Mr. Charles, good leaders need at least some aggression. When you seize the initiative and take the offensive, the terms of battle lie more in your hands than another.
Labour tried calling Cameron 'Flashman'. The problem with calling your principal opponent a bully is the corollary that oneself is therefore a victim.
Surely Kendall will get 35 nominations, and now has the entire new labour vote behind her. She must be a shoe in with the membership?
Has Hunt thought better of it after his mauling last night? Might AJ or HH still run as the unity candidate. Lord knows Labour could use some unity atm.
That would be the same Labour membership which traditionally lies somewhat to the left of the TU block vote and which is currently more than 50% dominated by those living in London.
Well at least they're honest twitter.com/mailonline/status/599160072909037569
*his* islam may be a religion of fighting.
Thankfully, his islam is rejected by basically everyone else who consider themselves Muslim.
Religion ain't one simple thing, isam.
Basically everyone else who considers themselves Muslim? I think you need a bit of a reality check. The number of Muslim countries without serious religious violence or major human rights abuses is a pretty small percentage.
Denial of the truth just prevents the problem being addressed.
Incidentally, if you can watch on iPlayer Jane Corbin's report on the plight of Christians in the Middle East. It is heartbreaking. There is one scene where some IS person announces that no non-Muslim will be allowed to survive, takes a statue of the Virgin Mary stolen from an Iraqi church and smashes into pieces on the ground.
Contrast the silence and passivity of the Western world to such offensive behaviour with the the hair trigger wailing and violence that accompanies anything the perpetrators of such acts don't like.
Were we to react in the way they do to their offensive behaviour, defined using their own definition of "offensive", the world would be in flames.
IS have also deliberately destroyed the memorial in Syria to all the Armenians killed by the Turks during WW1. Not only do they want to repeat the genocide but they have obliterated even the memory of the last one.
It's ok I have just been told on here it's just a few Muslims that feel this way and it's all ok really
Could it be similar to the David Laws story, where closeted homosexuality led to expenses fraud?
The way he (Chuka) worded his statement it's obvious that the press are going for him, but he's been around long enough to know they would be digging - so what did he think he could hide away?
Right, so that hopkins woman is insinuating with that that Chuka has had gay affairs.
If true, this has no bearing on his fitness to do anything in public life whatsoever. This must also be the general view in the country. So if the construction I have put on the snide tweet is accurate, it might be that his family don't know, and he doesn't want them to find out like this?
This. As you say, it's not being gay, it's hiding it from 2 or 3 people in the world you want not to know you are gay. Maybe.
That crossed my mind too - but it just seems so unlikely. Isn't his Dad a judge or something?
Chuka posed with his new girlfriend in the DT - surely he could just come out as gay or bi or whatever before his leadership bid if that's the case.
One couldn't be a closet leader of Labour. David Laws was caught out by expenses, and a surprise rise in his career fortunes. Chuka has sought this one out very deliberately.
Could it be similar to the David Laws story, where closeted homosexuality led to expenses fraud?
The way he (Chuka) worded his statement it's obvious that the press are going for him, but he's been around long enough to know they would be digging - so what did he think he could hide away?
Watching this short film I felt a bit sad for the independent candidate in Cheltenham. It's a reminder of how difficult it is for independent candidates to get anywhere in general elections:
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
Surely Kendall will get 35 nominations, and now has the entire new labour vote behind her. She must be a shoe in with the membership?
Has Hunt thought better of it after his mauling last night? Might AJ or HH still run as the unity candidate. Lord knows Labour could use some unity atm.
That would be the same Labour membership which traditionally lies somewhat to the left of the TU block vote and which is currently more than 50% dominated by those living in London.
My take on Chukka - " Chukka gaahhn"
The vote is OMOV with registered supporters, not just members. Liz has done only a handful of tweets since announcing her candidacy, all pro Union.
Liz Kendall has union contacts, and is now the only 2010 entrant standing. I would be suprised if she cannot get the 35 names. She was SPAD to HH, and seems to have been working the room for a while.
It's surprising therefore that Harman didn't give her a promotion in the new Shadow Cabinet.
I did wonder about that, but think that HH kept moves to a minimum, only replacing those in the Shadow cabinet who lost their seats, leaving a proper reshuffle for the new leader.
I've just had to have a quick look at Mary Creagh. Caroline Lucas like, but without Lucas's effortlessness. But a heck of a lot better than Liz Kendell who is a featherweight, unconvincing lightweight.
I think Liz is a bit too centrist for you. Remember that Maggie, Blair, Cameron were all dismissed as lightweights initially.
