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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The LAB-CON marginals: How Lib Dem non-targeting could help Labour
There’s a wide awareness of the fact that the Lib Dems, who chalked up 24% of the GB vote in 2010, will be putting 100% of their efforts into no more than 75 seats – the 57 they are defending and a few more where they think they are in with a shout.
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One is drawn back to the memories of 2010, where some polling stations struggled to cope with the immense turnout of 65%.
"Micklethwait reckons the Conservatives will win the most seats in the next election but once again not enough to govern in their own right. "He's a more engaging character than is sometimes depicted, but in the next election campaign I suspect Lynton Crosby will be recommending focusing on what Osborne has been doing rather than the figure of Osborne."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/inside-the-osbourne-supremacy/story-e6frg6z6-1226662743192
The alternatives would be to govern as is, with a minority, or to go again to the country. I think they might go for the latter.
Should they realise this then a lot of Dave's problems go away and he will walk it in 2015.
No one likes a split party, whether it be leader vs leader or backbench vs leader.
Assuming Scotland doesn't vote Yes next year (because I assume if it did there would be emergency Westminster legislation disenfranchising all 59 Scottish Westminster seats ahead of May 2015) it will be interesting to see what happens to the LibDem seats in Scotland where the SNP knocked them out in 2010. They account for more than 20% of the LibDem Westminster group. Strong chance Lord Thurso, Ming Campbell, Malcolm Bruce and Charles Kennedy will all call it a day. Could a new candidate hold a seat where incumbency and personal choice above party is the rule for most voters.
Just been watching him again in Mississippi Burning [what a cracking film that is] and just thinking how versatile an actor he is - character actor, comedy, villan, cop...everything from The French Connection to Superman baddy.
As this conference is being held in Glasgow, does this mean that they are prioritising the defence of their Scottish seats?
Of course the separation negotiation timetable is another thing the SNP has assumed within its gift - it's not, the other 92% of the UK might take a different view and say "OK, let's get this sorted in 6 months so the May 2015 GE is not compromised - its not our fault you took so bloody long to hold the referendum."
2014 is a stupid year to have the vote. If they'd had it a year or two ago there would've been enough time to sort out most or all of the separation issues prior to the next General Election.
"I notice almost every party is keen on extracting universal benefits from wealthier pensioners too - how times change as those sacred cows go to slaughter..."
Certainly HMG when they introduced these benefits did not take into account either location or need.
For instance, pensioners who have retired to Spain and similar climates only require heating (mostly evenings) for two months of the year max - thus do not need the annual heating allowance.
If Salmond gets an "out" vote in 2014 he'll be doing well to turn it into actual independence by 2020.
As it's impossible to be fair, I'd say cut the heating allowances from all pensioners living abroad.
However, if the separatists won then I think that'd help both the SNP and Conservatives at the polls in 2015 (would people trust Labour to negotiate against the Scots?) which would happily reduce this potential, and very serious, conflict of interest issue arising.
When it comes to targeting - and the individual seat markets - this is where mistakes will be made and money from the bookmakers won.
If Czechoslovakia managed it in 6 months, why not the UK? And take long enough for Lab to get back in and overturn Independence (we always said it was half baked) in a Devo max vote?
Salmond needs to strike while the iron is hot - or risk having the whole thing unravel.
I think either Scots or Britons would be crazy to vote Labour in that situation. North of the border it's Salmond/the SNP who have delivered the change and stand for independence, south of the border Labour is known to have a great deal of Scottish leaders (Brown and Darling standing out) whereas the Conservatives have very few, minimising any conflict of interest.
Rather than being so dismissive in your usual manner, why not give a positive response and explain about the Mckay Commission ?
Edit I see CarlottaVance gave me the answer earlier.
Why insist on trying to make a party political point out of this?
Cameron, as PM, should form his view but it's right that the Commons should have the final say.
I'd be deeply worried if our politicians voted to go to war (or not) purely on the basis of their party whip
Are you feeling lucky?
Why insist on trying to make a party political point out of this?
Cameron, as PM, should form his view but it's right that the Commons should have the final say.
Remember you said that Charles.
Having a say is not the same as having a veto and the final say. At least it wasn't a cast-iron guarantee. That might have set off the alarm bells for his own backbenchers. They are still eventually going to realise that they or parliament don't have a veto on this yet and may never do.
