Categories
Options
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Harriet Harman’s comments today have been interpreted as op
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Harriet Harman’s comments today have been interpreted as opposing Burnham as leader and endorsing Kendall
Harriet Harman’s comments on today’s Sunday Politics (in the video above) have been interpreted as coming out against Andy Burnham and endorsing Liz Kenall as leader. She warned the party not to choose “somebody who we can feel comfortable with” but who can “command the confidence of the country.”
0
Comments
"Scabs!"
They haven't gone away, you know!
2. In the documentary on "Common People" he said he didn't know the name of the Greek girl, nor the course she was on at St Marten's College.
3. His background in Sheffield was a slight cut above the proletariat, despite what the Guardian says. He did not involve himself in the miners' strike protests.
Second, the Sun's influence is now far less than it was. It is not even in the top 2 papers read online, it trails both the MailOnline and the Guardian, and in print copies it is losing circulation to free papers like the Metro. Its readership is now more rightleaning than the average voter. In 1997 30% of the nation voted Tory, 30% of Sun readers, by 2015 37% of the nation voted Tory, 47% of Sun readers while 19% of Sun readers voted UKIP compared to 13% of the nation as a whole. Only 24% of Sun readers voted Labour compared to 30% of the nation as a whole.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/06/08/general-election-2015-how-britain-really-voted/
As a result Labour could win 37% and a small majority, yet win only 31% of Sun readers on a UNS and even trail the Tories amongst Sun readers despite winning the election!
Separately Yanis has said that Danae was the only female Greek sculpture student at St. Martin's College during the relevant years
'Firstly Burnham has not committed to oppose the £23,000 benefits cap'
Of course not,he's waiting to see what the polls say.
Hypocrisy? Surely not....
Not neccessarily communists or LDs, but maybe Sun readers wouldn't view the world in a black and white way, of simple goodies vs badies, and realise that shades of grey exist.
The Sun also has a daily circulation of just over 2 million and readership of 5 million, less than half the 12 million you suggest, indeed the Mail is set to overtake the Sun as the biggest selling daily by the end of 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(United_Kingdom)
If she had done that a long time ago she may have won the leadership.
By the time they finish the only interviews they give will be to the Socialist worker or the Beano.
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-uk-monthly-readership-sun-falls-behind-independent-amid-mobile-traffic-surge
But even on your wrong figures, 5 million voters is an awful lot of voters to ignore.
Well that's a turn up for the books!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Online_media
Interestingly on combined print + online (PC +Mobile) totals from the Press Gazette the Sun is now only the 7th most widely read paper, behind the Mail, the Mirror, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Metro and the Independent. That confirms its influence is really a shadow of what it once was!
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-uk-monthly-readership-sun-falls-behind-independent-amid-mobile-traffic-surge
Just didn't know the online readership was 8.2 million.
https://twitter.com/SunNation/status/620226192910618624
Part 1 - Leader
Well I'm back home from today's hustings in Newcastle. I won't do into detail, but stick with general perceptions. I thought that Burnham and Corbyn performed as I had anticipated. I agree with most of what Corbyn says, so voting with my heart, he will be getting my first pref. Kendall didn't impress me - as with the TV hustings she gave the impression that she was putting on a persona, rather than being genuine. She is offering Blairism without the charisma of Blair. That leaves Cooper - to me the star of the morning. Right from the start she spoke with passion and dynamism, seeming genuine and in command; she has gone up considerably in my estimation - a view shared by the Corbyn supporter I was sitting next to.
So, my revised voiting intention:
1. Corbyn
2. Cooper
3 Burnham
4. Kendall
It will now take a dramatic turn of events to get me to change.
Nick: you wrote - "Essentially they come down to the question: "Should you refuse to speak at an event where someone you strongly disagree with is speaking?"
Surely the question is this: "Should you accept an invitation to speak at such an event?"
First, you are not obliged to accept every invitation you receive. So those you do accept tell you something about the person accepting it. Second, in the case of one of those events, the speaker was not merely someone with whom Corbyn (and you and I, no doubt) disagreed but someone who can properly be described as a "hate preacher". Now why would you want to speak at an event organised by such a person?
If what you were doing was going there to disagree, to put the counter-argument, to show up these hate preachers for the disgusting people they are, then there might be some value. But is that what Corbyn is doing? Or is he - by being there - giving some sort of cover of respectability to what is the Islamist version of the Klu Klux Klan.
