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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Polling Matters / Political Betting Podcast with Ed Milband’s former spokesman James Stewart
In the latest PB / Polling Matters podcast, Keiran spoke to former Ed Miliband spokesman James Stewart about his experiences of the Scottish Referendum and General Election campaigns, why he thinks Ed Miliband was unable to win and what happens to Labour if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader this weekend.
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Good night all.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11510138
Quite priceless.
The Left is clearly going more loopy by the day if the comments on this board are anything to go by.
A majority of Labour voters at the general election preferred Britain in 1985 to Britain today according to this report:
"This earthquake in social attitudes, the key to our political landscape, was captured in a little-noticed poll of 12,000 voters on election day by Lord Ashcroft, the Tory peer. The vast majority - 71 per cent - of Tory voters sensibly agreed that “overall, life in Britain is better than it was 30 years ago”. Shockingly, despite the substantial improvements to medical technology, incomes and life expectancy of the past 30 years, 51 per cent of Labour supporters disagreed. To them, 1985 was a better time, despite the unavailability of so many of the goods and services we now take for granted, the violent strikes, the Brixton race riots, the discrimination, the limited opportunities for women and of course the crippling 11.4 per cent rate of unemployment."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11854403/A-bright-new-optimism-is-sweeping-Britain-and-it-hails-from-the-Right.html#comment-2245013983
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/hiilary-reboot/404398/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/09/senior_intelligence_officials_said_128022.html
The interesting thing about the latter is its thesis that senior intelligence officials are engaged in systematic leaking of damaging revelations about the emails, with the aim of setting Hillary up for prosecution. If that is true, then things could get really bad for her.
Danish police also closed a motorway between the two countries when some asylum seekers began walking north after being forced off a train.
They say their destination is Sweden."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34203366
""We are trying to talk to them and tell them that it is a really bad idea to walk on the motorway," a police spokeswoman said."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11855047/Denmark-blocks-motorway-and-railway-links-with-Germany-to-stop-migrants.html
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9G4jnaznUoQ
"More than half of Labour’s loyalist voters think it is more important to stick to the party’s principles than to temper those views to try to win an election, according to an opinion poll for the former Conservative party deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft.
The poll also reveal a yawning gap between the views of Labour loyalists and voters who defected to another party at the last election, especially on the issues of welfare, the economy and immigration."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/10/labour-loyalists-put-principles-before-power-ashcroft-poll
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423777/unc-student-op-ed-sexist-news-observer
BBC - Voting in the Labour leadership contest closes at midday today, with the winner announced on Saturday. [...] As the campaign enters its final hours, hopefuls Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall are expected to make a last push for votes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34205212
Unless the ‘last push’ involves naked mud wrestling, tis a little too late to change anything.
Re podcast:
Sorry, but it sounds like two nodding dogs from the same kennel, reaching a cosy consensus.
The 1980's were also the last period when we had net emigration from the UK...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
YearsWeeks.....Personally speaking, life was great in the 80s and for different reasons it is great now. But I do worry greatly about what future my kids face. There is a housing crisis, much greater competition for fewer well paid jobs, student debt and so on. I am sure things will work out for them, but they have to worry about stuff that never crossed my mind, while the safety net I could fall back on has been greatly restricted over the last couple of decades and could almost completely have disappeared for the under 25s by the end of this Parliament.
Although I am presuming the idea that there could be any "winner" from this shambles is intentionally ironic. Certainly there will be no win for the Labour party.
The measure of the ability of the man will be his performance in office.
Of course, his apologists will claim he'll be unfairly treated by the 'Tory press' and others. Bollocks. Firstly, it's not a Tory press: any badly performing party leader will get the same kind of treatment - see John Major. It's not the Tories' fault that every Labour leader since Foot bar Blair and possibly Smith has been weird, useless or downright dangerous. Them's the rules of the game: if you don't like them, don't enter. It's the same for everyone and - as has been shown - they don't necessarily always apply anyway.
