ChrisA 'dispair of keeping people malice at all costs' Yes until you are rationed out of a cancer drug or something similar. Or your wife, daughter or mother grandmother.
ChrisA 'dispair of keeping people malice at all costs' Yes until you are rationed out of a cancer drug or something similar. Or your wife, daughter or mother grandmother.
The alternative of course favoured by many of here is you ration by the ability to pay and then sod you wife, daughter, or mother if the pay day lenders won't let you have any more.
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Yes but in 1988 Kinnock had to get support from the PLP in the electoral college, as you state there was no nominations threshold at that time. Now the PLP element has shifted from the electoral college to nominating candidates.
Given the contest would only be triggered if, say, Labour fell behind UKIP in a by election who cares less what Corbyn supporters think given the dire state they have placed the party in? In any case as I also pointed out it would only work if the replacement was an experienced figure from the party's left, like Hilary Benn, that would temper any dissent, as Howard being a rightwinger tempered any dissent when he replaced IDS. IDS won 60% of the Tory membership too, Howard was elected unopposed without even being put to the membership, Benn would be elected in a similar way.
A 'leading member of the local Labour Party' is not the same as the Labour Party historian on the Daily Politics who supported my argument, what is clear is that the rules could well be interpreted in the way I suggest
Hyufd, you really are digging a huge hole for yourself. Who was this Labour party historian? Because whoever it was was wrong. Quite a lot of Labour 'historians' are notoriously inaccurate and tend to live in a bubble as divorced from reality as Corbyn himself (cf the good Mr Wiseman, Tristram Hunt, Gordon Brown...). Moreover, a lot of them make provocative suggestions for the sheer fun of getting noticed (cf AJP Taylor).
Earlier on, you say that Kinnock had to be renominated, now you admit he didn't. Of course he had to get support in that ballot - it was an election! That is an altogether different prospect from being nominated. Are you now going to admit you were wrong about that?
The rules appear to be perfectly clear, and for all the reasons I state, there is no realistic prospect of them being interpreted in the way you suggest. Even if they were, they would fail at a legal challenge.
And with that, goodnight to all.
EDIT - no, Hyufd, they would not be held under 'normal' rules. There are two procedures, for when there is a vacancy and when there isn't. There are clearly different procedures for a challenge to an incumbent from when there is no leader at all. A challenge backed by 20% of the party does not unseat the leader, it triggers an election. As the leader is the incumbent, they stand in that election unless they withdraw. The 12.5% threshold only applies when there is no leader in place.
I think in John Mann's shoes I would have hit the bugger.
How can he not have an answer for this? There's a legitimate way of saying a 'shoot to kill' policy I have reservations about. It is possible to draw on plenty of problems in the US where it has become a divisive issue about the point at which the police use their firearms.
He cannot with all serious credibility not think it was a good idea to shoot people dead who are currently holding loaded automatic machine guns.
It isnt even a 'scruple' there are no things to weigh up here. It is a clear and obvious position to hold that you shoot to kill.
This issue is not quite shoot to kill; when engaging a gunman you cannot shoot to wound. It's that there is no negotiations in a hostage situation, you simply go in as soon as practical because experience has shown its the best thing to do. I imagine that in a case where terrorists are blasting away with automatic weapons the response is to shoot back as best you can with only the best regard for collateral damage as you can muster in the circumstances. The alternative to the above is a no shoot policy. The other point of course is that a terrorist with explosives strapped to him is extremely difficult to arrest. So even here it is difficult to justify a negotiation effort even if there is the appearance of surrender. If someone was stark naked I suppose they could be arrested and no doubt the intelligence they could provide would be worthwhile.
The best one can say of Corbyn is that he has little connection with reality.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
ISIS is precisely the sort of enemy on whom we might need to call upon our nuclear arsenal.
Oh be serious FFS. Use your loaf. A nuclear weapon against a bunch of baseball shoe wearing boys from Bradford? What about the people they're ruling over at the time? They are the sort of enemy against which nukes are useless, but which require aeroplanes other than some rusty tornadoes, attack helicopters, precision weapons, special forces etc.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
ISIS are our only threat then?
Ever heard of multiple responses to multiple threats?
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
Will you go back and read them again?
The rules distinguish explicitly between when there is a vacancy and when there is not, and specify the requirements in each case. So there is no implied "normal".
One slight technical problem with Corbyns kindergarten view of bringing Jihadi John in front of a court. To arrest him and bring him to trial you would have to put boots on the ground, capture him if you could and then extract. No doubt the locals may not be overly cooperative to this activity.
