling even more sensible.
Adding CGT to that bill would produce the same result - you're so heavily penalised for moving that you just don't.
But it does come back to my fundamental belief that the world is screwed, thanks to the entrenched system of "free markets", globalisation, free movement and free movement of capital that enable, if not encourage, the privileged to do selfish acts at the expense of others.
The "privileged" as you put it are entitled to consideration and some sort of social contract too. If your attitude to them is that the rich bastards deserve to be screwed, over and over and over again, then ask yourself why they should stay here to be expropriated by people who hate and envy them. Why would they not move to Hong Kong or Dubai? - especially if they are selling an intellectual product that they can sell from anywhere?
Our four million pound turnover company that employs over 20 people and that has been built from scratch since 2003 will not be leaving no matter who wins next month. Good luck to Financier and others, though, in their never-ending quest to find the lowest taxes and least regulation.
Given your previous words on how you would not vote Labour if Balls was involved (as a result of your disgust at the McBride scandal), how do you explain your increasingly shrill support for Labour?
And are you really sure that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls understands enough about business to create an environment under which your business will continue to prosper?
(And 'OK' is not an answer).
I disagree with your fundamental premise. I am not a Labour shrill. My vote is not for Labour, but against the Tories, with whom I have a fundamental philosophical difference. In my constituency to get rid of the Tory MP you vote Labour. I do it with the belief that Labour will not form the next government, but that every vote is vital to prevent a de facto Tory majority that will take this country down a path that I don't want it to follow. FPTP forces these choices. I don't think any government will make much difference to our business. We are UK based and are committed to the UK but operate globally, mostly outside the UK and the decisions we make will determine how we fare. We began and thrived under the last Labour government and have continued to do well under the Coalition.
I said you were being 'shrill', not that you were a 'shill'. There's an important difference which I think you know, despite your mangled sentence.
There are plenty of other choices. You said you would not vote for Labour in this situation, and now you will, and your only excuse is hatred.
OK.
Exactly what I expected you to say. ;-)
Given that you are not interested in engagement but only in telling me how venal and dreadful I am, what other response is there? It's boring. Let's just accept I am deeply unpleasant, hypocritical and vile, and both move on.
That's rather a silly thing to say. However if you're saying its true, who am I to argue? ;-)
And you do not 'engage' - otherwise you would address the point.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
I will be honest, as others have noted, Alex Salmond didn't have the best rating with women.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
It sounds like the Labour one-year rail fare freeze is an actual freeze. The words "real-terms" that were present in the Conservative commitment are absent from the Labour press release.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
I will be honest, as others have noted, Alex Salmond didn't have the best rating with women.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
Can you believe... when I heard Salmond was resigning I was worried my SNP 6.5+ seat bets may be a loser
It sounds like the Labour one-year rail fare freeze is an actual freeze. The words "real-terms" that were present in the Conservative commitment are absent from the Labour press release.
@? Capitalism is spiteful, stop letting it know you are going to poke it!
Our four million pound turnover company that employs over 20 people and that has been built from scratch since 2003 will not be leaving no matter who wins next month. Good luck to Financier and others, though, in their never-ending quest to find the lowest taxes and least regulation.
Given your previous words on how you would not vote Labour if Balls was involved (as a result of your disgust at the McBride scandal), how do you explain your increasingly shrill support for Labour?
And are you really sure that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls understands enough about business to create an environment under which your business will continue to prosper?
(And 'OK' is not an answer).
I disagree with your fundamental premise. I am not a Labour shrill. My vote is not for Labour, but against the Tories, with whom I have a fundamental philosophical difference. In my constituency to get rid of the Tory MP you vote Labour. I do it with the belief that Labour will not form the next government, but that every vote is vital to prevent a de facto Tory majority that will take this country down a path that I don't want it to follow. FPTP forces these choices. I don't think any government will make much difference to our business. We are UK based and are committed to the UK but operate globally, mostly outside the UK and the decisions we make will determine how we fare. We began and thrived under the last Labour government and have continued to do well under the Coalition.
I said you were being 'shrill', not that you were a 'shill'. There's an important difference which I think you know, despite your mangled sentence.
There are plenty of other choices. You said you would not vote for Labour in this situation, and now you will, and your only excuse is hatred.
OK.
Exactly what I expected you to say. ;-)
Given that you are not interested in engagement but only in telling me how venal and dreadful I am, what other response is there? It's boring. Let's just accept I am deeply unpleasant, hypocritical and vile, and both move on.
That's rather a silly thing to say. However if you're saying its true, who am I to argue? ;-)
And you do not 'engage' - otherwise you would address the point.