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be. Every move any senior Labour figure made would be interpreted as being on manoeuvres.
Right, so that hopkins woman is insinuating with that that Chuka has had gay affairs.
This is how people get outed. It's fucking horrible. Some insinuation from a stranger that turns quickly into gossip and then, inevitably, *the question*
Shame on katie hopkins. She's a nasty, nasty piece of work.
Thankfully, his islam is rejected by basically everyone else who consider themselves Muslim.
Religion ain't one simple thing, isam.
That's not quite true, though. The leading scholars in Islam declared a while back that, while they deplored what IS was doing, they would not declare it unIslamic. If Islamic scholars - who may be presumed to know more about Islam than non-Muslims - won't declare it unIslamic then we had better listen to them and think about what that means.
We have to consider the possibility - awful as it may be to contemplate - that while "fighting" may not define all of Islam - or even the best of it - it is a significant part of it.
What IS are doing on the ground now - expulsions, the jizya tax, taking infidel women as booty, beheading of enemies etc - is almost certainly very similar to what the original Muslim armies did when Islam first emerged in the 7th century.
We are not going to deal with IS and those who support them if we deny reality and believe only what we want to believe.
Cooper now Labour's best bet, 1st from Oxford, LSE and Harvard, very bright, comes across as reasonable, non-posh background (went to a Hampshire comprehensive, MP for Pontefract) she was also born in Inverness which could help them in Scotland too, she would provide a real contrast to Cameron and especially Osborne in 2020
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
Sounds like wishful thinking on leftie Cricks part to me...
Earlier today, as Chukka fell under the virtual bus, I had a 'weird' betting moment and put on to Starmer at 190/1. He now stands at 32.
Polly is shilling for him. Never gonna happen, great bet but make sure you trade out.
Starmer, the Grauniad candidate. A good recipe for Labour sub-200 seats at the next GE, I would have thought.
Is that the same Kier Starmer who didn't want to prosecute people in Rotherham for rape and assault, in case it offended their religious sensitivities?
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be.
That would be insane..what leader would say 'I'm not really sure i'm good enough for the next election', unless a clear caretaker.
Watched bbc news earlier,George Eaton was on,he said labour officals were trying to get Dan Jarvis to change his mind and put his name into the leadership race.
Peter Tatchell — "Whatever you think of Ukip or the Greens, our electoral system is robbing them. First past the post delivers just one MP for 3.9 million votes. Even if you hate Nigel Farage, that should make you angry"
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be. Every move any senior Labour figure made would be interpreted as being on manoeuvres.
Shush Richard, it would be a great move by Labour.
Earlier today, as Chukka fell under the virtual bus, I had a 'weird' betting moment and put on to Starmer at 190/1. He now stands at 32.
Polly is shilling for him. Never gonna happen, great bet but make sure you trade out.
Starmer, the Grauniad candidate. A good recipe for Labour sub-200 seats at the next GE, I would have thought.
Is that the same Kier Starmer who didn't want to prosecute people in Rotherham for rape and assault, in case it offended their religious sensitivities?
He's not even been an MP yet!!! Are labour really that desperate casting around?
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be.
That would be insane..what leader would say 'I'm not really sure i'm good enough for the next election', unless a clear caretaker.
A caretaker would have to be a real Grandee - maybe Postman or Hattie. All of the runners so far are wanting to go to 2020.
'Conservative students trawling the internet'! What will they think of next, eh, those pesky Tories?
As a candidate, of course your opponents will google you... they will look through your publicly available material. That shouldn't stop you standing, unless you have skeletons that you cannot justify - hetero affair skeletons, gay skeletons, changing political party skeletons, changing policies skeletons can all be justified,. To put yourself forward, you have to be able to stand up in public as yourself, warts and all. If you do that, your father, mother and everyone close to you will not be suffering from stress, they'll be suffering from pride.
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be.
That would be insane..what leader would say 'I'm not really sure i'm good enough for the next election', unless a clear caretaker.
A caretaker would have to be a real Grandee - maybe Postman or Hattie. All of the runners so far are wanting to go to 2020.
Burnham and Cooper aren't going to step aside. It's not going to happen.
'I'm told that there are efforts underway to persuade Dan Jarvis, considered by many to be Labour's best hope of overcoming the odds and winning in 2020'
The Labour leadership election is simply risible. Hattie should stay on for 6 - 12 months, allow circumstances to develop and hope a plausible candidate will emerge. At the moment they are just flying blind with a field of no hopers.
