Watford30 Local government spending down 40% while overseas aid has been increased is outrageous
MD Agree, ringfencing was a terrible idea, has drastically weakened our armed forces and meant that our own poor and vulnerable have had to bear a disproportionate share of the burden while grand overseas aid projects are thought up to try and justify the coffers overflowing at DFID and far too much of that still fails to reach those who actually need it. Each department should have faced exactly the same percentage cuts
The party that proposed that was returned with a majority.
I think the main issue is if you are planning to make mass redundancies in areas that already have high unemployment and low job prospect levels. The closures in the 60s were part of a plan, and light industry was able to take on many of the laid off workers. The 80s/90s closures didn't come with any substantial plans for the areas affected, so you ended up with towns like Worksop having horrendous heroin abuse levels circa 2000.
If a pit is unprofitable, but the cost of closure including knock on economic and social problems is significant, should it be shut? There's a good economic debate there.
I accept your point about strikes, they turned the idea of energy security on its head.
The problem was that we needed secure energy and so we needed a plan secure energy that couldn't rely upon a single insecure break point. Had the unions not caused having then the pit closures may never have happened. But the coal was both unprofitable and unreliable - the worst of all worlds.
This was as we were heading into a technological age too. Computers have changed the world we live in dramatically and much of the science and technology was coming from the UK - but how could the UK be a serious nation using the technology we were helping invent if we didn't have sustainable electricity and guaranteed supply?
Secure energy supply is a matter of security and not just money. Compromising our security as well as supporting the financial aspects of unprofitable pits was unsustainable.
Like I said Philip, I accepted your point on the counter productive nature of strikes in the coal industry.
2 things worth pointing out however
- Many areas that were previously seen as moderate/anti strike became Militant due to the prospect of closures without viable job prospects outside the coal industry. In effect closures caused strikes rather than strikes causing closures. Durham is a good example of this phenomenon.
- Anti strike areas such as Notts were just as badly affected by closures in the 80s and 90s as the militant areas like Yorkshire were. The loyalty they paid Maggie in 84 was worth nothing in the end. Still a lot of bitterness in those communities about this.
Watford30 Local government spending down 40% while overseas aid has been increased is outrageous
MD Agree, ringfencing was a terrible idea, has drastically weakened our armed forces and meant that our own poor and vulnerable have had to bear a disproportionate share of the burden while grand overseas aid projects are thought up to try and justify the coffers overflowing at DFID and far too much of that still fails to reach those who actually need it. Each department should have faced exactly the same percentage cuts
Overseas aid isn't where the fat was. Nor was the NHS. Dealing with failed states like ISIL and Afghanistan (2001) is far more expensive than providing support for development. Plus if its done right international development enriches us further in the long run. The biggest recipient of overseas aid traditionally was India but that is phased out now and instead its a trading partner not an aid recipient.
Rather than talking about budgets, what serious services have been catastrophically compromised in your eyes.
You never hear climate change supporters praising Thatcher for shuting down coalmines.
Surely she should be their hero?
The left seem to think that getting coal out of the ground is a public good, as long as it's not burnt. I suppose we could get the best of both worlds by paying miners to dig it out, and paying climate change operatives to put it back.
Watford30 Maybe, but by 2018 all those posts and more will have been cut. DFID and the NHS also saw more posts created and are creating yet more, while that may be just about understandable for heart surgeons, it is certainly not understandable to be creating more DFID bureaucrats while cutting the police, armed forces, social workers etc
You never hear climate change supporters praising Thatcher for shuting down coalmines.
Surely she should be their hero?
Imported coal is no better for the climate, possibly worse due to shipping costs.
Never mind that most of it is open cast, trashing huge swathes of wilderness, and polluting the water table for miles around. And has a higher sulphur content than UK coal, exacerbating the damage done when it's burnt.
TSE You know full well that Labour and the LDs also proposed to increase overseas aid spending, UKIP proposed to cut it and saw their voteshare rise 10% while the Tory share was unchanged, the Labour share rose 1% and the LD share fell 15%, every poll shows massive majorities for cutting overseas aid while austerity continues
You never hear climate change supporters praising Thatcher for shuting down coalmines.
Surely she should be their hero?
Thatcher was one of the earliest proponents of the global warming theory actually. I can't recall too many right-wingers hailing her pioneering position on this either.
Personally as someone of 'the left' I'm pretty skeptical about global warming. I suspect you'd get a similar opinion from a lot of voters in former coalfield communities too, probably not North London lefties though.
Like I said Philip, I accepted your point on the counter productive nature of strikes in the coal industry.
2 things worth pointing out however
- Many areas that were previously seen as moderate/anti strike became Militant due to the prospect of closures without viable job prospects outside the coal industry. In effect closures caused strikes rather than strikes causing closures. Durham is a good example of this phenomenon.
- Anti strike areas such as Notts were just as badly affected by closures in the 80s and 90s as the militant areas like Yorkshire were. The loyalty they paid Maggie in 84 was worth nothing in the end. Still a lot of bitterness in those communities about this.
Moving on from security then I dispute that there were no alternative viable job prospects. Many but not all did find alternatives and to put it simply, it is not the responsibility of government alone to create jobs - and by creating and supporting unprofitable and unnecessary jobs you crowd out better jobs and so cost the entire nation dearly.
The unemployment rate in 1990 was the same as the unemployment rate in 1979. However average income per head in 1990 was 34% higher than in 1979. Poor jobs were replaced ultimately with better jobs - not simply unemployment.
