The freedom of information act is one of the few good things Labour did in office. As on encryption, the Conservatives really are not doing their liberal credentials any favours at all.
The Conservatives do not have any Liberal credentials, Mr JEO. They believe in control and conformity.
I'm really quite surprised that such an idea has even been seriously discussed re trying to stop Corbyn if he won.
TBH, I think calling Liz a Tory and corporate shill is just typical. She was brave to try to set out such a stall - but she's the wrong candidate at the wrong time for Labour-mindset right now.
They like opposition too much and aren't hungry for power. It took a very long time for them to be seduced by Tony & Co - and now they hate them.
The chances of Tony Mk II are as remote as Foot Mk II was back in 1995ish.
Is this the pivot scale half-life - 20yrs to swing one way then the other? And do 5yrs Parlys make it more or less likely to last as long?
Mr. Notme, not seen much untoward, Cooper's 'I've got kids, you haven't' nonsense aside. It seems to be shadowy chatter about axing Corbyn if he gets the gig.
It's intriguing. Would Labour actually manage to get rid of a leader?
The freedom of information act is one of the few good things Labour did in office. As on encryption, the Conservatives really are not doing their liberal credentials any favours at all.
The Conservatives do not have any Liberal credentials, Mr JEO. They believe in control and conformity.
The irony is that one of the key participants is the infamous liberal democrat peer Alex Carlile, Baron Carlile of Berriew.
2. None of this money has been declared for tax reasons and so why pay it into the bank and make it liable for back tax? Also how much of the Greek economy is on the cash-in-hand basis which of course may escape VAT>
Maybe they should have a great big massive tax amnesty. Pay some kind of lump sum right now and all your past sins are forgiven. Normally you wouldn't want to do this because the possibility of another amnesty encourages more tax evasion, but they can credibly say that the Germans wouldn't let them go easy on tax collection from now on even if they want to.
How much tax evasion is actually taking place in Greece? I'm not sure how much of it is based in reality, as opposed to just a meme.
Self-employed people under-reporting their income -- is that a specifically Greek thing? Anecdote alert: a friend recently started up on his own, and on taking his paperwork round to a local accountant, was astonished that the accountant was astonished that he was not cheating.
What is surprising is the proportion of self-employment in Greece, according to that article. It might be worth the Greek Exchequer investigating how much is disguised employment.
2. None of this money has been declared for tax reasons and so why pay it into the bank and make it liable for back tax? Also how much of the Greek economy is on the cash-in-hand basis which of course may escape VAT>
Maybe they should have a great big massive tax amnesty. Pay some kind of lump sum right now and all your past sins are forgiven. Normally you wouldn't want to do this because the possibility of another amnesty encourages more tax evasion, but they can credibly say that the Germans wouldn't let them go easy on tax collection from now on even if they want to.
How much tax evasion is actually taking place in Greece? I'm not sure how much of it is based in reality, as opposed to just a meme.
Appears to be more than just anecdotal. This article estimates the black economy as between 25% and 33% of GDP
The cheating is often quite bold. When tax authorities recently surveyed the returns of 150 doctors with offices in the trendy Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki, where Prada and Chanel stores can be found, more than half had claimed an income of less than $40,000. Thirty-four of them claimed less than $13,300, a figure that exempted them from paying any taxes at all.
Such incomes defy belief, said Ilias Plaskovitis, the general secretary of the Finance Ministry, who has been in charge of revamping the country’s tax laws. “You need more than that to pay your rent in that neighborhood,” he said.
He said there were only a few thousand citizens in this country of 11 million who last year declared an income of more than $132,000. Yet signs of wealth abound.
“There are many people with a house, with a cottage in the country, with two cars and maybe a small boat who claim they are earning 12,000 euros a year,” Mr. Plaskovitis said, which is about $15,900. “You cannot heat this house or buy the gas for the car with that kind of income.”
There are many a self employed builders/plumbers driving around in a £65k range rover, yet as far as HMRC is concerned are earning £10k pa. Strangely, their income is at just the right level to attract maximum tax credits, and the accountancy fees are taken off the gross.
I'm very glad that such a contest isn't happening to the Tories right now - and hopefully won't next time.
I think your analogy is a good one. What I expect to happen is that whatever the result, the harder left will be unhappy because purity is never pure enough. If Corbyn gets it - well I'll be drunk with laughter for a fortnight. If he comes anything other than a poor third or worse, his footsoldiers will be very angry/claim conspiracy stitch-up blah blah, and Cooper/Burnham will have already supped with a short spoon from his supporter base.
I expect the fate of Kendall to confirm to the electable Blairites that the battle is lost for another GE cycle.
Unless we have a serious gamechanger over the next month - its looking grim for the modernisers.
I went to see the last conservative leadership election hustings with David Cameron and David Davis. You could not have seen a process more comradery. The pair of them came across as friends who respected each other professionally and personally. Both were very good, but Cameron was the person who stood out as Prime Minister material.
Of course, there was subsequently a falling out, but at the time, it came across as genuine.
The respect for the party and for both candidates grew during that process. Can the same be said for this contest?
I remember the same, was very positive and both contenders put forward their vision for a modern Conservative party.
On the Labour side, was the contest much more polite last time on account of the two contenders being brothers? I don't really remember much about 1994 but this time around they are being terribly negative, the two leading contenders have said nothing positive to advance their own vision of the party at all.
OT I see Mr Cameron has named Louise Casey as the head of integration for isolated families [code for Muslim ghettos].
She takes no prisoners so that's good news to my ears.
One obvious thing to do here is to require all faiths school to take something like 20% of its students from outside the faith. If you can't get that many, then you get a chance to correct it before being closed down. I'm sure moderate CoE schools wouldn't have a problem getting there. The Saudi-funded Islamist ones are more doubtful.
Pity the poor parents who, due to the local authority school place selection policy ends up with their kids going into a school in which it is culturally acceptable to rape them.
You would have to couple it with the right of parents to refuse a religious school. That way you would have to make religious schools actively market themselves as being good for non-religious reasons, so that people outside that religion want to go there. I know that is certainly true for the better Catholic and CoE ones.
OT I see Mr Cameron has named Louise Casey as the head of integration for isolated families [code for Muslim ghettos].
She takes no prisoners so that's good news to my ears.
One obvious thing to do here is to require all faiths school to take something like 20% of its students from outside the faith. If you can't get that many, then you get a chance to correct it before being closed down. I'm sure moderate CoE schools wouldn't have a problem getting there. The Saudi-funded Islamist ones are more doubtful.
Pity the poor parents who, due to the local authority school place selection policy ends up with their kids going into a school in which it is culturally acceptable to rape them.
You would have to couple it with the right of parents to refuse a religious school. That way you would have to make religious schools actively market themselves as being good for non-religious reasons, so that people outside that religion want to go there. I know that is certainly true for the better Catholic and CoE ones.
There are already huge numbers of parents who go to church every Sunday for 10 years to make sure their kids get into the good RC and CofE schools!
I liked his expenses cushions - I had visions of him like a Maharajah reclined on them. He was very good on HASC though.
