And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
I'm guessing that the LibDems won't regard voting down a manifesto pledge that has secured a majority in a general election as a travesty of democracy?
It's going to be difficult for Labour to select a leader who appeals to (a) the Middle England marginals, (b) their traditional supporters in northern England and south Wales, and (c) their new supporter base of trendies in central/east London.
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
I know - that's properly impressive - would love to know how she managed that.
There was no Green candidate in an area where they beat both Lab and the LDs in the Euro elections. It was the only seat in the SW region where the Greens didn't stand. Looks like they were giving Claire Wright a free run.
Sure - and a 'straight' Green candidate would probably have got 7-10% looking at other surrounding seats (Tiverton and Honiton, Central Devon, Exeter) - but there is a big jump from 7%-10% to 24%
I know - that's properly impressive - would love to know how she managed that.
There was no Green candidate in an area where they beat both Lab and the LDs in the Euro elections. It was the only seat in the SW region where the Greens didn't stand. Looks like they were giving Claire Wright a free run.
Sure - and a 'straight' Green candidate would probably have got 7-10% looking at other surrounding seats (Tiverton and Honiton, Central Devon, Exeter) - but there is a big jump from 7%-10% to 24%
Sometimes once an independent candidate gets a bit of momentum they can build on it, which is what happened I think. A bit like Richard Taylor in Wyre Forest. The LDs had their former Chelmsford candidate from the 70s and 80s standing, Stuart Mole, (who came within 378 votes of ousting Norman St John Stevas in 1983), but their share dropped massively, mainly going to the independent it seems.
Just 3 of the Labour re-treads were successful: Joan Ryan, Rob Marris, Dawn Butler.
What is a "re-tread"?
Candidates who lost at a previous election trying to get re-elected again.
I always thought it was a bit risky for Labour to have so many candidates who must have been first selected in the early/mid 90s or even earlier. People like Andrew Dismore, Sally Keeble, Patrick Hall, Mike O'Brien, Anne Snelgrove.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Cameron could appoint a very large number of Conservative Lords, then use them to pass reform that limits the size of the House, thus sacking a very large number of Lords, including many LibDems, Labour etc...
That's a Cooper-Umunna choice, if it's a good indicator. They more or less tie on intelligence and trustworthiness. I'd suggest those are the most important factors.
Quite shocked how well Chuka did on those. Even Burnham didn't do completely terrible, either.
How many people really know who he is? I wouldn't put too much faith in that.
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
I'm guessing that the LibDems won't regard voting down a manifesto pledge that has secured a majority in a general election as a travesty of democracy?
Sorry, don't get that. If the pledge is from a party that secured a majority then surely it will get through. You're not saying that an opposition party cannot oppose any policies of the winning party are you?
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
What;s the point in being the front man if you lose the election ?
In the looking-and-feeling-like-an-absolute-bellend field, Carswell is way out in front.
A shame really, because I like libertarian free-thinkers and he's one. I always thought it was silly him absconding to UKIP* and now he probably does too.
*Notwithstanding the fact that 13% of the vote and just one seat is very harsh on the Kippers.
Be hilarious if the news that Farage was begged to reconsider his resignation as Ukip Leader then leads Carswell to resort to begging the Conservatives to let him return on the back into the fold. Not that I would particularly happy to see him return!
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Make a public offer to bring him back - be inclusive and welcoming, but no special favours. Extend it to any UKIP voter who wants to rejoin the Tory party.
Robin Brant (@robindbrant) 12/05/2015 12:03 He's going to go for it again... @Nigel_Farage on 5live: 'I would look forward to a by-election in a Labour seat very much indeed.'
Yep... UKIP sure aren't a one-man band...
The lack of hostility to Ukip over the weekend was noticeable... 'Without Farage they will be irrelevant etc'... 'We have taken their king!'
But no! He's back!
He is risen
And the hate returns...
Good old Nige!
Good old Nigel who said " i am not like other politicians when I say something I mean it"
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
I think it was a normal seat in 2015 except that more parties were competing for 2nd place and helped to divide the anti-Tory vote. It's not on Labour's list of 100 target seats.
Be hilarious if the news that Farage was begged to reconsider his resignation as Ukip Leader then leads Carswell to resort to begging the Conservatives to let him return on the back into the fold. Not that I would particularly happy to see him return!
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Make a public offer to bring him back - be inclusive and welcoming, but no special favours. Extend it to any UKIP voter who wants to rejoin the Tory party.
On topic: Non-issue. If the Labour and LibDem lords play silly games with the constitutional conventions (which I don't think they will), Cameron can simply shrug his shoulders, and appoint however many Tory peers are necessary to fix the problem. It's not an ideal solution, but it would work. Therefore, it won't be necessary to do it.
Yer, great idea. Appoint another 300 Tory peers, when the place is already full... Daft, Mr Navabi, quite daft.
It is daft, but if the alternative is lordly wreckers trying to subvert the results of the democratic election we've just held, then needs must. But, as I said, it won't be necessary to do it, precisely because it can be done.
Surely there is no need for that. Simply introduce these bills as early as possible, expecting them to be defeated in the Lords and then invoke the Parliament act so they are on the books in a years time?
I know - that's properly impressive - would love to know how she managed that.
There has to be a good story behind that, coming a safe second place as a complete independent. It seems she is a well known campaigning local councillor, but even so, 24% in the GE?
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
What;s the point in being the front man if you lose the election ?