It is true: I am a vile, venal, worthless, hypocrite. You are better off ignoring me.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
I will be honest, as others have noted, Alex Salmond didn't have the best rating with women.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
I did notice in a recent poll - for the life of me I cannot remember which - that the gender gap for SNP support is pretty much nonexistent, though one shouldn't confuse indyref voting with UKGE voting.
And as others have commented here today, Mr Murphy seems to he heading in the other direction at a rate of knots. Urging drinking at footie matches in Glasgow*, and shouting lady pols down in public, do not go down well with the queans.
*because of the historic association with violence in the home
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
I will be honest, as others have noted, Alex Salmond didn't have the best rating with women.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
Can you believe... when I heard Salmond was resigning I was worried my SNP 6.5+ seat bets may be a loser
Bless, that said, someone who shall remain nameless, nearly penned a PB thread last June wondering if the Nats lost the referendum, if we'd see a replay of 1979, when the Nats lost half their seats.
Fortunately, that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Apols for not responding to PBers but there are such people as clients.
Our people are mainly from western Europe, with one from India, one from West Africa and one from USA. Their problems are twofold:
(i) If you work really hard to earn more and put in the extra hpurs, why should that extra effort be taxed disproportionately. If it is then there is no purpose in working hard - just do your 9-5.
(ii) They are horrified by the lack of aspiration for excellence in much of the state education and health systems. As both our African and Indian people asked, "Why do you employ truancy officers?", as often in their countries education is not free and children just crave education.
I hope your staff are more loyal to your company than they are to their current host country.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
In a grown-up country (or one with a PR electoral system) the NHS would be something that would be taken out of the cut and thrust of political discourse. There are a number of areas where the parties could be working together to develop long-term plans that everyone would buy into and which would enable serious long-term planning. It could and should be the same with constitutional issues. Instead, FPTP encourages confrontation, which in turn means continuous chopping and changing. It really is no way to run a country.
This.
Very good post. Some issues with time horizons considerably longer then 5 years need to be looked at outside the bear pit of party politics. The sacred cow that is the NHS, which paralyses all politicians into making open ended funding commitments to a system which is in dire need of reform and a clear long term strategy, deserves better.
And almost everyone in the country is a massive fan of the NHS in principle, so would this really be so difficult or controversial?
If the Tories moved to do this Labour would screech "The Tories are privatising the NHS". Labour wouldn't do this because Labour wants the NHS to be political.
Labour wants the NHS to be apolitical like it wants an end to benefit dependency or bad education. I.e. it does not, because that's its constituency. If we ever ran out of poor unemployable people Labour would import more, bleat about fairness, crash the economy and bleat about Tory cuts, then systematically rob the ambitious.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
That Alex Salmond, what an ineffectual failure.
Alex Salmond is rubbish and a vote loser.
The SNP only started surging after he quit as leader.
I have an open mind, and it's true Ms Stugeon tended to do a wee bit better than him in persona ratings IIRC, but he did bring indy support from about 22% to 45% in the teeth of the establishment, and a very nasty media hate campaign which had a great deal to do with the matter.
And I wonder if you underestimate the achievement of Messrs Brown, Cameron and Miliband with their Vow, and Mr Cameron's tearing it up the morning after the indyref vote. That is on the same timescale and worth considering as a factor.
Irony doesn't translate well on the interweb.
Aah, true it doesn't - but your correlation is a perfectly valid observation in itself, raised ironically or not, and I was interested to see where it led!
I will be honest, as others have noted, Alex Salmond didn't have the best rating with women.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
Can you believe... when I heard Salmond was resigning I was worried my SNP 6.5+ seat bets may be a loser
Bless, that said, someone who shall remain nameless, nearly penned a PB thread last June wondering if the Nats lost the referendum, if we'd see a replay of 1979, when the Nats lost half their seats.
Fortunately, that ended up on the cutting room floor.
In a way, this election is irrelevant for me in terms of the long term. The global system as currently constituted died in Oct/Nov 2007, but is kept going on life support despite the clear suffering of it's surviving children. There is no ability left to bail the West out and no desire in the emerging East to do so, and the underlying conditions remain as bad as they did before the props and stilts were inserted. This really is the last hurrah of the super rich, they are going under with everyone else, and someone, somewhere needs to be coming up with a better way, a more hopeful system of living, which will be needed after the hawks have taken down a few billion in the furnace of a nuclear exchange. I love the bleakness. Sorry, totally off thread but it does sometimes feel like the whole world is the band, playing on as the ship sinks. Noble, yes. Sensible? No.
But it does come back to my fundamental belief that the world is screwed, thanks to the entrenched system of "free markets", globalisation, free movement and free movement of capital that enable, if not encourage, the privileged to do selfish acts at the expense of others.
