On topic, sort of (I regard a quirk of here as OT more suitably meaning 'on topic'), I do think the key point on Cameron changing his mind is the sheer length of time he has already been leader - as someone pointed out earlier, if he wins it would be 15 years as PM if he went the distance, and 20 as leader of the party. Blair you could see working, as he'd PM for 8 years, and on a schedule of 4 years that he had been setting, he was only looking at 12 as PM total, and I think those few extra potential expected years make a difference. It's just too long at the top outside the most exceptional people and circumstances.
Off topic, Inside Out was indeed as good as people said. Yes, I had tears in my eyes. Damn you, Pixar.
Assuming Labour do disintegrate - which they haven't shown any sign of doing yet - and assuming they do so in such a way that is beneficial to the Conservatives - which if you look at the period between the formation of the SDP and the Falklands war is not a safe assumption - I would have thought that would make Cameron more likely to retire to something less stressful knowing he can leave the shop without fear of all his achievements being lost by a parvenu successor.
It is my suspicion that Corbyn will allow himself to be talked into stepping down ''for the good of the Party ''
That seems fair all round, so long as, if he wins, he has a genuine crack a leading things his way to see if it works, rather than being decapitated or defenestrating himself almost immediately.
I'm not sure what impact he'd have on an EU referendum if any, but that's apparently due for June, 2016, so if MPs don't want him in charge for that they're going to need to get their decapitation trousers on.
The correct tactical vote for Corbyn might actually be
1) Burnham 2) Corbyn 3) Kendall 4) Cooper.
Obviously it's a game with imperfect information, but Cooper beating Burnham to 2nd place might be a trickier ask than gaining enough transfers to push past Corbyn in the final round.
Hmm...
Why would Corbyn backers want to do that? If they do then if they get their wish then in the final round they've voted against Corbyn and for Burnham in the final round (thus voting against their wish).
I'm confused too.
I can see there being a somewhat contrived argument for Corbyn supporters voting for Cooper, on the basis that more Burnham than Cooper 2nd prefs will go to JC, so it's better that Burnham come 3rd. That's a dangerous game if you don't want YC to win, though!
I know it's a running joke, but if someone could explain the AV system in a visual way that cuts through some of the misunderstandings theyd be doing us all a service. There was someone on FB earlier suggesting that JC supporters should vote Liz as 1st preference - goodness knows why they thought that would help?!
1) Corbyn is probably the best way to ensure Corbyn wins, but there is a finite probability that
1) Burnham 2) Corbyn 3) Kendall 4) Cooper.
could work better
Is this based on the idea that more Burnham second prefs will go to Cooper than vice versa, therefore it's better for the final 2 to be AB and JC?
My best guesses (mostly based on the polling) are:
• JC will come top on 1st preferences, followed by AB, YC and LK • LK 2nd prefs will mostly redistribute to YC, who may then leapfrog AB • YC 2nd/3rd prefs will mostly go to AB (LK prefs will be disregarded because she's already out), whereas AB 2nd prefs will be more evenly distributed between YC and JC.
Therefore, it's better for YC to be in the top 2 along with JC after the 1st round.
Indeed. Yvette may be coming across as dull but the Corgasm will work to her advantage if a few Burnhamites get convinced to go for the real thing. The 2nd elimination is the nub of this contest.
If it hadn't been for Corbyn -mania I was confident that Cooper would have won this race as the compromise candidate and least objectionable ; after all, she would be the first female leader of the LP and with Merkel , Helle Schmitt and Hillary , female leadership is very much in the zeitgeist ..indeed , it is my contention that if you take , say, 30 random Labour voters together then Cooper nearly always remains the last one standing as the compromise , unfortunately Corbyn seems to have changed that
I know it's a running joke, but if someone could explain the AV system in a visual way that cuts through some of the misunderstandings theyd be doing us all a service. There was someone on FB earlier suggesting that JC supporters should vote Liz as 1st preference - goodness knows why they thought that would help?!
Tactically I think they're right, although obviously there's a risk that everyone's got the whole contest wrong and it'll blow up in your face.
Basically the goal is to be up against someone transfer-unfriendly into the final round.
If Corbyn is the most transfer-unfriendly of the four, he won't win in any case unless he gets into the final round by a large margin, so his tactically-minded supporters should optimize for getting the most beatable person in the final round, rather than optimizing to make sure he gets in the final round.
If he gets > 50% in the first round, all the talk of transfers is moot.