I wonder how long it will be that I have the ITV General Election coverage on in the background as 'noise' whever I am writing client suitability reports.... my guess is until the Tories once again start banging on about Europe non-stop and where I once again become detached from them as a Clarkite....
PT On present trends it is boots on the ground and airstrikes which are going to stop ISIL and the Taliban, not vast increases for grand development projects which frequently end up in the hands of dubious regimes. The army has fallen to its lowest level of personnel since the Napoleonic wars, libraries are being cut, social care is being cut, welfare and legal aid are being slashed, police numbers are well down etc. Yes, cuts were needed but every department should have been cut equally, end of!!
In the last thread you stated that you didn't believe that the Conservative Party moving right would open up any space in the "centre ground".
That would seem to be directly contrary to history. Political parties - especially in this internet age, and when class based loyalties are no - cannot occupy all political spaces at once. When the Conservative Party got into bed with the LibDems and went after socially liberal votes, it opened a socially conservative space on its right. When the Labour Party in the early 1980s headed hard left, it opened up a space for a centrist, social democratic party to its right.
The Conservative Party has swapped social conservatives for social liberals. In doing so it has allowed UKIP to flourish, but hammered the LibDems. If it moves in a socially conservative direction again, it will likely lose those social liberal voters. They may not go to the LibDems, but you cannot occupy all spaces on the political spectrum at once.
(As an aside, I think fragmentation is not going away. Outside the US, it's happened in a lot of countries. In the Netherlands, there are five parties with 15+% vote shares. In Spain, four political parties are hovering around the 20% level. This is much more fragmentation then has been the norm in the last 75 years, and I see no reason why it should dissipate. 36% may turn out to be the maximum any political party gets in the next two decades.)
Thanks for responding. I do see your point. And I totally agree with you about the trend toward divergence and fragmentation - we see it everywhere. However, I still maintain that a 'middle' strategy is doomed to failure, to say nothing of the fact that it is without principle, as you are fundamentally accepting that your offering is a mere porridge of two opposing views that you didn't create.
To my mind we could do with a high minded, fiercely libertarian (not just socially but on civil liberties, standing against the EU if necessary) party that actually want to restore liberty and democracy, but that's a million miles away from what the Lib Dems are or have been for years.
Yvette has appointed this lady and onest Vern Coaker to run her campaign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A1KjRPBvnU Apparently she is the shadow chief secretary...... Peter principle?
In the last thread you stated that you didn't believe that the Conservative Party moving right would open up any space in the "centre ground".
That would seem to be directly contrary to history. Political parties - especially in this internet age, and when class based loyalties are no - cannot occupy all political spaces at once. When the Conservative Party got into bed with the LibDems and went after socially liberal votes, it opened a socially conservative space on its right. When the Labour Party in the early 1980s headed hard left, it opened up a space for a centrist, social democratic party to its right.
The Conservative Party has swapped social conservatives for social liberals. In doing so it has allowed UKIP to flourish, but hammered the LibDems. If it moves in a socially conservative direction again, it will likely lose those social liberal voters. They may not go to the LibDems, but you cannot occupy all spaces on the political spectrum at once.
(As an aside, I think fragmentation is not going away. Outside the US, it's happened in a lot of countries. In the Netherlands, there are five parties with 15+% vote shares. In Spain, four political parties are hovering around the 20% level. This is much more fragmentation then has been the norm in the last 75 years, and I see no reason why it should dissipate. 36% may turn out to be the maximum any political party gets in the next two decades.)
Thanks for responding. I do see your point. And I totally agree with you about the trend toward divergence and fragmentation - we see it everywhere. However, I still maintain that a 'middle' strategy is doomed to failure, to say nothing of the fact that it is without principle, as you are fundamentally accepting that your offering is a mere porridge of two opposing views that you didn't create.
To my mind we could do with a high minded, fiercely libertarian (not just socially but on civil liberties, standing against the EU if necessary) party that actually want to restore liberty and democracy, but that's a million miles away from what the Lib Dems are or have been for years.
TSE You know full well that Labour and the LDs also proposed to increase overseas aid spending, UKIP proposed to cut it and saw their voteshare rise 10% while the Tory share was unchanged, the Labour share rose 1% and the LD share fell 15%, every poll shows massive majorities for cutting overseas aid while austerity continues
So three out for four voters voted for parties in favour of increasing international development spending and less than one in six voters voted for a party of cutting it.
Scottish Nationalist MP Pete Wishart told Total Politics : "We know Dennis is determined. We might be able to compromise about the front bench issue. We’re prepared to sit around the table as long as possible.
Presumably all table seats except the one occupied by The Beast will be available
TSE You know full well that Labour and the LDs also proposed to increase overseas aid spending, UKIP proposed to cut it and saw their voteshare rise 10% while the Tory share was unchanged, the Labour share rose 1% and the LD share fell 15%, every poll shows massive majorities for cutting overseas aid while austerity continues
UKIP's 10% increase is nothing special.
1: Technically it's a 9.5% increase 2: The BNP dropped 1.9% - a large proportion of this went to UKIP. 3: The Lib Dems dropped their status as protest party which UKIP adopted. They lost 15.1%
The protest parties of the Lib Dems and BNP lost 17% between them and UKIP, the other protest party, gained barely more than half that lost protest vote share and not even a single original seat besides just one of the defectors. A better protest party may have been able to keep more than half of the protest votes that were lost, instead of the two main parties both gaining shares.