The "privileged" as you put it are entitled to consideration and some sort of social contract too. If your attitude to them is that the rich bastards deserve to be screwed, over and over and over again, then ask yourself why they should stay here to be expropriated by people who hate and envy them. Why would they not move to Hong Kong or Dubai? - especially if they are selling an intellectual product that they can sell from anywhere?
We kind of agree, in a twisted way. The wealthy elite are the people that get to dictate the terms of that social contract, which they were unable to do in the past, and they have no good reason not to move to Hong Kong or Dubai if they find it unacceptable. Should the country pander to the rich and engage in a race to the bottom to attract or maintain them? Surely this is both inevitably doomed and self-defeating?
And "intellectual products" can create enormous wealth using very little man-power and can be sold from anywhere. It creates huge amounts of inequality, plus the system is set up to allow wealthy individuals to avoid any attempts at redistribution by moving to a different jurisdiction. That's the fun when you combine treating ideas as property combined with free movement of labour and capital.
I fundamentally believe there is no solution to this problem and we're screwed. The future isn't about countries or borders, it's about the minority rich vs everyone else. If you're wealthy, your lifestyle doesn't significantly change from one place to another.
Caught some of Ed's Manifesto speech on the radio.
He's grown in confidence during the campaign. However it finishes up for him you'd have to say that the character assassination attempted by large parts of the MSM, and to some extent on here, has failed.
But it does come back to my fundamental belief that the world is screwed, thanks to the entrenched system of "free markets", globalisation, free movement and free movement of capital that enable, if not encourage, the privileged to do selfish acts at the expense of others.
The "privileged" as you put it are entitled to consideration and some sort of social contract too. If your attitude to them is that the rich bastards deserve to be screwed, over and over and over again, then ask yourself why they should stay here to be expropriated by people who hate and envy them. Why would they not move to Hong Kong or Dubai? - especially if they are selling an intellectual product that they can sell from anywhere?
I fundamentally believe there is no solution to this problem and we're screwed. The future isn't about countries or borders, it's about the minority rich vs everyone else.
Spot on. Global Corporatism is the great dictator now, resistance is futile?
Lol, either very good for them, or very bad. So, like any poll! I'd guess it's a good one for Lab, he's teasing a fall when it's really a rise. Maybe....
"Drawing on the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, we will take steps to ensure that the move to individual electoral registration does not leave millions unregistered, nor lead to constituencies that fail to take into account the people who live in them. This will include block registration by universities and care homes, extending Northern Ireland’s successful Schools Initiative, and exploring the scope for an automatic system of registration."
Constituency boundaries to be drawn on the basis of population then. If we have a hung Parliament it's always possible that this will end up being blocked and we'll end up still using the current boundaries...
But it does come back to my fundamental belief that the world is screwed, thanks to the entrenched system of "free markets", globalisation, free movement and free movement of capital that enable, if not encourage, the privileged to do selfish acts at the expense of others.
The "privileged" as you put it are entitled to consideration and some sort of social contract too. If your attitude to them is that the rich bastards deserve to be screwed, over and over and over again, then ask yourself why they should stay here to be expropriated by people who hate and envy them. Why would they not move to Hong Kong or Dubai? - especially if they are selling an intellectual product that they can sell from anywhere?
We kind of agree, in a twisted way. The wealthy elite are the people that get to dictate the terms of that social contract, which they were unable to do in the past, and they have no good reason not to move to Hong Kong or Dubai if they find it unacceptable. Should the country pander to the rich and engage in a race to the bottom to attract or maintain them? Surely this is both inevitably doomed and self-defeating?
And "intellectual products" can create enormous wealth using very little man-power and can be sold from anywhere. It creates huge amounts of inequality, plus the system is set up to allow wealthy individuals to avoid any attempts at redistribution by moving to a different jurisdiction. That's the fun when you combine treating ideas as property combined with free movement of labour and capital.
I fundamentally believe there is no solution to this problem and we're screwed. The future isn't about countries or borders, it's about the minority rich vs everyone else. If you're wealthy, your lifestyle doesn't significantly change from one place to another.
I'm not sure we do agree because the people who get clobbered and impoverished are never the internationally mobile mega wealthy. It is people on 100k a year, but who are tethered to this country by sick parents and school age children, who have most to fear from the likes of Labour. They live in rabbit hutch houses in the south east that they can't afford to trade sideways from, that Miliband will soon deem a mansion and will tax (while reclaiming his own tax on expenses), and they rely on a private sector pension that won't keep them and is likely to be repeatedly robbed. The really cosseted people in this country are the public sector workers in jobs for life with final salary pensions the rest of us are paying for.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
If your yellow lord is anywhere near correct, there must be some outstanding longshots in the constituency markets.