Cooper now Labour's best bet, 1st from Oxford, LSE and Harvard, very bright, comes across as reasonable, non-posh background (went to a Hampshire comprehensive, MP for Pontefract) she was also born in Inverness which could help them in Scotland too, she would provide a real contrast to Cameron and especially Osborne in 2020
The interesting thing is that most of Labour's top contenders are women. They might be gravitating to who can beat Sturgeon in a cat fight. The sensible answer, if it is a woman, is Cooper.
By the way HYUFD, Jeb Bush continues his implosion:
Well quite. When I was recruiting press officers in Whitehall, my team would find out who was at 2nd int stage and Google them after simply being friendly on the way down in the lift.
They'd discover their soppy poetry on Facebook and Twitter opinions. Anyone who posts on the internet is bound to be discovered. And if you know anyone who'd like to do you in - well you'll be on the interweb anyway and it's completely beyond your control.
'Conservative students trawling the internet'! What will they think of next, eh, those pesky Tories?
As a candidate, of course your opponents will google you... they will look through your publicly available material. That shouldn't stop you standing, unless you have skeletons that you cannot justify - hetero affair skeletons, gay skeletons, changing political party skeletons, changing policies skeletons can all be justified,. To put yourself forward, you have to be able to stand up in public as yourself, warts and all. If you do that, your father, mother and everyone close to you will not be suffering from stress, they'll be suffering from pride.
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
That would be suicidal. Three years of speculation on who the next leader would be.
That would be insane..what leader would say 'I'm not really sure i'm good enough for the next election', unless a clear caretaker.
While declaring a break early would be foolish, Labour does need a better way to defenestrate a losing leader. Both Brown and Miliband were unshiftable and elections were lost as a result.
'I'm told that there are efforts underway to persuade Dan Jarvis, considered by many to be Labour's best hope of overcoming the odds and winning in 2020'
Alan Johnson would be a good option for Labour except for the fact that he'll be 70 in 2020. I personally don't think age should matter but others seem to think so, (not referring to people on this site).
Looking at the 10 Labour gains from the Conservatives, the interesting thing is that the largest majority in any of them was just 1,451 votes. If you'd predicted that before the election most people wouldn't have believed it.
Dewsbury (1,451) Lancaster & Fleetwood (1,265) Hove (1,236) Enfield North (1,086) Wolverhampton SW (801) Ilford North (589) Brentford & Isleworth (465) Wirral West (417) Ealing Central & Acton (274) City of Chester (93)
Blimey. On reflection, it could have been an even better night for the Tories then, as it would not have taken much to retain all of those seats.
BBC said there were 11 losses by the Conservatives.
Mr. Foxinsox, it's the old sheep, wolves and high students analogy as put forward by me.
Labour are sheep. If they get a good leader, it's great because they're super-disciplined. If they have a bad one, it's awful. They're too cowardly to rebel much and too incompetent to commit regicide.
Conservatives are wolves, just itching for an excuse to tear their leader to pieces, whether justifiably or not. This means bad ones can't hang around like a bad smell, but decent ones might get torn down too (and there's general discontent more often than Labour suffers).
The Lib Dems are high students. They're mostly mellow and easygoing, but every so often they have an episode of violent paranoia and attack the leader with a bread knife.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
Thankfully, his islam is rejected by basically everyone else who consider themselves Muslim.
Religion ain't one simple thing, isam.
That's not quite true, though. The leading scholars in Islam declared a while back that, while they deplored what IS was doing, they would not declare it unIslamic. If Islamic scholars - who may be presumed to know more about Islam than non-Muslims - won't declare it unIslamic then we had better listen to them and think about what that means.
We have to consider the possibility - awful as it may be to contemplate - that while "fighting" may not define all of Islam - or even the best of it - it is a significant part of it.
What IS are doing on the ground now - expulsions, the jizya tax, taking infidel women as booty, beheading of enemies etc - is almost certainly very similar to what the original Muslim armies did when Islam first emerged in the 7th century.
We are not going to deal with IS and those who support them if we deny reality and believe only what we want to believe.
This will become more and more of an issue with the new generations, who have gone through their formative years posting information to the world every 5 minutes (literally!) about what they were doing, where and with whom. They then become graduates looking for employment and don't understand that there are now people who will look negatively on what they did in their younger days.
Well quite. When I was recruiting press officers in Whitehall, my team would find out who was at 2nd int stage and Google them after simply being friendly on the way down in the lift.
They'd discover their soppy poetry on Facebook and Twitter opinions. Anyone who posts on the internet is bound to be discovered. And if you know anyone who'd like to do you in - well you'll be on the interweb anyway and it's completely beyond your control.