I don't know, ask Ed.
One of the many good things about the last government was that there was never even a hint of the Blair/Brown wars or even the Brown/Darling wars between No10 and the Treasury. When Dave is going that will be slightly more challenging but it will be interesting to see if they can do it again.
It occurs to me that every recent Labour leader except Blair has managed to be photographed, and is mainly remembered for, looking like a total arse.
Foot: donkey jacket at the Cenotaph; Kinnock: falling into the sea Smith: not around long enough Blair: got away with this one Brown: the phoney grin; Miliband: the bacon sandwich.
Of the contenders I'd say Cooper has the least chance of looking like a total arse whereas it is nailed on with both Butcher and Umunna.
Why does Butcher always appear to be wearing eyeliner? Has he had mascara tattooed on?
tony Blair: too tight jeans, grinning like a loon, walking next to GWB?
Just 3 of the Labour re-treads were successful: Joan Ryan, Rob Marris, Dawn Butler.
What is a "re-tread"?
Candidates who lost at a previous election trying to get re-elected again.
I always thought it was a bit risky for Labour to have so many candidates who must have been first selected in the early/mid 90s or even earlier. People like Andrew Dismore, Sally Keeble, Patrick Hall, Mike O'Brien, Anne Snelgrove.
It's going to be difficult for Labour to select a leader who appeals to (a) the Middle England marginals, (b) their traditional supporters in northern England and south Wales, and (c) their new supporter base of trendies in central/east London.
Labour can afford to take for granted the 'trendies' tbh.
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
That is a fantastic bet.
Yeah,
The one I was really hoping for was the tories to 2nd in Stirling (again @ 0.5);
Robin Brant (@robindbrant) 12/05/2015 12:03 He's going to go for it again... @Nigel_Farage on 5live: 'I would look forward to a by-election in a Labour seat very much indeed.'
Yep... UKIP sure aren't a one-man band...
The lack of hostility to Ukip over the weekend was noticeable... 'Without Farage they will be irrelevant etc'... 'We have taken their king!'
But no! He's back!
He is risen
And the hate returns...
Good old Nige!
Good old Nigel who said " i am not like other politicians when I say something I mean it"
Oh
As I said yesterday - it is a joke.
Not so different now are you?
I don't care if they are 'different' or not... If I agreed w labour or conservatives I would happily vote for them
Ukip want Farage as their leader and he is. Other parties wish he wasn't, so what? All the better
While we have relatively few betting markets, perhaps we could construct a market on which pb Tory will be the first to decamp to non-aligned or to support another party?
I'm guessing that the LibDems won't regard voting down a manifesto pledge that has secured a majority in a general election as a travesty of democracy?
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
That is a fantastic bet.
Yeah,
The one I was really hoping for was the tories to 2nd in Stirling (again @ 0.5);
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Even if he wanted to, he should be politely told to eff off. He tried to help sink the party.
Tactically, robbing UKIP of a voice in the House of Commons - and therefore of any Short Money - might be a wise thing to do. It would make it all the more amusing as Farage stands at each and every by-election trying to get that one seat.
Carswell I would take back. The TPD? Not in a month of Sundays.
Carswell is in the wrong party. He seems a decent sort and disagrees with much that Farage says. He's wrong about the EU, but that goes for quite a few in the Tory party.
The Tory party certainly isn't the right one for him. Pro-EU, increasingly authoritarian and statist and lacking any any philosophical or political principles. Even if he were not in UKIP the Tory party today is completely unsuited to anyone with a Libertarian outlook.
I'm guessing that the LibDems won't regard voting down a manifesto pledge that has secured a majority in a general election as a travesty of democracy?
Sorry, don't get that. If the pledge is from a party that secured a majority then surely it will get through. You're not saying that an opposition party cannot oppose any policies of the winning party are you?
Saying that the House of Lords, lacking democratic legitimacy, systematically frustrating the will of the House of Commons (especially in respect of manifesto pledges that, in theory, have been considered by the electorate) would be a travesty.
@antifrank already posted the link to the Salisbury Convention.
While we have relatively few betting markets, perhaps we could construct a market on which pb Tory will be the first to decamp to non-aligned or to support another party?
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
That is a fantastic bet.
Yeah,
The one I was really hoping for was the tories to 2nd in Stirling (again @ 0.5);
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Because of all his baggage as a very political chancellor who loves needling the oppostiion, Osborne is underrecognised as the Tory who says some of the most interesting things coming out of the government on the likes of full employment, rebalancing investment and the "I'm a Tory not an anarchist" rebuttal of small-state thinking. I don't quite think he is simply the front man for these things, either as a madferrit (near) Manc MP or whatever else, because few others in the party pick up the baton on these subjects anywhere near enough.
I was expecting more complaints about the electoral system from the left, but maybe the reason for that is the fact that the Tories and UKIP took 51% of the GB vote between them.
It's going to be difficult for Labour to select a leader who appeals to (a) the Middle England marginals, (b) their traditional supporters in northern England and south Wales, and (c) their new supporter base of trendies in central/east London.
Labour can afford to take for granted the 'trendies' tbh.
That's the problem. To appeal to the other two groups, they'd have to upset their supporters in London. It's hard to see them doing that.
Wyre Forest surprised me with the order of the also-rans. Both UKIP and NHA seriously underperformed, with the Conservatives leading by a country mile over Labour in second place. Is this now going to turn back into a relatively normal constituency?
That was one of my best bets of the election.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
That is a fantastic bet.