I'm not, but I'd guess that they thought that at best they'd still be a minority government after May 2011 (albeit with an increased number of MSPs), and that after a lot of dickering and arguing that they might just have got legislation through for a referendum towards the end of the 2011-2016 parliament. Of course if they hadn't, it would again have been down to blocking by the Tories, LDs and Labour.
So in Lab/Con marginals a paper Lib Dem, probably more focussed on the next local election than Westminster will be nothing new.
What is potentially new is that if the Lib Dem share of the vote falls by 1/3 to 16% from 24% a lot of that 8% will be in these paper seats and they would frankly hope that their loss of votes is focussed there rather in seats where they have a chance. So there will be Lib dem votes floating about looking for a new home. The premise is that some of these, lefties (if I am still allowed to use that term), will go with Labour but that ignores the fact that the left wing lib dems probably did in 2010 anyway through tactical voting.
So who does vote lib Dem in a seat where they are putting in no effort and have no chance? I doubt these people are capable of a simple generalisation although the polling would suggest that a significant number have at least temporarily moved their allegience to Labour. My guess is that allegience will prove to be very soft.
Just think about the process. They're going to want to be in the EU.
If Labour scrape a majority based upon 12% of their MPs being from Scotland, you think that Ed will negotiate a fair deal for England (with Sven being one of "our" back-benchers)? You think...?
1) Tories state exactly what EU renegotiation they want to achieve and that they will support leaving the EU in a 2017 referendum if they fail in any negotiations. This should help most UKIP flirters come back to the Tories.
2) Labour make a complete mess of their election campaign.
Not sure which is most likely, but both are possible.
The real problem for the lib dems is that their base has been denuded quite markedly and it's not over yet by any means. Given that there is simply no room for anything other than an incredibly focused approach. So it's going to get very ugly as the activist base that is left is going to find itself being carefully rationed out to the most 'needy' seats potentially leaving some currently prominent lib dem MPs far from happy.
1) Is a pipe dream since it would not only lead to some very awkward questions about the circumstances Cammie would campaign to stay IN on, but during an election campaign it would basically hand Farage all the ammunition he needs while Cammie's backbenchers would start running about like headless chickens banging on about Europe at every opportunity. Yet again.
Cammie will want 2015 to be all about the economy and specifically on trust and labour. That should have been easy enough to do if he didn't have the toxic liability Osbrowne in place to scare off so many voters.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dDRiT1FSRTF2bjVYRThSTnRaNzFXMlE#gid=0
"I sympathise with Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary. From the moment he was appointed, he made it clear that he doesn't oppose free schools. I suspect that his attitude towards them in private is the same as Andrew Adonis's and, like his close colleague, he believes Labour should take credit for them. As Adonis has often pointed out, free schools are just a subset of the sponsored academies introduced by Labour...
His strategy in the past has been to support free schools, but only on certain conditions. In 2011, for instance, he said Labour wouldn't oppose free schools provided that they raised standards, narrowed the attainment gap between rich and poor and didn't have a negative impact on neighbouring schools. In his big speech later today, Twigg will make essentially the same point, only with a different set of conditions. This time, he's saying that Labour will support free schools provided they don't create surplus places or employ non-qualified [not teaching union approved] teachers...
The autonomy of free schools and academies when it comes to things like employing staff is guaranteed in their funding agreements and it's hard for an Education Secretary to override those agreements, as Ed Balls discovered when he unsuccessfully tried to force academies to teach the National Curriculum in 2007." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100222049/labour-has-raised-the-white-flag-on-free-schools/
I heard Stephen Twigg on the radio this morning and I've never heard such a confused policy being put forward. It sounded a bit like the Tories' position on grammar schools, which is to keep the ones that already exist but not to allow any more to be set up, which of course makes no sense at all from the point of view of principle.
Parents are free to choose where to send their kids to school based on the attractiveness of the teachers/ethos now and have done for many years - Labour's position makes no sense at all.
Having said that, this all seems very unlikely anyway.
"So, to summarize: Mr Gove is pursuing a policy that allows parents to establish new schools using public money, which they then lead outside local authority control.