There are too many instances of some Labour MPs (Corbyn is one, Andy Slaughter another, Livingstone) who associate with these people and do nothing to condemn or criticise or argue vigorously against their ideology and who, by their attendance, are giving (whether they intend to or not) some sort of respectability or cover for people to spread poisonous views. And we have seen - and are seeing - the consequences of these poisonous views being spread. People who talk about the Jew being filth; and people who go to Jewish schools and shoot 7 year old girls dead in front of their parents.
So the question for Corbyn is "why" of all the people you can associate with in these days, do you choose to associate with these? It is not enough to say, IMO, well I'm not an anti-Semite and therefore it does not matter who I break bread with. If you're a public person, if you're someone who wants to lead the official Opposition, who wants - therefore - to be Prime Minister of this country, I think you have the obligation - at the very least - to think about what you are doing a bit more carefully and to have an answer to questions like mine.
I'm not a Labour party member so I don't count. However, I do note that no-one has raised this issue and what it says about Corbyn's judgment and at a time when we are struggling with the spread of extremist and disgustingly illiberal ideas and the consequences of people so radicalised by such ideas that they go out and kill people I find it troubling that so many in the Labour party seem to think that this does not matter. Fellow travellers and useful idiots (in Lenin's phrase) and the naive are not excused explaining their actions and their judgment.
At best Corbyn is displaying a stunning naivety. I don't think this is the quality one wants in a leader of a major political party.
One set all - Game on!
Part 2 - Deputy Leader
I though all five candidates came over very well. They all need to have prominant roles in the Shad Cab to take the fight to the Tories. One of the questions was on voting reform (hurray!) and Stella came out as a fan of AV+. I'm not sure how that differs from AV - perhaps we can have a thread?
Anyway, I felt that Flint came out on top. No nonsense, fiery, up for the fight. She swayed my vote, so I am now planning:
1. Flint
2. Creasy
3. Watson
4. Bradshaw
5. Eagle
In any case given Sun readers voted 24% Labour while the nation voted 30% Labour in 2015 they are less likely to be converted to Labour than the average voter
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/06/08/general-election-2015-how-britain-really-voted/
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-uk-monthly-readership-sun-falls-behind-independent-amid-mobile-traffic-surge
(I've a soft spot for Liverpool - I approve of it's choice of statues)
The Sun published its filth over 20 years before that, and the Hillsborough inquiry report did nothing to change attitudes,e.g.
"Postal workers near Liverpool are threatening to walk out if they are made to deliver free promotional copies of the Sun later this week."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jun/10/sun-hillsborough-disaster
Whatever happened to Seth and his cousin Avery?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzhH2hlNSfs
(2 minute extract from "12 Angry Men" - a great scene)
The picture isn't damaging in the least. Virtually all politicians are hypocrites, and all the ones who make it to the top most definitely are.
Mr Burnham told the BBC he had not forgiven the paper for its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
He said he did not do "special favours" for papers "attacking" him or Labour.
"I give interviews generally and people can REPORT my words. But I don't do special favours for newspapers that attack me and attack my party."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33496931
The enquiry Hillsborough enquiry had nothing really to do with it so some need to go read the story again.
Back to reality.......
Despite that and whatever points anyone is trying to make it was a tragedy of monumental proportions.
I have two girls now grown up but I very regularly think of the two sisters that were lost on that day when I look at my girls. I have never quite managed to see how the parents dealt with that unimaginable loss with the fortitude and bravery they did.
The fathers account of going to the mortuary and then returning home to mum and telling her " the girls were gone" her incredulous reply being " what both of them? " is etched on my mind for ever. I can hear him him saying that even now... It was and remains heartbreaking. That's just one story of the 96. Of course .
I am not a Scouse,
I am not from Liverpool and
I don't like football.
I am first and foremost a Dad to two girls that very fortunately are still here. That is enough for me. It shouldn't have happened but it did and the legacy for all parties is to prevent another repeat.
Lionel Blair : "Give us a clue"
Andy Burnham : "Hasn't got a clue"
You also ignore the fact Burnham has even higher net favourables than Kendall. Kendall may be more electable than Cooper and certainly Corbyn, but for me Burnham is actually better for Labour than Kendall, in part because he is likely to keep the core from defecting to the Greens and do better in Scotland while also having the same appeal she has to floaters (and that is not Tories but those who backed Blair in 2005 then switched to Cameron)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-andy-burnham-considered-the-contender-most-likely-to-improve-partys-general-election-chances-10340208.html
Klitsa Antoniou. Jarvis looked at her photo and said it wasn't her either.
I wonder if anyone talking about boycotting the Sun would be interested in boycotting the Guardian, given their dozens of 'corrections' about the Milly Dowler story?