"Drawing on the work of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, we will take steps to ensure that the move to individual electoral registration does not leave millions unregistered, nor lead to constituencies that fail to take into account the people who live in them. This will include block registration by universities and care homes, extending Northern Ireland’s successful Schools Initiative, and exploring the scope for an automatic system of registration."
Constituency boundaries to be drawn on the basis of population then. If we have a hung Parliament it's always possible that this will end up being blocked and we'll end up still using the current boundaries...
The previous constituency rules already took into account the number of people who live in them.
That said, I think you've misunderstood - they want to ensure it takes into account the people who live in them, not just the number of people who live in them.
Apols for not responding to PBers but there are such people as clients.
Our people are mainly from western Europe, with one from India, one from West Africa and one from USA. Their problems are twofold:
(i) If you work really hard to earn more and put in the extra hpurs, why should that extra effort be taxed disproportionately. If it is then there is no purpose in working hard - just do your 9-5.
(ii) They are horrified by the lack of aspiration for excellence in much of the state education and health systems. As both our African and Indian people asked, "Why do you employ truancy officers?", as often in their countries education is not free and children just crave education.
I hope your staff are more loyal to your company than they are to their current host country.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
Personally (for my staff) I congratulate them and wish them well in their new job... I want people to grow rather than stay and stagnate. Its annoying when people leave but it just means we bring someone else in and train them up....
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
If your yellow lord is anywhere near correct, there must be some outstanding longshots in the constituency markets.
I do feel like I'm the wrong side of Bradford East to be honest. That'll teach me for trying to buy money !
It's pretty obviously presentationally a very good launch for Labour's manifesto and for Ed Miliband. Now to see how the contents go down with the public.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
If your yellow lord is anywhere near correct, there must be some outstanding longshots in the constituency markets.
The LibDem effort seems to have a heavy reliance on phone-calling. Met a guy this weekend who has been phoned SIX times by LibDem canvassers. Leaving aside the inefficiency, that's six people who have wrongly got him down as a LibDem supporter....
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
If your yellow lord is anywhere near correct, there must be some outstanding longshots in the constituency markets.
The LibDem effort seems to have a heavy reliance on phone-calling. Met a guy this weekend who has been phoned SIX times by LibDem canvassers. Leaving aside the inefficiency, that's six people who have wrongly got him down as a LibDem supporter....
Apols for not responding to PBers but there are such people as clients.
Our people are mainly from western Europe, with one from India, one from West Africa and one from USA. Their problems are twofold:
(i) If you work really hard to earn more and put in the extra hpurs, why should that extra effort be taxed disproportionately. If it is then there is no purpose in working hard - just do your 9-5.
(ii) They are horrified by the lack of aspiration for excellence in much of the state education and health systems. As both our African and Indian people asked, "Why do you employ truancy officers?", as often in their countries education is not free and children just crave education.
I hope your staff are more loyal to your company than they are to their current host country.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
Personally (for my staff) I congratulate them and wish them well in their new job... I want people to grow rather than stay and stagnate. Its annoying when people leave but it just means we bring someone else in and train them up....
Quite. Their value may be higher to someone else, in which case they should take it.
If someone trades up from managing a sweet shop to managing M & S presumably nobody would argue that he's been a selfish greedy shit in accepting the pay rise. Well, nobody sensible. The fact is that you could be the greatest sweet shop manager of all time but still be worth only £20k a year given the limited demands of the job.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
While Orkney is not "safe", it is:
(a) the seat with the lowest "yes" percentage in Scotland where (b) there is only one obvious repository for pro-Union votes and (c) contains the only two LibDem constituency MSPs and (d) has an incumbent who gets a higher vote share than Joe Grimond or Jim Wallace
For that reason, I don't find the 4-1 on the SNP in the seat to be value.
I expect RC&S to fall to the SNP. I expect Gordon to fall. I expect Berwickshire to go too.
Caithness is the interesting one. It is the only LibDem seat in Scotland where I expect a significant boost for a genuinely popular local MP. The 15/8 on the LibDems there looks (perhaps) a little generous.
I was always disappointed to lose a great team member, but TBH I took it as a compliment that they'd got a much better job based on the talents they'd honed/their successful performance with me.
Apols for not responding to PBers but there are such people as clients.
Our people are mainly from western Europe, with one from India, one from West Africa and one from USA. Their problems are twofold:
(i) If you work really hard to earn more and put in the extra hpurs, why should that extra effort be taxed disproportionately. If it is then there is no purpose in working hard - just do your 9-5.