Yeah,
The one I was really hoping for was the tories to 2nd in Stirling (again @ 0.5);
It occurs to me that every recent Labour leader except Blair has managed to be photographed, and is mainly remembered for, looking like a total arse.
Foot: donkey jacket at the Cenotaph; Kinnock: falling into the sea Smith: not around long enough Blair: got away with this one Brown: the phoney grin; Miliband: the bacon sandwich.
Of the contenders I'd say Cooper has the least chance of looking like a total arse whereas it is nailed on with both Butcher and Umunna.
Why does Butcher always appear to be wearing eyeliner? Has he had mascara tattooed on?
tony Blair: too tight jeans, grinning like a loon, walking next to GWB?
Robin Brant (@robindbrant) 12/05/2015 12:03 He's going to go for it again... @Nigel_Farage on 5live: 'I would look forward to a by-election in a Labour seat very much indeed.'
Yep... UKIP sure aren't a one-man band...
The lack of hostility to Ukip over the weekend was noticeable... 'Without Farage they will be irrelevant etc'... 'We have taken their king!'
But no! He's back!
He is risen
And the hate returns...
Good old Nige!
Good old Nigel who said " i am not like other politicians when I say something I mean it"
Oh
As I said yesterday - it is a joke.
Not so different now are you?
It seems an odd thing to be so angry about, two days running. Farage said he would offer his resignation. He did offer his resignation. Where is the problem?
And actually it makes him even more different, unless you can point us to another party leader whose resignation has been refused.
"I have interrogated huge data sets of polls and betting markets over many, many elections stretching back years and this is part of a well-established pattern. Basically, when the polls tell you one thing, and the betting markets tell you another, follow the money. Even if the markets do not get it spot on every time, they will usually get it a lot closer than the polls."
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Even if he wanted to, he should be politely told to eff off. He tried to help sink the party.
Tactically, robbing UKIP of a voice in the House of Commons - and therefore of any Short Money - might be a wise thing to do. It would make it all the more amusing as Farage stands at each and every by-election trying to get that one seat.
Carswell I would take back. The TPD? Not in a month of Sundays.
Carswell is in the wrong party. He seems a decent sort and disagrees with much that Farage says. He's wrong about the EU, but that goes for quite a few in the Tory party.
The Tory party certainly isn't the right one for him. Pro-EU, increasingly authoritarian and statist and lacking any any philosophical or political principles. Even if he were not in UKIP the Tory party today is completely unsuited to anyone with a Libertarian outlook.
The Conservative-led coalition has reduced the size of the state from more than half of GDP to just over 40% over the last five years. According to the OBR, we will reduce it to 35% of the economy by 2020.
As I have said he thought he was a certainty to win as he thinks he is JFK reborn, thats why he made the promise to resign. He never thought that he would have to do it. As soon as he had resigned he set out trying to stop his own resignation. Its his party and no one elses.
For someone who is always banging on about an unelected and unaccountable EU, it's quite ironic that Farage is now denying UKIP members the chance to install a democratically elected leader.
He won the leadership election, voted for by Ukip members, last October
Thought you would have kept a keen watch on facts before posting
He resigned last week.
Do you not think a vote would be more democratic than Nigel simply telling the NEC that they should beg him to take the job back as the sky would fall in without him?
I want the polices that Ukip have to have the best chance of being heard and the best way for that to happen is for Farage to be the leader. I don't care about the internal squabblings of party politics, he is the best man for the job, I've never heard anyone say 'we'd be better off w xxxxxx in charge' there really is no problem, except other parties supporters would rather he was not leader, and I couldn't really care less what they think.
Sorry Sam but that is simply not true. For a start I have said it on here regularly that Farage should go and although it is undoubtedly a minority position in the party it is certainly not completely without support.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Being a great behind the scenes guy doesn't necessarily translate into being an electable leader, though ( If anything, I'd say it's otherwise) - which makes Labour's task somewhat easier. Now duds like Tom Baldwin have gone, I'd also expect Powell to not be involved next time. Thankfully, Dougie Alexander is no longer in the picture either. If Osborne is leader I wonder who'll organise 2020? (Unless he's attempting to do both jobs....)
Either way I'm not quite sure why on this site there is such a clamour for Osborne for 2020. I don't see him being elected as PM at all, tbh.
In the looking-and-feeling-like-an-absolute-bellend field, Carswell is way out in front.
A shame really, because I like libertarian free-thinkers and he's one. I always thought it was silly him absconding to UKIP* and now he probably does too.
*Notwithstanding the fact that 13% of the vote and just one seat is very harsh on the Kippers.
He defected to UKIP just at the time when Farage started to go all "big state" to attract WWC Labour voters. I can't imagine as a libertarian Carswell agrees with much of that.
It's going to be difficult for Labour to select a leader who appeals to (a) the Middle England marginals, (b) their traditional supporters in northern England and south Wales, and (c) their new supporter base of trendies in central/east London.
Labour can afford to take for granted the 'trendies' tbh.
That's the problem. To appeal to the other two groups, they'd have to upset their supporters in London. It's hard to see them doing that.
Hmmm - I don't know about that. Potentially a longer leadership contest gives more time for new faces to stand out, and make there cases. Activists have, in the fair recent past endorsed people who may not necessarily reflect their own views, but who can reach out to other groups.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Being a great behind the scenes guy doesn't necessarily translate into being an electable leader, though ( If anything, I'd say it's otherwise) - which makes Labour's task somewhat easier. Now duds like Tom Baldwin have gone, I'd also expect Powell to not be involved next time. Thankfully, Dougie Alexander is no longer in the picture either. If Osborne is leader I wonder who'll organise 2020? (Unless he's attempting to do both jobs....)