I wonder how long it will be that I have the ITV General Election coverage on in the background as 'noise' whever I am writing client suitability reports.... my guess is until the Tories once again start banging on about Europe non-stop and where I once again become detached from them as a Clarkite....
The election campaign and the noises afterward gave me great hope on the Tories unity on Europe.
Even Bill Cash, Graham Brady and the Vulcan have backed Dave over Europe.
Watford30 Local government spending down 40% while overseas aid has been increased is outrageous
MD Agree, ringfencing was a terrible idea, has drastically weakened our armed forces and meant that our own poor and vulnerable have had to bear a disproportionate share of the burden while grand overseas aid projects are thought up to try and justify the coffers overflowing at DFID and far too much of that still fails to reach those who actually need it. Each department should have faced exactly the same percentage cuts
The party that proposed that was returned with a majority.
The voters don't consider it outrageous.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
Typical biased rubbish to suit your own agenda.
The only party that opposed it quadrupled their vote share.
Like I said Philip, I accepted your point on the counter productive nature of strikes in the coal industry.
2 things worth pointing out however
- Many areas that were previously seen as moderate/anti strike became Militant due to the prospect of closures without viable job prospects outside the coal industry. In effect closures caused strikes rather than strikes causing closures. Durham is a good example of this phenomenon.
- Anti strike areas such as Notts were just as badly affected by closures in the 80s and 90s as the militant areas like Yorkshire were. The loyalty they paid Maggie in 84 was worth nothing in the end. Still a lot of bitterness in those communities about this.
Moving on from security then I dispute that there were no alternative viable job prospects. Many but not all did find alternatives and to put it simply, it is not the responsibility of government alone to create jobs - and by creating and supporting unprofitable and unnecessary jobs you crowd out better jobs and so cost the entire nation dearly.
The unemployment rate in 1990 was the same as the unemployment rate in 1979. However average income per head in 1990 was 34% higher than in 1979. Poor jobs were replaced ultimately with better jobs - not simply unemployment.
Here's a decent report that had a look at the effect of colliery closures Philip:
There were 2 theories about what would happen post closure. One is yours, the 'crowding out' theory, which said that by expanding the available labour pool, wages would be pushed down and thus the areas would see inward investment as they became more competitive.
The other theory was that by closing the pit lots of jobs that were associated with coal mining, tool making ect would go along with them, leading to a domino effect of unemployment.
In practice lots of the men took long term sick and the jobs that replaced them were poorly paid service industry roles in the main. I think theory 2 has more credibility in the stats than theory 1.
PT On present trends it is boots on the ground and airstrikes which are going to stop ISIL and the Taliban, not vast increases for grand development projects which frequently end up in the hands of dubious regimes. The army has fallen to its lowest level of personnel since the Napoleonic wars, libraries are being cut, social care is being cut, welfare and legal aid are being slashed, police numbers are well down etc. Yes, cuts were needed but every department should have been cut equally, end of!!
Development is about prevention not cure. Its cheaper to develop nations so they don't turn to extremists like al'Qaeda and ISIL than it is to launch missiles and send our soldiers in.
Our international development budget should be viewed in tandem with our defence budget, not as a threat to it.
OT but really interesting ... " Wolfgang Schäuble’s decision to link the British renegotiation to changes to the governance of the Eurozone is highly significant. In an interview the German Finance Minister told the Wall Street Journal that he has discussed George Osborne ‘coming to Berlin so that we can think together about how we can combine the British position with the urgent need for a strengthened governance of the eurozone’. Schäuble went on to say that ‘the structure of this currency union will stay fragile as long as its governance isn’t substantially reinforced. Maybe there is a chance to combine both goals’.
Schäuble’s comments are the most encouragement that the government has had on the renegotiation front. For if British renegotiation and reform of the Eurozone are linked, far more is on the table than if the British renegotiation was taking place in isolation. It means that there is a real possibility of the creation of an inner Eurzone core of the EU and then an outer core, which is explicitly not on the path to ‘ever closer union’. " http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/05/germans-propose-linking-the-british-renegotiation-to-eurozone-reform/
TSE Crap about 90%+ of Tory and Labour voters would back cutting overseas aid at the moment, and as I said the biggest percentage gain across the UK was by the party proposing to do just that. PT so UKIP gained more than half the protest votes yes
When I worked down a deep shaft coal mine it was accepted by the miners down there that one day the pit would have to close... we went from a 3 foot seam to a 2 foot seam and then a 1 foot seam..It had nothing to do with political parties or policies.. it had to do with diminishing coal seams.
TSE Crap about 90%+ of Tory and Labour voters would back cutting overseas aid at the moment, and as I said the biggest percentage gain across the UK was by the party proposing to do just that
I quote facts and votes, whereas you have suppositions that fit your views.
Can you show me a poll that has 90% of Tory and Lab voters would back cutting International Development spending ?
PT Bin Laden came from one of the wealthiest families on earth, many militants are graduates, I fail to see any real evidence pouring money into aid while slashing the armed services has done anything to combat ISIL and Al Qaeda
There were 2 theories about what would happen post closure. One is yours, the 'crowding out' theory, which said that by expanding the available labour pool, wages would be pushed down and thus the areas would see inward investment as they became more competitive.
The other theory was that by closing the pit lots of jobs that were associated with coal mining, tool making ect would go along with them, leading to a domino effect of unemployment.
In practice lots of the men took long term sick and the jobs that replaced them were poorly paid service industry roles in the main. I think theory 2 has more credibility in the stats than theory 1.