(ii) They are horrified by the lack of aspiration for excellence in much of the state education and health systems. As both our African and Indian people asked, "Why do you employ truancy officers?", as often in their countries education is not free and children just crave education.
I hope your staff are more loyal to your company than they are to their current host country.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
Personally (for my staff) I congratulate them and wish them well in their new job... I want people to grow rather than stay and stagnate. Its annoying when people leave but it just means we bring someone else in and train them up....
Quite. Their value may be higher to someone else, in which case they should take it.
If someone trades up from managing a sweet shop to managing M & S presumably nobody would argue that he's been a selfish greedy shit in accepting the pay rise. Well, nobody sensible. The fact is that you could be the greatest sweet shop manager of all time but still be worth only £20k a year given the limited demands of the job.
I have never before done as much as skim-read a Labour GE manifesto.
But I have speed-read this one, and I have to say, as someone who is very much a "One Nation Tory", I find it hard to see much in it that scares the horses, and much of which I approve. Indeed, there are many things I know will simply not be in the Tory manifesto.
I do find Ed is cutting an increasingly credible figure as prospective PM, in the face of the media and political onslaught against him, far more than Dave is with his "can't be arsed" coasting which has infuriated me for at least the past 6 years as regular PBers will know.
Given that some of the few Tory announcements made already either unenthuse me or I disagree with them as priorities, I do increasingly wonder whether 5 years of Labour accompanied by a Boris-led renewal and reunion of the centre-right (patently impossible under Cameron) might be in the best interests of everyone?
And with that in mind, perhaps a Labour Government not in hock to the nationalists would be preferable.
Gosh, me contemplating voting Labour. What is the world coming to?
Dave - you need to do something very special tomorrow and beyond. You are failing to excite and enthuse me, so god knows what message you're sending to the key voters you need to retain/win over!
Caught some of Ed's Manifesto speech on the radio.
He's grown in confidence during the campaign. However it finishes up for him you'd have to say that the character assassination attempted by large parts of the MSM, and to some extent on here, has failed.
At times he even sounded Prime Ministerial.
I listened to it and was quite impressed. His line about the Tories making the Greens look fiscally competent was very good.
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
I was pilloried on here last week when i mentioned that a LibDem big wig had told we that they confidently expected to win at least 35 seats. On saturday i had another conversation with a libdem Lord who informed me that they seriously think they can get 42 seats. Make of it what you will but their confidence is a bit scary...
If your yellow lord is anywhere near correct, there must be some outstanding longshots in the constituency markets.
The LibDem effort seems to have a heavy reliance on phone-calling. Met a guy this weekend who has been phoned SIX times by LibDem canvassers. Leaving aside the inefficiency, that's six people who have wrongly got him down as a LibDem supporter....
I thought the lib dems kept calling until you, eventually, exhausted, agree to vote for them. Apparently, they will keep in intensifying the calls until you get up to 150 in a 24 hour period.
Teaching British history and the arguments of political thinkers and writers like Locke, Hobbes, Mill, Wilkes, Paine, Burke and Orwell would do far more.
Not sure Wilkes or Paine are good examples - neither were exactly perfectly behaved and Paine in particular had a bit of a penchant for violence and terrorism. Locke, Mill (and Bentham) were both very arrogant, but neither said anything new or meaningful. Burke might be a better example - but at the same time, he was prone to angry outbursts that might not exactly encourage rational thought.
As for Enlightenment values - I teach the French Revolution and Soviet Russia. They are both based on those values and they are both damning indictments of the logical results of them. As a result the idea of teaching 'values' leaves me fairly uneasy.
What I would rather see is a commitment to uphold and promote the value of democracy and the rule of law. I'm happy to go with that because it's (a) simple to understand and (b) allows for some flexibility as the law changes.
I wasn't suggesting teaching them as exemplars of moral behaviour but I do think that to understand why we think the way we do we need to understand what people in our past have said, why they said it and how those ideas have developed and been taken up by others.
Re Enlightenment ideasI think the Russian revolution is an example of a reaction to Western liberalism rather than being based on its concepts. I would say the same about the French revolution as well. France is one country where the concept of liberalism as we understand it here is not really understood at all.
Personally I think the ideas that developed from the time of the Civil War onwards and in the 18th century (based on earlier ideas of course) and which were taken up, in part, by the American revolutionaries are tremendously interesting and, IMO, essential to an understanding of British history and politics, as well as European and other history, and where we are today.
Peasants woken you up with early their wailing again Mr W? You have only yourself to blame. Stop feeding the dogs!
