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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour is paying a price for its elongated leadership contest
Labour’s abstention move does look like a mistake and was the product of the party not having a confident leader in place to steer the party through the mine-field that had been carefully set by Osborne.
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I've been on the Trump betting bandwagon for about 2 months now, even before Trump was a candidate, and I'll tell you why.
Trump is the American Berlusconi, if Berlusconi dominated italian politics for almost 20 years through the power of TV, then so can Trump.
The extreme love-hate relationship between Trump and the media is his warp engine propelling him at enormous speeds forward, example: Last week CNN mentioned his name once every 5 minutes on average all day everyday for the whole week.
Sure they are blasting him, but on topics which the average republican actually agrees with Trump, and I'm not sure about the McCain comments because the average republican hates McCain ever since he called them wackos and crazies.
Case in point, the screaming DeMoine Register editorial, Iowa's leading newspaper, calling for Trump to drop out not because of his policies but because he's starving Jeb Bush from oxygen and prevents Kasich from being on the debates:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/caucus/2015/07/20/donald-trump-end-campaign/30439253/
"In just five weeks, he has polluted the political waters to such an extent that serious candidates who actually have the credentials to serve as president can't get their message across to voters. In fact, some of them can't even win a spot in one of the upcoming debates, since those slots are reserved for candidates leading in the polls."
Now that's precisely the kind of media moaning that attracts republican voters to Trump.
And at the worst time possible in the midst of a leadership election.
At least the LD will never get a single vote out of it, because only 2.5 months ago they were in government with the Tories and the notion that they are the real opposition is laughable.
The left-wing block vote of LD (they are left wing now) + Lab + Green + PC + SDLP + SNP + Sylvia is 304 in this parliament.
Unless there's very poor whipping discipline, all controversial Tory measures should pass by a similar amount. Of course, that does mean keeping Tory rebel numbers to ten or less.
I disagree with Speedy that the Lib Dems don't have credibility on this - these exact cuts (both the total of £12bn, loss of youth housing benefit, ESA cuts, removing grants from poorer students, number of children restrictions) were opposed and blocked in government. Most of them weren't exactly secrets that the Tories were pushing for them - so very easy to talk about being consistent. Whereas Labour opposed e.g. restricting child benefit for higher rate taxpayers, and are now supposedly comfortable with these more punitive measures.
Hope you fully recover soon.
Really the Tories should be trying to keep them sweet. A time will come where they need their votes.
Now that the Tories are at liberty to impose their will on the country, the Lib Dems have, rightly, resumed their position as open and public opponents of the more damaging Tory policies. Impossible to leave this to the Labour leaders, who don´t know whether they are coming or going.
In what way is what Lucas said "thick"?
@commentisfree: George Osborne’s assault on welfare must not go unchallenged – @pollytoynbee http://t.co/iw9byHo1Jr http://t.co/WNf1LtmiKA
Labour currently have all the nous and strategic abilities as Hannibal at Zama or Crassus at Carrhae.
Now that we are free of the lead weights that are the Lib Dems, we're seeing a true, One Nation Conservative government such as helping the poor with the living wage.
Honestly, this government is giving me the horn.
Labour can't go on being this useless forever, nor can the Tories remain this awesome, surely?
This government is providing me with much political Viagra.
So you got to enjoy the fun whilst it lasts.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11753227/French-ferry-workers-block-access-to-Eurotunnel-with-pile-of-burning-tyres.html
Looks like Calais is a no go area AGAIN. Perhaps we need to consider routing all traffic through Belgium
Then the Tory mantra of the long term economic plan won't look so attractive to the voters.
Rather like the Kippers when they were predicting 100+ seats.
I'd say we're due a "boom" much more than a recession!
Here's a free tip to Labour, offered gratis, without strings: You need to start by working on a coherent position, instead you are making the mistake of working backwards from your focus-groups and concluding you have to avoid saying anything which might be unpopular with anyone. That simply leads you into the position of having nothing to say except for vacuuous platitudes which Osborne can easily expose as hollow and contradictory.
I warned him it smacked of hubris at the time. It did, and it was.
Eisenhower liberated mainland Europe at minimal cost. He did great work in Africa too.
Plus, I reckon, his sending of the 101st Airborne to escort the Little Rock Nine, did a lot for American race relations, made fans of Jim Crow look like numpties.
*nothing stronger than mango juice and pineapple juice.
So they know what they need to do to get elected (by the country) but not by the party...
Awesome!
Cameron have this year and next year to get the big stuff through - incl. EVEL, BBC reform, human rights reform and fox hunting etc. - and they know that.
