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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Betting on the first Labour MP to resign the whip
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Betting on the first Labour MP to resign the whip
With the forthcoming House of Commons vote on Trident’s replacement, you can see that turning into an epic omnishambles for Labour and CND’s newest Vice-President, Jeremy Corbyn. Given John Woodcock’s past pronouncements on what he were to do were Labour not to back a replacement for Trident, you can understand why he is the favourite in this market.
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I'm currently re-reading Lance Price's diaries of his time as a spin doctor at No. 10. I've just completed the bit where Shaun Woodward moves over to Labour.
The character of the individual MP seems to be massively important: Price indicates that Woodward thought he could have been Conservative leader and PM for the party, but that was not going to happen if Hague continued taking the party to the right. Add in his displeasure over Tory support for Clause 28 and Europe, and it seems he felt the Conservative party had left him, rather than vice versa.
So you're probably looking at someone ambitious who has not yet had a bite of a serious ministerial or shadow brief, and who will not get a chance under Corbyn's Labour. Someone who could have seen him- or herself as potential party leader under a Blairite party, but not under a Corbynite one. Someone who has very firm beliefs on issues where the Labour party is moving away from - e.g. Trident, the economy, general sanity.
It's odd to think that Woodward's successor in his old Conservative seat, Witney, did become PM. If he hadn't resigned, would Cameron be PM now?
Edit: I was second when I started writing the post. Damn you Fluffy!
"I am announcing my resignation, and my good friend has also said he will be resigning..."
I'm finding Price's book to be very interesting - I think I first read it shortly after release ten or do years ago. Time has cast a very different light on it.
For instance: "The problem is there is no evidence that Gordon is willing to find the money for health and education. I'm told by people who used to work for him that he's never been very interested in public services, believing them to be inefficient and a drain on resources." (p. 195)
Surprised that the French got quite so thoroughly slaughtered.
But for one stupid decision by South Africa, the 10 points bet would still be on. Or, to rephrase, if I were better at betting, my bets would turn out better
Labour had a golden opportunity to kick Corbyn in the goolies and flunked it. A handful of abstentions. Ooh. Terrifying.
Mr. P, perhaps. But they didn't learn the lessons of trying to defenestrate Brown when they wanted to do it to Miliband.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34564894
Last line: "One retired judge said the UK could cope with taking in 75,000 a year."
That retired judge won't be competing for a job with the migrants or pushed down the waiting list for a house. He or she won't be dealing with the social enclaves and integration issues that might arise.
There's also the humanitarian aspect. Money goes a hell of a lot further in aid camps than it does in the UK. We can, for the same money [and we're ahead of everyone in Europe and everyone in the world, except the US], help far more people in camps than we can by bringing them here.
We're donating more money than any country in the world, excepting the US.
If we can save, for X amount of pounds, 100,000 children from starvation in camps, or 1,000 in the UK, what would you prefer to do?
Furthermore, the German approach of saying Everyone Come Here has not only increase the flow of migrants, only around 20% of them are actually Syrian.
Helping refugees and dissolving the concept of international borders aren't synonymous.
You don't make me feel ashamed to be English. We disagree. That happens in a free society.
Ignore these so called do-gooders - it's all about them.
And I have yet to hear any of the NIMBYs give a coherent explanation of what they think should be done with the migrants that are already in Europe that is actually practicable.
As an example, another direct quote: "Not worth the hassle of telling the truth."
http://dailym.ai/1GbPIFu
As for the others, I have some sympathy, but they signed up the Schengen, we're providing more funds to camps than most of the EU combined and we're providing naval assistance in the Mediterranean.
The problem here is not the UK's response. It's the German response.
The latest claims that it's now also connected to *recovered memories* just makes me wince. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1621055.ece
I seem to recall stuff about good Samaritans helping destitutes on the road. So I doubt the founder of Christianity would want us to walk on by on the other side of the road. It seems reasonable for the bishops to follow his principles.
So what would I do?
Firstly, try to discourage others from risking their lives in the journey by improving conditions in the refugee camps. The more that come, the harder it is to help them, and those already in Europe.
Then be much more rigorous in sorting out genuine refugees from economic migrants. Give the former more help, and send the latter back to their countries of origin.
Like every other solution to this problem, this is easy to say, and much harder to do. Which is the exact problem we face: there is no good answer, and only a series of choices that are poor in either (or both) the short and log term.