The only wailing to be heard is on PB as some of the wobble bottom Conservatives pull up their skirts and run around like maiden great aunts who have gone all unnecessary at the sight of an uncovered piano leg.
The fundamentals of this campaign have not changed and let me be utterly clear. From day one of his "leadership" Labour were doomed to defeat and on 8th May all of PB will know that, no ifs no buts :
Ed Miliband Will Never Be Prime Minister
Good morning Jack!
What happened to the steadfast Brit with a stiff upper lip?
I'm still here.
Can you still get a stiff upper lip at your age? # innocent face#
Apols for not responding to PBers but there are such people as clients.
Our people are mainly from western Europe, with one from India, one from West Africa and one from USA. Their problems are twofold:
(i) If you work really hard to earn more and put in the extra hpurs, why should that extra effort be taxed disproportionately. If it is then there is no purpose in working hard - just do your 9-5.
(ii) They are horrified by the lack of aspiration for excellence in much of the state education and health systems. As both our African and Indian people asked, "Why do you employ truancy officers?", as often in their countries education is not free and children just crave education.
I hope your staff are more loyal to your company than they are to their current host country.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
Personally (for my staff) I congratulate them and wish them well in their new job... I want people to grow rather than stay and stagnate. Its annoying when people leave but it just means we bring someone else in and train them up....
I couldn't agree more.
My (clumsily-made) point was that if they are prepared to leave the country on account of the presence of truancy officers in the UK and all that they signify, then the chances of Financier holding on to them when a better offer comes along is very small. Nothing to do with the UK's relative attractiveness.
I have never before done as much as skim-read a Labour GE manifesto.
But I have speed-read this one, and I have to say, as someone who is very much a "One Nation Tory", I find it hard to see much in it that scares the horses, and much of which I approve.
Well, yes. It's a manifesto. It will be forgotten on May 8th.
Labour manifestoes rarely promise to increase unemployment, debauch the public finances, start illegal wars, kill a lot of brown people, or lose control of immigration. Anyone who judges Labour's offering based not on something other than what Labour actually does in office is rather missing the point.
There's a reason young people vote Labour and older people don't. The latter's having actually observed Labour in action has a teeny bit to do with it.
I'm not sure we do agree because the people who get clobbered and impoverished are never the internationally mobile mega wealthy. It is people on 100k a year, but who are tethered to this country by sick parents and school age children, who have most to fear from the likes of Labour. They live in rabbit hutch houses in the south east that they can't afford to trade sideways from that Miliband will soon deem a mansion and will tax (while reclaiming his own tax on expenses), and they rely on a private sector pension that won't keep them and is likely to be repeatedly robbed.
The highly-skilled high-earning intellectual-worker minority will increasingly earn more and become more mobile. If they don't want to move... well, that's the harshness of capitalism, isn't it? Capitalism doesn't care about your sick parents or school-age children. Much like the "free market" has dictated that people pay a fortune for rabbit-hutch in the South-East.
And my point is that very little can be done about it. Certainly, neither the income tax nor the mansion tax will change anything long-term.
33-33 with Populus, but I'd be happier with Labour's side of the internals.
Labour's vote is 43% switchers or did not vote last time.
If their share is up on 2010 clearly a percentage are switchers or did not vote. The question is what percentage of that 43% are voters who will turn out. Red Lib switchers probably will, non voters probably won't....
Chuffing Nora. All our bases are belong to Nicola.
59 out of 59 on that?
The Lib Dems have doubled their support...
Their targetting efforts are probably a damn sight better than Labours's too. They'll be working the following priority with any sense:
Orkney (It is NOT safe)... Ross Skye Berwickshire Roxburgh Caithness Gordon
While Orkney is not "safe", it is:
(a) the seat with the lowest "yes" percentage in Scotland where (b) there is only one obvious repository for pro-Union votes and (c) contains the only two LibDem constituency MSPs and (d) has an incumbent who gets a higher vote share than Joe Grimond or Jim Wallace
For that reason, I don't find the 4-1 on the SNP in the seat to be value.
I expect RC&S to fall to the SNP. I expect Gordon to fall. I expect Berwickshire to go too.
Caithness is the interesting one. It is the only LibDem seat in Scotland where I expect a significant boost for a genuinely popular local MP. The 15/8 on the LibDems there looks (perhaps) a little generous.
Points to consider:
- More O&S voters voted Yes than voted for Carmichael last time around.
- Carmichael's landslide was on a relatively low turnout - 57%.
- The MSP's both lost around 30% of their previous votes.
- It took 6 months before the coalition lifted a finger to help out the oil industry.
I think this will be a much closer race than everyone thinks. For what it's worth this is my only constituency bet. I think it will also be UKIP's best result in Scotland, last time round the local fisherman got 6.8%.
