politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf on the LAB leadership as Liz Kendall gets closer in th
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf on the LAB leadership as Liz Kendall gets closer in the betting
“Backers of Liz Kendall are hoping that an influx of new party members and supporters will wrest control of the Labour leadership race back from Len McCluskey.
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Also: First. Fitting, for my 2,500th post
When Fraser Nelson suggests to Labour that Burnham is the ideal candidate, they should listen carefully - and then elect someone else!
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/fraser-nelson/2015/05/andy-burnham-isnt-just-the-unions-candidate-hes-the-tory-candidate-too/
Maybe. That's how it would work if they were sensible. I'm not sure it will work like that, but I'm nicely all-green on the four-and-a-half declared runners anyway, so I'm just enjoying the spectacle.
I rather think the Forces of Hell haven't gone away, and will be directing their attentions to Ms Kendall soon.
Nice cartoon, BTW!
I'm impressed by the fact the the SNP squad turn up first. Skinner v Ms Black is a tasty contest with more than half a century between them. I think the old boy might quite like the young women.
Anyway the NATS are perfectly correct to establish their position.
Apparently it is Partick Grady, Margaret Ferrier and Stewart Mcdonald who first camped there at 11:30 AM.
About 500 people are estimated to have been annoyed in several minutes of talking on the opposition benches, which lie only 70 miles (112km) to the left of the population.
But Labour has said it is confident the capture of the benches can be reversed.
The Labour militias, known as the unPopular Mobilisation (Brownites), were key to the recapture from the SNP of a small molehill to the north of Aberdeen in May.
Speaking in London, Prime Minster David Cameron said: "Ha ha ha ha ha."
Yes that is correct. Those who live by the sword length - die by the sword length!
http://newstonoone.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/2020-labours-challenge.html
Unite's interventions are not always designed to push people to the left - they cancelled a busload of canvassers to my patch two days before the election, after discovering that I was against Trident, eeek. I think that "too left-wing for Len McCluskey" deserves a special award, like "reproved by SeanT for riotous lifestyle". As a long-standing UNITE member, I was also amused rather than shocked when they nominated a rival, ultra-Blairite, candidate from the GMB during our selection process - he got about 2% of the subsequent vote. To be fair their selection process was the most thorough that we had, with a proper exam including "what if" questions for typical scenarios involving constituents with difficult issues.
If I were the Labour HQ (if they have one left) I would hesitate to send in any troops. The next stop and perhaps the real target of the NATS is the Treasury bench.
Liz is a tough cookie and has been anticipating the forces of hell. This may well get the sisters rallying to her cause.
Which ended well.
"First they came for the opposition benches. Then they came for the treasury benches. Then they came for me, but there was no-one left to laugh."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-32776280
"Waco police said the shooting happened shortly after midday when rival gangs got into a fight, apparently over parking space near the restaurant. Up to five gangs were involved.
Police spokesman Sgt W Patrick Swanton said the fight started with punches and then escalated to chains, clubs, knives and finally firearms."
http://newsthump.com/2015/05/15/green-party-voters-still-horrified-by-labour-defeat/
http://www.lizkendall.org/
If he gets it, his form will dog him from day one.
All I can say is he's maturing late in life, like a fine wine.
Maybe.
http://newsthump.com/2015/05/08/cameron-rushed-to-hospital-with-chronic-smugness/
Although, from your link, this line was inspired:
In an attempt to rebuild, the Labour Party have today used an article published in the Guardian newspaper to announce a campaign to reconnect with ordinary people.
Interesting article - http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/05/labour-must-understand-that-unite-is-its-enemy/
I think Burnham will win, I think the Labour party see him differently than I do.
I do not think Cooper will win, I think the Labour party see her exactly as I do.
I can only repeat, the corollary of Kendal saying the Labour govt spent too much is to support the governments cuts in spending. This is the issue the labour Party have to face up to and 'outside voters' plugging for her is not going of itself change the ethos of Labour. Its a recipe for splits, not the ''unity'' being called for.
The fudge unity candidate is Burnham which is why regular labour members will vote for him.
Well Miliband has ensured Labour can get Short Money at least.
If only just to p1ss themselves laughing and reject the idea 15 seconds later.
Ps as a fully paid up labourite my instinct at the moment us to go for one of the women candidates. Cooper may be a bit too close to Balls(so to speak) but ii have an open mind on the other two female candidates. May invite them to dinner to see how they perform.
Excellent piece from Nick Cohen
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2015/05/labour-must-understand-that-unite-is-its-enemy/
http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/harriet-harman-on-how-shes-holding-it-together-as-the-labour-leadership-battle-continues-10257735.html
"On the night of the election she nearly went out and declared a Labour victory before the exit polls. “I was going to be the first person out. It was like, ‘Shall we be out first saying it feels like David Cameron has lost this election?’ Or shall we wait for the exit poll because we can be more scientific and forensic about it? Luckily we waited.”"
