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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The future of Scottish LAB and Holyrood 2016: This week’s P
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The future of Scottish LAB and Holyrood 2016: This week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast
On this week’s PB / Polling Matters podcast Keiran discusses all things Scotland with Kate Devlin of The Herald. How bad are things for Labour? Are the SNP unstoppable in 2016 and when might we see a second independence referendum? Meanwhile, what implications might the upcoming EU referendum have on politics in Scotland and UKIP’s long term prospects in the rest of the UK?
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V good podcast - Kate Devlin of The Herald sounds charming.
So, in this instance, the polls are all important. The UK leaving the EU could be a trigger but only if sufficient NO voters hold it to be of such importance that they are willing to switch their votes to YES over it to maintain Scottish membership.
In other words, they will prioritise the EU over the UK. Personally, I'm not convinced.
Does that sound more likely?
To achieve (b) that means that former unionist voters have switched to support iScot in the EU
Implicitly, therefore, in order to keep Scotland in the EU, they are willing to breakup the UK.
This doesn't seem a likely scenario
Following their stunning success last night Auchentennach Fine Pies announces that our catchment area has been extended to the South Coast Riviera.
My representative will travel south from Hersham by rail .... as he has done occasionally and randomly in the past.
The SNP will also have to apply to the Oxford English Dictionary for the definition of the human timescale of a "generation" to mean less than the attention span of a fruit fly.
Though the Nats would have to be sure of winning. Losing a second indyref would be pretty damning of their cause.
As an outsider I still don't get how the SNP will manage to get away with not defending their record in Scotland running up to next year's election. The Scottish government runs policing, education and health, these should be the issues discussed when electing the politicians to the Scottish government rather than constitutional stuff.
On the point made in towards the end of the podcast, I really hope that the debate around the EU referendum is of better quality than what we got in Scotland last year - although from last week's discussions on here I'm not too sure!
Of course the Premiership may decide on a one in one out scenario whereby Leicester City FC plays in Scotland and enjoys the warm welcome of Inverness Caledonian Thistle on balmy sun drenched Saturday afternoons in January.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/11978065/Why-does-George-Osborne-have-it-in-for-the-workers.html
Unionists might better spend their time convincing the significant minority of Scots who currently favour independence. Some will never be convinced, but others are persuadable.
One hopes that the thug who set fire to the police car will be billed for its replacement.
More or less in that order. The alternative is to cut defence, education, health, international aid or pensions.
Seems Osborne was too clever by half during the election campaign.
A headline like that in the telegraph can't be good for his leadership prospects.
You are clearly suffering from an acute bout of Malcomgitis. A terrible affliction resulting in intemperate outbursts of Scottish related folly and an awful preponderance of unsightly facial warts.
I wish you a speedy recovery.
................................................................
Laters .....
I also sometimes struggle to find time to listen to the podcast. An issue is I usually write (for work), taking little breaks to check updated comments, but that doesn't really work for radio (and I can't focus on a conversation and write at the same time).
Time stamps may help.
But there is an easier way of ensuring it is worth people taking jobs or extra work rather than staying on welfare... If they don't take the work, cut their existing welfare
Hey Presto! That marginal rate comes down a bundle
If there are unskilled jobs on offer at the job centre it is morally wrong for someone to not take it because the money's not much better than what they get for doing nothing
That probably rules out a career in politics for me, I don't think blaming the voters is a good attitude to have if one is an elected official, but even if Osborne and fo mess up, and they do, the alternatives the public might accept seem slight or non existent in some cases. If we no longer care about overspending the fine, and Corbyn will win, but if we do, well, health is off limits, everywhere else has had to cut a lot already, and the welfare budget is enormous. No matter what if you want to reduce our spending you run out of gimmes eventually. Foreign aid isn't that much in the grand scheme, though we know the UKIP answer to I've area of big savings of course.
Personally I think the public don't actually care about overspending although we claim to and so at some point running into 2020 The Tories will probably relax that stance on that as they relaxed austerity so far. I think that's hard for them to get away with depending on the opposition strength but the only person who really would be damaged is Osborne as achieving a surplus is his baby. Or at least they would, had that silly law on surplus not been voted on.
There are only so many options possible, and the marginal rate loss on UC can be brought down over time.
I don't think it's the case that Nelson hates the government though. He's often banging the drum for them. In this case he is trying to stop another car crash. I can see that probably in Osborne's mind making Universal Credit have a huge marginal tax rate of 97% will not be understood by most of the population; unlike tearful single mothers on QT. But IDS must be bouncing off the walls with anger. Will he appeal over Osborne's head to Cameron?
I was just providing @Dair with a practical example of how it is possible to correct someone without coming across as an obnoxious arse.