The problem is for someone opposed to boots on the ground, bombing, intervention in the Middle East or even shoot to kill ...........how the hell does he intend anyone going in to make this " arrest" to actually achieve the task or even come out alive?
That in a nutshell shows that Corbyn is not only dangerous he is unstable to the point of deranged and should stick to manhole covers.
Last word before I have to go to bed, from the Labour party rule book, chapter 4, clause II, Section 2:
B. Nomination i. In the case of a vacancy for leader or deputy leader, each nomination must be supported by 12.5 per cent of the Commons members of the PLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void. ii. Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 per cent of the Commons members of the PLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void.
If there is no vacancy, that is because there is a leader. You will notice that it says that challenger nominations will trigger an election, but it only says that challengers have to attain nominations. The leader would still be in place. In practice, this means the leader would go ahead to the ballot without needing to be renominated. The suggestion to the contrary is therefore still straightforwardly wrong and I would be curious to know who gave the Daily Politics their advice. They get such things wrong far too often - I've never quite forgotten the very serious conversation in c. 2006 about how Bill Clinton would be a serious contender for the Presidency in 2008 because 'there was nothing in the US constitution to prevent him running again,' which could only have been dreamed up by somebody who had (A) never heard of the 22nd Amendment or (B) was smoking hard drugs at the time they read it.
Leaving aside any other consideration, a legal challenge brought if Corbyn were forced to get nominations again would almost certainly succeed and leave Labour (1) having to do the whole thing again (2) looking as though they couldn't even run their own party properly and (3) still having him as leader!
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
I'd cut health too. The concept that we are putting huge amount of resources into ensuring that humans eek out an extra few days, months or years in the most unbearable circumstances, whether t's terminal illness, dementia, old age or whatever surely needs looking at. It's not about resources either, it's about morality.
I spent an afternoon today on an acute ward in Florence- akin to night of the living dead. A ward populated by really old, sick people being kept alive. I felt sorrier for the families actually than the patients who were too sick, old and ill to care about anything.
(snipped)
IMHO we need to have a serious re-think about what we expect from the NHS. Part of the problem is, it's just too huge.
But I doubt if that re-think will be effective until our society is prepared to accept that we all have to die some day.
An anecdote: a friend's mother was in a situation such as you describe - really elderly, really sick - and the patients there were being kept alive by continuing to give them the daily medication they'd been taking for years. Withdrawing those medications would have enabled natural death to occur far sooner, without any horror stories about euthanasia or dying of thirst.
I have some sympathy with this view - I have a mother with terminal cancer, in a serious amount of pain essentially all the time.
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
One slight technical problem with Corbyns kindergarten view of bringing Jihadi John in front of a court. To arrest him and bring him to trial you would have to put boots on the ground, capture him if you could and then extract. No doubt the locals may not be overly cooperative to this activity.
The problem is for someone opposed to boots on the ground, bombing, intervention in the Middle East or even shoot to kill ...........how the hell does he intend anyone going in to make this " arrest" to actually achieve the task or even come out alive?
That in a nutshell shows that Corbyn is not only dangerous he is unstable to the point of deranged and should stick to manhole covers.
Was there a reason for Corbyn, as I understand it, appearing on the lightweight daytime tv 'Lorraine' at this time of terrorist crisis? Frankly talking about manholes is harmless enough stuff, but how do you end up talking about them at a time like this?
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
ISIS are our only threat then?
Ever heard of multiple responses to multiple threats?
Quite which is why we cannot denude the defence budget by spending all of it on Trident which is not a response to any threat.
I'd cut health too. The concept that we are putting huge amount of resources into ensuring that humans eek out an extra few days, months or years in the most unbearable circumstances, whether t's terminal illness, dementia, old age or whatever surely needs looking at. It's not about resources either, it's about morality.
I spent an afternoon today on an acute ward in Florence- akin to night of the living dead. A ward populated by really old, sick people being kept alive. I felt sorrier for the families actually than the patients who were too sick, old and ill to care about anything.
(snipped)
IMHO we need to have a serious re-think about what we expect from the NHS. Part of the problem is, it's just too huge.
But I doubt if that re-think will be effective until our society is prepared to accept that we all have to die some day.
An anecdote: a friend's mother was in a situation such as you describe - really elderly, really sick - and the patients there were being kept alive by continuing to give them the daily medication they'd been taking for years. Withdrawing those medications would have enabled natural death to occur far sooner, without any horror stories about euthanasia or dying of thirst.