Some men did that, but by no means all did. If they all did then how come the unemployment rate was identical in 79 (and before) and 90? For every one who lost a job, one found employment - in fact since the participation rate increased over the decade, more jobs were created than were lost.
As for whether the replacement jobs were better or worse, that again can be measured on average empirical scale. Average wages increased by more than a third over the decade - which is more than happened in any previous decade.
So by the end of the nineties on average unemployment was no higher but people were more than a third better off. So I'd say theory 1 is demonstrably more credible. If theory 2 was more credible then either long term unemployment would be higher, or long term the wages would be lower (or below trend growth line) which they're clearly not.
Wolfgang Schäuble’s decision to link the British renegotiation to changes to the governance of the Eurozone is highly significant. In an interview the German Finance Minister told the Wall Street Journal that he has discussed George Osborne ‘coming to Berlin so that we can think together about how we can combine the British position with the urgent need for a strengthened governance of the eurozone’. Schäuble went on to say that ‘the structure of this currency union will stay fragile as long as its governance isn’t substantially reinforced. Maybe there is a chance to combine both goals’.
Well, quite. As I wrote here back in 2010:
It looks highly likely that Germany will insist on major changes to the structure of the European Union, perhaps moving more towards a two-speed Europe and a more tightly-integrated core Eurozone. And that, in the medium term, may be the biggest effect of all on UK politics. It is a threat to Cameron, because the last thing he wants is a revival of Tory civil war on Europe. But it is also an opportunity for him to reshape Britain's relationship with the EU.
By the way, this may have been discussed already over the past couple of weeks (I'd been too depressed to come on PB until yesterday), but...
Will the boundary changes this time necessarily favour the Conservatives? Isn't it possible that the very factors that made Labour's vote so "inefficient" this time, namely the piling up of votes in rapidly-growing constituencies (especially London), might actually mean it's LABOUR who benefit from the changes?
You can partly blame my ancestors for any mess that has been made in Clay Cross
I can beat that!
You can partly blame my ancestors for any mess that has been made in Northern Ireland. And India. And Eire, come to think of it. And the less said about America the better
Yeah, but you just come from a family of intergenerational overachievers. ;-)
Anyway, you think that's impressive: when I was a kid my dad could not drive down a road in central Derby where he had not helped build or demolish something, and frequently both, multiple times.
I wonder how long it will be that I have the ITV General Election coverage on in the background as 'noise' whever I am writing client suitability reports.... my guess is until the Tories once again start banging on about Europe non-stop and where I once again become detached from them as a Clarkite....
The election campaign and the noises afterward gave me great hope on the Tories unity on Europe.
Even Bill Cash, Graham Brady and the Vulcan have backed Dave over Europe.
you have more faith than I.... once an eu nutjob....
PT On present trends it is boots on the ground and airstrikes which are going to stop ISIL and the Taliban, not vast increases for grand development projects which frequently end up in the hands of dubious regimes. The army has fallen to its lowest level of personnel since the Napoleonic wars, libraries are being cut, social care is being cut, welfare and legal aid are being slashed, police numbers are well down etc. Yes, cuts were needed but every department should have been cut equally, end of!!
With the fall of Ramadi and advances in Syria IS is firmly established as the state of Sunni Arabs in that region, they won't be defeated and certainly not by Shia or Kurds.
But I remember the pictures the Tories incessantly circulated in the mid 1990s of Blair on CND marches, which seemed absurdly irrelevant by then, and I wonder, just wonder, whether I am doing the same.
Odd that you say that. CND was basically a movement dedicated to making a catastrophically wrong decision around defence and the correct use of Britain's armed forces. Why you think Blair's membership of it has or would have no bearing on his conduct in office is a bit mystifying.
The Tories' 'demon eyes' assessment of Blair was spot-on accurate too. New Labour, new danger - does anyone nowadays seriously challenge this assessment? It was prescient.
Wolfgang Schäuble’s decision to link the British renegotiation to changes to the governance of the Eurozone is highly significant. In an interview the German Finance Minister told the Wall Street Journal that he has discussed George Osborne ‘coming to Berlin so that we can think together about how we can combine the British position with the urgent need for a strengthened governance of the eurozone’. Schäuble went on to say that ‘the structure of this currency union will stay fragile as long as its governance isn’t substantially reinforced. Maybe there is a chance to combine both goals’.
Well, quite. As I wrote here back in 2010:
It looks highly likely that Germany will insist on major changes to the structure of the European Union, perhaps moving more towards a two-speed Europe and a more tightly-integrated core Eurozone. And that, in the medium term, may be the biggest effect of all on UK politics. It is a threat to Cameron, because the last thing he wants is a revival of Tory civil war on Europe. But it is also an opportunity for him to reshape Britain's relationship with the EU.
It's taken a bit longer than I expected, but the logic for such a deal is remorseless.
It's a pincer movement that would potentially benefit Britain and Germany at the expense of France and Italy. We would see some volcanic eruptions in the EU if this actually happened. But Angela Merkel's style is to avoid confrontation until it is quite clear through proxy wars that she will win. This type of commando raid is not her style at all.
PT As I said below many militants are very wealthy indeed, and in any case development comes principally from governments pursuing sensible economic policies, not from pouring money into vast projects of dubious value. I can see the value of international development, but so do the armed forces and every other department in government have value, as I said while austerity is going on every department should have faced equal cuts
It's a pincer movement that would potentially benefit Britain and Germany at the expense of France and Italy.