I'm one who does think we need to cut spending, including in welfare, but we seem to have reached a point where it wo t be accepted. As you say, ready images will abound, and either because they agree or because they see the political cost as too high, Tories are already splitting on that and other proposals. Osborne seems trapped.
Is he worried about having nothing to moan about ?
a) A non working partner reduction in unemployed couple households:
b) A reduction in child tax credit awards based on the number of children - i.e the awards get progressively smaller from child 3, 4, 5 etc for existing claimants;
c) Increasing the minimum work requirement to gain an exemption on the benefits cap - especially where two adults are in a family.
Couple that with smaller, drawn out adjustments to thresholds and tapers he can get to where he needs to.
Next week he'll be quizzing the chancellor on which class of train ticket he buys.
Come on, man, it might be pretty bad, but it's not that bad, not for certain.
Brown's tax credits structure created an invidious system of recirculating money that created massive complexity.
Of course there are going to be individual losers in addressing this, and thought needs to be given to transitional arrangements, but it is a fundamental drag on the UK economy that needs to be fixed.
None of what you say is wrong, and it must change as you suggest, but there's no way to do it without some pain.
The best way is to ensure that with tax cuts and a higher minimum wage, all families and workers stand pat, rather than lose. And if they work more they earn more.
They are now thinking of cutting aid to genuinely poor people in the third world so that they can pay for the aggressive young men who have paid smugglers to get themselves into Europe:
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/development-policy/sweden-considers-cutting-development-aid-budget-60-due-refugee-crisis
Those poor people in slums in Africa are out of sight, out of mind, so we can cut their aid. But the brown people that have turned up here, we should only be nice to. That means only giving them six month sentences when they rape Swedish women.
http://www.thelocal.se/20151106/teens-sentenced-for-gang-rape-on-hipster-island
Makes me furious at the Tories' callousness, as they set out to provide houses to buy,i.e. to cater for potential Tory voters, not social housing. Yep, 86% of people want to own their own home. Of course they do. But that doesn't mean they will ever have enough money to do it. Huge numbers of people rely on social rents and/or Housing Benefit to be able to keep a roof over their heads. And their situation is getting worse.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/nov/04/european-union-states-have-relocated-just-116-refugees-out-of-160000
A third of the tax credit families budget goes to the 20% of claimants with three or more children.
15% of the families budget (£4bn) goes to the 5% of claimants with four or more children.
It's reasonable to assume that is mirrored in the child benefit budget as well.
Tax credits are a 'pull' factor to the UK, and reducing them is far more likely to have an effect than Cameron's attempts to exclude EU workers from benefits for the first 4 years of their arrival (which he now looks very unlikely to get) In fact, he'll be lucky to get six months.
I remember seeing a Romanian family's eyes light up when they went to social services for housing advice and realised how much money they could claim.
Word of that can - and does - get around. But, once again, realism is needed: it'd only shave off very low ten of thousands, if we're lucky.
For big cuts in immigration, the government must go after 'students' and 'family reunions'.
Social housing is important, but there have been issues in the past - primarily around ensuring that it ends up with the people who need it. Too often it become a benefit for life when, ideally it should be temporary.
Personally, I think what the government is missing as a trick is getting big pension funds into the game. They need long-term secure income streams and are far more responsibly counterparties than the individual Joe Schmoe who dominate the social BTL segment. If a council was to enter into, say, a 30 year contract with a pension fund, offering them a 4-5% return on their money annually, they'd be delighted to build social flats and manage them as well.
I've always been partial to colon, semi-colon combinations when writing long sentences.
Since taking office, the social democrats have shown they have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. But there will probably be no end to it until the Moderates face up to the fact they need to engage with the inmigration issue, and learn to tango with the Swedish Democrats.
I didn't realise it was a cover version, I avoided the ad
I hate Christmas schmaltz.... Particularly from big corporations that are just after my dough!
But not as much as I hate feeble trembly voiced versions of old songs... Nouvelle Vague did it a decade ago and I quite liked it.... Now it makes me want to SCREAAAAAAAM!
I do like this Christmas ad though
http://youtu.be/E0WrEPYVqvw
Not just true of the tories though, is it? where were labour's social housing plans in their 13 years in government?
A pleasant day to all
Personally, I'd have more faith in the smaller landlords than the faceless property giants.
The Corbynites appear to be attempting to square your particular circle by retconning the Blair/Brown years as a Tory government in all but name.
I agree with the idea that social housing is important, necessary and ideally, temporary (though I appreciate not all people will ever be able to afford their own home). That brings us around to the old chestnut - the housing situation in this country is almost as dysfunctional as the NHS.