Dr. Spyn, in his defence, most women also wear bras of the wrong size.
He ought to go for a fitting.
This has reminded me of one of the more awkward moments of my life. A friend of mine who lives outside London is a transvestite and a few years ago asked me to go to Transformations (a specialist shop just opposite Euston) on his behalf to pick up a couple of items. As a good friend, I agreed to do so.
It was only when I entered the shop that I realised just how lame it was going to sound when I said that I was picking something up for a friend. And I duly got coaxed and encouraged by an unbearably sympathetic shop assistant to accept a side of myself that, several years on, I still haven't discovered.
I'm a bit more careful nowadays what favours I'll do for friends.
Isn't @David_Evershed a LD? There are quite a few that I couldn't say who they voted for but seem slightly left-of-centre. @foxinsoxuk is a former LD.
Ah, how could I forget @foxinsoxuk! Although I think he is still LD, as he has reported to voting on the LD Leadership contest (I think).
I didn't include @IOS, @compouter1, and @surbition because they don't appear to post anymore. I think @IOS especially won't come back! Yes, you make a good point about @SandyRentool too - I think he's voting for Corbyn. I haven't seen @Neil post, would be quite interesting to hear from a Green!
I think antifrank is intending to found the London Lawyers' Party LLP (LLPLLP for short).
These two marginalised factions are severely underappreciated by the country at large.
Dr. Spyn, in his defence, most women also wear bras of the wrong size.
He ought to go for a fitting.
I remember the Reeves & Mortimer sketch about the councillors from Hartlepool who wear bras. They have obviously now been elevated to the peerage for their public service.
Can anyone point me to a quote saying Corbyn wants to nationalise universities or is it PB Tory hyperbole
The article I read it sounded like he just wanted a free and comprehensive education system, nothing about ownership
What then is the difference between a National Education Service and the free state-run comprehensive system we have now?
I suspect Corbyn would favour abolition of Private schools - and there are plenty in the Labour Party who would support that. I don't know if he said it however.
I wonder how 'legal' that would be. The only way i would think you could do it would be to enforce attendence at a state school, but then you run into all sorts of problems (home schooling, etc etc).
Then of course theres a pratical issue of how you deal with an extra 600,000 plus school places needing to be found.... It would crash the state sector.
I know it's a fantasy/wish of many of the left, but its an fantasy.
You don't ban it.
Just just require a pound-for-pound 'social solidarity' contribution if you decide to send your kid to a private school
I've watched a few US docs on supermax prisons and golly - most prisoners here would faint at the prospect. Most supermax seem to follow the regime you mention. No socialising, up to 1hr a day walking in a circle in a concrete lined bunker with no views of anything, no entertainment, not even plastic cutlery to eat your food, no chit-chat with guards, no window.
If you're on suicide watch - no clothes, lights on with CCTV 24/7 and no bedding to strangle yourself with.
''Support for the death penalty has fallen to below 50% for the first time according to the most recent British Social Attitudes survey:''
I sometimes wonder if really bad lifers should be offered the choice of a death sentence. Reading accounts of a lifetime in a maximum security prison with no chance of remission, it almost seems like a worse punishment. And it must be a huge strain on the prison officers.
Belgium now gives them the option of committing suicide.
Most whole-lifers don't have bad conditions in this country. If I were a whole-lifer in a US maximum security prison, I would regard being executed as the more humane alternative. There's a new prison in Colorado for the most dangerous prisoners, where you're confined to a concrete cell, 23 and a half hours a day, without any form of recreation at all. If you behave really well, you might get a black and white TV, giving access to religious programmes and the Disney Channel.
Imagine never seeing sunlight again; or a view of anything. I think a lot of people would go mad.
I would choose Gitmo over the normal US prison system in a heatbeat.
There was an astonishing Storyville (BBC4) film about a maximum security prison in Siberia for dangerous Russian prisoners. Truly breathtaking what the human spirit can endure. Solitary confinement for some of years on end in tiny cell with a rule that they could not lie on the bed during waking hours (so just paced up and down endlessly). Visits from a relative or two restricted to once every five years for an hour or so. Some of the prisoners did indeed go mad by all accounts, others found a way to get through each day.
I know it's a running joke, but if someone could explain the AV system in a visual way that cuts through some of the misunderstandings theyd be doing us all a service. There was someone on FB earlier suggesting that JC supporters should vote Liz as 1st preference - goodness knows why they thought that would help?!