I wouldn't say that - the whole Eurozone is currently being held back by its sclerotic nature. The Italian government in particular knows perfectly well that it needs to implement the kind of reforms which would be implicit in any such restructuring, its problem is getting the political cover to do so. Even the current French government, which started off down a Miliband-style path, is now paying more attention to the need for reform. The quid pro quo for the 'olive belt' would be a firmer structure for transfers from the richer states. The benefit for the latter is that could hope that their money wouldn't be poured down the drain.
It's certainly complex, but the key point is that virtually no-one thinks the current structure is sound, and it's costing them a huge amount in terms of unemployment and slow recovery.
By the way, this may have been discussed already over the past couple of weeks (I'd been too depressed to come on PB until yesterday), but...
Will the boundary changes this time necessarily favour the Conservatives? Isn't it possible that the very factors that made Labour's vote so "inefficient" this time, namely the piling up of votes in rapidly-growing constituencies (especially London), might actually mean it's LABOUR who benefit from the changes?
Not seen any new analysis but previous analysis said that there were a couple of reasons for distortions, all of which favoured Labour then. One was unequal constituency sizes, the other was inefficiency.
Labour has lost efficiency but now the two parties are on more of a par (rather than an advantage for the Tories) as far as efficiency is concerned.
The other fact of unequal constituency sizes still exists. This would all-being-equal be worth a few seats to the Tories.
I find the argument that this was a reverse of 2001 quite persuasive. In both cases you had political parties that seemed to be more internally focussed than externally; who persuaded themselves that the message that the electorate had rejected just needed to be shouted a little louder or with greater "clarity" and that there was something inevitable about the natural party of government (both parties had the same delusions about this after long periods in power) returning to power.
The key question is where does Labour go next? Is this the turn of a Howard or a Cameron or a Blair or a Kinnock? Labour seem to me to be in a very bad place with the loss of Scotland but their consolation is that the Lib Dems are in a worse one and UKIP continue to look flaky (although they may yet surprise and show more endurance). Other than in Scotland there is therefore a void where the opposition should be and only Labour to fill it. The days of speculating about whether the Lib Dems could replace Labour as a sane party of the left are over. As antifrank will no doubt explain tomorrow morning they really are toast.
There is no parallel unless it's the parallel universe of ukip. BetOnPolitics @BetOnPolitics UKIP - O'Flynn 5/1 to replace O'Flynn as economics spokesman!
''It's certainly complex, but the key point is that virtually no-one thinks the current structure is sound, and it's costing them a huge amount in terms of unemployment and slow recovery.''
That David Cameron chap seems to become a more remarkable leader by the day...
PT As I said below many militants are very wealthy indeed, and in any case development comes principally from governments pursuing sensible economic policies, not from pouring money into vast projects of dubious value. I can see the value of international development, but so do the armed forces and every other department in government have value, as I said while austerity is going on every department should have faced equal cuts
Some militants leaders are yes, but that's not saying that the pool of every day militants do. Leaders in general in any revolution or insurgency come from the wealthier parts of society, whereas the bulk of fighters don't.
Kendall has yet to be tested in any way by the political process. We have no real sense of her calibre as a potential PM.
Indeed. The reason the Tories want Butcher is because he's already tarnished by the Mid-Staffs massacre; they want Mrs. Balls because she's already tarnished by being an overspending denier who gave us HIPs.
Kendall's only advantage is that she's not yet had an opportunity to become tarnished by anything. It's not that she's known to be effective; it's that she's not yet done anything where it was possible to be patently ineffective.
The figure she most closely resembles is Kinnock. He spent 9 years in Parliament before becoming a forgettable shadow education thing until 1983. He became leader largely because, never having held office, he hadn't patently failed in it, but also because there was nobody better. All the clearly better candidates had jacked in Labour party politics.
He then found himself at odds with a party of unreconstructed lefties who thought that they could get nutty policies enacted by taking over the Labour franchise.
Nobody has heard of Liz Kendall. She is basically Neil Kinnock without the Welshness or the ginger hair and like Kinnock she's only in contention at all because everyone else has given up or is a quota donkey.
False Flag Well even if they are going to be contained it will need airstrikes and some manpower to support the Shias and Kurds, ultimately defeat would come from tribal elements within the Sunnis, but that is a longer term aim
Labour has lost efficiency but now the two parties are on more of a par (rather than an advantage for the Tories) as far as efficiency is concerned..
Are they? I thought the efficiency had now completely reversed, with Labour now needing something like a 4% lead to have most seats. That surely suggests boundary changes would to some extent iron that out?
PT As I said below many militants are very wealthy indeed, and in any case development comes principally from governments pursuing sensible economic policies, not from pouring money into vast projects of dubious value. I can see the value of international development, but so do the armed forces and every other department in government have value, as I said while austerity is going on every department should have faced equal cuts
If you think that Western armed intervention is going to solve the ISIS issue, I think you are SERIOUSLY mistaken.
Any Western intervention proves the point that ISIS makes: the West is anti Muslim... And as intervention has worked so well in Iraq and Libya - the assumption must be it will work as well in Iraq and Syria... . I mean of course work well for ISIS.
I expect ISIS will attempt to bring down the richest and most corrupt monarchy in the world.. and it will either succeed - driving oil prices well over $100 a barrel and economic chaos in the West - or itself collapse in the attempt.
I reckon around 2018- 2019 it should start if it happens.
Labour has lost efficiency but now the two parties are on more of a par (rather than an advantage for the Tories) as far as efficiency is concerned..
Are they? I thought the efficiency had now completely reversed, with Labour now needing something like a 4% lead to have most seats. That surely suggests boundary changes would to some extent iron that out?