During the year Mr Vaz made claims of about £16,000 relating to the house, including more than £480 on 22 cushions, 17 of them silk, from John Lewis; £2,614 for a pair of John Lewis leather armchairs and an accompanying foot stool; £1,000 on a dining table and leather chairs; £750 on carpets; and £150 on a lamp and lampshade.
A bit thin isn't it, even by Guido's standards? Vaz entertains a large group in the Commons -- so what? Is it corrupt? Is he doing it in exchange for cash or favours? Is he breaking any rules?
Mr. Indigo, scanned Twitter, and I think a wealthy author [not Mr. T] has withdrawn some sort of funding from the university.
Jeremy Hornsby, 79, an author and journalist, has now cut his alma mater out of his £1 million legacy. Mr Hornsby had planned to leave each of the two establishments that educated him – Winchester College and UCL – a tenth of his estate as a sign of his gratitude. He will now write UCL out of his will leaving it about £100,000 worse off.
Apparently he's now been dropped from another international conf [Italian Society of Anatomy and Histology] after fears of militant feminists causing aggro. It's beyond bizarre.
The continued growth of technology will increase the pressure on employment for certain sectors. More driverless trains will be used and automated public transport will prevail. So why do the Unions resist such changes and make enemies of the public instead of identifying the new jobs/industries with which they could become involved? Are they so dinosauric that they are doing all in their power to self-eliminate.
We may get driverless cars which render car ownership redundant - they become just another form of Boris bike. All you do is get in the car and programme it to your destination and sit back. The same could happen for a lot of delivery lorries. It could even happen for air transport. Do the Unions or TUC not have anyone looking to where they are gong but only to where they have been?
Miss Plato, it's rather concerning. Witch hunts on Twitter are becoming increasingly serious. A Canadian chap, Gregory Elliott, is currently waiting to see if he'll get a six month prison sentence. For disagreeing with a feminist on Twitter, which apparently made her feel endangered or suchlike [despite him never threatening her].
I'm off to the hospital for a minor operation. I've not eaten thing for 24 hours.
Nothing worse than going "Nil By Mouth"... Given how good modern anesthetics are these day's and how they can control sickness after the Op, I'm not sure there's even any real need to go "Nil By Mouth" anyway, to be honest.
The freedom of information act is one of the few good things Labour did in office. As on encryption, the Conservatives really are not doing their liberal credentials any favours at all.
The Conservatives do not have any Liberal credentials, Mr JEO. They believe in control and conformity.
I'm really quite surprised that such an idea has even been seriously discussed re trying to stop Corbyn if he won.
TBH, I think calling Liz a Tory and corporate shill is just typical. She was brave to try to set out such a stall - but she's the wrong candidate at the wrong time for Labour-mindset right now.
They like opposition too much and aren't hungry for power. It took a very long time for them to be seduced by Tony & Co - and now they hate them.
The chances of Tony Mk II are as remote as Foot Mk II was back in 1995ish.
Is this the pivot scale half-life - 20yrs to swing one way then the other? And do 5yrs Parlys make it more or less likely to last as long?
Mr. Notme, not seen much untoward, Cooper's 'I've got kids, you haven't' nonsense aside. It seems to be shadowy chatter about axing Corbyn if he gets the gig.
It's intriguing. Would Labour actually manage to get rid of a leader?
Look at this well-written and well-written leading article from the Observer:
It's bang on the money. And yet almost all of CiF view this as being Tory-lite, or selling out to the Tories. Labour appear to have reverted to a previous evolutionary state, where they believe that under absolutely no circumstances whatsoever should they compromise with the electorate.
Nothing will change until Labour accept they lost. Only then can they think about how they might win again.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts. There was a mistaken belief that credibility could be attained simply by costing out new spending commitments. The lesson from 2015 – and 2010, and 1992 – is that without economic credibility, Labour is consigned to perennial opposition. But a Labour party about economic credibility and nothing else is equally pointless. Far from being a sideshow, economic credibility needs to frame the whole centre-left project. Labour needs to craft a new agenda for 2020 that is clearly differentiated from that of the right, but which does not rely on spending pledges – costed or not – at its heart. It needs a new reason to be.
I'm really quite surprised that such an idea has even been seriously discussed re trying to stop Corbyn if he won.
TBH, I think calling Liz a Tory and corporate shill is just typical. She was brave to try to set out such a stall - but she's the wrong candidate at the wrong time for Labour-mindset right now.
They like opposition too much and aren't hungry for power. It took a very long time for them to be seduced by Tony & Co - and now they hate them.
The chances of Tony Mk II are as remote as Foot Mk II was back in 1995ish.
Is this the pivot scale half-life - 20yrs to swing one way then the other? And do 5yrs Parlys make it more or less likely to last as long?
Mr. Notme, not seen much untoward, Cooper's 'I've got kids, you haven't' nonsense aside. It seems to be shadowy chatter about axing Corbyn if he gets the gig.
It's intriguing. Would Labour actually manage to get rid of a leader?
Look at this well-written and well-written leading article from the Observer:
It's bang on the money. And yet almost all of CiF view this as being Tory-lite, or selling out to the Tories. Labour appear to have reverted to a previous evolutionary state, where they believe that under absolutely no circumstances whatsoever should they compromise with the electorate.
Nothing will change until Labour accept they lost. Only then can they think about how they might win again.
The freedom of information act is one of the few good things Labour did in office. As on encryption, the Conservatives really are not doing their liberal credentials any favours at all.
The Conservatives do not have any Liberal credentials, Mr JEO. They believe in control and conformity.
Where does this nonsense come from?
Mr Clipp is one of our TOREES=EVIL believers, once you accept that, believing any fantasy is possible.
I don't believe this particular bit of idiocy has any malice in it, its just usual incompetence combined with the Politician's Fallacy ("We must do something, this is something, we must do this").
I am also reminded of the Yes Minister exchange
A: I presume the PM's in favour of the scheme because it'll reduce unemployment. H: It'll look as if he's reducing unemployment. A: Or look as if he's TRYING to reduce it. H: Whereas he's only trying to look as if he's trying to reduce unemployment. A: Because he's worried that it doesn't LOOK as if he's trying to look as if he's trying to reduce it.
(Replace "reduce employment" with "increase security")
I'm off to the hospital for a minor operation. I've not eaten thing for 24 hours.
Nothing worse than going "Nil By Mouth"... Given how good modern anesthetics are these day's and how they can control sickness after the Op, I'm not sure there's even any real need to go "Nil By Mouth" anyway, to be honest.
Anyway, good luck.
safety first... we live in a compensation culture... If you can get 12500 for an entanglement with a loo seat...
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
The move will protect any underperforming MPs and will raise concerns among constituents over ‘identikit’ politicians. Policy briefings will be provided for the 56 MPs to ensure they appear knowledgeable during Commons debates.
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
- Daily Mail - Make up most of their stories about SNP and Scotland, so when they do publish a decent story it gets lost. The funniest thing about the Daily Mail and it's sister paper in Scotland is their ability to publish completely contradictory front pages and Darce/Pierce thinks nobody notices - have they heard of the internet?
- The Times - Hugo & co like to dress their SNP hatred up with pseudo intellectual bulls**t. I think the Times columnists are most upset by the SNP punching a hole in the cosy Westminster Bubble and the WB annex in the Scotsman's office. That said on occasion the veil is lifted and the true nature of these folks shines through.
