Last September UKIP was making great play of the London dominance of LAB by asserting that 48% of the party’s members lived there. Whether that’s accurate or not or whether it still holds good is hard to day but there’s little doubt that the red team is particularly strong in the capital.
Comments
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-33017299
Arhhh dee dums, they got a hardy wardy question in their maths GCSE, one that wasn't just a recycled question off a previous years paper...
God help them in the real world....so we need to come up with a novel solution to this problem as that is how we make money in the knowledge economy...what there isn't a solution from last year I can just copy?
Wonder what percentage are London and work in public sector / charity sector? Long gone are the days of Labour being the national party of the "working man".
https://fullfact.org/news/do_48_of_labour_members_live_in_london-35442
Nonetheless, what London Labour thinks is clearly very important, to the Labour party, in any case, even if not to the country.......
"They've got the power to increase income tax already, they're getting more powers next year to do so, so it is time for the SNP – when it comes to complaints about public expenditure – to put up or shut up, in my view."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/11652811/George-Osborne-tells-SNP-to-put-up-or-shut-up-over-cuts.html
30 seconds.
Scotland's population is 8.3% of total UK......and her share of the cuts 5.9%.......but thats not a point the SNP have been making......
However, according to the BBC, that's not what they were asked to do. They were asked to prove that the equation is true. which is typically slightly harder, though I'd have to see the whole question to judge how much harder.
Basically though, it's the difference between 'prove the sum of the first n numbers is n(n+1)/2', and 'The sum of the first n numbers is n(n+1)/2. John places a bet every weekday, and each time wins £1 more than the day before. On the first day, he won £1. How many days will it take for his total winnings to exceed £100?'
Which question would you rather tackle?
The complete and utter dominance of the Islington Mafia has gutted the party and with the level of dominance they now have over the party hierarchy, I see little chance of their influence and control receding.
Of course just what sort of party they have left under their hegemony is more open to question. Taking working class voters for granted has already failed in Scotland, if it continues its downward spiral in Wales and Northern England, all they will have is a London based rump of champagne socialists with little chance of relevance in the wider political arena.
I don't see how there can be any challenge to Tory dominance in England over the next 20 years. I'm not sure there is any black swan large enough to propel Labour back to relevance, certainly not while it continues to shed support in its old core areas.
The biggest question is where the challenge to the Tories can come from. If UKIP was a party of the left, it would be in a very strong position to replace Labour in the way that Labour replaced the Liberals in the 1920s. The Greens are still too loony and too green to be the successors to the centre left positioning while the Liberals are extinct.
I can't game any scenario where the Tories are significantly challenged. Even the inevitable loss of Scotland won't change their chance of winning in 2020 and beyond.
But yesterday's news seemed to be treated with as much heft as a lily blossom falling on rice paper. Even the continued Royal Mail sell-off seems to have been treated with a collective "meh."
Do the Conservatives actually have an opposition at the moment?
(*) I've just realised that no idiots can talk about the 'Con-Dem' government any more. Hurrah!
I can see now way this will change. Even Burnham might be a northerner but he is a posh boy northerner with a decidedly middle class upbringing in the Footballer Belt.
lol
Harriet Harperson. Posh Londoner.
Chris Leslie. Unknown Northerner.
Hilary Benn. Posh Londoner. Northern Seat.
Yvette Cooper. Posh Home Counties. Northern Seat.
Rosie Winterton. Posh Northerner.
Andy Burnham. Posh Northerner.
Chuka Umunna. Posh Londoner.
Rachel Reeves. Posh Londoner. Northern Seat.
Tristram Hunt. Posh Titled Home Counties. Northern Seat.
Vernon Coaker. Posh Londoner. Northern Seat.
Emma Reynolds. Posh Midlander.
Caroline Flint. Posh Londoner. Northern Seat.
Angela Eagle. Working Class Northerner.
Michael Dugger. Unknown Northerner.
Ivan Lewis. Posh Northerner.
Mary Creagh. Working Class Midlander.
Ian Murray. Working Class Edinbugger.
Owen Smith. Unknown Northerner.
Maria Eagle. Working Class Northerner.
Lucy Powell. Unknown Northerner.
Jon Trickett. Unknown Northerner.
Gloria Del Piero. Working Class Northerner.
Shabana Mahmood. Posh Midlander.
Chris Bryan. Posh Home Counties. Welsh Seat (was born there).
Liz Kendall. Posh Home counties. Midlands Seat.
So out of 25 Labour MPs in their cabinet, at least 15 are from well off backgrounds, 5 uncertain and 5 Working Class (although I'm not convinced about the Eagle twins, in fact any of them other than Murray are open to question).
Of the 25, there are 10 from posh London/Home Counties backgrounds of which 6 are parachuted into Northern Seats, one into a safe Midlands Seat and one into a safe Welsh Seat albeit he was born in Wales but brought up in the Home Counties.
This does not look like the profile you would excpect of a Labour Party.