ProRate Cameron will not be there in 2020, and post EU ref, especially if a narrow In, the Tories will have probably picked a more rightwing successor to stem leakage to UKIP, the LDs under Farron will have moved left and the Greens, UKIP and SNP obviously are ideological in nature, leaving an opportunity for Labour to reoccupy the centre ground, and though no Blair Cooper and Burnham are more linked to New Labour than Brown and certainly Ed Miliband
The above is a great example of the kind of post someone here described the other day as a wishlist masquerading as a forecast.
There is not the slightest prospect that "if a narrow In, the Tories will have probably picked a more rightwing successor to stem leakage to UKIP" - everything in that remark is what you'd like to happen but won't.
UKIP after a referendum will be, to quote the Blue Nile, "like Memphis after Elvis: there's nothing going on". Why do you think they campaigned against one?
Dream on. The Tories aren't going to stumble into every pitfalls you can think up so that the electorate comes to its senses and votes Labour back in to wreck the economy all over again.
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
As ever 98.5% of the Scottish population are not paying any attention to this story. This is a Westminster bubble and MSM story with nobody other than political nerds even aware of it. Your dismissive comment above as ever only drives the SNP surge forward, so many thanks for your help !!
Well the reason the Scots are not paying attention is the falling standards of literacy in Scotland under an SNP Government.A fall they have committed to reverse..
Carnyx If he was going to come back next year it would be as Labour candidate for Eastwood, a seat he won off the Tories in 1997 and held until 2015, that would depend on whether Ken Macintosh decides not to run again. Murphy still won 34% even in 2015, about 10% better than Labour did in Scotland as a whole. If not, no reason he could not return in 2020
The problem with that is that Ken Macintosh is standing in that seat, as you note, and he is serious enough about staying on to stand for SLAB leader right now (unless there is some Cunning Plan, admittedly).
Sure, he is spoken of as an ally to Mr M, but he'd have to bump himself onto the list to make room, and that would be very unpopular with many SLABbers - remember what Dair pointed out, there are only so many list seats and they are already occupied de facto.
And if Mr Murphy comes back in 2020, he'd be not so much reanimated as reincarnated - and you have to look beyond the Good Book and more to the Buddhist sutras for that.
Peerage for Mr Murphy perhaps?
Self seeking grubbing toerag that he is he would bite their hand off for free seat at the trough
PT As I said below many militants are very wealthy indeed, and in any case development comes principally from governments pursuing sensible economic policies, not from pouring money into vast projects of dubious value. I can see the value of international development, but so do the armed forces and every other department in government have value, as I said while austerity is going on every department should have faced equal cuts
If you think that Western armed intervention is going to solve the ISIS issue, I think you are SERIOUSLY mistaken.
Any Western intervention proves the point that ISIS makes: the West is anti Muslim... And as intervention has worked so well in Iraq and Libya - the assumption must be it will work as well in Iraq and Syria... . I mean of course work well for ISIS.
I expect ISIS will attempt to bring down the richest and most corrupt monarchy in the world.. and it will either succeed - driving oil prices well over $100 a barrel and economic chaos in the West - or itself collapse in the attempt.
I reckon around 2018- 2019 it should start if it happens.
I simply don't see how we get oil back over $100/barrel, even if KSA is taken out, with all those shale oil wells drilled and ready to be turned on again as soon as oil goes over $70, and with Iran and others desperate to increase their slice of the market.
The SNP Mps are simply pandering to their core vote - the spoilt children of Scotland.
As ever 98.5% of the Scottish population are not paying any attention to this story. This is a Westminster bubble and MSM story with nobody other than political nerds even aware of it. Your dismissive comment above as ever only drives the SNP surge forward, so many thanks for your help !!
Well the reason the Scots are not paying attention is the falling standards of literacy in Scotland under an SNP Government.A fall they have committed to reverse..
Cuckoo Cuckoo
"SCOTLAND'S new school curriculum is facing its most significant challenge to date.
Introduced amidst widespread expectations that it would raise standards, close the attainment gap between rich and poor and prepare pupils for the rapidly changing world of the future, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) appears to be struggling with even the basics.
A report by Scotland's Chief Statistician this week found standards of literacy in Scottish primary and secondary schools have fallen since the introduction of CfE. The findings come a year after Scottish primary schools experienced a dramatic decline in standards of numeracy.
The decline has sparked concerns that the direction of CfE away from more formalised testing is resulting in poorer standards."
Bond If there is a narrow In vote, especially with Cameron having campaigned for In, there is every prospect Tory Out voters may move to UKIP unless the Tories take a more anti EU stance, just look at what happened to Scottish Labour when it lost Yes voters. Middle class voters did quite nicely thankyou through most of the New Labour years, it was only towards the end the economy really went down
I think Burnham will do significantly better than IDS.
Burnham will be Labour's Michael Howard (Milliband was Hague and IDS rolled into one)
He is a relatively competent and experienced politician. I don't think he can get Labour back into power but he can be a "safe pair of hands" which is exactly what Labour need's after the 2015 shock.
He will bring Labour a decent improvement in terms of their party machine and he will win back a few seat's in 2020... Paving the way for a Labour majority in the mid 2020's.
Don't agree I would see Cooper as more the Howard safe leader. Burnham I would say is more as a cross between the worst of Miliband and Brown, he has the ambition and inflated opinion of his own ability of Miliband, with the suspect temperament of Brown. Add that to the closeness to Lenny and he is a total no no.