'Conservative students trawling the internet'! What will they think of next, eh, those pesky Tories?
As a candidate, of course your opponents will google you... they will look through your publicly available material. That shouldn't stop you standing, unless you have skeletons that you cannot justify - hetero affair skeletons, gay skeletons, changing political party skeletons, changing policies skeletons can all be justified,. To put yourself forward, you have to be able to stand up in public as yourself, warts and all. If you do that, your father, mother and everyone close to you will not be suffering from stress, they'll be suffering from pride.
Fox said "While declaring a break early would be foolish, Labour does need a better way to defenestrate a losing leader. Both Brown and Miliband were unshiftable and elections were lost as a result."
The awful truth is that Brown and Miliband were the best Labour had to offer. Your darling, Liz Kendall, looks a prize horror. It's going to be Burnham.
Mr. Sandpit, that might also increase tolerance towards youthful indiscretion or lead to informal rules (any older than 5 years doesn't matter, or anything said pre-21 doesn't count).
Cooper now Labour's best bet, 1st from Oxford, LSE and Harvard, very bright, comes across as reasonable, non-posh background (went to a Hampshire comprehensive, MP for Pontefract) she was also born in Inverness which could help them in Scotland too, she would provide a real contrast to Cameron and especially Osborne in 2020
She's no contrast to any other top politician: same subjects studied, same universities.
Intellectually bright: maybe. But has she ever said anything interesting or unusual, anything which makes you think, anything which you wouldn't have guessed she would say before she even opened her mouth? Nope - can't think of anything.
Achievements: HiPs. Oh dear.
So we're down to where she was born even though she studied at the other end of the country and lives some of the time in Yorkshire.
If that's the bar, there's 60 million others who could do at least as good a job.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
I don't believe those rumours. Just because he looks like a slimy flashy city ethnic boy doesn't mean he has to be gay.
And I can't see the damage to him in the Labour party from being gay, of course if there is a corruption angle to it like David Laws then that changes.
Fox said "While declaring a break early would be foolish, Labour does need a better way to defenestrate a losing leader. Both Brown and Miliband were unshiftable and elections were lost as a result."
The awful truth is that Brown and Miliband were the best Labour had to offer. Your darling, Liz Kendall, looks a prize horror. It's going to be Burnham.
With Chuka out I am in profit with all the other 4, best outcome with Liz.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
Calling Londoners trash, altering his wikipedia pages, none of that harmed him.
And in this day and age, if true, would that really be the end of him? In the last parliament we had the likes of Crispin Blunt reveal that he was gay, after been married for years. It was a one day story. I thought we were past all that?
The Labour leadership election is simply risible. Hattie should stay on for 6 - 12 months, allow circumstances to develop and hope a plausible candidate will emerge. At the moment they are just flying blind with a field of no hopers.
Hattie could just "stay on" indefinetely.
I don't think she'd be any worse than Bunham or Mrs Balls...
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
I don't believe those rumours. Just because he looks like a slimy flashy city ethnic boy doesn't mean he has to be gay.
And I can't see the damage to him in the Labour party from being gay, of course if there is a corruption angle to it like David Laws then that changes.
Mr. Sandpit, that might also increase tolerance towards youthful indiscretion or lead to informal rules (any older than 5 years doesn't matter, or anything said pre-21 doesn't count).
I can imagine that might happen, but will develop over time. It will a while before some of the more serious employers in the City and government will change their very low opinion of eg. drug use, even if it was at college.
'I'm told that there are efforts underway to persuade Dan Jarvis, considered by many to be Labour's best hope of overcoming the odds and winning in 2020'
2 people benefit: Burnham and Cooper.
The question might be: who gets to carry the Blairite flag? Liz Kendall maybe, unless a bigger beast from that wing of the party can be persuaded to stand.
Looking at the 10 Labour gains from the Conservatives, the interesting thing is that the largest majority in any of them was just 1,451 votes. If you'd predicted that before the election most people wouldn't have believed it.
Dewsbury (1,451) Lancaster & Fleetwood (1,265) Hove (1,236) Enfield North (1,086) Wolverhampton SW (801) Ilford North (589) Brentford & Isleworth (465) Wirral West (417) Ealing Central & Acton (274) City of Chester (93)
Blimey. On reflection, it could have been an even better night for the Tories then, as it would not have taken much to retain all of those seats.
Well that's always the case whatever the result! Hence the usual crap about "if just 50,000 people had voted differently..." - if those 50k had voted differently, so would another million!