Tactically I think they're right, although obviously there's a risk that everyone's got the whole contest wrong and it'll blow up in your face.
Basically the goal is to be up against someone transfer-unfriendly into the final round.
If Corbyn is the most transfer-unfriendly of the four, he won't win in any case unless he gets into the final round by a large margin, so his tactically-minded supporters should optimize for getting the most beatable person in the final round, rather than optimizing to make sure he gets in the final round.
That could work if there's eg two vs three ideologically, but I don't think it works for Corbyn's supporters as he's already the most transfer-unfriendly. It doesn't realistically matter who he's again as whoever he's against is most likely to pick up almost all of the other transfers. A vote for anyone but Corbyn is simply a vote against Corbyn if the person you vote for reaches the final round.
Plus a considerable proportion of the electorate (about 12.5% of eliminated votes last time) cast a first vote and leave the rest of the preferences blank anyway.
If it hadn't been for Corbyn -mania I was confident that Cooper would have won this race as the compromise candidate and least objectionable ; after all, she would be the first female leader of the LP and with Merkel , Helle Schmitt and Hillary , female leadership is very much in the zeitgeist ..indeed , it is my contention that if you take , say, 30 random Labour voters together then Cooper nearly always remains the last one standing as the compromise , unfortunately Corbyn seems to have changed that
Stay calm. I have bet on Cooper and remain confident that this is a passing phase, similar to Cleggmania.
If it hadn't been for Corbyn -mania I was confident that Cooper would have won this race as the compromise candidate and least objectionable ; after all, she would be the first female leader of the LP and with Merkel , Helle Schmitt and Hillary , female leadership is very much in the zeitgeist ..indeed , it is my contention that if you take , say, 30 random Labour voters together then Cooper nearly always remains the last one standing as the compromise , unfortunately Corbyn seems to have changed that
I don't think Corbyn's changed it, I think that the Labour leadership being a glorified voodoo poll has changed it. Cooper may be least objectionable to Labour members but this isn't a poll of Labour members its a poll of Labour members, plus whoever the union's get to sign up, plus whoever else wants to vote.
This is a glorified voodoo poll and Labour will get the result it deserves.
The correct tactical vote for Corbyn might actually be
1) Burnham 2) Corbyn 3) Kendall 4) Cooper.
Obviously it's a game with imperfect information, but Cooper beating Burnham to 2nd place might be a trickier ask than gaining enough transfers to push past Corbyn in the final round.
Hmm...
Why would Corbyn backers want to do that? If they do then if they get their wish then in the final round they've voted against Corbyn and for Burnham in the final round (thus voting against their wish).
I'm confused too.
I can see there being a somewhat contrived argument for Corbyn supporters voting for Cooper, on the basis that more Burnham than Cooper 2nd prefs will go to JC, so it's better that Burnham come 3rd. That's a dangerous game if you don't want YC to win, though!
I know it's a running joke, but if someone could explain the AV system in a visual way that cuts through some of the misunderstandings theyd be doing us all a service. There was someone on FB earlier suggesting that JC supporters should vote Liz as 1st preference - goodness knows why they thought that would help?!
AV is very simple unless you have a 'sophisticated' electorate who try to game the system, which is what people on here seem to be trying to do. Will the 220,000 or more Labour Party members vote in a 'sophisticated' way? I doubt it. The vast majority will vote 1,2,3,4 for the candidates in their preferred order. Maybe a couple of hundred will try playing the system but they'll not affect it much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
@ The_Apocalypse Just finishing up a chapter for a book being published by Imperial on wmd around the world. Not surprisingly, my chapter is on Iraq's BW programme. I address such issues as why it the programme's success was limited, and why, although the presumption that they had BW did impact the strategy of the coalition in 1991 and again in 2003, it did not (as intended by Saddam) affect in any way the strategic outcomes of either Gulf war or the war with Iran.
Then it's on to a major book on all Iraq's wmd programmes, looking at it from all perspectives - the West's, the inspectors/UN, Iraq's and Russia's. Although Iraq had a strategy for gaming the Security Council's decisions through NAM and China (and later Russia and France), the NAM/China positions were really immaterial to any developments, so we won't really treat that. The book will, inter alia, look at why the entire intelligence community (including Russia, France and Germany, not just the Anglosphere) got it wrong on Iraq. We are helped in making better assessments now as we have access to the Saddam Tapes (like Nixon, he recorded key meetings with his top advisors) and the Duelfer Report (Charlie lead the Iraq Action Group which interviewed all the key Iraqi wmd players in the years after the fall of Baghdad. Alas his efforts were curtailed when his convoy was hit by an IED and several of his protection unit were killed.