Either way I'm not quite sure why on this site there is such a clamour for Osborne for 2020. I don't see him being elected as PM at all, tbh.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Because of all his baggage as a very political chancellor who loves needling the oppostiion, Osborne is underrecognised as the Tory who says some of the most interesting things coming out of the government on the likes of full employment, rebalancing investment and the "I'm a Tory not an anarchist" rebuttal of small-state thinking. I don't quite think he is simply the front man for these things, either as a madferrit (near) Manc MP or whatever else, because few others in the party pick up the baton on these subjects anywhere near enough.
I agree, he is a very interesting man. It will be fascinating to see how far he can get with his Northern Powerhouse idea as well. Once again he seemed something of a lone voice in a plan that could re-establish the Tories in a part of the country they are very weak at the moment.
One of his steps in that direction is to effectively break up the NHS as a unitary body giving local government a far bigger say over its spending and resource allocation integrating this with care services. This is potentially very radical indeed and might even show the way forward for management of the NHS leviathan.
The Tories could do with more leaders with clearer ideas about where they are wanting to go. Cameron himself seems to want the current structure but better. Osborne is more radical.
Robin Brant (@robindbrant) 12/05/2015 12:03 He's going to go for it again... @Nigel_Farage on 5live: 'I would look forward to a by-election in a Labour seat very much indeed.'
Yep... UKIP sure aren't a one-man band...
The lack of hostility to Ukip over the weekend was noticeable... 'Without Farage they will be irrelevant etc'... 'We have taken their king!'
But no! He's back!
He is risen
And the hate returns...
Good old Nige!
Good old Nigel who said " i am not like other politicians when I say something I mean it"
Oh
As I said yesterday - it is a joke.
Not so different now are you?
It seems an odd thing to be so angry about, two days running. Farage said he would offer his resignation. He did offer his resignation. Where is the problem?
And actually it makes him even more different, unless you can point us to another party leader whose resignation has been refused.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Being a great behind the scenes guy doesn't necessarily translate into being an electable leader, though ( If anything, I'd say it's otherwise) - which makes Labour's task somewhat easier. Now duds like Tom Baldwin have gone, I'd also expect Powell to not be involved next time. Thankfully, Dougie Alexander is no longer in the picture either. If Osborne is leader I wonder who'll organise 2020? (Unless he's attempting to do both jobs....)
Either way I'm not quite sure why on this site there is such a clamour for Osborne for 2020. I don't see him being elected as PM at all, tbh.
Fair point - I got a sense (and I've seen him touted by some in the last couple of days in a rather keen/non-critical manner) that some think he'd be great leader.
Robin Brant (@robindbrant) 12/05/2015 12:03 He's going to go for it again... @Nigel_Farage on 5live: 'I would look forward to a by-election in a Labour seat very much indeed.'
Yep... UKIP sure aren't a one-man band...
The lack of hostility to Ukip over the weekend was noticeable... 'Without Farage they will be irrelevant etc'... 'We have taken their king!'
But no! He's back!
He is risen
And the hate returns...
Good old Nige!
Good old Nigel who said " i am not like other politicians when I say something I mean it"
Oh
As I said yesterday - it is a joke.
Not so different now are you?
It seems an odd thing to be so angry about, two days running. Farage said he would offer his resignation. He did offer his resignation. Where is the problem?
And actually it makes him even more different, unless you can point us to another party leader whose resignation has been refused.
Green deposits should now be settled. Sadly 21-30% was nowhere near as good as 0-20% :-(
considerably worse given that I only backed 0-20
Sorry to hear that. They certainly did a bit better than I thought - 3.8% as opposed to 3% - but the killer for the bet was that their vote share was not quite as concentrated as might have been expected.
Not read the comments but thus argument is nonsense. The Salisbury Convention still applies as does the Parliament Act. If anything the election shows why the proposed Lords Reform was ridiculous. We'd have supposedly elected Lords from 15 years ago even when their party has been obliterated claiming democratic legitimacy.
We currently have Lords from a lot longer than 15 years ago voting for or against legislation.
They don't claim democratic legitimacy though. So the Lords currently know their place and know they're for amending bills but the legitimate chamber is the Commons.
Have so-called elected Lords and they'll claim a democratic mandate. Claiming a democratic mandate from 15 years ago is ridiculous ... to put it into context we could currently be having people who were "elected" to their term before 9/11.
Not read the comments but thus argument is nonsense. The Salisbury Convention still applies as does the Parliament Act. If anything the election shows why the proposed Lords Reform was ridiculous. We'd have supposedly elected Lords from 15 years ago even when their party has been obliterated claiming democratic legitimacy.
We currently have Lords from a lot longer than 15 years ago voting for or against legislation.
They don't claim democratic legitimacy though. So the Lords currently know their place and know they're for amending bills but the legitimate chamber is the Commons.
Have so-called elected Lords and they'll claim a democratic mandate. Claiming a democratic mandate from 15 years ago is ridiculous ... to put it into context we could currently be having people who were "elected" to their term before 9/11.
People elected by proportional representation 15 years ago would still reflect the public view far more accurately than people elected by first past the post last week.