I have some sympathy with this view - I have a mother with terminal cancer, in a serious amount of pain essentially all the time.
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
Write a living will as soon as possible and tell your family what is in it and where you keep it.
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
That is an ignorant lie. Where is the nomination phase for Corbyn to get nominations mentioned?
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
Will you go back and read them again?
The rules distinguish explicitly between when there is a vacancy and when there is not, and specify the requirements in each case. So there is no implied "normal".
You are making this bilge up.
Yes and they make clear what is required for a challenge to be produced when there is an incumbent leader ie a challenger needs to be nominated by 20% of MPs. Once that 20% is achieved the contest is conducted under normal rules with any additional candidates alongside the contendor required to get 12.5% of MPs to enter a contest
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Yeah Great ... conventional forces. Whoopee we have more than you.
North Korea then lobs a couple of battlefield nukes and it's all over. Wouldn't even need to take the covers off the ballistic ones. The left will never understand that though no matter how many times you try to explain it. I hate nukes but I understand the realities and understand disarmament should be done together and by mutual agreement.
........... Which brings us neatly back to North Korea.
He is on the ballot without being nominated, apparently
Yet on the Daily Politics it was put that that was not clearly the case and the rules could well be interpreted to require Corbyn too to be nominated once a challenger had received sufficient nominations to force a ballot, otherwise the challenger would be elected unopposed
I don't trust the Daily Politics, and I do trust the advice I have had, although of course it has never actually been tested in practice as no Labour leader has faced, never mind lost, a confidence motion since 1935 - and then Lansbury elected not to contest the election.
However, as I have pointed out, Corbyn could make the ballot even if he were required to be nominated. Merely because 190 of the PLP hate his guts is no reason to assume the other 41 would not back him.
So where does this oracle of advice come from? Nothing in Labour Party rules states that once a challenger has got the nominations to force a contest Corbyn is then automatically excused from getting any nominations to enter the contest himself.
Given as I said the trigger for a challenge would be Labour falling behind UKIP in a by election or something similar he has virtually no chance of getting the nominations required
Nothing in the Labour party rules says an incumbent needs to be nominated. There is nowhere in the Labour Party rules that says how an incumbent would be nominated, only challengers if there is no vacancy.
Yet once a challenger has received the nominations to force a contest if the incumbent does not get the nominations to enter that new contest the challenger is elected unopposed
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
One slight technical problem with Corbyns kindergarten view of bringing Jihadi John in front of a court. To arrest him and bring him to trial you would have to put boots on the ground, capture him if you could and then extract. No doubt the locals may not be overly cooperative to this activity.
The problem is for someone opposed to boots on the ground, bombing, intervention in the Middle East or even shoot to kill ...........how the hell does he intend anyone going in to make this " arrest" to actually achieve the task or even come out alive?
That in a nutshell shows that Corbyn is not only dangerous he is unstable to the point of deranged and should stick to manhole covers.
Was there a reason for Corbyn, as I understand it, appearing on the lightweight daytime tv 'Lorraine' at this time of terrorist crisis? Frankly talking about manholes is harmless enough stuff, but how do you end up talking about them at a time like this?
It makes the laughable media management of Brown and Miliband look professional...
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
Can we have a name for this 'historian' please Hyufd? Because I am afraid at the stage where I do not believe you in your increasingly wild claims.
"It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all."
No. Nor does it say they have to wear clothes. Or be Members of Parliament. Or indeed breathe. Those are sort of taken for granted. The key point is that it only requires challengers to have nominations. That means that the leader does not need renominating, because there is no vacancy. A challenge does not create such a vacancy. From a legal point of view, the Kinnock precedent alone is indeed sufficient.
It is quite obvious that there is a different procedure for a challenge and a contest for a vacancy, but for some reason you are unwilling to let go of this strange belief that Corbyn would have to be renominated. Is it merely wishful thinking or do you have a large bet on Benn?
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
That is not credible.
Exactly. The nomination phase is mentioned as either under no leader, or with a leader. Once the nomination phase is over you move on to the next stage (leader re-elected unopposed or a contest between challengers/leader). Nothing says you re-do the nomination stage all over again.
I guess our "Puny Force " could obliterate Moscow and the Kremlin....that might cool Putins ambitions a little ..
Don't honestly know how the Germans sleep at night without a big nuclear missile to keep them safe.
