The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
I think that any national political party is going to find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the views and values of supporters in (i) rural areas (ii) towns and small cities (iii) London and Core Cities (iv) Scotland. For Labour, this is particularly acute, as it seems almost to have written off (i) and (ii), has imploded in (iv), and is overwhelmingly dependent on (iii) whose population is not big enough to win an election on its own, and whose values are alien to (i) (ii) and (iv).
What do you think Labour and the Tories polled, respectively, in England discounting London and the core cities?
I haven't crunched the numbers but I know it was 41% for the Tories in England overall and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off 50% without the cities.
One things for sure - if Corbyn does lose, the Left will cite this poll as evidence they lost due to Zimbabwean-scale ballot stuffing....and not accept the leader's validity.
But Corbyn is not going to lose. Agent Miliband, report to Checkpoint Charlie - your work is complete and we are bringing you in.
The true agent of disaster for Labour was Gordon Brown and his work started the moment he entered Edinburgh University. Or rather his state of delusion became apparent then and the work he did as a result was allowed to continue. He is the biggest disaster to afflict the UK in its post war history. His path of destruction through the Labour Party is clearly apparent now.
Not sure I follow this one. What has 1000s of young idealists and Green supporters suddenly joining the party for a £3 vote got to do with him?
He politically assassinated a whole range of credible and respectable future leadership candidates which might have stood and not left people casting around for an alternative to the three stooges and landing on Corbyn.
Consider the sort of big names who I do not agree with politically, but had character and "bottom" gone, Straw, Blunkett, Darling, Beckett, Reid all tower over the pygmies on offer at the moment.
This continuing Labour farce is all down to the cowardice of EdM who shirked his responsibility and ran away as soon as he could, instead of following Howard's splendid example. Will EdM attend the Labour party conference?
The reaction to the prospective Labour candidates reminds me of the scene in a James Bond film, when in Asia he is offered a bottle of champagne which is labelled Fu-Yuk.
Not casting aspersions on the Hon. Lady's memory, but is that the Man With the Golden Gun that was on ITV4 last night?
The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
In England
I can't see the Lib Dems benefiting much anywhere in the near future. They're in the post-deluge pre-sunshine stage of the incy wincy spider cycle.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
I loved Casino Royale and Skyfall, but found the plot of Quantum of Solace almost incomprehensible. Agree re Goldeneye also.
Mr. JEO, Goldeneye was not only a good film (and a great theme song too) but one of the definitive game sof that generation (N64). Entirely agree with you on later Brosnan Bonds (Die Another Day had a good basic idea and cast, but the double entendres were clunky as hell).
That said, you are committing blasphemy against Goldfinger.
I think that any national political party is going to find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the views and values of supporters in (i) rural areas (ii) towns and small cities (iii) London and Core Cities (iv) Scotland. For Labour, this is particularly acute, as it seems almost to have written off (i) and (ii), has imploded in (iv), and is overwhelmingly dependent on (iii) whose population is not big enough to win an election on its own, and whose values are alien to (i) (ii) and (iv).
What do you think Labour and the Tories polled, respectively, in England discounting London and the core cities?
I haven't crunched the numbers but I know it was 41% for the Tories in England overall and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off 50% without the cities.
Nor would it me. But they do account for one-third of the population on a rough estimate.
An interesting question though would be how Labour polled among that one-third. I seem to remember a thread that pointed out Labour had collapsed outside this group, but the Conservatives had imploded even more spectacularly within it.
Jeremy Corbyn Glasgow rally moved to bigger venue.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
He's in Cardiff today, before setting off for a 4 city tour in Scotland while the other candidates e-mail their thoughts to which ever rag will print it. The differance in campaigning is startling.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
I loved Casino Royale and Skyfall, but found the plot of Quantum of Solace almost incomprehensible. Agree re Goldeneye also.
Quantum of Solace had a writers' strike and they made up the rest between themselves.
The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
In England
I can't see the Lib Dems benefiting much anywhere in the near future. They're in the post-deluge pre-sunshine stage of the incy wincy spider cycle.
As LibDem neighsayer in chief before the last election, I would guess that both UKIP and the LibDems would benefit from a Corbyn Labour Party. (The Greens would lose out as there are now two parties competing for the Batshit Crazy Vote.)
Why do I say that?
Because many of the Red Liberals in places like Twickenham, Kingston, and the like are Kendall and (pre-war) Blair supporters. I think a number of them will - reluctantly - decide to go Yellow. (Some will, of course, go Green, and many will stay at home.)