I would also impose a cap on how much any one person or group can give a party, in a - probably vain - attempt to make them make themselves attractive to a large group of voters.
And if that means they have a relatively modest income and have to live within it, well, boo hoo - it's how the rest of us have to live. It would do them good to understand this basic point.
The second half is false as we're not currently in an downturn. We're current in an upturn, we're currently in a boom. The fact we're running the current deficit during this current boom is what's so dangerous - it's seven years now since the last recession started and six years since the last recession ended.
We mustn't assume there won't be another one any time soon and need to be sorting out the deficit now.
Yes that piece is brilliant.
The government have been allowing the cyclical regulators to do their work whilst still cutting the unaffordable structural departmental spending. As David Smith, The Sunday Times economics correspondent, points out, ''But the government has stuck pretty much to its consolidation plan. The deficit has, of course, overshot, as we have all written on many occasions. The reasons for that, as the OBR has also pointed out, are that the government chose not to introduce additional tightening in response to upward revisions in the size of the structural deficit in 2012-13, and the many other reasons it lists in the forecast evaluation document, mainly undershoots on the revenue side.''
SNP MP: "44 to long"
Let him go and set up his own party of the loony left and Guardian readers, allowing the more sensible - let's call them Blairites for now - wing of the party to elect someone like Kendall or Jarvis and take the fight to Cameron.
Even Hattie this morning was saying that the Party need to listen and understand where they disconnected with the wider electorate, what better way to say this than to kick out the union dinosaurs..?
But Unite wants to pull them in the opposite direction, and Labour are essentially leaderless, which will make it hard to resist that pull.
Labour are going to have a difficult six months: they should be opposing the government. Instead they stand a good chance of opposing each other if they can actually look outside their navel for long enough.
But they can't...
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/600283502966345729
Hat-tip to @AndyJS for English regional data.
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/600282994524463104
I have no idea what the German position is.
The Labour party came into being not through state intervention but because people felt a need for it. It will die if people no longer feel a need for it, much as the Liberals have done. After 1992 the Tories were in intensive care and there was a time when we thought it was done for as a party.
If parties get money regardless they will be even less likely to listen to what we, the voters, are saying. Labour should, IMO, call Unite's bluff. Trade unions don't even represent the majority of workers anymore. If Labour really want to represent the "workers" it might do better talking to people other than union leaders. Labour really needs to stop thinking that what worked in 1948 is what works now or what will work in 2020 and beyond.
I am seriously worried that in the next few months, while we are arguing over a new leader that Osborne will get away with blue murder.
Labour need to get back to campaigning for those who work in manual and service jobs, not those who don't work or who work in the public sector middle classes.
In the past, those elected after an initial defeat (e.g. 1983) start off as more left-wing than the Parliamentary party as a whole, but many then steadily drift towards the centre and that process is accelerated if the following election results in another defeat.
In the middle of SNP
The size of the structural deficit which the incoming government inherited is entirely Labour's fault. The new govt was quite rightly committed to eliminating that structural deficit (not the cyclical one) by the end of the parliament. When that structural deficit was seen to be bigger than expected it again rightly chose not to cut more quickly to meet its deadline, it extended the period by 2 years. During all this time it has (as the regular articles by Smith point out) continued to cut public spending at a steady rate. It's cutting that spending because it's unaffordable no matter how the economy performs over the economic cycle.
A party funded by as wide a range of people and groups as possible is far more likely to be in touch and less beholden to special interests in a way which puts off more people than it attracts.
1) That new members can join up now and get a vote
2) That people don't even have to be proper members and still get a vote
Only fully paid up members as of 7th May should be entitled to participate in the ballot. Anything else just leaves the whole process open to manipulation.
P.S. I am still an undecided voter.
Greater London: +3.36%
North West: +2.84%
Yorkshire & the Humber: +2.52%
North East: +0.87%
South East: +0.54%
Eastern: +0.25%
Wales: +0.25%
West Midlands: +0.04%
East Midlands: -0.20%
South West: -0.71%
Scotland: -7.94%
Re Lab leader contest, I recall that I thought Burnham was the best best of the bunch 5 years ago, although I certainly cannot remember what he said or how I got that impression.
http://labourlist.org/2015/05/lets-put-to-bed-the-charge-of-labour-over-spending-and-turn-our-fire-on-the-tories/
http://labourlist.org/2015/05/we-are-writing-history-now/
The latter one is particularly interesting. Look at this bit:
From day one, [the Tories] began to write the narrative of an economic collapse caused by a Labour government. Despite our honest responses – that a global economic collapse necessitated a massive investment in failing banks, and that the money Labour spent was on rebuilding schools, hospitals and public services – we never effectively challenged that narrative.
Does she really think Labour spent all the money on rebuilding schools, hospitals and public services?
However, unlike 1983, or 1987, only one seat in Scotland...