They have a huge nuclear umbrella - the US'. And the UK's at 200 warheads at 100 kilotons each is all it needs to be to secure its deterrence objective.
Your argument seems to be changing from the UK's force is so puny it is useless to we don't need one because the Germans don't. Which is it?
Yes but in 1988 Kinnock had to get support from the PLP in the electoral college, as you state there was no nominations threshold at that time. Now the PLP element has shifted from the electoral college to nominating candidates.
Given the contest would only be triggered if, say, Labour fell behind UKIP in a by election who cares less what Corbyn supporters think given the dire state they have placed the party in? In any case as I also pointed out it would only work if the replacement was an experienced figure from the party's left, like Hilary Benn, that would temper any dissent, as Howard being a rightwinger tempered any dissent when he replaced IDS. IDS won 60% of the Tory membership too, Howard was elected unopposed without even being put to the membership, Benn would be elected in a similar way.
A 'leading member of the local Labour Party' is not the same as the Labour Party historian on the Daily Politics who supported my argument, what is clear is that the rules could well be interpreted in the way I suggest
Hyufd, you really are digging a huge hole for yourself. Who was this Labour party historian? Because whoever it was was wrong. Quite a lot of Labour 'historians' are notoriously inaccurate and tend to live in a bubble as divorced from reality as Corbyn himself (cf the good Mr Wiseman, Tristram Hunt, Gordon Brown...). Moreover, a lot of them make provocative suggestions for the sheer fun of getting noticed (cf AJP Taylor).
E And with that, goodnight to all.
EDIT - no, Hyufd, they would not be held under 'normal' rules. There are two procedures, for when there is a vacancy and when there isn't. There are clearly different procedures for a challenge to an incumbent from when there is no leader at all. A challenge backed by 20% of the party does not unseat the leader, it triggers an election. As the leader is the incumbent, they stand in that election unless they withdraw. The 12.5% threshold only applies when there is no leader in place.
Hope that is now cleared up for you.
Kinnock had to receive votes from Labour MPs, there was no direct nominations in those days because the members only comprised 1/3 of the electoral college, the PLP also 1/3. Now the PLP nominate before the membership vote, BOTH of those elements must be put in play ie if a candidate does not get sufficient nominations from the PLP he does not go before the membership. So wrong and again zero grounds for any legal challenge.
As I have pointed out once a challenge is initiated an election is triggered under normal rules and the leader having had a contest forced requires nominations to enter it as any other candidate would
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
The USSR is called Russia nowadays. Only one nation has voluntarily and unilaterally disarmed its nuclear armaments and it has recently been invaded by Russia.
I think Corbyn will have to row back from his disgusting comments today. Or he will be ousted.
Fancy a bet, Sean?
What odds will you give me Corbyn is still in place on Jan 1st 2016?
I do not see any way they can. He will still get the votes of the Momentum bunch and we see every day that NP supports him
I remain of the view Hilary Benn will replace Corbyn in two years time in a Howard like manoeuvre with almost unanimous backing from the PLP, probably following Labour falling behind UKIP in a by-election in a formerly Labour held seat
Please God this happens .... if Benn were then to succeed Cameron as the next Prime Minister, my 949/1 bet then delivers!
He won't be PM of course or win the election, his job will be to make modest progress as Michael Howard did for the Tories and then hand over to Chuka Umunna, Stella Creasey or Dan Jarvis after an election defeat
That is a non sequitur. If Labour progressed under Benn in 2020 on the scale the Tories managed in 2005 a minority Labour Government would be likely - even if Labour remains the second largest party.
Howard picked up 30 seats, that would give Benn about 260 seats ie barely more than Brown got in 2010 and so no grounds for a minority Labour government, especially given boundary changes although I agree a hung parliament is possible
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
How much is enough in your opinion, just a rough percentage of GDP, will do
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
ISIS are our only threat then?
Ever heard of multiple responses to multiple threats?
Quite which is why we cannot denude the defence budget by spending all of it on Trident which is not a response to any threat.
What is it with Mps and their expenses. Just reviewed our local Tory new-boy's fist expenses claims. £2,250 per month rent claimed on his constituency 5 bedroom home in the country...how the f**k can he justify that?
EDIT - no, Hyufd, they would not be held under 'normal' rules. There are two procedures, for when there is a vacancy and when there isn't. There are clearly different procedures for a challenge to an incumbent from when there is no leader at all. A challenge backed by 20% of the party does not unseat the leader, it triggers an election. As the leader is the incumbent, they stand in that election unless they withdraw. The 12.5% threshold only applies when there is no leader in place.
