This is a very big week on the road to the major political event of 2016 – the election of the next US president. Barack Obama will have served two terms and is barred from staying any longer. This means that both parties will have tight nomination fights.
Comments
Twitter
Ruth Davidson MSP @RuthDavidsonMSP 15 mins15 minutes ago
Just out of interest, Begehot's at the Corbyn rally, and his time line is worth a look. It's at @JeremyCliffe
Jonathan Isaby @isaby 44 secs44 seconds ago
Great live-tweeting by @JeremyCliffe of tonight's Corbyn rally - do check out his tweets...
https://twitter.com/JeremyCliffe/status/628277708280201216
Quote from Andy Burnham's Mum's interview with the Mirror...
“They called our Andy ‘Seven Eights’ at school. He couldn’t remember that seven eights are 56.”
He also reckons they are very clever, in an Oxbridge sort of way. Full of Big Ideas. But not so big on experience. The bottom line is that a smart, young, well-connected Economist writer is not likely to stick around on a journalist's pay when other prospects abound for them.
http://t.co/qGUdcxIrXC
Back in the early-mid nineties I was a long term subscriber to the Economist. Then one week they happened to do an article on a subject about which I knew an awful lot, in fact I was something of an expert. The article was riddled with inaccuracies, inaccuracies so bad that even a very modest amount of research would have shown them up as complete tosh and we are talking statements of fact here not opinion. I realised then that if they could be that wrong about one subject they probably were equally wrong about a great many others and that relying on the magazine for any sort of informed comment was stupid. I cancelled my subscription the same day.
Fascinating to see Fox dither around trying to decide which GOP horse to back. The GOP debate is a bit like the Eurovision song contest with the 10 semi-finalists and then the 10 finalists on stage. Will it make any difference - hard to see any one of them getting a big boost though I presume most on finals night will be gunning for the Donald.
I imagine this field of selling platers and no-hopers will be thinned out via unnatural selection before the poor Iowans get their moment in the sun in the middle of winter.
The very interesting Observer piece quoted by someone on the last thread only shows part of the picture. In East Ham, the bookies are open from 7.30am to 10pm every night - you won't find many betting on the 3.30 at Chepstow but the FOBTs are in use a lot of the time. The bookies act as a quasi-community centre and each of the ethnic groups has its own shop or shops.
I view the FOBTs rather as I view the Lottery - a stealth tax on the poorest with the improbablilty of a life-changing win drawing those who can afford it least to gamble the most.
As for horse racing itself, the courses own the product in terms of media rights which they sell as pictures to the bookmakers. This will work only as long as the bookmakers decide they still need UK racing in the shops to make money. The day they stop believing that horse racing is in a world of trouble.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539967/Michael-Shrimpton-Bomb-Threats-Kill-Queen-London-2012-Olympics-Nuclear-Attack
Some publications have a cleverer veneer than others but sooner or later the fact hits you that you are reading something scraped together by a 20-something armed mostly with google. If they write well and can make an Oxbridge admissions essay style "clever" argument (think Irwin in the History Boys) then it can mask the issue, but only for so long.
Charles, given that US law ultimately derives from British common law, it is pretty apparent that natural born includes all who are born (regardless of location) with the right to US citizenship and hence do not need to be naturalized. Cruz has that through his US mother.
I don't think that there is any serious doubt amongst legal scholars in the US that that is the correct legal interpretation. If any doubt exists, it is simply the product of ignorance or people trying for other reasons to create an issue where one does not exist. Of course, all doubt would be removed if the Supreme Court made a ruling, but that will not happen unless a State or candidate challenges Cruz' eligibility.
FInally, practice is also on Cruz' side. McCain (Panama Canal Zone), Goldwater (Arizona before it was a state) and Romney (George - Mexico) were all candidates who were born outside of the US and whose candidacies were not effectively challenged on the basis of geography of birth
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4515426.ece
Ken Livingstone, less surprisingly, backs Corbyn too (though he says he backed Healey over Foot in 1980)
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/ken-livingstone-jeremy-corbyn-isnt-another-michael-foot--he-can-win-a-general-election-10434758.html
My own view is:
1. Trump has a ceiling of xx% of first preference votes among GOP primary voters. He is last preference in most of the rest. Thus his upside once other candidates start dropping out of the race will be very limited, which in turn means his best results will be in the early races.
2. Much of the numbers at this stage reflect name recognition
3. Many of the polls are not doing a good job of separating out respondents as GOP
4. None of the polls are applying LV filters for the GOP primaries to their raw numbers.
All of the above overstate Trump's real relative position in the GOP race.
(We were watching the PM debates earlier as Cameron came on. Q. Who's that? A. He runs the country. Pause. A. I want to run the country.
Trump – 26% (13)
Bush – 12% (15)
Walker – 11% (7)
Cruz – 6% (9)
Huckabee – 6% (7)
Carson – 5% (6)
Christie – 4% (2)
Paul – 4% (6)
Rubio – 4% (6)
Kasich – 3% (1)
Fiorina – 2% (1)
Perry – 2% (2)
Jindal – 1% (2)
Santorum – 1% (2)
Graham – * (*)
Pataki – * (*)
Gilmore – 0% (-)
Undecided – 10% (18)
http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/32212254770/32212254991/32212254992/32212254994/32212254995/30064771087/67f674c8-fd4a-4a93-afbc-8b246a83da56.pdf
Nonetheless he is likely to get a lot of votes from this rather odd electorate.
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Illegal-immigrant-accused-murdering-wife-Bristol/story-27536318-detail/story.html
But, I don't think that Corbyn would be an improvement. He's more authentic than Blair, but he's off the wall.
The "soft left" London Mayoral hopeful who wants South African style Affirmative Action for BAMEs in a city that has never had anti BAME legislation and where white Brits are now in the minority
It shows how far to the Left of the electorate the London Labour Party is.
The Daily Jackboot is just such a nasty publication, I only look at it because its free and laugh at their cynical nastiness and deliberate misdirection as to the truth..
EVIL newspaper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Kelly
Some women are blind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hillary-clintons-sandy-berger-problem/2015/08/03/b08466f0-39d5-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html
PS This piece compares Hillary's presumed infractions with those of Sandy Berger (and his eventual plea deal of 2 years probation, $50,000 fine, 100 hours community service, no security clearance for 3 years and relinquishing his DC law license). Another paper today compared Hillary's case to Pitraeus' - 2 years probation, $100,000 fine.
I have a twin brother, I now know how it feels...
Free to enter and get bragging rights over fellow anoraks on here although probably not many of our scottish friends sadly as that's presumably just celtic's 11 in their version of the game?
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/
The code to join this private league is 1336513-316355
https://twitter.com/holland_tom?lang=en-gb
Only to Iain Dale. He compared her to a chipmunk.
We have of course always had an illegal immigrant problem for many many decades. Most developed countries do.
Overheard in my local tonight from two lads playing the quiz machine.
"I thought Nebraska was in Canada"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okh3lwQXSek