- The Daily Telegraph - I subscribe to the DT as I like my SNP Bad stories intravenously with full blown venom and hatred. Simon Heffer's effort yesterday was a classic example. He quickly moved through from the SNP being an insurgency to Nicola being left of the Bolsheviks:
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
The move will protect any underperforming MPs and will raise concerns among constituents over ‘identikit’ politicians. Policy briefings will be provided for the 56 MPs to ensure they appear knowledgeable during Commons debates.
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
- Daily Mail - Make up most of their stories about SNP and Scotland, so when they do publish a decent story it gets lost. The funniest thing about the Daily Mail and it's sister paper in Scotland is their ability to publish completely contradictory front pages and Darce/Pierce thinks nobody notices - have they heard of the internet?
- The Times - Hugo & co like to dress their SNP hatred up with pseudo intellectual bulls**t. I think the Times columnists are most upset by the SNP punching a hole in the cosy Westminster Bubble and the WB annex in the Scotsman's office. That said on occasion the veil is lifted and the true nature of these folks shines through.
- The Daily Telegraph - I subscribe to the DT as I like my SNP Bad stories intravenously with full blown venom and hatred. Simon Heffer's effort yesterday was a classic example. He quickly moved through from the SNP being an insurgency to Nicola being left of the Bolsheviks:
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
@GuidoFawkes: YouGov: 77% of all voters and 61% of Labour voters support limiting tax credits to 2 children. (Of those who expressed a preference.)
That's pretty much off the charts, up there with "do you think puppies and kittens are cute?". Yet, none of the leadership candidates could agree that this was right. Kendall looked like she might, but then had the appearance of someone who something very sour in her mouth while doing so.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
The move will protect any underperforming MPs and will raise concerns among constituents over ‘identikit’ politicians. Policy briefings will be provided for the 56 MPs to ensure they appear knowledgeable during Commons debates.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
(etc.)
The comments below that article are education. To paraphrase Star Wars (sort of) "It was as if a million voices cried out terror and - suddenly stuck their fingers in their ears and sang 'La-la-la we cant hear you'"
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Would a Corbyn victory or near miss cause yet another SDP faction breaking off for a while and handing the Tories another election on a plate?
It'd be like Philip Hollobone being Tory leader. There's some things he advocates that I can sympathise with - but he's electoral poison beyond the back benches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Hollobone
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
He has attempted to reintroduce national service.[15] His private member's bill on Capital Punishment received its first reading in the House of Commons on 24 June 2013, but was withdrawn, and so did not receive a second reading.[16] Similarly, his Young Offenders (Parental Responsibility) Bill, Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill, Fishing Grounds and Territorial Waters (Repatriation) Bill, Asylum Seekers (Return to Nearest Safe Country) Bill, BBC Licence Fee (Civil Debt) Bill and Equality and Diversity (Reform) Bill, all due for second reading on 28 February 2014, were all withdrawn. His European Communities Act 1972 (Repeal) Bill failed to progress to a vote[17]
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
Queue lots of ad-hom attacks on the mail...
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
- Daily Mail - Make up most of their stories about SNP and Scotland, so when they do publish a decent story it gets lost. The funniest thing about the Daily Mail and it's sister paper in Scotland is their ability to publish completely contradictory front pages and Darce/Pierce thinks nobody notices - have they heard of the internet?
- The Times - Hugo & co like to dress their SNP hatred up with pseudo intellectual bulls**t. I think the Times columnists are most upset by the SNP punching a hole in the cosy Westminster Bubble and the WB annex in the Scotsman's office. That said on occasion the veil is lifted and the true nature of these folks shines through.
- The Daily Telegraph - I subscribe to the DT as I like my SNP Bad stories intravenously with full blown venom and hatred. Simon Heffer's effort yesterday was a classic example. He quickly moved through from the SNP being an insurgency to Nicola being left of the Bolsheviks:
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
(etc.)
The comments below that article are education. To paraphrase Star Wars (sort of) "It was as if a million voices cried out terror and - suddenly stuck their fingers in their ears and sang 'La-la-la we cant hear you'"
Miss Plato, it's rather concerning. Witch hunts on Twitter are becoming increasingly serious. A Canadian chap, Gregory Elliott, is currently waiting to see if he'll get a six month prison sentence. For disagreeing with a feminist on Twitter, which apparently made her feel endangered or suchlike [despite him never threatening her].
I just looked up that story. The woman involved says some ridiculous things:
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
I have no time for Montie Dog In The Manger, Hugo is soft Left metro liberal - Melanie says the unsayable and I rather like her for it - all those years married to Joshua Rosenberg makes her very incisive with her opinions whether I think she's bonkers or spot on. Ditto Mr Aaronovitch. Of course, Mr Collins is a Blairite and in despair. I like the humanity of Danny Fink.
Jenni Russell is just terrible as EdM's best matey and talks in feeble stereotypes. Don't think much of Janice Turner - she's besties with Caitlin who I can't stand and almost every article is Boo Hoo I'm Female. Yawn.
I wouldn't pay to read the DT - it's too much one way and I have to apply a lot of filtering. But it's always been like that. They do great Weird and Animal Pix though.
Is Heffer with the DT again? He's so far off my spectrum - he's like the Righties version of Seamus Milne.
The SNP is to spend nearly £600,000 of taxpayers’ cash on a backroom team to boost the profile of its new MPs. Each MP is to hand over a proportion of their staffing budget to pay for the initiative, which will include PR opportunities designed to woo voters.
Queue lots of ad-hom attacks on the mail...
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
There was no such debate. Some of us have spent the last five years on here lamenting Labour's failure to make its economic case. Headlines and platitudes do not a policy make.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
Swedish Finance Minister: Sweden should not become a second-class member of the EU
In an op-ed for Dagens Nyheter entitled, “Sweden should not become a second-class member of the EU”, Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson argues, “There is a risk that [further Eurozone integration] could lead to a weaker position in the EU and reduced influence over policy formulation for non-euro countries. Ultimately, this may also affect the design of the EU single market which is so important for Sweden.” She goes on to argue that Sweden “should safeguard transparency” between the Eurozone and the rest of the EU and “should continue to uphold the principle that new forms of cooperation should, as far as possible, be open to all EU member states that wish to participate”, adding that decisions concerning the single market should always be taken at 28.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
There was no such debate. Some of us have spent the last five years on here lamenting Labour's failure to make its economic case. Headlines and platitudes do not a policy make.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
First you complain that Labour didn't have a "debate" and then you're saying that my evidence of a debate does not make a "policy". Those are different things. Are you arguing that Ed Miliband did not engage in a debate that the Labour economic manifesto (with less welfare cuts, bankers bonuses, higher minimum wage and the rest)? Or are you arguing that the Labour economic manifesto had policies which were not left wing enough?
The Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party both believe that competition is good.
There is nothing wrong with Osborne, May and Johnson being competitive. Thye are honning their skils and we can observe which of them is the best.
The Lib Dems were perfectly happy with the hustings between Farron and Lamb.
The Labour leadership candidates are looking increasingly uncomfortable at their hustings althouth Corbyn looks least uncomfortable when answering questions - presumably because he can give a straight answer without fear.