Hope that is now cleared up for you.
Kinnock had to receive votes from Labour MPs, there was no direct nominations in those days because the members only comprised 1/3 of the electoral college, the PLP also 1/3. Now the PLP nominate before the membership vote, BOTH of those elements must be put in play ie if a candidate does not get sufficient nominations from the PLP he does not go before the membership. So wrong and again zero grounds for any legal challenge.
As I have pointed out once a challenge is initiated an election is triggered under normal rules and the leader having had a contest forced requires nominations to enter it as any other candidate would
Kinnock had to receive votes from the electorate as would Corbyn and any challengers. There were still direct nominations, in order to get on the ballot paper Benn had to be nominated but as incumbent Kinnock did not.
Kinnock had to receive votes from Labour MPs, there was no direct nominations in those days because the members only comprised 1/3 of the electoral college, the PLP also 1/3. Now the PLP nominate before the membership vote, BOTH of those elements must be put in play ie if a candidate does not get sufficient nominations from the PLP he does not go before the membership. So wrong and again zero grounds for any legal challenge.
As I have pointed out once a challenge is initiated an election is triggered under normal rules and the leader having had a contest forced requires nominations to enter it as any other candidate would
No, Benn had to have a proposer and a seconder. Kinnock, as the incumbent leader, did not. I went and checked in the Times archive because I thought somebody of your obvious intelligence and shrewdness would not make such a mistake.
But obviously you are unwilling to let go of your manifestly erroneous position. Which is rather sad, as I've always treated your posts with considerable respect in the past, and hope I will be able to do so again in the future. On this point you are now being rather unreasonable.
However, I have controlled assessments to sort out in the morning, and cannot wait any longer to get to bed.
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
That is an ignorant lie. Where is the nomination phase for Corbyn to get nominations mentioned?
Why did Kinnock not need to get nominations?
Kinnock got 5/6 of the parliamentary party in that election in the electoral college, there were no nominations in those days. Once an election is forced it is conducted under normal rules and Corbyn is required to get nominated too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_1988
I'd cut health too. The concept that we are putting huge amount of resources into ensuring that humans eek out an extra few days, months or years in the most unbearable circumstances, whether t's terminal illness, dementia, old age or whatever surely needs looking at. It's not about resources either, it's about morality.
I spent an afternoon today on an acute ward in Florence- akin to night of the living dead. A ward populated by really old, sick people being kept alive. I felt sorrier for the families actually than the patients who were too sick, old and ill to care about anything.
(snipped)
IMHO we need to have a serious re-think about what we expect from the NHS. Part of the problem is, it's just too huge.
But I doubt if that re-think will be effective until our society is prepared to accept that we all have to die some day.
An anecdote: a friend's mother was in a situation such as you describe - really elderly, really sick - and the patients there were being kept alive by continuing to give them the daily medication they'd been taking for years. Withdrawing those medications would have enabled natural death to occur far sooner, without any horror stories about euthanasia or dying of thirst.
I have some sympathy with this view - I have a mother with terminal cancer, in a serious amount of pain essentially all the time.
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
Write a living will as soon as possible and tell your family what is in it and where you keep it.
Something that broke my heart a couple of weeks back was my mother being put in an ambulance and her continuously telling my father" I don't want to be resuscitated"
Back home again now, in a serious amount of pain and bed ridden.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
The USSR is called Russia nowadays. Only one nation has voluntarily and unilaterally disarmed its nuclear armaments and it has recently been invaded by Russia.
Not quite right, but I get the sentiment. South Africa unilaterally disarmed, too.
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
That is not credible.
No, they state who will be a challenger in the event of an incumbent. The rules then state who will be nominated once that challenger has forced a contest. Once someone is nominated and forces a contest then if Corbyn wishes to remain leader he has to get sufficient nominations to enter that contest with the membership. If Thatcher had failed to get any MPs backing her once Heseltine had challenged her then she would have ceased to be leader immediately
@MrHarryCole: This will do wonders to quell the PLP. Corbyn set to deliver that ill fated 'it's all the west's fault' diatribe: https://t.co/lokvF0FrJ0
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
How much is enough in your opinion, just a rough percentage of GDP, will do
Indeed, healthcare will always be rationed. The only question is at what percentage of GDP.