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
This continuing Labour farce is all down to the cowardice of EdM who shirked his responsibility and ran away as soon as he could, instead of following Howard's splendid example. Will EdM attend the Labour party conference?
The reaction to the prospective Labour candidates reminds me of the scene in a James Bond film, when in Asia he is offered a bottle of champagne which is labelled Fu-Yuk.
Not casting aspersions on the Hon. Lady's memory, but is that the Man With the Golden Gun that was on ITV4 last night?
:-o
Snap.
My favourite has always been From Russia with Love.
Mine is The Living Daylights. Timothy Dalton is also my favourite Bond.
Jeremy Corbyn Glasgow rally moved to bigger venue.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
Oh I really don't like George Lazenby. Nor Timothy Dalton - zip sense of humour. He reminds me of Henry Cavell as Superman - looks the part, but fails to be the character.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
I think that any national political party is going to find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the views and values of supporters in (i) rural areas (ii) towns and small cities (iii) London and Core Cities (iv) Scotland. For Labour, this is particularly acute, as it seems almost to have written off (i) and (ii), has imploded in (iv), and is overwhelmingly dependent on (iii) whose population is not big enough to win an election on its own, and whose values are alien to (i) (ii) and (iv).
I think this is spot on. The problem a Corbyn led Labour party will have, apart from internal civil war, is that they will appeal at best to 25-30% of the population. Bad enough but when you recognise that pretty much all of that support is concentrated in large conurbations you have a party with a sufficiently large number of safe seats to survive but no chance of power.
Midlands towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB manufacturing is still economically important in many of these): 22
Coastal towns (of which five are in Wales and three are economically dependent on the Navy, many of them have serious structural economic problems): 20
Pennine towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB there are particularly high levels of owner-occupation in these seats for historic reasons): 13
Southern towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB several of these have high levels of manufacturing and hi-tech industry): 10
Previously safe-Labour Scottish Central Belt seats: 8
London outer suburbs (of which 4 have very large Jewish communities): 7
New Towns: 6
Scottish seats with a traditional high vote for other unionist parties: 6
Three-way Kent & Essex fights with UKIP: 3
Traditional Lab vs SNP marginals: 2
On the whole seats where a Corbyn led Labour party is only going to go backwards. If I was a Labour MP in seats like these I would be seriously concerned.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Wasn't the point of the DIY 'helicopter' such as Little Nellie that a): they existed; b) they were easily portable, and c) they had interesting military applications?
One of the weirdest X-Planes (and that is a group of generally odd machines) was the X-25, which was a gyrocopter that was going to be fitted on top of ejection seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bensen_B-8
THe X-28 also deserves an honourable mention. You are a guy who designs and builds a homebuilt aircraft, and then the US Navy comes along and wants to buy it. They give it an X-Plane number, meaning your homebuilt plane is in such illustrious company as supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, and the Ryan Vertijet.
Timothy Dalton is perhaps the most accomplished actor to play the role, and it has been said he came closest to the character in the books, but while Living daylights is indeed a very good an enjoyable film, License To Kill is truly terrible (and cursed). No surprise the franchise stalled after that
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
I loved Casino Royale and Skyfall, but found the plot of Quantum of Solace almost incomprehensible. Agree re Goldeneye also.
Quantum of Solace had a writers' strike and they made up the rest between themselves.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
I loved Casino Royale and Skyfall, but found the plot of Quantum of Solace almost incomprehensible. Agree re Goldeneye also.
Quantum of Solace had a writers' strike and they made up the rest between themselves.
The confusing editing doesn't help it either. The Siena sequence is nigh on unwatchable.
The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
In England
I can't see the Lib Dems benefiting much anywhere in the near future. They're in the post-deluge pre-sunshine stage of the incy wincy spider cycle.
As LibDem neighsayer in chief before the last election, I would guess that both UKIP and the LibDems would benefit from a Corbyn Labour Party. (The Greens would lose out as there are now two parties competing for the Batshit Crazy Vote.)
Why do I say that?
Because many of the Red Liberals in places like Twickenham, Kingston, and the like are Kendall and (pre-war) Blair supporters. I think a number of them will - reluctantly - decide to go Yellow. (Some will, of course, go Green, and many will stay at home.)
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
Could Labour go into "meltdown" in England in 2020 like they did in Scotland in 2015?
No party has a right to "exist". Labour have gone mad!