71000 flipped votes would have given Labour a lead in seats in a hung parliament. A shad over 3 times that would have given them a majority.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
Online dating is a lot fruitier these days.
Check out either of those websites. Fetlife has 100,000 members in the UK, 3m worldwide.
The Labour leadership election is simply risible. Hattie should stay on for 6 - 12 months, allow circumstances to develop and hope a plausible candidate will emerge. At the moment they are just flying blind with a field of no hopers.
Cameron has played them for patsies on this with great skill.
He's not going for a couple of years and nobody knows who'll replace him when he does go. Labour, however, has stitched itself up with having to choose a leader right now. This leader mustn't look lightweight next to Cameron, otherwise they are damned by that comparison almost regardless of who follows him. It was Thatcher who made Kinnochio look lightweight and this persisted even when Major took over.
But this leader must also be the antidote to whoever the Tory leader is in 2020.
It is a long time since the Tories have faced this problem. It has been obvious from 1995 who Labour's leader would be at the following GE and they have chosen a leader already equipped themselves with this knowledge. Not always appropriately but at least they knew.
Labour does not know and has the additional handicap of a quota-stuffed candidate pool from whom a candidate acceptable to the unions must be found.
I trust you'd say the same about Christianity too?
Oh no I can't handle another day of your nitpicking and irrelevance
I didn't say anything except 'at least they're honest' tongue in cheek.
Take your virtue signalling elsewhere
Its not virtue signalling, it's something I strongly believe in. As an atheist I find Christian hypocrites (which I'm not saying you are) having a go at either other Christians or other Abrahamic faiths absurd.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
Sounds too neat.
Surely one wouldn't put one's own name on even a "vanilla" dating site?
October 6th 2007 - Sir Menzies Campbell was still the Liberal Democrat leader David Davis was still Shadow Home Secretary Geoff Hoon was still in government
Liz Kendal gets my money, Labour need a complete break from the past. Meanwhile in Scotland Jim Murphy is now clinging onto the starboard bow, as SLAB go into meltdown with MSPs now rebelling:
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
Sounds too neat.
Surely one wouldn't put one's own name on even a "vanilla" dating site?
well he uses his middle name 'Harrison' I believe.
Well at least they're honest twitter.com/mailonline/status/599160072909037569
I trust you'd say the same about Christianity too?
Oh no I can't handle another day of your nitpicking and irrelevance
I didn't say anything except 'at least they're honest' tongue in cheek.
Take your virtue signalling elsewhere
Its not virtue signalling, it's something I strongly believe in. As an atheist I find Christian hypocrites (which I'm not saying you are) having a go at either other Christians or other Abrahamic faiths absurd.
Perhaps my world knowledge is a little rusty. Could you update me on the current wars, or recent terrorist incidents perpetrated in the name of Christianity? Or beheadings, burnings alive, kidnappings, mass burials, shootings of cartoonists etc. Thanks in advance.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
I don't believe those rumours. Just because he looks like a slimy flashy city ethnic boy doesn't mean he has to be gay.
And I can't see the damage to him in the Labour party from being gay, of course if there is a corruption angle to it like David Laws then that changes.
I don't think being gay changes matters nowadays.
But does not this tell you all you need to know about the cesspit of twitter?
And of course you could argue the same rules apply to straight people, too, these days. Having a bit of an active lovelife, that's fine, but being deeply into BDSM, say, would probably rule you out as a major party leader.
Never know, might have won Ed some more votes. He couldn't have done any worse :-)
Mr. Sandpit, that might also increase tolerance towards youthful indiscretion or lead to informal rules (any older than 5 years doesn't matter, or anything said pre-21 doesn't count).
I can imagine that might happen, but will develop over time. It will a while before some of the more serious employers in the City and government will change their very low opinion of eg. drug use, even if it was at college.
Some people in government take a more relaxed view about drug use at college, as do millions of voters. Chuka may have withdrawn prematurely. It was reported only this week on pb that we have just elected a record number of out gay MPs.
I trust you'd say the same about Christianity too?
Isam may be fed up with your nitpicking but really this whataboutery is pathetic and morally repulsive.
Yes - Christianity has been associated with awful things in the past etc. And there are some bad Christians around.
But now it is being persecuted - horribly - all over the Middle East by people who are appallingly evil and who will, if they get the chance, do the same things to us here.