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
Or a rogue regime in Moscow or the present nuclear armed regime in North Korea
What is it with Mps and their expenses. Just reviewed our local Tory new-boy's fist expenses claims. £2,250 per month rent claimed on his constituency 5 bedroom home in the country...how the f**k can he justify that?
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
India, Pakistan and North Korea rely to a degree on nukes ot keep other powers from attacking them.
BTW in your own words you have described a deterrent effect.
Newsnight did a detailed report on Labour Party leadership rules a couple of weeks ago.
They said they are ambiguous and there are technically actually 3 possibilities.
However legal advice has been taken by the Labour Party and that advice is that the leader does not need to be nominated.
No point whatsoever in having an argument about it - it is ambiguous - the only way it would be decided for 100% certain is if it goes to Court (if anyone challenged the procedure they decided to follow).
What is it with Mps and their expenses. Just reviewed our local Tory new-boy's fist expenses claims. £2,250 per month rent claimed on his constituency 5 bedroom home in the country...how the f**k can he justify that?
Obviously in the rules for all MPs. They have to be able to claim reasonable expenses of course however when they don't then they are at least pursued now and jailed as a number of Labour MPs found out the hard way.
@MrHarryCole: This will do wonders to quell the PLP. Corbyn set to deliver that ill fated 'it's all the west's fault' diatribe: https://t.co/lokvF0FrJ0
You would think his spin doctor might advice him that that might not be the best idea...but then his spin doctor likes a good riot.
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
Can we have a name for this 'historian' please Hyufd? Because I am afraid at the stage where I do not believe you in your increasingly wild claims.
"It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all."
No. Nor does it say they have to wear clothes. Or be Members of Parliament. Or indeed breathe. Those are sort of taken for granted. The key point is that it only requires challengers to have nominations. That means that the leader does not need renominating, because there is no vacancy. A challenge does not create such a vacancy. From a legal point of view, the Kinnock precedent alone is indeed sufficient.
It is quite obvious that there is a different procedure for a challenge and a contest for a vacancy, but for some reason you are unwilling to let go of this strange belief that Corbyn would have to be renominated. Is it merely wishful thinking or do you have a large bet on Benn?
Look through the BBC Daily Politics archive.
What is taken for granted is that once a challenger has forced a contest that will be conducted under normal contest rules ie all candidates need nominations. Once a challenger has received his 20% of nominees then in effect a vacancy has actually been created and a contest forced. As I have also consistently pointed out Kinnock won over 75% of MPs in the electoral college in 1988 so if anything that reinforces my point, no candidate could go forward without sufficient MPs nominating him and behind him
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
That is an ignorant lie. Where is the nomination phase for Corbyn to get nominations mentioned?
Why did Kinnock not need to get nominations?
Kinnock got 5/6 of the parliamentary party in that election in the electoral college, there were no nominations in those days. Once an election is forced it is conducted under normal rules and Corbyn is required to get nominated too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_1988
Categorically wrong Benn required nominations to get on the ballot.
I'd cut health too. The concept that we are putting huge amount of resources into ensuring that humans eek out an extra few days, months or years in the most unbearable circumstances, whether t's terminal illness, dementia, old age or whatever surely needs looking at. It's not about resources either, it's about morality.
I spent an afternoon today on an acute ward in Florence- akin to night of the living dead. A ward populated by really old, sick people being kept alive. I felt sorrier for the families actually than the patients who were too sick, old and ill to care about anything.
(snipped)
IMHO we need to have a serious re-think about what we expect from the NHS. Part of the problem is, it's just too huge.
But I doubt if that re-think will be effective until our society is prepared to accept that we all have to die some day.
An anecdote: a friend's mother was in a situation such as you describe - really elderly, really sick - and the patients there were being kept alive by continuing to give them the daily medication they'd been taking for years. Withdrawing those medications would have enabled natural death to occur far sooner, without any horror stories about euthanasia or dying of thirst.
I have some sympathy with this view - I have a mother with terminal cancer, in a serious amount of pain essentially all the time.
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
Write a living will as soon as possible and tell your family what is in it and where you keep it.
Something that broke my heart a couple of weeks back was my mother being put in an ambulance and her continuously telling my father" I don't want to be resuscitated"
Back home again now, in a serious amount of pain and bed ridden.
My deepest sympathies. I hope her wishes are respected. Condolences to the entire family.