"Travelling the country with John Harris for the Guardian’s Anywhere but Westminster series over the past 12 weeks, we only occasionally intersected with the campaign as seen on national TV, usually to satirise it. Going in to the final weeks, it increasingly felt like the Labour party were in trouble on the street – yet in the national narrative it was increasingly “too close to call”.
We went into our final video from Nuneaton, days before the campaign ended, dead on our feet and with very little idea as to what we would film. Our video was based on little more than speaking to as many people on the street as we could in a 48-hour period, and reflecting that truthfully in an edit. We found a fairly broad sense that this was not a “change moment”, and that people were genuinely gripped by the idea that an SNP-led Scotland would be holding the country to ransom under Labour."
"Our final film felt very gloomy about the prospects of the Labour party, and wasn’t necessarily what we wanted to report. It didn’t match what the numbers were saying, and it wasn’t a polished piece of work by TV standards. But it’s a good place to start if you want to understand why the Tories won."
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Even if he wanted to, he should be politely told to eff off. He tried to help sink the party.
Tactically, robbing UKIP of a voice in the House of Commons - and therefore of any Short Money - might be a wise thing to do. It would make it all the more amusing as Farage stands at each and every by-election trying to get that one seat.
Carswell I would take back. The TPD? Not in a month of Sundays.
Carswell is in the wrong party. He seems a decent sort and disagrees with much that Farage says. He's wrong about the EU, but that goes for quite a few in the Tory party.
The Tory party certainly isn't the right one for him. Pro-EU, increasingly authoritarian and statist and lacking any any philosophical or political principles. Even if he were not in UKIP the Tory party today is completely unsuited to anyone with a Libertarian outlook.
On both the social and economic axis the Tory party is more Libertarian than the modern Labour party.
Yes its not perfect, but we operate in a two party system. Plus if Libertarians abandon the party then authoritarians will be all that are left.
Just 3 of the Labour re-treads were successful: Joan Ryan, Rob Marris, Dawn Butler.
What is a "re-tread"?
Candidates who lost at a previous election trying to get re-elected again.
Probably needs to be a distinction between a candidate who was a MP then lost a- like Palmer - and those that have tried and failed.
Zeichner in Cambridge was 5th time lucky.
Zeichner was always my strongest long-odds tip for a gain from the LibDems - the constituency LibDems were the Red type rather than the "I dunno, some sort of centrists would be nice" type.
The re-tread issue is actually hard to measure, because re-treads were only selected where they had a significant personal vote to start with, a measure of which was an unusually low swing in 2010. Population change alone inevitably eroded that as Richard N predicted - e.g. 31% of the electorate in my patch was new since 2010 - so a strong former candidate would start with a negative swing. Against that, having a new candidate where there was a personal vote for the predecessor would have been tricky ("Why did you dump X who I voted for last time?"), and 3 out of ?12? re-treads being re-elected against the trend isn't bad.
It's probably still better to have someone with an existing personal vote than a total newcomer, but you have to bargain with it having declined unless they hung on last time - Gedling is a good example of a personal vote persisting from election to election, since Vernor Coaker was able to continue to impress new voters as they moved in.
And as for Osborne being leader; I don't see it as a apparently many within the Conservative party resent his influence. But, if he was elected then Labour have to climb a mountain a bit shorter than they did the one before....
Like him or loathe him a campaign organiser who can focus on delivering 23 more seats and then come up with 24 whilst in government having got the economy in peak form for the election has the kudos in the party to do what he likes. I am not sure that Osborne sees himself as the front man but if he wants it, its his.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Being a great behind the scenes guy doesn't necessarily translate into being an electable leader, though ( If anything, I'd say it's otherwise) - which makes Labour's task somewhat easier. Now duds like Tom Baldwin have gone, I'd also expect Powell to not be involved next time. Thankfully, Dougie Alexander is no longer in the picture either. If Osborne is leader I wonder who'll organise 2020? (Unless he's attempting to do both jobs....)
Either way I'm not quite sure why on this site there is such a clamour for Osborne for 2020. I don't see him being elected as PM at all, tbh.
I agree that being a front man is a different job and the evidence about whether that really plays to Osborne's strengths is, well, mixed.
On Labour's side of the fence you have pointed out all the people who won't do. Where are the one's that will? For me this is even more important than finding a vaguely credible front person. Their campaign was just awful. That is easy to say but running a campaign is incredibly difficult and it is not obvious where the skills are coming from.
One thing is surely clear: Labour need to go into the next election looking like a vaguely credible government with a coherent policy agenda that has not been thrown together at the last minute but put out there, tested and amended as necessary. They need to try to make the conversation and they need to recognise the limitations of government in terms of spending and taxation.
It is possible that the EU will once again deliver a fractured and broken tory party leaving the election for them on a plate but they would be well advised not to count on it.
Green deposits should now be settled. Sadly 21-30% was nowhere near as good as 0-20% :-(
considerably worse given that I only backed 0-20
Sorry to hear that. They certainly did a bit better than I thought - 3.8% as opposed to 3% - but the killer for the bet was that their vote share was not quite as concentrated as might have been expected.
Polls don't give a snapshot of a "race", in the sense that two parties might be said to be "level at the final hurdle". If two athletes in a 10km run are level at the final hurdle, then even if one runner slows down a lot, he's still going to cross the finishing line at a time close to his competitor's time. If, instead of that happening, one beats the other by a large margin, we can ask why our information about how they were doing at the final hurdle was so wrong. But whereas that's a reasonable question in horse-racing and athletics, in politics it's misguided. Late polls can't give that sort of information. That sort of information doesn't exist. All they tell us is what people have told them.