Go and view that documentary: the 13 year old girl holed up with her family in St Matthew's monastery in Iraq, 2 miles from the front line, too poor to escape, who knows what happens to Yazidi girls when they are captured, but who - along with the others spoken to - will not give up her faith. The Jesuit priest in Damascus who is running a relief operation to feed thousands every day, Muslim and non-Muslim Syrians alike, who are suffering as a result of the civil war in their country. Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader, who says that if Christianity vanishes there is little hope for the survival of a moderate Islam in the Middle East. The Armenian lady talking about her grandparents and uncles killed by the Turks a century ago who has to live with the shrine to her relatives being destroyed by IS.
That's not quite true, though. The leading scholars in Islam declared a while back that, while they deplored what IS was doing, they would not declare it unIslamic. If Islamic scholars - who may be presumed to know more about Islam than non-Muslims - won't declare it unIslamic then we had better listen to them and think about what that means.
We have to consider the possibility - awful as it may be to contemplate - that while "fighting" may not define all of Islam - or even the best of it - it is a significant part of it.
What IS are doing on the ground now - expulsions, the jizya tax, taking infidel women as booty, beheading of enemies etc - is almost certainly very similar to what the original Muslim armies did when Islam first emerged in the 7th century.
We are not going to deal with IS and those who support them if we deny reality and believe only what we want to believe.
The rumour on Twitter is that some journo has unearthed a VERY embarrassing (presumably gay) online dating profile, advertising the likes and charms of one Chuka Umunna, Esq.
Sad if so.
*quickly deletes dating profile on justonenightstands.com*
*and Fetlife*
Sounds too neat.
Surely one wouldn't put one's own name on even a "vanilla" dating site?
Google Image Search. And perhaps also the Wayback machine. Job done.
We only think it's gay because of the Hopkins tweet. As others have said, it could be recherche or distasteful and hence embarrassing regardless of whether hetero or homo.
Mark Oaten wouldn't still be an MP if he'd done his stuff with call girls rather than rent boys, f'rex. Come to think of it, Lord Browne wouldn't have avoided having to resign from BP either in those circumstances.
Isam may be fed up with your nitpicking but really this whataboutery is pathetic and morally repulsive.
Yes - Christianity has been associated with awful things in the past etc. And there are some bad Christians around.
But now it is being persecuted - horribly - all over the Middle East by people who are appallingly evil and who will, if they get the chance, do the same things to us here.
Go and view that documentary: the 13 year old girl holed up with her family in St Matthew's monastery in Iraq, 2 miles from the front line, too poor to escape, who knows what happens to Yazidi girls when they are captured, but who - along with the others spoken to - will not give up her faith. The Jesuit priest in Damascus who is running a relief operation to feed thousands every day, Muslim and non-Muslim Syrians alike, who are suffering as a result of the civil war in their country. Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader, who says that if Christianity vanishes there is little hope for the survival of a moderate Islam in the Middle East. The Armenian lady talking about her grandparents and uncles killed by the Turks a century ago who has to live with the shrine to her relatives being destroyed by IS.
There are vile things being done in the name of Islam today, absolutely. There are equally vile things being done in the name of Christianity in some of the more extreme parts of the world too. Being done today and not just in the past, though they get less media attention. This isn't trying to score points or say its a draw, there's probably quantitatively more vile things being done in the name of Islam but its not the only one used in that way in the world today.
The problem is not the religion as it affects every one of the billions of Christians and Muslims across the globe, the problem is the sects that push this violence and the utterly unacceptable culture which need to be tackled whichever religion is associated.
@MichaelLCrick: Will a candidate for Lab leader offer "break clause", to put up for 2nd poll c.2018, to quell MPs' fears too early to pick leader for 2020?
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
Sounds like wishful thinking on leftie Cricks part to me...
Brown and his forces of darkness have driven away every plausible centrist Labour candidate and a good chuck of the moral support of all those that are left. The man was a genius. A fruit loop bonkers genius who reminds me of the poor chap in the Skittles advert where everything he touches turns to a pile of 'fruit-flavoured sweets'. Unfortunately for us Brown grabbed hold of the UK economy and in his case everything turned to dust..
Surely one wouldn't put one's own name on even a "vanilla" dating site?
Google Image Search. And perhaps also the Wayback machine. Job done.
We only think it's gay because of the Hopkins tweet. As others have said, it could be recherche or distasteful and hence embarrassing regardless of whether hetero or homo.
Mark Oaten wouldn't still be an MP if he'd done his stuff with call girls rather than rent boys, f'rex. Come to think of it, Lord Browne wouldn't have had avoided resigning from BP either in those circumstances.
Also the way he suddenly appeared with the girlfriend in public the other day, as if it were a big moment in his life. He's 36. I've not seen that since Charles and Camilla emerged from the Ritz.