Mr. JEO, it's deeply alarming. The Canadian law on harassment is based on two things: the objective acts that were committed [and here the chap is entirely in the clear] and the subjective feelings of the 'victim', which is crackers.
Mr. JEO [2], the eurozone has weight of numbers and the joy of QMV. The EU will plunge further into madness before it gets better/regains sanity.
Swedish Finance Minister: Sweden should not become a second-class member of the EU
In an op-ed for Dagens Nyheter entitled, “Sweden should not become a second-class member of the EU”, Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson argues, “There is a risk that [further Eurozone integration] could lead to a weaker position in the EU and reduced influence over policy formulation for non-euro countries. Ultimately, this may also affect the design of the EU single market which is so important for Sweden.” She goes on to argue that Sweden “should safeguard transparency” between the Eurozone and the rest of the EU and “should continue to uphold the principle that new forms of cooperation should, as far as possible, be open to all EU member states that wish to participate”, adding that decisions concerning the single market should always be taken at 28.
Britain is definitely finding allies for EU reform in the non-EZ countries.
I'm genuinely interested to see what can be discussed, but have definitely moved a lot further towards the Out camp in the past few weeks and will need a big deal to wish to stay in now.
The Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party both believe that competition is good.
There is nothing wrong with Osborne, May and Johnson being competitive. Thye are honning their skils and we can observe which of them is the best.
The Lib Dems were perfectly happy with the hustings between Farron and Lamb.
The Labour leadership candidates are looking increasingly uncomfortable at their hustings althouth Corbyn looks least uncomfortable when answering questions - presumably because he can give a straight answer without fear.
First you complain that Labour didn't have a "debate" and then you're saying that my evidence of a debate does not make a "policy". Those are different things. Are you arguing that Ed Miliband did not engage in a debate that the Labour economic manifesto (with less welfare cuts, bankers bonuses, higher minimum wage and the rest)? Or are you arguing that the Labour economic manifesto had policies which were not left wing enough?
Or indeed that their manifesto didn't contain any policies worth the name, it was a collection of flatus trying to mask the fact their their list of ideas that might appeal to the public was as empty as a hermits address book.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
The Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party both believe that competition is good.
There is nothing wrong with Osborne, May and Johnson being competitive. Thye are honning their skils and we can observe which of them is the best.
The Lib Dems were perfectly happy with the hustings between Farron and Lamb.
The Labour leadership candidates are looking increasingly uncomfortable at their hustings althouth Corbyn looks least uncomfortable when answering questions - presumably because he can give a straight answer without fear.
Kendall started off well but seems to have been "got at" by advisors telling her to plough a furrow of beige to get elected.
What happened to her campaign being run by the guy from Labour List and Hopi Sen ?
As a general comment, particularly given that we know our host is indisposed, could we try to avoid anything that might possibly be conceived as innuendo? It's not fair on our host.
I suggest that any passing moderator takes a look at a couple of the posts on thread and deletes them.
Labour really needs to elect Corbyn as leader, for its own sake.
It needs to let the Left take the reins for a couple of years. Major on all that totemic stuff that makes their heart beat faster, the things that represent the real reason they joined Labour.
Then, when they are down at 19% in the polls, they can finally ditch all that crap, clear the decks and start looking at what it will take to gain power. At which point there might be a better hearing for Liz Kendall - and the electoral realism she represents. Because they are currently deaf to it.
The brutal truth for Labour is that they need to win over three million people who didn't vote for them in 2015. Because in taking the road back to power, they are going to lose at least a million who will have lost faith with a party that has turned its back on its heritage. What is awkward is that their activist base includes many who will be in that million lost voters...
Even Liz Kendall's "electoral realism" seems stronger than it actually is, by comparison to the other candidates. She still defends the union link, and accuses the Conservative immigration policies of "demonising immigrants".
I've mentioned this before but isn't taking any positions that are substantially more right-wing than the positions that Burnham or Cooper would end up fighting the election on. The difference is strategic: Do you start arguing for what will ultimately be 2020 policy right away, or do you spend several years riling up your supporters about policies that you're going to carry on implementing if you get elected, and leave the pivot to the centre to the last minute?
Ed Miliband did the latter, which at the time I thought was cynical bullshit but effective politics. But in practice it didn't work out as well as I hoped, and I can't really see why Labour people seem to think it's a good idea to try it again.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
Some of these immigration decisions make very little sense. Does anyone really believe much crime comes from people on business or entrepreneur visas? If we have a crime problem arising from immigration, it is gangs of pickpockets or fraudsters from Eastern Europe. Yet that is left untouched, while there is a draconian clampdown on business visas.
There's starting to be an argument that we need to leave the EU just so its politically viable to let more skilled immigrants in.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
There was no such debate. Some of us have spent the last five years on here lamenting Labour's failure to make its economic case. Headlines and platitudes do not a policy make.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
First you complain that Labour didn't have a "debate" and then you're saying that my evidence of a debate does not make a "policy". Those are different things. Are you arguing that Ed Miliband did not engage in a debate that the Labour economic manifesto (with less welfare cuts, bankers bonuses, higher minimum wage and the rest)? Or are you arguing that the Labour economic manifesto had policies which were not left wing enough?
Neither. I'm saying Labour made no attempt to build a case or develop a policy. Predistribution doesn't cut it: what part of predistribution was rejected at the ballot box? Can you name a single voter outside of Ed's kitchens who even knew what it meant?
Labour really needs to elect Corbyn as leader, for its own sake.
It needs to let the Left take the reins for a couple of years. Major on all that totemic stuff that makes their heart beat faster, the things that represent the real reason they joined Labour.
Then, when they are down at 19% in the polls, they can finally ditch all that crap, clear the decks and start looking at what it will take to gain power. At which point there might be a better hearing for Liz Kendall - and the electoral realism she represents. Because they are currently deaf to it.
The brutal truth for Labour is that they need to win over three million people who didn't vote for them in 2015. Because in taking the road back to power, they are going to lose at least a million who will have lost faith with a party that has turned its back on its heritage. What is awkward is that their activist base includes many who will be in that million lost voters...
Even Liz Kendall's "electoral realism" seems stronger than it actually is, by comparison to the other candidates. She still defends the union link, and accuses the Conservative immigration policies of "demonising immigrants".
I've mentioned this before but isn't taking any positions that are substantially more right-wing than the positions that Burnham or Cooper would end up fighting the election on. The difference is strategic: Do you start arguing for what will ultimately be 2020 policy right away, or do you spend several years riling up your supporters about policies that you're going to carry on implementing if you get elected, and leave the pivot to the centre to the last minute?
Ed Miliband did the latter, which at the time I thought was cynical bullshit but effective politics. But in practice it didn't work out as well as I hoped, and I can't really see why Labour people seem to think it's a good idea to try it again.
The issue goes way deeper than any policies. The issue goes to 'what/who is the Labour party for?'
I think that was the first question which needed answering before they worked out who the leader is.
Both Burnham and Cooper are nothing more than 'business as usual' candidates, but without any real identity.
'Five years is a very long time in politics. Throwing in the towel now is nonsensical. With the right leader and approach, Labour could strip the Tories of 50-60 seats in England, and regain power.