Comments
Harry Cole @MrHarryCole · 15m 15 minutes ago
Labour's war on drivers continues. Funding train freeze for year by binning much needed A27 and A358 upgrades.
Need more journos like Brillo.
Joe Root at 9/2 as top England batter?
Enjoy
http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/markets-economy/scottish-economy-goes-back-into-reverse-as-services-sector-contracts.122942483
"THE Scottish private sector economy went back into reverse in March as the services sector contracted for the second time in three months, a key survey has revealed."
"The Bank of Scotland PMI (purchasing managers' index) , which measures the month-on-month change in combined manufacturing and services output north of the Border, fell from 50.2 in February to 49.4 in March on a seasonally-adjusted basis.
The corresponding March PMI for the UK as a whole is 58.8."
"Mr MacRae last month cited the impact of the recent reduction in the drink-drive limit in Scotland as a key factor in the stagnation of the economy north of the Border during the three months to February."*
*As predicted on here..
My Edinburgh South is looking a little precarious!
Cook to score a ton.
Around where I live, there are a couple of decent primary schools, but secondary provision is pretty poor. So your kids typically live near their primary and their schoolmates but it all changes when they hit 11, at which point they, or you and they, are looking at a substantial commute to a school some distance away.
The obvious thing to do is move nearer the new school, without trading up or down in size. But it's basically impossible because of stamp duty. A 3.5-bed semi around here was £650k in 2006 but is £1.3 million today. To sell that and buy another house for £1.3 million five miles away is going to cost you £73,750 in stamp duty alone. Chuck in the cost of the sale, conveyancing, moving etc and it is going to knock a big hole in £150,000. For that kind of money, you can instead just about send two kids to a private school from age 11. So that's what people do, with a predictable effect on house supply and price that makes the economics of not selling even more sensible.
Adding CGT to that bill would produce the same result - you're so heavily penalised for moving that you just don't. The "privileged" as you put it are entitled to consideration and some sort of social contract too. If your attitude to them is that the rich bastards deserve to be screwed, over and over and over again, then ask yourself why they should stay here to be expropriated by people who hate and envy them. Why would they not move to Hong Kong or Dubai? - especially if they are selling an intellectual product that they can sell from anywhere?
And you do not 'engage' - otherwise you would address the point.
I suspect the SNP surge would have happened if Salmond remained leader, but not as much as it is now.
For example, look at Gordon, Lord A found a smaller swing that what he found in his other batch of polling.
I do wonder if that is because Salmond is polarising.
Capitalism is spiteful, stop letting it know you are going to poke it!
And as others have commented here today, Mr Murphy seems to he heading in the other direction at a rate of knots. Urging drinking at footie matches in Glasgow*, and shouting lady pols down in public, do not go down well with the queans.
*because of the historic association with violence in the home
Fortunately, that ended up on the cutting room floor.
What will you have to convince them to stay with you when someone comes in with a better package for them?
Labour wants the NHS to be apolitical like it wants an end to benefit dependency or bad education. I.e. it does not, because that's its constituency. If we ever ran out of poor unemployable people Labour would import more, bleat about fairness, crash the economy and bleat about Tory cuts, then systematically rob the ambitious.
An evil, evil movement of moral pygmies.
@paulwaugh: Uh-oh, Labour jeer @faisalislam . Miliband realises it's not a good look
I'll go 10/11 under over 8.5
I love the bleakness.
Sorry, totally off thread but it does sometimes feel like the whole world is the band, playing on as the ship sinks. Noble, yes. Sensible? No.
Economic credibility...
http://www.labouremail.org.uk/files/uploads/bfd62952-9c4f-3394-3d41-cf94592816d2.pdf
The cover could not be duller. But that is no doubt deliberate.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/The_Black_Keys_-_Brothers.jpg
@bbclaurak: Ed M and other politicians are getting rather fond of saying, 'I don't recognise that' as part of answer to a tricky question
He is looking for a new job after stepping down from the Middle East Peace Envoy role...
And "intellectual products" can create enormous wealth using very little man-power and can be sold from anywhere. It creates huge amounts of inequality, plus the system is set up to allow wealthy individuals to avoid any attempts at redistribution by moving to a different jurisdiction. That's the fun when you combine treating ideas as property combined with free movement of labour and capital.
I fundamentally believe there is no solution to this problem and we're screwed. The future isn't about countries or borders, it's about the minority rich vs everyone else. If you're wealthy, your lifestyle doesn't significantly change from one place to another.
He's grown in confidence during the campaign. However it finishes up for him you'd have to say that the character assassination attempted by large parts of the MSM, and to some extent on here, has failed.