I am, all joking aside, completely astounded how Coulson has failed to damage Cameron.
You shouldn't be. Why would he be damaged by the fact that someone who used to work for him lied to him? It was always a load of wishful thinking by the Guardian-reading classes that somehow this guilt-by-association would damage Cameron, but for some reason exactly the same people didn't seem to understand that by exactly the same reasoning Labour would be damaged by their closeness to NOTW.
Voters have more sense. The LibDems were not damaged by Chris Huhne. Labour were not damaged by the various scandals under Blair. They weren't even damaged by the string of former MPs going to jail in the last parliament.
The problem is not the religion as it affects every one of the billions of Christians and Muslims across the globe, the problem is the sects that push this violence and the utterly unacceptable culture which need to be tackled whichever religion is associated.
And there is no connection between the religion and these sects? This tiresome casuistry would disgrace even the Jesuits.
Comments
Labour tried calling Cameron 'Flashman'. The problem with calling your principal opponent a bully is the corollary that oneself is therefore a victim.
My take on Chukka - " Chukka gaahhn"
Denial of the truth just prevents the problem being addressed.
Chuka posed with his new girlfriend in the DT - surely he could just come out as gay or bi or whatever before his leadership bid if that's the case.
One couldn't be a closet leader of Labour. David Laws was caught out by expenses, and a surprise rise in his career fortunes. Chuka has sought this one out very deliberately.
@MichaelLCrick: Once one Labour leadership candidate offers "break clause" in 2018, say, they'll all have to. And that would allow Jarvis to make comeback
Shame on katie hopkins. She's a nasty, nasty piece of work.
We have to consider the possibility - awful as it may be to contemplate - that while "fighting" may not define all of Islam - or even the best of it - it is a significant part of it.
What IS are doing on the ground now - expulsions, the jizya tax, taking infidel women as booty, beheading of enemies etc - is almost certainly very similar to what the original Muslim armies did when Islam first emerged in the 7th century.
We are not going to deal with IS and those who support them if we deny reality and believe only what we want to believe.
Coulson is on trial today.
If found guilty could end Dave's premiership.
Just like last time.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11606354/Whatever-you-think-of-Ukip-or-the-Greens-our-electoral-system-is-robbing-them.html
If that Crick story is right.
He could be the man in that scenario
What will they think of next, eh, those pesky Tories?
As a candidate, of course your opponents will google you... they will look through your publicly available material.
That shouldn't stop you standing, unless you have skeletons that you cannot justify - hetero affair skeletons, gay skeletons, changing political party skeletons, changing policies skeletons can all be justified,. To put yourself forward, you have to be able to stand up in public as yourself, warts and all.
If you do that, your father, mother and everyone close to you will not be suffering from stress, they'll be suffering from pride.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/who-benefits-now-chuka-umunna-gone
From the article -
'I'm told that there are efforts underway to persuade Dan Jarvis, considered by many to be Labour's best hope of overcoming the odds and winning in 2020'
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-labour-leader
They might be gravitating to who can beat Sturgeon in a cat fight.
The sensible answer, if it is a woman, is Cooper.
By the way HYUFD, Jeb Bush continues his implosion:
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/14/politics/jeb-bush-apple-watch-obamacare-answer/
I'm starting to believe that George W. is the smarter brother.
They'd discover their soppy poetry on Facebook and Twitter opinions. Anyone who posts on the internet is bound to be discovered. And if you know anyone who'd like to do you in - well you'll be on the interweb anyway and it's completely beyond your control.
What was the 11th?
Labour are sheep. If they get a good leader, it's great because they're super-disciplined. If they have a bad one, it's awful. They're too cowardly to rebel much and too incompetent to commit regicide.
Conservatives are wolves, just itching for an excuse to tear their leader to pieces, whether justifiably or not. This means bad ones can't hang around like a bad smell, but decent ones might get torn down too (and there's general discontent more often than Labour suffers).
The Lib Dems are high students. They're mostly mellow and easygoing, but every so often they have an episode of violent paranoia and attack the leader with a bread knife.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml
Fox said
"While declaring a break early would be foolish, Labour does need a better way to defenestrate a losing leader. Both Brown and Miliband were unshiftable and elections were lost as a result."
The awful truth is that Brown and Miliband were the best Labour had to offer. Your darling, Liz Kendall, looks a prize horror. It's going to be Burnham.
Intellectually bright: maybe. But has she ever said anything interesting or unusual, anything which makes you think, anything which you wouldn't have guessed she would say before she even opened her mouth? Nope - can't think of anything.