It seems to me that this is Labour trying to send a message to the electorate: if you won't elect us on the platform we want, and we already made compromises to you in it, then screw you. We'll elect someone that we truly believe in, exercise a real full-throated opposition and show you all the terrible mistake you've made. You'll be sorry etc.
It's quite clear that for many Labour supporters the purity of ideology in opposition is something they're more comfortable with than the compromises needed for the gaining of power.'
'That element exists in all parties, as the Tories showed. Coming to any conclusions about the direction Labour is heading before the leadership vote takes place is not very sensible in my view. Obviously, if Corbyn wins then the party will have excluded itself from power for the foreseeable future and will lose a lot of its support, including mine. However, it has a chance of at least denying the Tories a majority with any of the other three. And with Tory hubris now at full throttle could do a lot better than that. '
Absolutely - and there is a chance that the Tories will have lost their majority before we even get to 2020!
Speaking of Tories setting traps for Labour leadership candidates, I can't help but feel the joy coming subliminally from CCHQ re: tightening union strike rules. A manifesto commitment IIRC with added bells now.
Whilst they could never in their wildest dreams expect Mr Corbyn to get Unite's backing - it's come to pass and their announcements have surely materially increased his chances of success. I can only assume that they're bigging these up just to motivate his supporters.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
The Labour leadership candidates are looking increasingly uncomfortable at their hustings
The very fact that Corbyn is still seriously in the game must be giving some pause for thought,
A little more than a ‘pause for thought’ methinks. Corbyn’s admittance to the cosy consensus was to stimulate a very dull leadership challenge, he wasn’t supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
There was no such debate. Some of us have spent the last five years on here lamenting Labour's failure to make its economic case. Headlines and platitudes do not a policy make.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
First you complain that Labour didn't have a "debate" and then you're saying that my evidence of a debate does not make a "policy". Those are different things. Are you arguing that Ed Miliband did not engage in a debate that the Labour economic manifesto (with less welfare cuts, bankers bonuses, higher minimum wage and the rest)? Or are you arguing that the Labour economic manifesto had policies which were not left wing enough?
Neither. I'm saying Labour made no attempt to build a case or develop a policy. Predistribution doesn't cut it: what part of predistribution was rejected at the ballot box? Can you name a single voter outside of Ed's kitchens who even knew what it meant?
Did it mean roughly that employers should pay a higher wage to their staff, rather than people in work needing to claim tax credits from the State..?
Neither. I'm saying Labour made no attempt to build a case or develop a policy. Predistribution doesn't cut it: what part of predistribution was rejected at the ballot box? Can you name a single voter outside of Ed's kitchens who even knew what it meant?
So Miliband engaged in debate but did not attempt to build a case? He had economic policies in his manifesto but did not attempt to develop a policy? With all respect, I'm going to have to give up on this discussion now as your distinctions do not make any sense.
As I mentioned up thread - I never thought in my lifetime we'd see Labour doing this to themselves again.
Hollobone is rated as the Conservatives' most rebellious MP.[13] He argues that his job is to "represent constituents in Westminster, it's not to represent Westminster in the constituency".[14]
Foreign National Offenders (Exclusion from the United Kingdom) Bill
Immigrants will be forced to prove they have had police background checks or be banned from entering the UK, under plans for a sweeping crackdown on foreign criminals.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
I agree with your second paragraph but to be clear, it's not just people from Kazakhstan, it's anyone who's temporarily lived in Kazahkstan, or anywhere else in the world except for the EU, and you'd have to go back to all the places you've lived and get forms stamped. If you're the kind of person who moves to a different country to set up a business, there's a good chance that you didn't just spend the last 10 years living in the same country and still live there now.
Neither. I'm saying Labour made no attempt to build a case or develop a policy. Predistribution doesn't cut it: what part of predistribution was rejected at the ballot box? Can you name a single voter outside of Ed's kitchens who even knew what it meant?
Please, Sir, me, Sir! Well at least in general terms.
Pre-distribution now belongs to that surprisingly long list of policies that were once the preserve of the extreme left that have not only become mainstream but actually adopted by the Conservative party. Nick Palmer once made a very good post on here on that subject and with some encouragement might be induced to do so again. .
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
Corbyn will never be Labour leader. Michael Foot was nearly as left wing and as old, but he was a better orator and more importantly, was unfailingly polite when being interviewed.
Corbyn showed himself to be a mardy arse when he wasn't getting his own way - a deadly failing in a politician. Even Livingstone could hide his anger when necessary.
I agree with your second paragraph but to be clear, it's not just people from Kazakhstan, it's anyone who's temporarily lived in Kazahkstan, or anywhere else in the world except for the EU, and you'd have to go back to all the places you've lived and get forms stamped. If you're the kind of person who moves to a different country to set up a business, there's a good chance that you didn't just spend the last 10 years living in the same country and still live there now.
And, of course, it's enough of a faff to get police records when you are a national of the country in question. Trying to get the police records for that time you spent working in Tanzania seven years ago as a foreign citizen will be a nightmare. Especially if you are an international businessman on a busy schedule, you are probably not going to want to fly back to Tanzania to queue up in Dar-Es-Salaam in person.
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
Unfortunately, the Times now picks its news stories based on its politics. It never used to do that, but has become just like all the other papers. It is a real shame. That said, the sports coverage is superb - head and shoulders above the rest - and there is a decent range of columnists. It's probably still the best of a bad lot, but nowhere near as good as it was three or four years ago.
I feel certain that someone must have said this b4 but this is v reminiscent of the past but I cannot see the Tories implode over Europe and Labour cannot rid themselves of the idea that the electorate are wrong and will eventually see reason. The only worry for the Tories is who comes next after Dave.
Corbyn will never be Labour leader. Michael Foot was nearly as left wing and as old, but he was a better orator and more importantly, was unfailingly polite when being interviewed.
Corbyn showed himself to be a mardy arse when he wasn't getting his own way - a deadly failing in a politician. Even Livingstone could hide his anger when necessary.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
Labour really needs to elect Corbyn as leader, for its own sake.
It needs to let the Left take the reins for a couple of years. Major on all that totemic stuff that makes their heart beat faster, the things that represent the real reason they joined Labour.
Then, when they are down at 19% in the polls, they can finally ditch all that crap, clear the decks and start looking at what it will take to gain power. At which point there might be a better hearing for Liz Kendall - and the electoral realism she represents. Because they are currently deaf to it.
The brutal truth for Labour is that they need to win over three million people who didn't vote for them in 2015. Because in taking the road back to power, they are going to lose at least a million who will have lost faith with a party that has turned its back on its heritage. What is awkward is that their activist base includes many who will be in that million lost voters...
Even Liz Kendall's "electoral realism" seems stronger than it actually is, by comparison to the other candidates. She still defends the union link, and accuses the Conservative immigration policies of "demonising immigrants".
I've mentioned this before but isn't taking any positions that are substantially more right-wing than the positions that Burnham or Cooper would end up fighting the election on. The difference is strategic: Do you start arguing for what will ultimately be 2020 policy right away, or do you spend several years riling up your supporters about policies that you're going to carry on implementing if you get elected, and leave the pivot to the centre to the last minute?