Also: perhaps send the bishops out to live in the camps, where they can do some real good.
It's even worse than considering the polygraph a lie detector.
Mr. Lilburne, indeed. Although if we left the EU...
The unwelcome ceding of some sovereignty/self-control to Brussels/Germany is not a reason to enthusiastically throw away more, or do the bidding of Merkel. Her short-sighted and foolish approach has deepened the crisis substantially.
http://christthetao.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/timely-slogans-for-every-candidate.html
Well worth a read for a good laugh to start the day. Strictly non-partisan - it mocks all of them!
Mr. Jessop, well, quite. The journeys are dangerous, and put people at risk of death, modern day slavery and enrich people traffickers. Encouraging more is encouraging more suffering.
I.e. the relatively rich pro-Europeans. The people who are possibly least connected with the everyday man and woman on the UK streets?
When bishops interfere in political decisions , it always ends badly. As I said their letter at GE 2015 was AFAIWC all but telling people to vote Labour. What business was it of theirs to get involved in the first place. They should MTOB>
Nearly everyone on here (including me) who pronounces on immigration is completely unaffected by the consequences of mass immigration. They are generally wealthy and/or retired and/or expatriates. If anything, they benefit. It makes me deeply uneasy.
Saying '50,000 is not massive"...that's (say) 12,000 homes. It's 55% of the population of my home county. It would require around 150 additional doctors. That's on top of the current net migration of 320k.
We're doing more than our share helping police the Mediterranean, and funding the camps. Germany can't down a bottle of whisky then complain we should buy them aspirin.
As I said, I do sympathise with the other countries dragged into this, but that's largely because they opted into Schengen. We were right to avoid that particularly EU madness.
You might as well say that education should be paid for by an extra tax on heterosexuals - the logic's the same
That means the Corbyn's whipping operation should be given as much attention as he gave anyone else's. It means getting organised. It means putting a different Labour position forward in the Commons, the media, in PLPs, everywhere it can be. Sane Labour lost an election battle to Corbyn with some very ordinary generals. They do not need to accept that they lost the entire war.
Sooner or later the chaos and disaster that the Corbyn/McDonnell leadership is raining down on the party will impinge on the membership and minds will start to change. This process can be accelerated if there is an alternative being espoused from within the party by serious people.
So go on: what would be your solution to the migration problem that faces the UK and wider EU? What would be your platform of policies to fix the issues?
Last week another of May's position was discarded. That was to do with Nurses from non EU countries who had already worked 5/6 years and their work permit had expired. After a hue and cry from the hospitals , the government abandoned its policy.
Do Foreign nurses get the same pay and conditions as British or EU nurses ?
I take the point that making rose gardens for those already in Europe encourages more to come, people trafficking and death but it seems to me that it is every bit as legitimate to take appropriate cases from those in camps in Italy and Greece as those in Lebanon and Jordan. I think we need to do both.
Conservative Party: 119
N.D.P. 86
Liberal Party: 120
Bloc Quebecois: 5
Green Party: 2
Too Close To Call: 6
Total: 338
http://www.electionprediction.org/2015_fed/index.php
Yet the Liberals are at 1.04-1.05 on Betfair and the Tories on 7.4-8.0 for most seats.
Then Merkel goes mad and issues a lunatic siren call. Moments later she's demanding other countries take the migrants her stupidity attracted. That's nothing to do with us, thankfully.
Mr. Abroad, what was your ashamed reference about?
Mr. Surbiton, it was something of a bloodbath. 62-13 in the end.
Mr. JEO, precisely.
Surely the real problem for Labour is that viewed with a cold eye, Corbyn wasn't actually as far off the other three in terms of leadership potential as he should have been, and that those four were, with the demise of the Milibands, Balls and to a lesser extent Alexander, the best Labour had to offer. A lot of blame might be placed on Brown for his strangulation or expropriation of talented young politicians for his own ends - but surely no political party could become that devoid of talent just because of the actions of one emotionally stunted and over-ambitious egomaniac?
Labour appears to have become a movement hollowed from the inside out. Now we are seeing that the trunk is collapsing and the branches will drop off and destroy everything near them. What's left will be chopped up for firewood - or if we're lucky, furniture for a new social democratic movement.
I think your irritation suggests that your willingness to contribute to your favoured solution is really quite limited to paying your taxes.