Jeremy Corbyn Glasgow rally moved to bigger venue.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
He's in Cardiff today, before setting off for a 4 city tour in Scotland while the other candidates e-mail their thoughts to which ever rag will print it. The differance in campaigning is startling.
Mr. 1000, Licence To Kill's rather good. I've only ever seen The Living Daylights once (presumably because the plot means it's rarely shown on TV).
A few years ago, my wife and I watched the entire Bond collection in order. And License to Kill was a Bond I'd thought dull when I'd watched it aged 16. But on rewatching, it was pretty good. (As was the Living Daylights - although that is mostly because of the pretty girl...)
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
Will HS2 get through the house if Corbyn is in charge. Previous calculations have relied on Labour front bench in favour iirc...
If Corbyn becomes leader, it's likely that there will be plenty of Labour rebels prepared to vote with the government on various issues. After all, Corbyn is hardly in a position to complain at rebellions, and the remaining rump of sane Labour MPs will want to distance themselves from the Corbyn carnage.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
Much of the appeal of the early Bond films was their glossy international destinations, usually four or five per film, in an age before holidays had broken out of the Blackpool and Benidorm norm.
Timothy Dalton is perhaps the most accomplished actor to play the role, and it has been said he came closest to the character in the books, but while Living daylights is indeed a very good an enjoyable film, License To Kill is truly terrible (and cursed). No surprise the franchise stalled after that
What do you think Labour and the Tories polled, respectively, in England discounting London and the core cities?
I haven't crunched the numbers but I know it was 41% for the Tories in England overall and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off 50% without the cities.
I think that any national political party is going to find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the views and values of supporters in (i) rural areas (ii) towns and small cities (iii) London and Core Cities (iv) Scotland. For Labour, this is particularly acute, as it seems almost to have written off (i) and (ii), has imploded in (iv), and is overwhelmingly dependent on (iii) whose population is not big enough to win an election on its own, and whose values are alien to (i) (ii) and (iv).
What do you think Labour and the Tories polled, respectively, in England discounting London and the core cities?
I haven't crunched the numbers but I know it was 41% for the Tories in England overall and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off 50% without the cities.
Nor would it me. But they do account for one-third of the population on a rough estimate.
An interesting question though would be how Labour polled among that one-third. I seem to remember a thread that pointed out Labour had collapsed outside this group, but the Conservatives had imploded even more spectacularly within it.
I haven't crunched the numbers either. Greater London, plus all the Metropolitan Boroughs, plus Cardiff, Bristol, Nottingham, and Brighton & Hove, probably comes to about one third of English and Welsh constituencies. But, the political culture of places like Walsall, Solihull, or Dudley, is clearly very different from that of Birmingham. The political culture of the towns that surround Bradford & Leeds is very different from those cities. Only in Merseyside and Tyneside is the political culture of the hinterland pretty much identical to that of Liverpool and Newcastle. So, the Metropolitan Boroughs also contain big urban areas that have more in common politically with towns outside them, rather than the big city they're linked to.
Jeremy Corbyn Glasgow rally moved to bigger venue.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
He's in Cardiff today, before setting off for a 4 city tour in Scotland while the other candidates e-mail their thoughts to which ever rag will print it. The differance in campaigning is startling.
@JohnRentoul: Paddy Power quoting 16/1 "Labour leadership contest to be postponed by two weeks or more" (see legal challenge poss http://t.co/aqcs3EcauT)
Mr. 1000, hmm. It's a straight typo, rather than grammatical pedantry
Have to watch for stuff like that. Although my own typos are usually homophonic, which means they tend to be enormous and terrible, but also not highlighted by a spell-checker (because they're real words, just ones that make no bloody sense in context).
Edited extra bit: Mr. P, that might be a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-Corbyn lot. If he wins anyway, it's irrelevant. If he doesn't win, the comrades have a perfect excuse for why not.
The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
In England
I can't see the Lib Dems benefiting much anywhere in the near future. They're in the post-deluge pre-sunshine stage of the incy wincy spider cycle.
As LibDem neighsayer in chief before the last election, I would guess that both UKIP and the LibDems would benefit from a Corbyn Labour Party. (The Greens would lose out as there are now two parties competing for the Batshit Crazy Vote.)
Why do I say that?
Because many of the Red Liberals in places like Twickenham, Kingston, and the like are Kendall and (pre-war) Blair supporters. I think a number of them will - reluctantly - decide to go Yellow. (Some will, of course, go Green, and many will stay at home.)