Ed Miliband did the latter, which at the time I thought was cynical bullshit but effective politics. But in practice it didn't work out as well as I hoped, and I can't really see why Labour people seem to think it's a good idea to try it again.
The issue goes way deeper than any policies. The issue goes to 'what/who is the Labour party for?'
I think that was the first question which needed answering before they worked out who the leader is.
Both Burnham and Cooper are nothing more than 'business as usual' candidates, but without any real identity.
The 'what' the Labour party is for is contained in Clause IV of the rule book. Essentially, democratic socialism; leading to power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many not the few.
Fair go, but how many of these nomadic serial entrepreneurs are there? How many of them want to open a business in the UK? How many would be put off by the new regulations? I would make a modest wager that if we made a Freedom of Information Request a year after the regulations are introduced we would find (assuming Cameron's plans to emasculate the FoI Act have not been put into place) that the number would be less than ten.
F1: only a few days until Hungary (which, ridiculously, has a three week break before it and a four week break after).
I'll be keeping an eye on Williams to see if they can stay ahead of Ferrari.
Weather report: Hungary is boiling hot right now with no end in sight.
It's hard concentrating on work here.
So take off all your clothes?
Sweltering in Florence- have been reduced to boxers and vest for the last month. Hottest summer so far here for 140 years, unrelenting, remorseless heat with no end in sight. Sooooo jealous for the folk at St Andrews.
BTW- have put a crafty tenner on Dustin Johnson for the Open. He has the game to rip open the course
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
Unfortunately, the Times now picks its news stories based on its politics. It never used to do that, but has become just like all the other papers. It is a real shame. That said, the sports coverage is superb - head and shoulders above the rest - and there is a decent range of columnists. It's probably still the best of a bad lot, but nowhere near as good as it was three or four years ago.
Agree on the Times - great sports stuff, although I haven't bought one since God knows when.
I was in Devon the other day with no internet connection so I bought the Observer. First time I've bought a paper in ages.
It was excellent. The sport (particularly Ashes analysis) and the big features were fab. I read all about Srebrenica (a tragedy I knew little about) and it's led me to wanting to buy a book on it.
The demise of newspaper due to the rise of the internet is sad, because I think the internet - the way I use it anyway - tends to pigeon hole interests into only what I'm interested in searching for. I would never have come across the Srebrenica story on the net.
Not getting a newspaper every day has narrowed my horizons, not opened them.
Mr. Antifrank, no AC? I'm unsure of how common properly hot temperatures are in Hungary.
How's it looking for the weekend? No Safety Car is a bet I'll be considering, if it's dry.
I'm working from my flat rather than an office, so no AC today (I floated the idea with my other half just now and got a scornful look). Hungary routinely gets to 35C in the summer and it's been that or warmer for the last couple of days. There's a suggestion of some rain on Thursday and Friday, but the heat looks likely to continue for some time to come. Fortunately I return to London tonight.
Casino_Royale I don't think that would be conducive to good legal advice.
Mr. Antifrank, no AC? I'm unsure of how common properly hot temperatures are in Hungary.
How's it looking for the weekend? No Safety Car is a bet I'll be considering, if it's dry.
Mr Dancer, did you get a clarification about the status of the VSC with regard to safety car bets?
They are being quite conservative with the VSC, expect it as a result of a dead car pulling over anywhere that might require marshals or trucks to cross the barrier, which would not have been the case in previous seasons if it were the 'real' SC or double yellows as the only options.
There's starting to be an argument that we need to leave the EU just so its politically viable to let more skilled immigrants in.
Good heavens, there is a thought. A policy that enables immigrants, from wherever in the world, who have something positive to contribute to come here whilst refusing entry to those who will take more than they give. I am amazed that no political party has yet come up with it.
Fair go, but how many of these nomadic serial entrepreneurs are there? How many of them want to open a business in the UK? How many would be put off by the new regulations? I would make a modest wager that if we made a Freedom of Information Request a year after the regulations are introduced we would find (assuming Cameron's plans to emasculate the FoI Act have not been put into place) that the number would be less than ten.
I doubt there are a lot of people getting visas to open a business in the UK, but of the few there are I expect a fair proportion would have lived in at least 2 countries in the the last 10 years.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
"We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost." This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it. It is Tory hubris to point that out according to Southam Observer.
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
What's impressing me is George Osborne's deadly patience. In common with many others I was expecting him to raise the minimum wage before the election to shoot Labour's fox and I was surprised when he did not do so.
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
Osborne's cleverness remains to be seen. A living wage has to be just that. If it turns out the IFS is correct and millions of families have less disposable income than was previously the case, then whoever is Labour leader (Corbyn excepted) will have something to build on.
I can imagine being a non-hard Left Labourite and feeling despair reading this
The most important question for voters in 2015 was whether they could trust Labour with the economy. And it will be the same in 2020, in 2025 and 2030. It is a question that never goes away for parties of the centre-left, in good economic times or bad.
Miliband’s approach to economic credibility was to treat it as a side project: the odd symbolic announcement immediately drowned out by opposition to spending cuts.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
"We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost." This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
It is Tory hubris to point that out according to Southam Observer.
Comments
TBH, I think calling Liz a Tory and corporate shill is just typical. She was brave to try to set out such a stall - but she's the wrong candidate at the wrong time for Labour-mindset right now.
They like opposition too much and aren't hungry for power. It took a very long time for them to be seduced by Tony & Co - and now they hate them.
The chances of Tony Mk II are as remote as Foot Mk II was back in 1995ish.
Is this the pivot scale half-life - 20yrs to swing one way then the other? And do 5yrs Parlys make it more or less likely to last as long?
What is surprising is the proportion of self-employment in Greece, according to that article. It might be worth the Greek Exchequer investigating how much is disguised employment.
*That doctor being Dr Kevorkian.
On the Labour side, was the contest much more polite last time on account of the two contenders being brothers? I don't really remember much about 1994 but this time around they are being terribly negative, the two leading contenders have said nothing positive to advance their own vision of the party at all.
Before we grab our torches and pitchforks, why?
Apparently he's now been dropped from another international conf [Italian Society of Anatomy and Histology] after fears of militant feminists causing aggro. It's beyond bizarre.
We may get driverless cars which render car ownership redundant - they become just another form of Boris bike. All you do is get in the car and programme it to your destination and sit back. The same could happen for a lot of delivery lorries. It could even happen for air transport. Do the Unions or TUC not have anyone looking to where they are gong but only to where they have been?
Anyway, good luck.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/19/observer-view-labour-leadership-election-jeremy-corbyn
It's bang on the money. And yet almost all of CiF view this as being Tory-lite, or selling out to the Tories. Labour appear to have reverted to a previous evolutionary state, where they believe that under absolutely no circumstances whatsoever should they compromise with the electorate.
Nothing will change until Labour accept they lost. Only then can they think about how they might win again.
I don't believe this particular bit of idiocy has any malice in it, its just usual incompetence combined with the Politician's Fallacy ("We must do something, this is something, we must do this").
I am also reminded of the Yes Minister exchange (Replace "reduce employment" with "increase security")
and hope all goes well Mr Smithson
It really doesn't bother me. I find it entertaining.