Also I have read his Northern roots might help him, black mark there as well outside Merseyside his Scouse roots are a negative, most people in the North and Midlands have little time for Scousers outside the immediate area, where Labour are fine.
In the key marginals a Scouse Labour leader is a negative starting point not a positive even in the North.
Burnham does not sound particularly Scouse at all.
Burnham definitely does NOT have a Liverpool accent, although he was born within the environs of Liverpool (actually at Aintree, now within the borough of Sefton).
His accent is South Lancashire/ North Cheshire, almost Mancunian.
"It is astounding that Labour still doesn't get this simple point. Brown's coronation makes him, AFAIK, the only PM in the last 100-odd years who did not have to face any sort of contested election to attain that office"
Comments
The voters don't consider it outrageous.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei
Surely she should be their hero?
2 things worth pointing out however
- Many areas that were previously seen as moderate/anti strike became Militant due to the prospect of closures without viable job prospects outside the coal industry. In effect closures caused strikes rather than strikes causing closures. Durham is a good example of this phenomenon.
- Anti strike areas such as Notts were just as badly affected by closures in the 80s and 90s as the militant areas like Yorkshire were. The loyalty they paid Maggie in 84 was worth nothing in the end. Still a lot of bitterness in those communities about this.
Rather than talking about budgets, what serious services have been catastrophically compromised in your eyes.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/keep-it-in-the-ground
I doubt they'll be hailing Thatcher as a pioneer of the movement any time soon.
Personally as someone of 'the left' I'm pretty skeptical about global warming. I suspect you'd get a similar opinion from a lot of voters in former coalfield communities too, probably not North London lefties though.
The unemployment rate in 1990 was the same as the unemployment rate in 1979. However average income per head in 1990 was 34% higher than in 1979. Poor jobs were replaced ultimately with better jobs - not simply unemployment.
I wonder how long it will be that I have the ITV General Election coverage on in the background as 'noise' whever I am writing client suitability reports.... my guess is until the Tories once again start banging on about Europe non-stop and where I once again become detached from them as a Clarkite....
To my mind we could do with a high minded, fiercely libertarian (not just socially but on civil liberties, standing against the EU if necessary) party that actually want to restore liberty and democracy, but that's a million miles away from what the Lib Dems are or have been for years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A1KjRPBvnU
Apparently she is the shadow chief secretary......
Peter principle?
To my mind we could do with a high minded, fiercely libertarian (not just socially but on civil liberties, standing against the EU if necessary) party that actually want to restore liberty and democracy, but that's a million miles away from what the Lib Dems are or have been for years.
As I said, the voters have spoken.
Get over it.
Presumably all table seats except the one occupied by The Beast will be available
1: Technically it's a 9.5% increase
2: The BNP dropped 1.9% - a large proportion of this went to UKIP.
3: The Lib Dems dropped their status as protest party which UKIP adopted. They lost 15.1%
The protest parties of the Lib Dems and BNP lost 17% between them and UKIP, the other protest party, gained barely more than half that lost protest vote share and not even a single original seat besides just one of the defectors. A better protest party may have been able to keep more than half of the protest votes that were lost, instead of the two main parties both gaining shares.
Even Bill Cash, Graham Brady and the Vulcan have backed Dave over Europe.
The only party that opposed it quadrupled their vote share.
http://www.channel4.com/media/c4-news/pdf/coalfields.pdf
There were 2 theories about what would happen post closure. One is yours, the 'crowding out' theory, which said that by expanding the available labour pool, wages would be pushed down and thus the areas would see inward investment as they became more competitive.
The other theory was that by closing the pit lots of jobs that were associated with coal mining, tool making ect would go along with them, leading to a domino effect of unemployment.
In practice lots of the men took long term sick and the jobs that replaced them were poorly paid service industry roles in the main. I think theory 2 has more credibility in the stats than theory 1.
http://www.bristol.gov.uk/LocalElectionViewer?XSL=main&ShowElectionWard=true&ElectionId=69&WardId=26
Our international development budget should be viewed in tandem with our defence budget, not as a threat to it.
" Wolfgang Schäuble’s decision to link the British renegotiation to changes to the governance of the Eurozone is highly significant. In an interview the German Finance Minister told the Wall Street Journal that he has discussed George Osborne ‘coming to Berlin so that we can think together about how we can combine the British position with the urgent need for a strengthened governance of the eurozone’. Schäuble went on to say that ‘the structure of this currency union will stay fragile as long as its governance isn’t substantially reinforced. Maybe there is a chance to combine both goals’.
Schäuble’s comments are the most encouragement that the government has had on the renegotiation front. For if British renegotiation and reform of the Eurozone are linked, far more is on the table than if the British renegotiation was taking place in isolation. It means that there is a real possibility of the creation of an inner Eurzone core of the EU and then an outer core, which is explicitly not on the path to ‘ever closer union’. "
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/05/germans-propose-linking-the-british-renegotiation-to-eurozone-reform/
A slightly odd post has appeared on the VoteUK discussion forum:
http://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/5694/frack-social-groups-older-people?page=1&scrollTo=255834
Can you show me a poll that has 90% of Tory and Lab voters would back cutting International Development spending ?
As for whether the replacement jobs were better or worse, that again can be measured on average empirical scale. Average wages increased by more than a third over the decade - which is more than happened in any previous decade.
So by the end of the nineties on average unemployment was no higher but people were more than a third better off. So I'd say theory 1 is demonstrably more credible. If theory 2 was more credible then either long term unemployment would be higher, or long term the wages would be lower (or below trend growth line) which they're clearly not.