Just before the election, the Daily Telegraph sent emails to its online subscribers telling them to vote Tory. How on earth can a poll conducted previously to that event take it into account? Even if pollsters formed a view on its likely effect, why should their prediction be worth more than anyone else's? Pollsters gather information on how people say they'll vote, on what issues they think are important, on how likely they are to vote, etc. The mistake is to give too much importance to the percentages that they crunch out on the basis of that information.
Sometimes they get it more right, sometimes they get it more wrong. Why the difference? It's because of causal factors they can't appreciate and which simply aren't present in the data they collect.
In this election, the whole 'hung parliament' message boiled down to "a vote for Labour is a vote for chaos and uncertainty". That was shoved down people's throats by all the 'neutrals', players, academics, pollsters and clever-clever commentators. And it had an effect on people voting differently from how they told the pollsters they'd vote.
Not read the comments but thus argument is nonsense. The Salisbury Convention still applies as does the Parliament Act. If anything the election shows why the proposed Lords Reform was ridiculous. We'd have supposedly elected Lords from 15 years ago even when their party has been obliterated claiming democratic legitimacy.
We currently have Lords from a lot longer than 15 years ago voting for or against legislation.
They don't claim democratic legitimacy though. So the Lords currently know their place and know they're for amending bills but the legitimate chamber is the Commons.
Have so-called elected Lords and they'll claim a democratic mandate. Claiming a democratic mandate from 15 years ago is ridiculous ... to put it into context we could currently be having people who were "elected" to their term before 9/11.
People elected by proportional representation 15 years ago would still reflect the public view far more accurately than people elected by first past the post last week.
But go to their town, ask them how the place is doing, or what they think 70 years of voting for the Labour party has done for where they live, or why they still vote for a certain party – and you start to hear recurring themes that have a ring of truth. Seeing and hearing how they answer is as important as what they say. And if you don’t have a script, your story will be led by what people tell you, and not vice versa.
"Travelling the country with John Harris for the Guardian’s Anywhere but Westminster series over the past 12 weeks, we only occasionally intersected with the campaign as seen on national TV, usually to satirise it. Going in to the final weeks, it increasingly felt like the Labour party were in trouble on the street – yet in the national narrative it was increasingly “too close to call”.
We went into our final video from Nuneaton, days before the campaign ended, dead on our feet and with very little idea as to what we would film. Our video was based on little more than speaking to as many people on the street as we could in a 48-hour period, and reflecting that truthfully in an edit. We found a fairly broad sense that this was not a “change moment”, and that people were genuinely gripped by the idea that an SNP-led Scotland would be holding the country to ransom under Labour."
"Our final film felt very gloomy about the prospects of the Labour party, and wasn’t necessarily what we wanted to report. It didn’t match what the numbers were saying, and it wasn’t a polished piece of work by TV standards. But it’s a good place to start if you want to understand why the Tories won."
Just 3 of the Labour re-treads were successful: Joan Ryan, Rob Marris, Dawn Butler.
What is a "re-tread"?
Candidates who lost at a previous election trying to get re-elected again.
I always thought it was a bit risky for Labour to have so many candidates who must have been first selected in the early/mid 90s or even earlier. People like Andrew Dismore, Sally Keeble, Patrick Hall, Mike O'Brien, Anne Snelgrove.
Penny for Mike O'Brien's thoughts though
He must have been certain of winning Warwickshire North and have no plan B.
Polls don't give a snapshot of a "race", in the sense that two parties might be said to be "level at the final hurdle". If two athletes in a 10km run are level at the final hurdle, then even if one runner slows down a lot, he's still going to cross the finishing line at a time close to his competitor's time. If, instead of that happening, one beats the other by a large margin, we can ask why our information about how they were doing at the final hurdle was so wrong. But whereas that's a reasonable question in horse-racing and athletics, in politics it's misguided. Late polls can't give that sort of information. That sort of information doesn't exist. All they tell us is what people have told them.
Just before the election, the Daily Telegraph sent emails to its online subscribers telling them to vote Tory. How on earth can a poll conducted previously to that event take it into account? Even if pollsters formed a view on its likely effect, why should their prediction be worth more than anyone else's? Pollsters gather information on how people say they'll vote, on what issues they think are important, on how likely they are to vote, etc. The mistake is to give too much importance to the percentages that they crunch out on the basis of that information.
Sometimes they get it more right, sometimes they get it more wrong. Why the difference? It's because of causal factors they can't appreciate and which simply aren't present in the data they collect.
In this election, the whole 'hung parliament' message boiled down to "a vote for Labour is a vote for chaos and uncertainty". That was shoved down people's throats by all the 'neutrals', players, academics, pollsters and clever-clever commentators. And it had an effect on people voting differently from how they told the pollsters they'd vote.
Yet despite the Daily Record and BBC Scotland and Murphy popping up every 5 minutes to say a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Conservatives, the SNP got an overwhelming landslide.
The character assasination attempts on the Nats were just as bold and nasty as anything the press down here were laying on Miliband - and yet SLAB got thumped. You can win with a hostile media, but you need a decent leader.
As I have said he thought he was a certainty to win as he thinks he is JFK reborn, thats why he made the promise to resign. He never thought that he would have to do it. As soon as he had resigned he set out trying to stop his own resignation. Its his party and no one elses.