At times he even sounded Prime Ministerial.
Good diversion, though.
Edit: referring to timmo, obviously.
That is, assuming Labour's mood is indeed confident after that launch.... The party activists betray an extremely thin skin.
Constituency boundaries to be drawn on the basis of population then. If we have a hung Parliament it's always possible that this will end up being blocked and we'll end up still using the current boundaries...
That said, I think you've misunderstood - they want to ensure it takes into account the people who live in them, not just the number of people who live in them.
F*** Labour.
If someone trades up from managing a sweet shop to managing M & S presumably nobody would argue that he's been a selfish greedy shit in accepting the pay rise. Well, nobody sensible. The fact is that you could be the greatest sweet shop manager of all time but still be worth only £20k a year given the limited demands of the job.
http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/OmOnline_Vote_13-04-2015_BPC.pdf
Con 33 (+2) Lab 33 (=), UKIP 15 (-1), LD 8 (=) GRN 5 (-1)
(a) the seat with the lowest "yes" percentage in Scotland
where
(b) there is only one obvious repository for pro-Union votes
and
(c) contains the only two LibDem constituency MSPs
and
(d) has an incumbent who gets a higher vote share than Joe Grimond or Jim Wallace
For that reason, I don't find the 4-1 on the SNP in the seat to be value.
I expect RC&S to fall to the SNP. I expect Gordon to fall. I expect Berwickshire to go too.
Caithness is the interesting one. It is the only LibDem seat in Scotland where I expect a significant boost for a genuinely popular local MP. The 15/8 on the LibDems there looks (perhaps) a little generous.
Maybe one day, I'd be asking them for a job
But I have speed-read this one, and I have to say, as someone who is very much a "One Nation Tory", I find it hard to see much in it that scares the horses, and much of which I approve. Indeed, there are many things I know will simply not be in the Tory manifesto.
I do find Ed is cutting an increasingly credible figure as prospective PM, in the face of the media and political onslaught against him, far more than Dave is with his "can't be arsed" coasting which has infuriated me for at least the past 6 years as regular PBers will know.
Given that some of the few Tory announcements made already either unenthuse me or I disagree with them as priorities, I do increasingly wonder whether 5 years of Labour accompanied by a Boris-led renewal and reunion of the centre-right (patently impossible under Cameron) might be in the best interests of everyone?
And with that in mind, perhaps a Labour Government not in hock to the nationalists would be preferable.
Gosh, me contemplating voting Labour. What is the world coming to?
Dave - you need to do something very special tomorrow and beyond. You are failing to excite and enthuse me, so god knows what message you're sending to the key voters you need to retain/win over!
Con 33 (+2) Lab 33 (nc) LD 8 (nc) UKIP 15 (-1) Greens 5 (-1)
http://populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/OmOnline_Vote_13-04-2015_BPC.pdf
Which probably means Labour will be romping ahead!
We're borrowing far more now than we did in 2010!
That simple fact has scuppered the Tory 2015 campaign, if indeed one ever materialises...
Re Enlightenment ideasI think the Russian revolution is an example of a reaction to Western liberalism rather than being based on its concepts. I would say the same about the French revolution as well. France is one country where the concept of liberalism as we understand it here is not really understood at all.
Personally I think the ideas that developed from the time of the Civil War onwards and in the 18th century (based on earlier ideas of course) and which were taken up, in part, by the American revolutionaries are tremendously interesting and, IMO, essential to an understanding of British history and politics, as well as European and other history, and where we are today.
new thread
My (clumsily-made) point was that if they are prepared to leave the country on account of the presence of truancy officers in the UK and all that they signify, then the chances of Financier holding on to them when a better offer comes along is very small. Nothing to do with the UK's relative attractiveness.
Labour manifestoes rarely promise to increase unemployment, debauch the public finances, start illegal wars, kill a lot of brown people, or lose control of immigration. Anyone who judges Labour's offering based not on something other than what Labour actually does in office is rather missing the point.
There's a reason young people vote Labour and older people don't. The latter's having actually observed Labour in action has a teeny bit to do with it.
And my point is that very little can be done about it. Certainly, neither the income tax nor the mansion tax will change anything long-term.
- More O&S voters voted Yes than voted for Carmichael last time around.
- Carmichael's landslide was on a relatively low turnout - 57%.
- The MSP's both lost around 30% of their previous votes.
- It took 6 months before the coalition lifted a finger to help out the oil industry.
I think this will be a much closer race than everyone thinks. For what it's worth this is my only constituency bet. I think it will also be UKIP's best result in Scotland, last time round the local fisherman got 6.8%.