Secondly, his past is not a surprise. If specific incidents are, their nature could easily have been predicted.
Thirdly, in fact it was predicted. Labour is going to have to deal with the fact that most of their senior figures are already on record as describing their soon-to-be-leader as "unelectable".
Fourthly, Corbyn has never run anything in his life and has consciously run from responsibility. He might surprise in office; he might not. But Labour chose a pig-in-a-poke in that respect over two former cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers. If it turns out badly, that was always a strong possibility from taking such a blind gamble on poor odds.
And the list goes on but there's only so much space here.
I therefore see a lack of financial security and stability for my children which is worrying. How do you fund mortgages in such a world? How do they bring up their own families on such a roller coaster? How much strain will continue to be on the bank of Mum and Dad?
The bad thing would be that the hectoring and shrill Harperson might have to say on , and I've heard enough from the old windbag to last me a lifetime.
Society has become too complex to be sustainable.
@politicshome: Priti Patel tells @PolhomeEditor Labour has spent the summer "cementing their irrelevance". http://t.co/zfo8Nhy85r http://t.co/jvRpk28XO5
It will be interesting to see what such a society does to peoples' politics.
Someone remarked the other day following the death of David Nobbs that the reason that the remake of Reggie Perin failed was not so much the actors and script, but rather down to the central theme of being trapped in a suffocating white collar job for 30 years no longer having any resonance.
One reason Fox jr is so pro EU is that he wants the option of living and working there, it may be the only place he can afford a house of his own.
Certainly society has changed and there are new uncertainties but at the same time old ones have faded or gone away entirely.
You may well have others in mind.
As far as law is concerned I fear that two trends are causing problems. Firstly, a lot of traditional legal work is being deskilled, conveyancing being an obvious example, reducing the work. Secondly, intelligent software is having an ever bigger impact on the job and the skill set required.
These trends have made law firms completely different animals from what they were 30 years ago. Getting to stay around until what might be thought of as a normal retirement age is becoming increasingly unusual.
FPT [seems there was a bit of activity after I left]: Mr. T, excellent Greek reference.
Mr. Tyson, the policy of the UK would still be correct even if we did let the views of foreign nations weigh heavily in the scales. Merkel's policy is to blame, a siren call that will see many hundreds/thousands more die needlessly, whilst enriching people smugglers (including those who fund ISIS) and creating a potentially unstable, even explosive, situation in the EU.
There's a reason borders exist.
The Sun's headline was not created by the Government, or the armed forces, or the vast majority of Britons who support the killing of murderous terrorists who sought to orchestrate terrorism in the UK.
I don't believe in dehumanising migrants. I don't want more of them to place their life savings and their lives in the hands of people traffickers, risking death making dangerous journeys. I also don't believe in Germany dictating policy to the whole EU.
Mr. F, I've long been of the view that the EU is unsustainable (trying to apply a one-size-fits-all, undemocratic approach to various nation states). I'd still be surprised if this is what breaks it, but it does show the system up.
Besides having to pay for the unfunded pensions of Baby Boomers and the debt of Brown etc such that interest payments are a considerable burden we do not have much to complain about.
EDIT: I'm 33 and a father, am I allowed to still consider myself part of the younger generations?
I'm sure others could add to the list but I need to go off to work now.
They are locked in a world where they are pandering to an electorate they wish existed, rather the one that does.
Industrial relations are not better - strikes are effectively illegal, which is not at all the same thing.
In a counterfactual without the AIDS scare, there is every possibility AIDS in Europe could have been every bit as devastating as it is on Africa.
As I tell my kids, the thing to do is work for yourself, start your own business. That is the future.
Thatcher's great achievement was to bring about a property-owning democracy of people who felt they had a stake in society, who in turn fell into conservative thinking and voting patterns. It will be a great failure of the current government if they allow that to collapse. It will end in the majority of the public being in council housing (and thus having a socialist state-dependent mentality) or private rentals (and thus wanting the state to protect them from the capitalist class).