To ydoethur... Yes I agree with your reading and logic. Just think for a moment. It a challenger to an incumbent has to get 20% to force a contest (not 12.5 when there is no leader) then is the leader (the incumbent leader!) expected to get 20% himself as well before standing??? To pretend that the leader would need to seek nominations if challenged is plain stupid. But as I said at the time of the last campaign, the damage is done. Labour are a joke. And Labour would be revilled and split on the left amongst their activists if they fiddled a vote to remove Corbyn. They would be split by civil war anyway before during and after such an election rerun
Newsnight did a detailed report on Labour Party leadership rules a couple of weeks ago.
They said they are ambiguous and there are technically actually 3 possibilities.
However legal advice has been taken by the Labour Party and that advice is that the leader does not need to be nominated.
No point whatsoever in having an argument about it - it is ambiguous - the only way it would be decided for 100% certain is if it goes to Court (if anyone challenged the procedure they decided to follow).
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
That is not credible.
Exactly. The nomination phase is mentioned as either under no leader, or with a leader. Once the nomination phase is over you move on to the next stage (leader re-elected unopposed or a contest between challengers/leader). Nothing says you re-do the nomination stage all over again.
There has been no nomination stage until a contest is forced by a challenger receiving sufficient nominees to force one, once one has been forced it is stage 1 of that contest
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
Can we have a name for this 'historian' please Hyufd? Because I am afraid at the stage where I do not believe you in your increasingly wild claims.
"It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all."
No. Nor does it say they have to wear clothes. Or be Members of Parliament. Or indeed breathe. Those are sort of taken for granted. The key point is that it only requires challengers to have nominations. That means that the leader does not need renominating, because there is no vacancy. A challenge does not create such a vacancy. From a legal point of view, the Kinnock precedent alone is indeed sufficient.
It is quite obvious that there is a different procedure for a challenge and a contest for a vacancy, but for some reason you are unwilling to let go of this strange belief that Corbyn would have to be renominated. Is it merely wishful thinking or do you have a large bet on Benn?
Look through the BBC Daily Politics archive.
What is taken for granted is that once a challenger has forced a contest that will be conducted under normal contest rules ie all candidates need nominations. Once a challenger has received his 20% of nominees then in effect a vacancy has actually been created and a contest forced. As I have also consistently pointed out Kinnock won over 75% of MPs in the electoral college in 1988 so if anything that reinforces my point, no candidate could go forward without sufficient MPs nominating him and behind him
No you are wrong a vacancy only exists if there is no leader. Once a challenger has received nominees then in effect he is a challenger and will proceed to the next stage against any other challengers to get nominated against the incumbent.
The precedent for Kinnock goes against you. Kinnock was not renominated while Benn did get nominated.
I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Yeah Great ... conventional forces. Whoopee we have more than you.
North Korea then lobs a couple of battlefield nukes and it's all over. Wouldn't even need to take the covers off the ballistic ones. The left will never understand that though no matter how many times you try to explain it. I hate nukes but I understand the realities and understand disarmament should be done together and by mutual agreement.
........... Which brings us neatly back to North Korea.
I am not on the left. Nor do I oppose all nuclear weapons. I oppose Trident renewal. You yourself just mentioned that North Korean tactical nuclear weapons could destroy us. So why do we need Trident? I oppose Trident on the following grounds:
-I have no belief that the USA would arm another country with the ability to inflict mass destruction on the USA with impunity. The idea is beyond ludicrous. Therefore I believe that Trident comes with 'kill switch' circuitry or some such system to give the US ultimate sanction. It's what we would all do if we were them.
-Even if this isn't true, the partnership with the USA on the programme means that without their support, it would collapse in months. Therefore if relations with that country should become cooler, the spend would become useless and we would be undefended. The same fact means that quite frankly they know too much - such as when they gave the serial numbers of all our nukes to the Russians a few years back during their 'reset'. What dependable ally does that?
-It is a vast and unwarranted contribution to the USA military industrial complex.
-I believe the technology to be out-dated, and the submarines to be detectable with new technologies, destroying the 'continuous at sea deterrent' aspect.
-Lastly and most importantly, we can't afford it. Not in the sense that we can't scrimp and save and keep it, but that it deals with a very limited set of scenarios, but spends a massively disproportionate proportion of our defence budget on them, leaving us ill equipped to face the actual and more common challenges that we face day to day.
Yet that is precisely not the case as the rules do not state the existing leader is not required to get nominations once a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest. The 20% is required to launch a challenge, the 15% of nominations would be required as under the normal rules which clearly the challenger will already have achieved, if the incumbent does not then get 15% of nominations the challenger would then be elected unopposed
Sorry, but that's just fantasy.