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
Could Labour go into "meltdown" in England in 2020 like they did in Scotland in 2015?
No party has a right to "exist". Labour have gone mad!
No. There's a big section of the population to whom a Corbyn-led Labour Party would appeal. But, I'd expect Labour to go backwards in the types of seats that David L has mentioned, and to lose most of its 11 gains from the Tories, plus seats like Ynys Mon, Southampton Test, Bridgend, and to lose seats like Heywood & Middleton, Hartlepool, Rother Valley to UKIP.
Trouble in Paradise - Rick Perry has stopped paying his staff in South Carolina.
However Trump and Roger Ailes appear to have kissed and made up - He's on Fox and Friends this morning and Hannity at 10 this evening. He's also on CNN this morning.
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
I'm not sure he will. Whilst his loony-left position on social matters won't appeal, his loony-left pre-Thatcher statism will do so to a greater extent in the North than elsewhere. I expect the net effect to be a relatively small collapse in the Labour vote in safe Northern Labour seats, and a big collapse in the Midlands marginals.
Of the three men who worked to make this rocket belt test flight happen, one would end up dead, one went to prison for kidnapping one of the others, and the third man, well…he's the only one who knows where the Rocket Belt is.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Wasn't the point of the DIY 'helicopter' such as Little Nellie that a): they existed; b) they were easily portable, and c) they had interesting military applications?
One of the weirdest X-Planes (and that is a group of generally odd machines) was the X-25, which was a gyrocopter that was going to be fitted on top of ejection seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bensen_B-8
THe X-28 also deserves an honourable mention. You are a guy who designs and builds a homebuilt aircraft, and then the US Navy comes along and wants to buy it. They give it an X-Plane number, meaning your homebuilt plane is in such illustrious company as supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, and the Ryan Vertijet.
The lemmings look to be scampering towards the cliff edge but they will pull back at the last moment. Either Yvette Burnham or Andy Cooper (the anodyne duo) will scrape in, leaving Labour to celebrate the diversity of the party.
Well, I hope you're right. But that does rather require one of the two to give people an actual reason to vote for them, which so far they haven't (that's why they're struggling - Corbyn is at least making an effort to win).
They have 72 hours left to turn things around before the ballot papers go out. It's not looking good for them.
They can't beat Corbyn now. It's done and dusted. What happens next will be fascinating in a hide behind the sofa, watch between the fingers kind of way.
The LDs need to sort themselves out sharpish. They have a big shot at redemption.
In England
I can't see the Lib Dems benefiting much anywhere in the near future. They're in the post-deluge pre-sunshine stage of the incy wincy spider cycle.
As LibDem neighsayer in chief before the last election, I would guess that both UKIP and the LibDems would benefit from a Corbyn Labour Party. (The Greens would lose out as there are now two parties competing for the Batshit Crazy Vote.)
Why do I say that?
Because many of the Red Liberals in places like Twickenham, Kingston, and the like are Kendall and (pre-war) Blair supporters. I think a number of them will - reluctantly - decide to go Yellow. (Some will, of course, go Green, and many will stay at home.)
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
The comments arriving below this post are hysterical in their delusional nature, yet more people thinking they will score a famous victory by motivating the DNV from last time to vote for their man in 2020. The level of venom is quite extraordinary.
The party members who pay you are saying that you have turned your back on them for long enough! They want Corbyn because he is speaking to the people who need Labour not to your backhanding business chums and middle class tory waverers WORKING POOR and working people are what labour is about WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CORBYN!
Yes. Quite, and what will they say when those people take one look at his open door immigration credentials and go and vote for UKIP in 2020 ?
I saw a bio of Sean Connery the other day - in an intv he said that he'd only read a couple of Bond's [though he knew/liked Fleming a lot]. He found them too serious/lacked humour.
I love the books and the films - have the whole lot, and I don't mind if they aren't the same. That's very rare for me - usually I won't watch the film if I've read the book first, as they miss out so much.
Stopped watching them after Skyfall - what a truly crap film that was. I didn't rate remake of Casino Royale either. My favourite book though, along with Dr No.
This continuing Labour farce is all down to the cowardice of EdM who shirked his responsibility and ran away as soon as he could, instead of following Howard's splendid example. Will EdM attend the Labour party conference?
The reaction to the prospective Labour candidates reminds me of the scene in a James Bond film, when in Asia he is offered a bottle of champagne which is labelled Fu-Yuk.