My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
- Daily Mail - Make up most of their stories about SNP and Scotland, so when they do publish a decent story it gets lost. The funniest thing about the Daily Mail and it's sister paper in Scotland is their ability to publish completely contradictory front pages and Darce/Pierce thinks nobody notices - have they heard of the internet?
- The Times - Hugo & co like to dress their SNP hatred up with pseudo intellectual bulls**t. I think the Times columnists are most upset by the SNP punching a hole in the cosy Westminster Bubble and the WB annex in the Scotsman's office. That said on occasion the veil is lifted and the true nature of these folks shines through.
- The Daily Telegraph - I subscribe to the DT as I like my SNP Bad stories intravenously with full blown venom and hatred. Simon Heffer's effort yesterday was a classic example. He quickly moved through from the SNP being an insurgency to Nicola being left of the Bolsheviks:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11747801/To-save-the-Union-end-the-Scots-insurgency.html
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
A few of us do - I'd say it's marginally right of centre in Leaders - it's columnists are 50/50 left and right wing. My take on the right wing press and the SNP/Scotland:
- Daily Mail - Make up most of their stories about SNP and Scotland, so when they do publish a decent story it gets lost. The funniest thing about the Daily Mail and it's sister paper in Scotland is their ability to publish completely contradictory front pages and Darce/Pierce thinks nobody notices - have they heard of the internet?
- The Times - Hugo & co like to dress their SNP hatred up with pseudo intellectual bulls**t. I think the Times columnists are most upset by the SNP punching a hole in the cosy Westminster Bubble and the WB annex in the Scotsman's office. That said on occasion the veil is lifted and the true nature of these folks shines through.
- The Daily Telegraph - I subscribe to the DT as I like my SNP Bad stories intravenously with full blown venom and hatred. Simon Heffer's effort yesterday was a classic example. He quickly moved through from the SNP being an insurgency to Nicola being left of the Bolsheviks:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/SNP/11747801/To-save-the-Union-end-the-Scots-insurgency.html
" it will soon become apparent to Cameron that even the smallest Tory rebellion can prevent the Government from getting its programme through "
In Heffer's contorted view of the world, Cameron's inability to control his party is somehow Nicola Sturgeon's fault. This comes on the coat-tails of Labour, UKIP and the LibDems all blaming their lack of electoral success on the SNP.
The point is that Labour made no attempt to establish its own position. Not that Labour lost, or needs to adopt George Osborne's pronouncements as gospel, but that it does need to set out its own case and not, as Ed did, spend five years saying nothing, because this enables the Tory narrative to win by default. The electorate did not reject Labour's economic policies -- voters were not even given the choice.
How about a take on the left wing press and the SNP/Scotland ?
Mild left : Mirror-Record, Guardian, Indy
Hard left (nationalist socialist) : The National.
Ed Miliband said plenty of stuff. He talked about "predistribution", he called the Conservatives heartless in their cuts, he pledged to increase the minimum wage, he said cuts were destroying the NHS, he said austerity was undermining growth, he loudly identified as a socialist. If he had won, Labour supporters would be crowing that the left-wing anti-austerity vision had won out, and Conservative economic arguments had been rejected once and for all. We had a very loud and open debate about the economy, and your side lost.
Would a Corbyn victory or near miss cause yet another SDP faction breaking off for a while and handing the Tories another election on a plate?
It'd be like Philip Hollobone being Tory leader. There's some things he advocates that I can sympathise with - but he's electoral poison beyond the back benches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Hollobone
We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/christie-blatchford-the-twitter-trial-of-gregory-elliott-is-becoming-much-like-twitter-itself-shrill-and-uber-sensitive
Apparently, it inflicts fear for her to feel "creeped out" by a man, based on the "glint in his eye".
I think he is right about who he represents, and at least one of his ideas is gaining currency:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11748959/Foreign-criminals-face-new-crackdown-as-new-visa-rules-demand-police-checks.html
Jenni Russell is just terrible as EdM's best matey and talks in feeble stereotypes. Don't think much of Janice Turner - she's besties with Caitlin who I can't stand and almost every article is Boo Hoo I'm Female. Yawn.
I wouldn't pay to read the DT - it's too much one way and I have to apply a lot of filtering. But it's always been like that. They do great Weird and Animal Pix though.
Is Heffer with the DT again? He's so far off my spectrum - he's like the Righties version of Seamus Milne. We used to subscribe to the Times but my wife gave up on it in the run up to GE2015, she liked to try and debate with Montgomery, Rifkind, Reid etc when they produced off beam SNP/Scotland stories but they weren't interested - which says it all I guess !!
There was no such debate. Some of us have spent the last five years on here lamenting Labour's failure to make its economic case. Headlines and platitudes do not a policy make.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
In an op-ed for Dagens Nyheter entitled, “Sweden should not become a second-class member of the EU”, Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson argues, “There is a risk that [further Eurozone integration] could lead to a weaker position in the EU and reduced influence over policy formulation for non-euro countries. Ultimately, this may also affect the design of the EU single market which is so important for Sweden.” She goes on to argue that Sweden “should safeguard transparency” between the Eurozone and the rest of the EU and “should continue to uphold the principle that new forms of cooperation should, as far as possible, be open to all EU member states that wish to participate”, adding that decisions concerning the single market should always be taken at 28.
http://openeurope.org.uk/daily-shakeup/greek-banks-to-open-doors-but-capital-controls-remain-in-place-as-greece-moves-to-meet-looming-payments-to-creditors/#section-2
This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
WTF was that as a message to business? This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
If you don't believe me, ask George Osborne. He'd not, for instance, have dared increase the minimum wage if he'd thought voters would be outraged by such a move. He'd not even have wanted to do so if he'd thought it was one step away from snow on your boots.
First you complain that Labour didn't have a "debate" and then you're saying that my evidence of a debate does not make a "policy". Those are different things. Are you arguing that Ed Miliband did not engage in a debate that the Labour economic manifesto (with less welfare cuts, bankers bonuses, higher minimum wage and the rest)? Or are you arguing that the Labour economic manifesto had policies which were not left wing enough?
There is nothing wrong with Osborne, May and Johnson being competitive. Thye are honning their skils and we can observe which of them is the best.
The Lib Dems were perfectly happy with the hustings between Farron and Lamb.
The Labour leadership candidates are looking increasingly uncomfortable at their hustings althouth Corbyn looks least uncomfortable when answering questions - presumably because he can give a straight answer without fear.
Mr. JEO [2], the eurozone has weight of numbers and the joy of QMV. The EU will plunge further into madness before it gets better/regains sanity.
I'm genuinely interested to see what can be discussed, but have definitely moved a lot further towards the Out camp in the past few weeks and will need a big deal to wish to stay in now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11748959/Foreign-criminals-face-new-crackdown-as-new-visa-rules-demand-police-checks.html
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
What happened to her campaign being run by the guy from Labour List and Hopi Sen ?
She hasn't even gone down swinging - just down.
I suggest that any passing moderator takes a look at a couple of the posts on thread and deletes them.