Achievements: HiPs. Oh dear.
So we're down to where she was born even though she studied at the other end of the country and lives some of the time in Yorkshire.
If that's the bar, there's 60 million others who could do at least as good a job.
Just because he looks like a slimy flashy city ethnic boy doesn't mean he has to be gay.
And I can't see the damage to him in the Labour party from being gay, of course if there is a corruption angle to it like David Laws then that changes.
With Chuka out I am in profit with all the other 4, best outcome with Liz.
And in this day and age, if true, would that really be the end of him? In the last parliament we had the likes of Crispin Blunt reveal that he was gay, after been married for years. It was a one day story. I thought we were past all that?
I don't think she'd be any worse than Bunham or Mrs Balls...
I didn't say anything except 'at least they're honest' tongue in cheek.
Take your virtue signalling elsewhere
He's not going for a couple of years and nobody knows who'll replace him when he does go. Labour, however, has stitched itself up with having to choose a leader right now. This leader mustn't look lightweight next to Cameron, otherwise they are damned by that comparison almost regardless of who follows him. It was Thatcher who made Kinnochio look lightweight and this persisted even when Major took over.
But this leader must also be the antidote to whoever the Tory leader is in 2020.
It is a long time since the Tories have faced this problem. It has been obvious from 1995 who Labour's leader would be at the following GE and they have chosen a leader already equipped themselves with this knowledge. Not always appropriately but at least they knew.
Labour does not know and has the additional handicap of a quota-stuffed candidate pool from whom a candidate acceptable to the unions must be found.
Am told Nats at Holyrood are furious that mystery someone - codeword Alex - has been regaling Commons hacks with his plans for #indyref2
Fun and games.
Surely one wouldn't put one's own name on even a "vanilla" dating site?
Sir Menzies Campbell was still the Liberal Democrat leader
David Davis was still Shadow Home Secretary
Geoff Hoon was still in government
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/murphy-clinging-on-by-his-fingertips-as-labour-msps-stage-coup.126137440
On a more positive note the husband of the lady who beat Jim has joined SLAB:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/husband-of-snp-mp-who-unseated-jim-murphy-joins-labour-party.1431683479
If we were discussing a simple dating profile from a site that he might have used to meet his girlfriend, then he wouldn't have just resigned.
Yes - Christianity has been associated with awful things in the past etc. And there are some bad Christians around.
But now it is being persecuted - horribly - all over the Middle East by people who are appallingly evil and who will, if they get the chance, do the same things to us here.
Go and view that documentary: the 13 year old girl holed up with her family in St Matthew's monastery in Iraq, 2 miles from the front line, too poor to escape, who knows what happens to Yazidi girls when they are captured, but who - along with the others spoken to - will not give up her faith. The Jesuit priest in Damascus who is running a relief operation to feed thousands every day, Muslim and non-Muslim Syrians alike, who are suffering as a result of the civil war in their country. Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader, who says that if Christianity vanishes there is little hope for the survival of a moderate Islam in the Middle East. The Armenian lady talking about her grandparents and uncles killed by the Turks a century ago who has to live with the shrine to her relatives being destroyed by IS.
The issue isn't the choice of religion, the issue is a culture that belongs to an era of history that belongs so far in the past.
Please bear with us
We only think it's gay because of the Hopkins tweet. As others have said, it could be recherche or distasteful and hence embarrassing regardless of whether hetero or homo.
Mark Oaten wouldn't still be an MP if he'd done his stuff with call girls rather than rent boys, f'rex. Come to think of it, Lord Browne wouldn't have avoided having to resign from BP either in those circumstances.
Plus Labour's own past with Rupert didn't help, even Alex Salmond has a weakness there.
In terms of scandals it is no Mid Staffs
a) Most seats
b) Majority
c) Most seats Scotland
d) Majority in Scotland.
The problem is not the religion as it affects every one of the billions of Christians and Muslims across the globe, the problem is the sects that push this violence and the utterly unacceptable culture which need to be tackled whichever religion is associated.
BTW - the worker in that ad is called 'Tim'.
(b) 3.3 million.
http://conservativewoman.co.uk/laura-perrins-stylish-chuka-is-too-old-to-have-a-girlfriend/
Also the way he suddenly appeared with the girlfriend in public the other day, as if it were a big moment in his life. He's 36.
I've not seen that since Charles and Camilla emerged from the Ritz.
Voters have more sense. The LibDems were not damaged by Chris Huhne. Labour were not damaged by the various scandals under Blair. They weren't even damaged by the string of former MPs going to jail in the last parliament.