Labour is going to scrap that policy and replace it with one that gives parents a role in setting up new local schools using public money, which would then be “parent-led” and largely outside council control.
Hmm. It’s almost as if Mr Twigg is quietly accepting the principles of Mr Gove’s schools policy while manufacturing a cosmetic difference to keep the Left of his party happy." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100222085/labours-new-free-schools-policy-a-red-rose-by-another-name/
Think they are looking over their shoulders at UKIP Mick?
We've yet to hear from Farage on this topic, as far as I can see, although UKIP policy is strongly anti interventionist
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dGRabkF6R2dtNkxqZnRHUHk0cE5fM0E#gid=0
'Among the many other problems with that, it's going to be hard to conclude the negotiations with rUK without knowing approximately how the EU ones are going to work out...'
That's their problem,they will have voted for independence.
"France’s ruling Socialist Party suffered a humiliating defeat on Sunday by losing a parliamentary by-election to replace disgraced former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac.
Socialist Bernard Barral came in third place in the poll in the south-western Lot-et-Garonne department, behind the candidate representing the far-right National Front (FN), who moves to the second round against the nominee of the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party."
http://www.france24.com/en/20130617-france-far-right-national-front-shame-socialist-party-parliament-elections
That'll put him in a good mood at the G8.....
Quite apart from the moralities of the matter, it seems to me arming rebels would only help UKIP at the expense of the conservatives.
Labour is in a peculiar position here given it has history with interventionism.
My Iranian friends are embarrassed by DinnerJacket et al - and IIRC Iran hasn't invaded another country in over 200yrs. They get a terrible press despite being a largely very cultured nation IME.
How one measures funding for various *terrorist/freedom fighting* organisations is of course another matter. Lots of US citizens were keen on the IRA.
Parents often do not have a choice of schools. In Southam, for example, there is one secondary school and now that there is no transport subsidy if you live in Southam or close by that is the school your children will go to.
There is also the issue of primary schools, where teaching is hugely specialised in terms of taking children aged four through to a decent level of literacy and numeracy. It's not a job for amateurs.
http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2013/06/no-school-left-behind
I'm reading it as that if you've got a school in the pipeline already he'll let you finish the job, but he doesn't think it's a good idea to let random groups of parents start schools, so he'll stop doing that from now on.
What I'm a bit puzzled about is that he seems to want to take the freedom to set your own rules from free schools / academies and give it to all schools, and take the local control of maintained schools and give it to free schools / academies. Which sounds sensible, but once you've done that, what's the difference between free schools / academies and maintained schools?
PS TBF it's not a finished policy yet, so maybe it will be clearer when Blunkett finishes his report and they make the proper policy.
"This time, he's saying that Labour will support free schools provided they don't create surplus places or employ non-qualified [not teaching union approved] teachers..."
Of course the question that Twigg is trying to avoid is the reason why parents are happy to send their children to 'free schools' and not to the council-run schools and so is spinning like a top, which is being whipped by the interested parties of teaching unions and local councils - both of whom will lose control and jobs.
It is all about the quality of education and staff inspiring the pupils to aspire to achieve their best - essential in a world where there is a global competition for jobs.
♫ Only the guards ever change ♫
http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/?p=1984
Hugh Jackman needs a double bass and a rhinestone suit to go with it.
More will likely start to break cover (or at least try to do some positioning) after seeing Boris come out so vehemently against and getting much praise among his tory colleagues and commentators for doing so.
Same goes for the lib dems after Ashdown was excoriating about the wisdom of such a move. Time for the likes of Farron and Vince to hold forth on the subject perhaps?
http://order-order.com/2013/06/17/ukip-bolster-candidate-vetting-for-2014/
I wonder what sort of vetting the other parties put their candidates through? Given some of the people who manage to get through to be candidates, perhaps not much.
However: I hope the vetting does not lead to identikit candidates. We're far enough down that road already.
http://www.academia.edu/3716915/Terrorism_and_Political_Violence_Conference_June_2013
One bit of good news - support seems to have tailed off post-Woolwich....
Andrew Adonis has blogged saying Labour's new schools policy will essentially allow more free schools to open.
"Excellent talk and political analysis by @LiamFoxMP last night. Liam, don't go back into the Cabinet and be muted."