For someone who is always banging on about an unelected and unaccountable EU, it's quite ironic that Farage is now denying UKIP members the chance to install a democratically elected leader.
He won the leadership election, voted for by Ukip members, last October
Thought you would have kept a keen watch on facts before posting
He resigned last week.
Do you not think a vote would be more democratic than Nigel simply telling the NEC that they should beg him to take the job back as the sky would fall in without him?
I want the polices that Ukip have to have the best chance of being heard and the best way for that to happen is for Farage to be the leader. I don't care about the internal squabblings of party politics, he is the best man for the job, I've never heard anyone say 'we'd be better off w xxxxxx in charge' there really is no problem, except other parties supporters would rather he was not leader, and I couldn't really care less what they think.
Sorry Sam but that is simply not true. For a start I have said it on here regularly that Farage should go and although it is undoubtedly a minority position in the party it is certainly not completely without support.
Sorry back to you, you have said that many times... Who would you have instead?
But no one I have met has, or anyone on here until he said he was quitting
And yes I'd say it was a minority position within the party.. Put it this way, if Farage left and started his own party I think he'd do better than the remains of Ukip, although probably neither would do that well
Be hilarious if the news that Farage was begged to reconsider his resignation as Ukip Leader then leads Carswell to resort to begging the Conservatives to let him return on the back into the fold. Not that I would particularly happy to see him return!
@smashmorePH: One betting firm emails me to say @DouglasCarswell is now 2/1 to re-join the Conservative party by the end of the year.
Make a public offer to bring him back - be inclusive and welcoming, but no special favours. Extend it to any UKIP voter who wants to rejoin the Tory party.
Just so they can all leave again when Cameron screws them over the EU vote? Probably better just to leave them in UKIP rather than suffer that embarrassment.
Green deposits should now be settled. Sadly 21-30% was nowhere near as good as 0-20% :-(
considerably worse given that I only backed 0-20
Sorry to hear that. They certainly did a bit better than I thought - 3.8% as opposed to 3% - but the killer for the bet was that their vote share was not quite as concentrated as might have been expected.
0-20% was still a great bet at odds >6/4
I'd take that bet again. and again. and again.
I was on at 2/1 and will not lose a moment's sleep about such a great value bet losing. I missed the insane initial price but if i had got on that i would have covered 21 to 30 as well.
Very disappointing that the BBC and other organisations aren't giving the regional breakdowns from England. They did in 2010 and 2005 so this is a step backwards. I'm doing it myself, starting with London.
Comments
Bookie of the year contender along with Coral and Skybet.
I bought labour on the spreads @ 0.5 for £200/point. I lost a load of other longshot 2nd place bets - but enough came in to turn a decent profit.
Pity it wasn't 0-20%. Perhaps if we spend more time on the razzle with Neil next time?
I always thought it was a bit risky for Labour to have so many candidates who must have been first selected in the early/mid 90s or even earlier. People like Andrew Dismore, Sally Keeble, Patrick Hall, Mike O'Brien, Anne Snelgrove.
If Labour wants to stay in the game at all they need a new Mandy, sharpish.
Zeichner in Cambridge was 5th time lucky.
You're not saying that an opposition party cannot oppose any policies of the winning party are you?
A shame really, because I like libertarian free-thinkers and he's one. I always thought it was silly him absconding to UKIP* and now he probably does too.
*Notwithstanding the fact that 13% of the vote and just one seat is very harsh on the Kippers.
Oh
As I said yesterday - it is a joke.
Not so different now are you?
https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/598136166702014464
One of the many good things about the last government was that there was never even a hint of the Blair/Brown wars or even the Brown/Darling wars between No10 and the Treasury. When Dave is going that will be slightly more challenging but it will be interesting to see if they can do it again.
https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=904&q=tony+balir+camp+david&oq=tony+balir+camp+david&gs_l=img.3...1093.5173.0.5332.21.12.0.9.0.0.120.843.7j4.11.0.msedr...0...1ac.1.64.img..11.10.794.5M9R56k8bh0#imgrc=the2ND-Bsw6NrM%3A;bRmKSz668mkqgM;http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F01705%2Fblairbush_1705979c.jpg;http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Ftony-blair%2F7974276%2FTony-Blair-cannot-say-sorry-in-words-about-the-Iraq-war.html;460;288
Jon Gaunt will one of the chief cheerleaders of the out campaign
The one I was really hoping for was the tories to 2nd in Stirling (again @ 0.5);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
Close, but no cigar!
Ukip want Farage as their leader and he is. Other parties wish he wasn't, so what? All the better
Conservative have the following results:
163 total councils +32 councils 5,521 seats +541 councillors
Labour have the following results:
74 total councils -3 councils 2,278 seats -203 councillors
Liberal Democrat have the following results:
4 total councils -4 councils 658 seats - 411 councillors
UKIP have the following results:
1 total councils +1% councils 202 seats +176 councillors
If Hammond plays a prominent role that would greatly advantage Out.
https://medium.com/@chrisdeerin/why-i-will-vote-labour-b058b17e042f
bit of a double negative at the end there.
@antifrank already posted the link to the Salisbury Convention.
And actually it makes him even more different, unless you can point us to another party leader whose resignation has been refused.