Not casting aspersions on the Hon. Lady's memory, but is that the Man With the Golden Gun that was on ITV4 last night?
:-o
Snap.
Moonraker was the best by far of the 'Carry On' Bonds. Lewis Gilbert, legendary director.
'i think he's attempting re-entry sir'
With Dr Goodhead.
For an actually fun spy movie, if very vulgar, I hope they make more Kingsman movies - the most fun I'd had in the cinema for ages. I don't mind more serious fare, but sometimes a bit of goofiness if preferable. The punny names and so on were terrible though - slightly goofy, but without outright silliness, and still a credible sense of threat and menace is my preference.
Mr. 1000, Licence To Kill's rather good. I've only ever seen The Living Daylights once (presumably because the plot means it's rarely shown on TV).
A few years ago, my wife and I watched the entire Bond collection in order. And License to Kill was a Bond I'd thought dull when I'd watched it aged 16. But on rewatching, it was pretty good. (As was the Living Daylights - although that is mostly because of the pretty girl...)
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
Much of the appeal of the early Bond films was their glossy international destinations, usually four or five per film, in an age before holidays had broken out of the Blackpool and Benidorm norm.
That, and the casual sex.
Let's not forget the pace due to Peter Hunt's sharp editing, Bond was the first to use a pre-credit sequence, John Barry's fabulous music, great theme songs, and Connery's one liners.
Roger Moore was 'the comedy years', and then once we got to the invisible car, that pretty much did it.
Then along came the Bourne movies, and the Craig movies are a response to it. The Quantum of Solace still sucks.
Licence*. It's not a verb, and we're not Americans. (Like practice/practise, it does take an S when used as a verb. Or when an American noun).
That's my second favourite bit of pedantry: behind fewer and less.
As a statistician nothing angers me more than to see less instead of fewer. On Pointless, Alexander Armstrong makes the mistake deliberately just to annoy people like me.
Jeremy Corbyn Glasgow rally moved to bigger venue.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
He's in Cardiff today, before setting off for a 4 city tour in Scotland while the other candidates e-mail their thoughts to which ever rag will print it. The differance in campaigning is startling.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
Much of the appeal of the early Bond films was their glossy international destinations, usually four or five per film, in an age before holidays had broken out of the Blackpool and Benidorm norm.
That, and the casual sex.
Let's not forget the pace due to Peter Hunt's sharp editing, Bond was the first to use a pre-credit sequence, John Barry's fabulous music, great theme songs, and Connery's one liners.
Roger Moore was 'the comedy years', and then once we got to the invisible car, that pretty much did it.
Then along came the Bourne movies, and the Craig movies are a response to it. The Quantum of Solace still sucks.
Mr. Gin, counter-intuitively, perhaps, in Yorkshire the further north you are the more Conservative it is (in contrast to the People's Republic of South Yorkshire).
Corbyn won't make gains in the North, and probably won't lose seats in the South. Lots of marginals in West Yorkshire, though.
I remain amazed that anyone is still maintaining Jezza will stand aside or doesn't want the top job.
It's been plain as a pikestaff for at least two weeks that he's going for it big time.
Yes, I don't think the media really understand him. He's a product of the "I'm just part of the movement" philosophy, which rejects personal ambition in favour of collective action (I'm broadly from the same school of thought - I've never cared that much what my personal role was). So he gives interviews indicating that he hadn't especially thought about leading and was persuaded to have a go, and journalists think he means he's not really very interested, whereas what he really means is that he's not motivated by any particular personal longing to be El Duce.
He's against it - his branch of left-wing thinking is against "all varieties of nationalism that put national identity ahead of the common interest of working people". Salmond has commented that it's a snag about working with him, but not an insuperable one since he agrees on Trident etc.
All of the Daniel Craig Bond films have been fantastic. I also liked Goldeneye, although later Brosnan ones got silly. I've never understood the appeal of the cheesy Connery and Moore ones. Names like Pussy Galore, absurd villains like Oddjob and DIY helicopters just broke the suspension of disbelief.
Agree about a lot of the cheesiness. Of course the style of the secret services have changed from the days when Ian Fleming knew them, but personally I find Daniel Craig's films too hard and over-violent, without that certain air of sophistication and finesse that is still present. It will be hard to beat Judie Dench as M - she has that inner steel so required of a Chief.