Still the Scottish economy is diverging away from the rUk - tax cuts not raises are what are required - but not in the SNP's DNA to shrink the state.
In any case the signs are for tourists who apparently enjoy taking selfies with Gaelic signs.
Perhaps Bercrow could suggest a game of musical benches, when the music stops if your butt isn't on a green bench you're out, seems the most equitable way to resolve the Nat\Lab dispute.
The Treasury was "panicking" he said. Why? Because they had introduced in year cuts. The same Chancellor had made his budget in March he said (rather ignoring the Coalition).
It was put to him that the Tories had been crystal clear during the election that they were going to cut faster and harder than anybody else and had been given a majority to do so (a rather unBBC question I thought).
Yes in general but not these specific cuts he said. Labour supports sensible cuts but not these cuts.
I presume this is a work in progress from someone new in the job but it rather showed how much work Labour has to do before they are going to get a hearing. Unless he has got hidden talents Osborne is going to walk all over Leslie.
I can see why Edinburgh is called the Athens of the north.
Andy Burnham's father was a telephone engineer and his mum a receptionist, he went to a Catholic Comprehensive.
Etc etc
Only in La- La land of the SNP are those "posh backgrounds". Perhaps having a job at all makes you posh in Dairs world...
Osborne's in for an easy ride. His main challenge will come from the right and business. It's not as if he doesn't have some major weak points in his approach, but Labour aren't the people to stick them to him.
Scotland seeking to join the EU so it could shove up corporate taxes to commonise with France and Germany while rUK lowers threshholds.
How's that balance of payments deficit going ?
You know, the one the tory party animals hope no-one notices.
F1: practice starts at 3pm and 7pm today. In Canada, huzzah, which means most stuff happens in the evening.
June 2015 - FFA will take years and years
#fearties
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33006179
The pause in global warming's wrong because it conflicts with the theory. Said before that some remind me of the Church a millennium ago, claiming the sun orbited the Earth.
I sort of get that, there are so many of them it's hard to keep up.
Tories = the new SNP?
Lord Ashcroft
@LordAshcroft
Interesting local Con gain from UKIP Wisbech South (Cams) result CON 63.8% (+32.4) UKIP 18.6% (-19.6) LAB 13.7% (-2.7) LDEM 3.8% (-10.1)
The SNP want FFA. But for the best possible outcome, they want it to be imposed on Scotland because Osborne, despite knowing FFA will end the Union, is facing utterly insurmountable pressure from his backbenches and the Tory press to force FFA on Scotland.
The last thing the SNP want to do, at this point, is to sound keen on FFA. The less keen they sound, the better the negotiations will go.
I suspect most of the Loyalists do actually know this because the current fiscal framework, especially on the UK Infrastructure Budget is so blatantly unfair and punishing on Scotland. Or maybe not and it is genuine ignorance on your part.
A nice wee tax cut would boost business and Scotland - get on with it !
Maths - the curious thing about the sweets question is the irrelevant information. If that's part of the curriculum ("learn to ignore irrelevant information") then it's a good thing, otherwise rather unfair. In general I found applied maths questions annoying because they added a layer of non-mathematical stuff (apples? oranges? sweets? trains?) that you had to work out on top of the maths, sometimes with the question starting from a different cultural basis, like crosswords which assume that you'll know the Bible and Dickens and set the clues accordingly. (It was actually a significant reason why my PhD was in theoretical maths.)
I seem to recall a total lack of detail for the mansion tax when interviewed by Neil in the election campaign despite his then role.
Fools and their money ........
*gets popcorn*
that would mean he's full of shit; I can go with that.
Because its 'fair'?
Mr. Sandpit, a fair point [does Greece count as 'developed' now?].
Because the English would be worse off.
Or something.
The Government will introduce various floors and ceilings in tax receipts to make the transfer neutral. As we dont have hypothicated taxation its a going to be the devil's job coming up with a settlement that is fair to both sides.
The impact of a settlement that is disproportionately beneficial to Scotland will have little general impact on the rest of the UK, but the potential for one that is not and its consequences quite severe on the Union.
Whether it is wildly beneficial or mildly detrimental to the finances of Scotland, you can place a bet that the SNP will claim that it isnt fair and that Tory austerity etc etc etc.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/daily-catchup-if-youre-in-scotland-youve-taken-a-wrong-turning-on-the-route-to-labour-victory-10298710.html
Labour can only win by taking Conservative seats. The only battle that matters is the one with the Tories. 86% of their top 100 targets (on current boundaries) are Conservative-held. 84% of their own 100 most vulnerable seats (on current boundaries) have a Conservative as the nearest challenger. Any boundary changes are not going to alter those numbers very much.
Everything else is a distraction. Yvette Cooper is being distracted.
I think he recognises that the deterioration in the World economy situation over the last year makes cutting the deficit more urgent. We simply cannot go into the next economic downturn with a starting point of anywhere like where we are right now.
More cuts in current spending to allow more capital spending on infrastructure would also be welcome but there is very little money to play with.