"I have interrogated huge data sets of polls and betting markets over many, many elections stretching back years and this is part of a well-established pattern. Basically, when the polls tell you one thing, and the betting markets tell you another, follow the money. Even if the markets do not get it spot on every time, they will usually get it a lot closer than the polls."
Either way I'm not quite sure why on this site there is such a clamour for Osborne for 2020. I don't see him being elected as PM at all, tbh.
My unlikely experience of a dog with a nose bleed and knocking over a bottle red...
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/b0k2z4/london-voting
One of his steps in that direction is to effectively break up the NHS as a unitary body giving local government a far bigger say over its spending and resource allocation integrating this with care services. This is potentially very radical indeed and might even show the way forward for management of the NHS leviathan.
The Tories could do with more leaders with clearer ideas about where they are wanting to go. Cameron himself seems to want the current structure but better. Osborne is more radical.
Is this the real story behind the unresignation?
Have so-called elected Lords and they'll claim a democratic mandate. Claiming a democratic mandate from 15 years ago is ridiculous ... to put it into context we could currently be having people who were "elected" to their term before 9/11.
Part I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt8gEvGJe_I
Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmYfjFSdFcQ
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/11/understand-tories-won-election-go-anywhere-but-westminster
"Travelling the country with John Harris for the Guardian’s Anywhere but Westminster series over the past 12 weeks, we only occasionally intersected with the campaign as seen on national TV, usually to satirise it. Going in to the final weeks, it increasingly felt like the Labour party were in trouble on the street – yet in the national narrative it was increasingly “too close to call”.
We went into our final video from Nuneaton, days before the campaign ended, dead on our feet and with very little idea as to what we would film. Our video was based on little more than speaking to as many people on the street as we could in a 48-hour period, and reflecting that truthfully in an edit. We found a fairly broad sense that this was not a “change moment”, and that people were genuinely gripped by the idea that an SNP-led Scotland would be holding the country to ransom under Labour."
"Our final film felt very gloomy about the prospects of the Labour party, and wasn’t necessarily what we wanted to report. It didn’t match what the numbers were saying, and it wasn’t a polished piece of work by TV standards. But it’s a good place to start if you want to understand why the Tories won."
Yes its not perfect, but we operate in a two party system. Plus if Libertarians abandon the party then authoritarians will be all that are left.
The re-tread issue is actually hard to measure, because re-treads were only selected where they had a significant personal vote to start with, a measure of which was an unusually low swing in 2010. Population change alone inevitably eroded that as Richard N predicted - e.g. 31% of the electorate in my patch was new since 2010 - so a strong former candidate would start with a negative swing. Against that, having a new candidate where there was a personal vote for the predecessor would have been tricky ("Why did you dump X who I voted for last time?"), and 3 out of ?12? re-treads being re-elected against the trend isn't bad.
It's probably still better to have someone with an existing personal vote than a total newcomer, but you have to bargain with it having declined unless they hung on last time - Gedling is a good example of a personal vote persisting from election to election, since Vernor Coaker was able to continue to impress new voters as they moved in.
On Labour's side of the fence you have pointed out all the people who won't do. Where are the one's that will? For me this is even more important than finding a vaguely credible front person. Their campaign was just awful. That is easy to say but running a campaign is incredibly difficult and it is not obvious where the skills are coming from.
One thing is surely clear: Labour need to go into the next election looking like a vaguely credible government with a coherent policy agenda that has not been thrown together at the last minute but put out there, tested and amended as necessary. They need to try to make the conversation and they need to recognise the limitations of government in terms of spending and taxation.
It is possible that the EU will once again deliver a fractured and broken tory party leaving the election for them on a plate but they would be well advised not to count on it.
I'd take that bet again. and again. and again.
Don't worry, I won't tell anyone
Polls don't give a snapshot of a "race", in the sense that two parties might be said to be "level at the final hurdle". If two athletes in a 10km run are level at the final hurdle, then even if one runner slows down a lot, he's still going to cross the finishing line at a time close to his competitor's time. If, instead of that happening, one beats the other by a large margin, we can ask why our information about how they were doing at the final hurdle was so wrong. But whereas that's a reasonable question in horse-racing and athletics, in politics it's misguided. Late polls can't give that sort of information. That sort of information doesn't exist. All they tell us is what people have told them.
Just before the election, the Daily Telegraph sent emails to its online subscribers telling them to vote Tory. How on earth can a poll conducted previously to that event take it into account? Even if pollsters formed a view on its likely effect, why should their prediction be worth more than anyone else's? Pollsters gather information on how people say they'll vote, on what issues they think are important, on how likely they are to vote, etc. The mistake is to give too much importance to the percentages that they crunch out on the basis of that information.
Sometimes they get it more right, sometimes they get it more wrong. Why the difference? It's because of causal factors they can't appreciate and which simply aren't present in the data they collect.
In this election, the whole 'hung parliament' message boiled down to "a vote for Labour is a vote for chaos and uncertainty". That was shoved down people's throats by all the 'neutrals', players, academics, pollsters and clever-clever commentators. And it had an effect on people voting differently from how they told the pollsters they'd vote.
He must have been certain of winning Warwickshire North and have no plan B.
The character assasination attempts on the Nats were just as bold and nasty as anything the press down here were laying on Miliband - and yet SLAB got thumped. You can win with a hostile media, but you need a decent leader.
But no one I have met has, or anyone on here until he said he was quitting
And yes I'd say it was a minority position within the party.. Put it this way, if Farage left and started his own party I think he'd do better than the remains of Ukip, although probably neither would do that well