Much of the appeal of the early Bond films was their glossy international destinations, usually four or five per film, in an age before holidays had broken out of the Blackpool and Benidorm norm.
That, and the casual sex.
Let's not forget the pace due to Peter Hunt's sharp editing, Bond was the first to use a pre-credit sequence, John Barry's fabulous music, great theme songs, and Connery's one liners.
Roger Moore was 'the comedy years', and then once we got to the invisible car, that pretty much did it.
Then along came the Bourne movies, and the Craig movies are a response to it. The Quantum of Solace still sucks.
When The Oscars did it's 50 years of Bond celebration, the climax was Shirley Bassey appearing on stage to sing Goldfinger. Later on Adele appeared to sing Skyfall. The contrast was huge. By contrast to Goldfinger it was a total dud.
This story from the BBC is of considerable significance. If Ministers are considering this option seriously, they have all but given up on renegotiating the terms of British membership of the European Union. You do need to renegotiate your membership to apply a four year residence test to all those seeking in-work benefits within your jurisdiction. The story points very strongly to an early referendum.
This story from the BBC is of considerable significance. If Ministers are considering this option seriously, they have all but given up on renegotiating the terms of British membership of the European Union. You do need to renegotiate your membership to apply a four year residence test to all those seeking in-work benefits within your jurisdiction. The story points very strongly to an early referendum.
Totally tangential to the issue of EU membership, I've been a big believer that pretty much no benefits should be payable to anyone at all, until there have been four years of NI contributions.
The most common criticism of Dalton is his lack of 'sense of humour' but that's a creation of the film Bond, not the roots of the literary Fleming Bond who he was trying to emulate. Very successfully IMHO.
The book Bond makes clear references to how the cold assassination of men for the British state eats away at Bond's soul, which is why he drinks so much and takes pleasure in whatever fine living he can find. His tragic family backstory and closeness to death also explain why he has so many one night stands, without commiting to any relationship, because he fears the loss. Ultimately, it's only his strong sense of duty, sense of right and wrong fatalism that propels him forward.
Dalton got this spot on. Look at the little things in his films. How he sighs just before saying "bring the chair" in the TLD defection/assassination scene right at the start. The "yes, I got the message", when his Mi6 colleague is assassinated. The way he expresses his defiant professionalism when challenged about not shooting dead the sniper "stuff my orders".
Dalton is Fleming's Bond to me. And I think it's a shame he was never fully recognised for it.
I had a huge crush on Dalton and was delighted when he was finally cast [I gather he'd turned it down previously as he thought he was too young].
I hated him in the role. And I love the Bond in the books, that curious contrast of cruelty and sentimentality in one man. I found him wooden and uncomfortable. Maybe it's the scripts - but I felt he just didn't want to be there.
The most common criticism of Dalton is his lack of 'sense of humour' but that's a creation of the film Bond, not the roots of the literary Fleming Bond who he was trying to emulate. Very successfully IMHO.
The book Bond makes clear references to how the cold assassination of men for the British state eats away at Bond's soul, which is why he drinks so much and takes pleasure in whatever fine living he can find. His tragic family backstory and closeness to death also explain why he has so many one night stands, without commiting to any relationship, because he fears the loss. Ultimately, it's only his strong sense of duty, sense of right and wrong fatalism that propels him forward.
Dalton got this spot on. Look at the little things in his films. How he sighs just before saying "bring the chair" in the TLD defection/assassination scene right at the start. The "yes, I got the message", when his Mi6 colleague is assassinated. The way he expresses his defiant professionalism when challenged about not shooting dead the sniper "stuff my orders".
Dalton is Fleming's Bond to me. And I think it's a shame he was never fully recognised for it.
Totally tangential to the issue of EU membership, I've been a big believer that pretty much no benefits should be payable to anyone at all, until there have been four years of NI contributions.
That is of course the point. The central plank of the government's "renegotiation" was to ensure the UK was permitted to discriminate against EU citizens in the provision of in-work benefits. If the government is considering applying the proposed change to British citizens as well, it would appear to follow that the government has realised that it has minimal chance of persuading the other member states and, potentially, the European Parliament, of its views.
Easily the sexiest women. A semi-plausible plot. A believable villain. Real sadism and cruelty which drew quite some flak in 1965. It was the only Bond film to be almost given an 'X' rating. Great gadgets. Probably the best opening and closing scenes in the franchise. Only spoiled slightly by the underwater scenes being a tad too long.
I also have a soft spot for OHMSS mainly because it was one of a kind, and quite a contrast to all the others.