It's not enough to have a few flagship policies you can talk about on the doorstep when questioned on the issue. You have to actually increase the number of houses per capita in the country or our culture will shift. That means adding substantially to the housing stock or limiting population growth.
Jezza was a Frisky Socialist once.
Babycham.
It seems to me that Mr Tebbit saved the Trades Unions from their somewhat mad leaderships by forcing them to be a little more democratic.
Deciding strike action by mass meetings where those making the wrong vote could be victimised later belongs in the dustbin of history.
In many cases we are in the same position now.
I don't really share the worries of those who think we're heading for mass unemployment or poorly paid employment. Similar concerns have been around since the industrial revolution - the economy simply restructures around different services and more leisure. I do agree that careers in future will be more flexible and unpredictable, but that can be liberating and interesting rather than worrying.
But the affordability of housing is a big issue, particularly for the Conservatives, and there will be troue ahead if it's not tackled.
What legal action can be taken against the Labour Party given that they are an unincorporated association?
I don't think they can be sued, and it is limited to breaches of the rule book by internal appeal.
I think this government has done a few good things to encourage this, the Help To Buy ISA announced towards the tail end of the last Parliament for encouraging people to save for their first deposit was a very good idea for that. The problem prior to 2008 was people buying homes without saving enough, we need to encourage people to save and it is possible.
I agree completely that new houses need to be built. My own home is a new build and my town has had thousands of new homes built in recent years and has just announced a new development of over a thousand more to be started soon. Perhaps that's why I have such a sunny outlook where others don't. We need to make sure that land is available to build on in a sensible manner.
He wrote of 1950s Nottingham.
http://www.luddites200.org.uk/theLuddites.html
What we see now is the reversal of the alienation process, with the cheap textiles coming from abroad, and the British worker having to adapt back to the pre-Luddite existence of self employment, working from home and regaining control over how and when they work.
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/research/transformations/gis/papers/dannydorling_publication_id0584.pdf
It seems equality by these measures peaked around 1960...
Noise on Twitter etc is utterly irrelevant when it comes to voting, as again was shown at the election.
My current gut estimate of the chances is ~50% Corbyn, ~40% Cooper, ~10% Burnham and ~0% Kendall (Cooper boosted to final round due to Kendall's early elimination).
Other than houses, most things in this country are not difficult or expensive. But housing makes life very difficult for people under 45. We are not short of space as a country. It's only the antiquated planning system we stick to that makes housing almost impossible to build where people want to live. One day, we'll reform it. Can't come soon enough.
Corbyn will have won because his opponents were poor. The fault lies with the candidates put up against Corbyn.
If you don’t stand yourself, you have no right to complain when someone who is not as competent as you stands and wins.
We have so many more opportunities now. Heck, society's changed enough to allow Mrs J to work whilst I look after the kid, without me getting too many strange looks and comments (at least for that). When I decide to go back to work, I might try and do something totally different as a career. i might not have found that so easy in the 1980s.
Also: I missed most of the fear of the cold war. But there was a period in the mid-eighties, whilst I was in my teens, that it really shook me. Fortunately that particular threat ended/evolved before too long.
Are we (as generally successful people) looking back at the past with rose-tinted glasses? After all 'we' - doctors, lawyers, etc, succeeded. Many people did not.
http://labourlist.org/2015/09/the-leadership-result-is-going-to-be-closer-than-you-think/
http://www.goldmadesimplenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/home-ownership-uk.png
http://www.economicshelp.org/images/housing/ftb-hp-earnings-2014-q3.jpg
I am Green on all outcomes bar Burnham winning (and then only slightly red). I do best if Corbyn wins on less than 50% 1st preferences, with Stella as deputy. Enough to pay for my Leicester City season ticket.
I think Kendall will get more votes than expected and that most of these will transfer to Cooper. It is not impossible that she might win. There are "shy tories" in the Labour party too is my hunch
Voting for labour because they stand up for the working class is like buying Paul McCartneys new crap and justifying it by saying he used to be in the Beatles.