It looks highly likely that Germany will insist on major changes to the structure of the European Union, perhaps moving more towards a two-speed Europe and a more tightly-integrated core Eurozone. And that, in the medium term, may be the biggest effect of all on UK politics. It is a threat to Cameron, because the last thing he wants is a revival of Tory civil war on Europe. But it is also an opportunity for him to reshape Britain's relationship with the EU.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/11/26/will-angela-merkel-decide-britains-next-government/
It's taken a bit longer than I expected, but the logic for such a deal is remorseless.
Will the boundary changes this time necessarily favour the Conservatives? Isn't it possible that the very factors that made Labour's vote so "inefficient" this time, namely the piling up of votes in rapidly-growing constituencies (especially London), might actually mean it's LABOUR who benefit from the changes?
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/11/09/British-amongst-least-generous-overseas-aid/
Anyway, you think that's impressive: when I was a kid my dad could not drive down a road in central Derby where he had not helped build or demolish something, and frequently both, multiple times.
Now *that's* fame. :-)
The Tories' 'demon eyes' assessment of Blair was spot-on accurate too. New Labour, new danger - does anyone nowadays seriously challenge this assessment? It was prescient.
He's good.
It's certainly complex, but the key point is that virtually no-one thinks the current structure is sound, and it's costing them a huge amount in terms of unemployment and slow recovery.
Labour has lost efficiency but now the two parties are on more of a par (rather than an advantage for the Tories) as far as efficiency is concerned.
The other fact of unequal constituency sizes still exists. This would all-being-equal be worth a few seats to the Tories.
I find the argument that this was a reverse of 2001 quite persuasive. In both cases you had political parties that seemed to be more internally focussed than externally; who persuaded themselves that the message that the electorate had rejected just needed to be shouted a little louder or with greater "clarity" and that there was something inevitable about the natural party of government (both parties had the same delusions about this after long periods in power) returning to power.
The key question is where does Labour go next? Is this the turn of a Howard or a Cameron or a Blair or a Kinnock? Labour seem to me to be in a very bad place with the loss of Scotland but their consolation is that the Lib Dems are in a worse one and UKIP continue to look flaky (although they may yet surprise and show more endurance). Other than in Scotland there is therefore a void where the opposition should be and only Labour to fill it. The days of speculating about whether the Lib Dems could replace Labour as a sane party of the left are over. As antifrank will no doubt explain tomorrow morning they really are toast.
BetOnPolitics @BetOnPolitics
UKIP - O'Flynn 5/1 to replace O'Flynn as economics spokesman!
That David Cameron chap seems to become a more remarkable leader by the day...
Kendall's only advantage is that she's not yet had an opportunity to become tarnished by anything. It's not that she's known to be effective; it's that she's not yet done anything where it was possible to be patently ineffective.
The figure she most closely resembles is Kinnock. He spent 9 years in Parliament before becoming a forgettable shadow education thing until 1983. He became leader largely because, never having held office, he hadn't patently failed in it, but also because there was nobody better. All the clearly better candidates had jacked in Labour party politics.
He then found himself at odds with a party of unreconstructed lefties who thought that they could get nutty policies enacted by taking over the Labour franchise.
Nobody has heard of Liz Kendall. She is basically Neil Kinnock without the Welshness or the ginger hair and like Kinnock she's only in contention at all because everyone else has given up or is a quota donkey.
Any Western intervention proves the point that ISIS makes: the West is anti Muslim... And as intervention has worked so well in Iraq and Libya - the assumption must be it will work as well in Iraq and Syria... . I mean of course work well for ISIS.
I expect ISIS will attempt to bring down the richest and most corrupt monarchy in the world.. and it will either succeed - driving oil prices well over $100 a barrel and economic chaos in the West - or itself collapse in the attempt.
I reckon around 2018- 2019 it should start if it happens.
You only have to see footage of labour conferences in the 1980s, with Arthur Scargill getting rapturous applause, to realise this.
There is not the slightest prospect that "if a narrow In, the Tories will have probably picked a more rightwing successor to stem leakage to UKIP" - everything in that remark is what you'd like to happen but won't.
UKIP after a referendum will be, to quote the Blue Nile, "like Memphis after Elvis: there's nothing going on". Why do you think they campaigned against one?
Dream on. The Tories aren't going to stumble into every pitfalls you can think up so that the electorate comes to its senses and votes Labour back in to wreck the economy all over again.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2015/05/steve-hilton-talks-cameron-crosby-and-vincecablefreude-at-book-launch/
Introduced amidst widespread expectations that it would raise standards, close the attainment gap between rich and poor and prepare pupils for the rapidly changing world of the future, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) appears to be struggling with even the basics.
A report by Scotland's Chief Statistician this week found standards of literacy in Scottish primary and secondary schools have fallen since the introduction of CfE. The findings come a year after Scottish primary schools experienced a dramatic decline in standards of numeracy.
The decline has sparked concerns that the direction of CfE away from more formalised testing is resulting in poorer standards."
http://tinyurl.com/pzxukhw
Scot Nat has literacy problems reading report into failing literacy standards in Scotland.
As NPxMP also found, the voters were nice to him because knowing what was coming they felt sorry for him. But if necessary, he will.
His accent is South Lancashire/ North Cheshire, almost Mancunian.
"It is astounding that Labour still doesn't get this simple point. Brown's coronation makes him, AFAIK, the only PM in the last 100-odd years who did not have to face any sort of contested election to attain that office"
Anthony Eden , Harold McMillan ?