Excellent news for Scottish Labour. Should blow Nicola out of the water just in time for the Holyrood elections.
As the Nationalist commentators have pointed out, that rather depends on him being able to get past whichever random nonentity is crowned SLAB leader this week, none of whom are socialists.
For me: Goldfinger A View to a Kill (wonderfully played by Christopher Walken) And the guy in Skyfall
Worst? Probably the silly "General" in Licence to Kill.
EDIT: not, Licence to Kill - that actually had quite a good villain. I'm thinking of the Living Daylights.
Zorin in AVTAK wins hands down for me. Walken was simply superb. I also love Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. Honorable mentions to Christopher Lee in TMWTGG (a generally weak film) Drax in Moonraker, and Sanchez in LTK.
I also like Louis Jordan in Octopussy. Sean Bean in Goldeneye is also underrated. Jonathan Pryce didn't quite pull it off for me in TND and Robert Carlyle put in a good performance in TWINE but with a weak script that didn't allow him to show the full extent of his talents.
The Diamonds are Forever Blofeld was probably a low point for me. Toby Stephens was far too good for the truly awful Die Another Day.
All the Bond films, after Connery were, without exception, remake rubbish.
I have a book somewhere with a chart showing which plots were recycled. It was quite surprising how many are. I think the Thunderball plot was the most popular recycle.
Comments
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11756688/Half-of-the-Labour-MPs-who-backed-Jeremy-Corbyn-desert-him.html
Going through the Twitter accounts of MPs who nominated him, I can only find a handful vocally supporting him.
I haven't crunched the numbers but I know it was 41% for the Tories in England overall and it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't far off 50% without the cities.
This is nuts. Likeably nuts, but nuts all the same.
What a breath of fresh air to have somebody who seems straight and honest, however.
If you haven't seen it - this remains a fantastic stunt. All the failed attempts...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDeUzB12ln8
one ofthe best.That said, you are committing blasphemy against Goldfinger.
An interesting question though would be how Labour polled among that one-third. I seem to remember a thread that pointed out Labour had collapsed outside this group, but the Conservatives had imploded even more spectacularly within it.
A rally in Glasgow by the veteran left-winger who is standing for Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has moved to a bigger venue after the original event sold out.
https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/jeremy-corbyn-glasgow-rally-moved-bigger-venue
He's in Cardiff today, before setting off for a 4 city tour in Scotland while the other candidates e-mail their thoughts to which ever rag will print it. The differance in campaigning is startling.
Quantum of Solace had a writers' strike and they made up the rest between themselves.
Why do I say that?
Because many of the Red Liberals in places like Twickenham, Kingston, and the like are Kendall and (pre-war) Blair supporters. I think a number of them will - reluctantly - decide to go Yellow. (Some will, of course, go Green, and many will stay at home.)
More interesting - to me - is not whether the LibDems drag themselves up from 8% to 14%, but whether Corbyn opens up an opportunity for UKIP in the North of England.
The scale of the task Labour face in 2020 was well set out in this article: http://labourlist.org/2015/06/the-battlefield-in-2020/
This is their analysis of where those target seats are:
Midlands towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB manufacturing is still economically important in many of these): 22
Coastal towns (of which five are in Wales and three are economically dependent on the Navy, many of them have serious structural economic problems): 20
Pennine towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB there are particularly high levels of owner-occupation in these seats for historic reasons): 13
Southern towns (each small enough to cover a maximum of two seats; NB several of these have high levels of manufacturing and hi-tech industry): 10
Previously safe-Labour Scottish Central Belt seats: 8
London outer suburbs (of which 4 have very large Jewish communities): 7
New Towns: 6
Scottish seats with a traditional high vote for other unionist parties: 6
Three-way Kent & Essex fights with UKIP: 3
Traditional Lab vs SNP marginals: 2
On the whole seats where a Corbyn led Labour party is only going to go backwards. If I was a Labour MP in seats like these I would be seriously concerned.
One of the weirdest X-Planes (and that is a group of generally odd machines) was the X-25, which was a gyrocopter that was going to be fitted on top of ejection seats:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bensen_B-8
THe X-28 also deserves an honourable mention. You are a guy who designs and builds a homebuilt aircraft, and then the US Navy comes along and wants to buy it. They give it an X-Plane number, meaning your homebuilt plane is in such illustrious company as supersonic and hypersonic aircraft, and the Ryan Vertijet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey_Osprey_I
Timothy Dalton is perhaps the most accomplished actor to play the role, and it has been said he came closest to the character in the books, but while Living daylights is indeed a very good an enjoyable film, License To Kill is truly terrible (and cursed). No surprise the franchise stalled after that
And then they returned and Bobby came out of the shower. Talk about Not Invented Here.