In my view, Blair did get ahead of the intelligence. He was doing what politicians do - simplifying things to make better sound bites, and using the arguments most likely to persuade key constituencies to his proposed plan of action, rather than the soundest arguments. He lost me with the 40 minutes claim, but I don't fault him anywhere near as much as his detractors on the rest.
If it hadn't been for Corbyn -mania I was confident that Cooper would have won this race as the compromise candidate and least objectionable ; after all, she would be the first female leader of the LP and with Merkel , Helle Schmitt and Hillary , female leadership is very much in the zeitgeist ..indeed , it is my contention that if you take , say, 30 random Labour voters together then Cooper nearly always remains the last one standing as the compromise , unfortunately Corbyn seems to have changed that
Stay calm. I have bet on Cooper and remain confident that this is a passing phase, similar to Cleggmania.</blockquote========
============================================ I'm trying to remain calm even though I bet heavily on Cooper and now wish I hadn't ....I may have to hedge on burnham but I refuse to be spooked into putting a penny on Corbyn This is partly the fault of that bloody fool miliband for changing the rules for leadership voting and making it more ''democratic ''..Corbyn is loony populism
If it hadn't been for Corbyn -mania I was confident that Cooper would have won this race as the compromise candidate and least objectionable ; after all, she would be the first female leader of the LP and with Merkel , Helle Schmitt and Hillary , female leadership is very much in the zeitgeist ..indeed , it is my contention that if you take , say, 30 random Labour voters together then Cooper nearly always remains the last one standing as the compromise , unfortunately Corbyn seems to have changed that
Stay calm. I have bet on Cooper and remain confident that this is a passing phase, similar to Cleggmania.
That that bloody fool Miliband has enthused, probably accidentally, incidentally, caused a senior minority politician to become the great white hope of a new generation to become politically active, Well, as the fire grows, it burns out the old dead wood.
Comments
Norman Smith trying to spin line on no rules were broken.
Off topic, Inside Out was indeed as good as people said. Yes, I had tears in my eyes. Damn you, Pixar.
He ought to go for a fitting.
A politician walks into a bra.
It was only when I entered the shop that I realised just how lame it was going to sound when I said that I was picking something up for a friend. And I duly got coaxed and encouraged by an unbearably sympathetic shop assistant to accept a side of myself that, several years on, I still haven't discovered.
I'm a bit more careful nowadays what favours I'll do for friends.
Just just require a pound-for-pound 'social solidarity' contribution if you decide to send your kid to a private school
Plus a considerable proportion of the electorate (about 12.5% of eliminated votes last time) cast a first vote and leave the rest of the preferences blank anyway.
@JackW titters, while @MickP0rk chortles.
This is a glorified voodoo poll and Labour will get the result it deserves.
Will the 220,000 or more Labour Party members vote in a 'sophisticated' way? I doubt it. The vast majority will vote 1,2,3,4 for the candidates in their preferred order. Maybe a couple of hundred will try playing the system but they'll not affect it much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
I'd call myself a Liberal Unionist
You nationalise the existing schools, with compensation paid in the form of non-voting 2% preference shares in National Schools Plc.
Then it's on to a major book on all Iraq's wmd programmes, looking at it from all perspectives - the West's, the inspectors/UN, Iraq's and Russia's. Although Iraq had a strategy for gaming the Security Council's decisions through NAM and China (and later Russia and France), the NAM/China positions were really immaterial to any developments, so we won't really treat that. The book will, inter alia, look at why the entire intelligence community (including Russia, France and Germany, not just the Anglosphere) got it wrong on Iraq. We are helped in making better assessments now as we have access to the Saddam Tapes (like Nixon, he recorded key meetings with his top advisors) and the Duelfer Report (Charlie lead the Iraq Action Group which interviewed all the key Iraqi wmd players in the years after the fall of Baghdad. Alas his efforts were curtailed when his convoy was hit by an IED and several of his protection unit were killed.
In my view, Blair did get ahead of the intelligence. He was doing what politicians do - simplifying things to make better sound bites, and using the arguments most likely to persuade key constituencies to his proposed plan of action, rather than the soundest arguments. He lost me with the 40 minutes claim, but I don't fault him anywhere near as much as his detractors on the rest.