The very fact that Corbyn is still seriously in the game must be giving some pause for thought,
Ed Miliband did the latter, which at the time I thought was cynical bullshit but effective politics. But in practice it didn't work out as well as I hoped, and I can't really see why Labour people seem to think it's a good idea to try it again.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
Some of these immigration decisions make very little sense. Does anyone really believe much crime comes from people on business or entrepreneur visas? If we have a crime problem arising from immigration, it is gangs of pickpockets or fraudsters from Eastern Europe. Yet that is left untouched, while there is a draconian clampdown on business visas.
There's starting to be an argument that we need to leave the EU just so its politically viable to let more skilled immigrants in.
Neither. I'm saying Labour made no attempt to build a case or develop a policy. Predistribution doesn't cut it: what part of predistribution was rejected at the ballot box? Can you name a single voter outside of Ed's kitchens who even knew what it meant?
I think that was the first question which needed answering before they worked out who the leader is.
Both Burnham and Cooper are nothing more than 'business as usual' candidates, but without any real identity.
It seems to me that this is Labour trying to send a message to the electorate: if you won't elect us on the platform we want, and we already made compromises to you in it, then screw you. We'll elect someone that we truly believe in, exercise a real full-throated opposition and show you all the terrible mistake you've made. You'll be sorry etc.
It's quite clear that for many Labour supporters the purity of ideology in opposition is something they're more comfortable with than the compromises needed for the gaining of power.'
'That element exists in all parties, as the Tories showed. Coming to any conclusions about the direction Labour is heading before the leadership vote takes place is not very sensible in my view. Obviously, if Corbyn wins then the party will have excluded itself from power for the foreseeable future and will lose a lot of its support, including mine. However, it has a chance of at least denying the Tories a majority with any of the other three. And with Tory hubris now at full throttle could do a lot better than that. '
Absolutely - and there is a chance that the Tories will have lost their majority before we even get to 2020!
Whilst they could never in their wildest dreams expect Mr Corbyn to get Unite's backing - it's come to pass and their announcements have surely materially increased his chances of success. I can only assume that they're bigging these up just to motivate his supporters.
Great, so you're trying to start a business in Britain, you clear all the hoops showing it's good for UK employment etc, but you lived in Kazahkstan for 6 months in 2007, so now you've now got to schedule a trip to queue up in a police station in Almaty before you can give British people jobs.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
What a numpty.
I'll be keeping an eye on Williams to see if they can stay ahead of Ferrari.
Alternatively you could start your business somewhere else.
I think the UK economy must just survive if the number of rich entrepreneur's from Kazakhstan who want to start a business in the West decide to go elsewhere. The problem with the policy is however that it is one designed for headlines and not effect.
It will only apply to those seeking a Tier 1 visa, i.e. those that are already wealthy. The number of such people seeking entry each year who have a criminal record such that it would debar them from obtaining a visa can probably be counted without having to actually take one's socks off. However, it enables the Daily Mail to say that the government is clamping down on foreign criminals without actually having to do so.
I agree with your second paragraph but to be clear, it's not just people from Kazakhstan, it's anyone who's temporarily lived in Kazahkstan, or anywhere else in the world except for the EU, and you'd have to go back to all the places you've lived and get forms stamped. If you're the kind of person who moves to a different country to set up a business, there's a good chance that you didn't just spend the last 10 years living in the same country and still live there now.
Pre-distribution now belongs to that surprisingly long list of policies that were once the preserve of the extreme left that have not only become mainstream but actually adopted by the Conservative party. Nick Palmer once made a very good post on here on that subject and with some encouragement might be induced to do so again. .
Nobody has given David Cameron an ounce of credit, but the fact remains that from quite a weak position he has not just defeated his opponents, but utterly routed them. Yes, Scotland has helped him, and his opponents too, but I think his achievement is nevertheless underrated.
There's an amazing book in there somewhere for political journalists.
It's hard concentrating on work here.
How's it looking for the weekend? No Safety Car is a bet I'll be considering, if it's dry.
Corbyn will never be Labour leader. Michael Foot was nearly as left wing and as old, but he was a better orator and more importantly, was unfailingly polite when being interviewed.
Corbyn showed himself to be a mardy arse when he wasn't getting his own way - a deadly failing in a politician. Even Livingstone could hide his anger when necessary.
Unfortunately, the Times now picks its news stories based on its politics. It never used to do that, but has become just like all the other papers. It is a real shame. That said, the sports coverage is superb - head and shoulders above the rest - and there is a decent range of columnists. It's probably still the best of a bad lot, but nowhere near as good as it was three or four years ago.
The only worry for the Tories is who comes next after Dave.
CCHQ must be v happy.
Agreed, but I suppose my point is do the others want to lead a party that has clearly seriously considered him?
I'd imagine an IDS type tenure. Labour wouldn't be stupid enough to let him run all the way to 2020, would they?
By keeping this in reserve for the post-election budget, he's ensured that the attention is on the commitment to the living wage rather than the reduction in tax credits, and at a time when Labour is in no position to respond sensibly. Under the guise of centrism, he is pushing Labour to the fringes of the debate while balancing the books primarily at the expense of the poor.
In a few days time, politics will shut down for the summer and the public will leave for their holidays with the general impression that the Conservatives are economically competent, open-minded to good ideas from other parts of the political spectrum and that Labour are all over the shop with no coherent position except to oppose what the public see as perfectly sensible restrictions on benefits.
Unless a strong Labour voice is heard today in response to George Osborne's cheeky challenge in the Guardian, Labour will be depending on events to get to a winning position in 2020. Of course, events do happen but Labour's chances of getting a coherent coalition-building ideological position capable of confronting the Conservatives head-on are rotting as we speak.
Fair go, but how many of these nomadic serial entrepreneurs are there? How many of them want to open a business in the UK? How many would be put off by the new regulations? I would make a modest wager that if we made a Freedom of Information Request a year after the regulations are introduced we would find (assuming Cameron's plans to emasculate the FoI Act have not been put into place) that the number would be less than ten.
BTW- have put a crafty tenner on Dustin Johnson for the Open. He has the game to rip open the course
Agree on the Times - great sports stuff, although I haven't bought one since God knows when.
I was in Devon the other day with no internet connection so I bought the Observer. First time I've bought a paper in ages.
It was excellent. The sport (particularly Ashes analysis) and the big features were fab. I read all about Srebrenica (a tragedy I knew little about) and it's led me to wanting to buy a book on it.
The demise of newspaper due to the rise of the internet is sad, because I think the internet - the way I use it anyway - tends to pigeon hole interests into only what I'm interested in searching for. I would never have come across the Srebrenica story on the net.
Not getting a newspaper every day has narrowed my horizons, not opened them.
Casino_Royale I don't think that would be conducive to good legal advice.
They are being quite conservative with the VSC, expect it as a result of a dead car pulling over anywhere that might require marshals or trucks to cross the barrier, which would not have been the case in previous seasons if it were the 'real' SC or double yellows as the only options.
Thanks for the weather update @antifrank, BBC weather think there may be showers by Friday but still very hot. http://www.bbc.com/weather/3054643
This is so self-evidently obvious, that I'd worry, genuinely worry and probably phone help for them, about anyone trying to deny it.
It is Tory hubris to point that out according to Southam Observer.
HUBRIS
HUBRIS EVERYWHERE
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/open-2015-bbc-choose-bargain-6100735
BBC prioritising 'Bargain Hunt' over The Open.