No party has a right to "exist". Labour have gone mad!
It's been plain as a pikestaff for at least two weeks that he's going for it big time.
That, and the casual sex.
Have to watch for stuff like that. Although my own typos are usually homophonic, which means they tend to be enormous and terrible, but also not highlighted by a spell-checker (because they're real words, just ones that make no bloody sense in context).
Edited extra bit: Mr. P, that might be a Pyrrhic victory for the anti-Corbyn lot. If he wins anyway, it's irrelevant. If he doesn't win, the comrades have a perfect excuse for why not.
However Trump and Roger Ailes appear to have kissed and made up - He's on Fox and Friends this morning and Hannity at 10 this evening. He's also on CNN this morning.
here (video won't embed properly)
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=neighsayer
Corbyn could end up splitting Labour, the Euro referendum could end up splitting the Tories.
Whether the LibDems or UKIP benefit remains to be seen.
Roger Moore was 'the comedy years', and then once we got to the invisible car, that pretty much did it.
Then along came the Bourne movies, and the Craig movies are a response to it. The Quantum of Solace still sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMKsR_wUSfA
Corbyn won't make gains in the North, and probably won't lose seats in the South. Lots of marginals in West Yorkshire, though.
Now, favourite Bond villains.
For me:
Goldfinger
A View to a Kill (wonderfully played by Christopher Walken)
And the guy in Skyfall
Worst? Probably the silly "General" in Licence to Kill.
EDIT: not, Licence to Kill - that actually had quite a good villain. I'm thinking of the Living Daylights.
Wasn't Sanchez the drug lord the villain in Licence to Kill?
Not seen Skyfall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goB0Cu74Pn4
You should see Skyfall. Not as good as Casino Royale, but better than QoS. It does, however, have the best Bond baddie monologue.
I saw Skyfall on opening day and when the DB5 appeared with the James Bond theme, the place burst into applause as nobody knew about it.
Corbyn 1st preference share
5/1 Under 40%
5/1 40-45%
3/1 45-50%
2/1 50-55%
3/1 Over 55%
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33858660
The book Bond makes clear references to how the cold assassination of men for the British state eats away at Bond's soul, which is why he drinks so much and takes pleasure in whatever fine living he can find. His tragic family backstory and closeness to death also explain why he has so many one night stands, without commiting to any relationship, because he fears the loss. Ultimately, it's only his strong sense of duty, sense of right and wrong fatalism that propels him forward.
Dalton got this spot on. Look at the little things in his films. How he sighs just before saying "bring the chair" in the TLD defection/assassination scene right at the start. The "yes, I got the message", when his Mi6 colleague is assassinated. The way he expresses his defiant professionalism when challenged about not shooting dead the sniper "stuff my orders".
Dalton is Fleming's Bond to me. And I think it's a shame he was never fully recognised for it.
That'l teach him, the bastard!!!
Look what happens when society spares the rod!
I hated him in the role. And I love the Bond in the books, that curious contrast of cruelty and sentimentality in one man. I found him wooden and uncomfortable. Maybe it's the scripts - but I felt he just didn't want to be there.
We're destined to never agree here
Corbyn campaign song.
Excellent news for Scottish Labour. Should blow Nicola out of the water just in time for the Holyrood elections.
Easily the sexiest women. A semi-plausible plot. A believable villain. Real sadism and cruelty which drew quite some flak in 1965. It was the only Bond film to be almost given an 'X' rating. Great gadgets. Probably the best opening and closing scenes in the franchise. Only spoiled slightly by the underwater scenes being a tad too long.
I also have a soft spot for OHMSS mainly because it was one of a kind, and quite a contrast to all the others.
Labour's dead in Scotland (and my soon be in England and Wales too)
I also like Louis Jordan in Octopussy. Sean Bean in Goldeneye is also underrated. Jonathan Pryce didn't quite pull it off for me in TND and Robert Carlyle put in a good performance in TWINE but with a weak script that didn't allow him to show the full extent of his talents.
The Diamonds are Forever Blofeld was probably a low point for me. Toby Stephens was far too good for the truly awful Die Another Day.