They also need to factor in the Lords playing silly buggers, which could delay the lot by a good year.
I'm ever more convinced Mr Clipp is a computer generated LD. She doesn't understand the notion of the role of HM Opposition rather more nuanced than her silly opportunist tweet. I'm sure that Greens will benefit - I doubt that LDs will despite their efforts to airbrush History. Attacking the govt on benefit cuts is not the right territory for UKIP.
https://twitter.com/libdems/status/623486843720474624
Will anyone care
Let's face it, it wasn;t strategy that was required. It was masterly organisation and diplomacy. Many on the American side could barely bring themselves to be in the presence of Monty.
Slim would have been a much better choice.
IIRC 61% of Labour voters like the tax credit changes. No wonder the candidates are having a mare.
The voters elected a Tory government with a majority remember that you ermine clad unelected people.
Routing all ferry traffic via Belgium is a VERY good idea; has the added bonus of annoying the French an awful lot.
Given that they have been making this mistake since the winter of 2008, they do seem to be very slow learners.
@theobertram: Just to be clear: I'm not advocating we brush disagreement under the carpet. We need to argue this one out.
His argument is mainly with the ferocity with which Labour is attacking itself.
There is a line between healthy debate and delusional self harm...
Or, even better, you could keep people at the bottom of the band and give them a bonus fitting to their performance each year.
But as we know, just 66 people were actually involved in the Broxtowe CLP nomination. If that is representative of levels in other CLPs, we are looking at very low numbers overall.
I'm honestly glad that I don't vote Labour - this makes IDS/Redwood/Clark leadership shouts look appealing. http://labourlist.org/2015/07/are-there-any-patterns-in-the-clp-nominations-so-far/
In a similar vein I think the political commentators also need to stop focusing on the SNP - eg. Iain Martin did a piece earlier peddling the line that the SNP are misleading folks around the mechanics of Westminster voting and wittering on about the "pairing" system, which for what its worth is completely irrelevant to last nights vote:
http://www.capx.co/cynical-snp-is-peddling-untruths-on-welfare-vote/
Clearly Chukka and Jarvis correctly calculated that now is not the time... It will probably happen after Lab's next election defeat in 2010.
It's hardly 'airbrushing history' to oppose the same cuts in opposition that you prevented in Government.
I would not be surprised if all opposition parties, excluding Labour of course, benefited from a rudderless Labour party.
My mother was born on a council estate in North Wales in the 50s; she knew poverty, hunger, want of clothing. She cannot believe the claims made over poverty in modern Britain today; in short she finds them laughable.
But all these CLP 'nominations' mean literally nothing. They're no more than an informal straw poll of those who turn up for a meeting. The nominations have already come from the MPs and the voting will be by individual ballot next month. Why the publicity given to them, or have I missed something?
Precisely. It could just be that far too much is being read into something that is not actually very representative of mainstream membership thinking. We just don't know.
Jarvis I think had genuine personal reasons. He's a bit more like Cameron. Not firm on any Labour belief but could be a great PR/comms/public face of Labour.
[Jeremy Corbyn] once claimed that he did not vote against the party willy-nilly, only being willing to defy the whip over three types of issues: war and peace, issues of liberty and socio-economic policy. Point out to him that this covers almost everything that the government could possibly do, and he laughs, 'I suppose it does.'
twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/623393283759325184
The CLP nominations last time were broadly reflective of the final result, though
I think George Osborne really needs to watch his hubris because his 'star' will start o wane eventually and I'm sure he will get a kicking on his way down. Men are so prone to this macho posturing and never learn, especially in politics.
Given that the vast majority of people don't watch or listen to politics, I expect that Labour 'may' get away with a lot of their present difficulties.
All those (100+) Lib Dem Peers. The legacy of the coalition, and the ghost of Nick Clegg.
I just fail to see the humanity, kindness or vision in the existing system that limits work to 16 hours, is designed to work for and achieve the lowest common denominator and level everyone down to that. The proposed system sets a higher common denominator and asks people to level up to it. By definition that will make a bigger gap where some are less poor, or even better off than they were, and others will remain static and may loose a bit. May be that is what they need at the bottom of the scale in order to motivate them to change.
Dishonest party gets whacked at the polls and fails to learn lesson - oh well.
Although that's true, Labour have only had two leadership contests in twenty-one years (excluding this one). I don't know the data for the 1994 contest, so we don't know whether 2010 was an anomaly or not, or whether there were a lot more activists at local CLPs during the nomination process, than there are now.