There's nothing to say that they "revert to normal rules". In the contest you have the leader plus any 20% challengers. That's it. These are the normal rules for the situation when there is an existing leader.
The rules ONLY state the mechanism for a challenger to force a contest, once a contest is forced the presumption is it will be conducted under normal rules and the incumbent will then also be required to obtain nominations to enter it.
No - the rules state who will be nominated. Your suggestion would mean that as soon as someone is nominated with 20%, then Corbyn ceases to be leader. That is the only way to then redo under the "no leader" rules.
That is not credible.
Exactly. The nomination phase is mentioned as either under no leader, or with a leader. Once the nomination phase is over you move on to the next stage (leader re-elected unopposed or a contest between challengers/leader). Nothing says you re-do the nomination stage all over again.
There has been no nomination stage until a contest is forced by a challenger receiving sufficient nominees to force one, once one has been forced it is stage 1 of that contest
Quote the part of the rulebook that says that. Because the rulebook says the EXACT opposite: it provides for a nomination stage if there is a vacancy - and a nomination stage for if there is no vacancy. Once the nomination stage is complete you don't restart it.
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
How much is enough in your opinion, just a rough percentage of GDP, will do
probably about £30bn pa extra including proper funding for social care would probably raise it to the top of the league and make us comparable with the likes of Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands etc but we would still be short of doctors and nurses in the short term because we train nowhere near enough.
What is it with Mps and their expenses. Just reviewed our local Tory new-boy's fist expenses claims. £2,250 per month rent claimed on his constituency 5 bedroom home in the country...how the f**k can he justify that?
Obviously in the rules for all MPs. They have to be able to claim reasonable expenses of course however when they don't then they are at least pursued now and jailed as a number of Labour MPs found out the hard way.
Particularly as he's still renting out his previous country home for £2,450 per month.
@MrHarryCole: Odd: @SeumasMilne complained to colleagues that Benn went "way beyond" line agreed on Sat... before explicitly denying so to press after PLP
I for one am fascinated by this ongoing debate about how to trigger a Labour Leadership Election.
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Good, remember the Labour leadership contest is conducted AV.
Quadruple the excitement
It's so enthralling that I've stopped my usual Monday Night Zombie Appocalypse Planning session to pay full and undivided attention.
To be fair, if we stuck to topics that entertained the masses we'd all be wittering on about The Apprentice. I remember I first came here because I was looking for information about the Cheadle by-election back in 2005. The fact that a concurrent conversation about cheese was going on at the same time was a bonus. If you can't discuss the details of how to trigger a Labour leadership election in excruciating detail here, where can you?
Not like there is anything else of interest happening in the world, is there?
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
India, Pakistan and North Korea rely to a degree on nukes ot keep other powers from attacking them.
BTW in your own words you have described a deterrent effect.
I know I have. I'm not denying the effect, I'm saying we shouldn't renew Trident.
I guess our "Puny Force " could obliterate Moscow and the Kremlin....that might cool Putins ambitions a little ..
Don't honestly know how the Germans sleep at night without a big nuclear missile to keep them safe.
They have a huge nuclear umbrella - the US'. And the UK's at 200 warheads at 100 kilotons each is all it needs to be to secure its deterrence objective.
Your argument seems to be changing from the UK's force is so puny it is useless to we don't need one because the Germans don't. Which is it?
The latter. I'd quite forgotten that the only thing which has stopped us being invaded in the last 50 years is Polaris/Trident, as that's your argument.
Newsnight did a detailed report on Labour Party leadership rules a couple of weeks ago.
They said they are ambiguous and there are technically actually 3 possibilities.
However legal advice has been taken by the Labour Party and that advice is that the leader does not need to be nominated.
No point whatsoever in having an argument about it - it is ambiguous - the only way it would be decided for 100% certain is if it goes to Court (if anyone challenged the procedure they decided to follow).
Depends entirely on who gives the advice, if ardent supporters of the Corbyn leadership are asked of course they will interpret it their way, as you say though technically there are 3 possibilities and if a challenger challenges successfully with sufficient nominations and Corbyn is barely able to get any nominations in practical reality that challenger would become leader having been elected under normal leadership rules
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
India, Pakistan and North Korea rely to a degree on nukes ot keep other powers from attacking them.
BTW in your own words you have described a deterrent effect.
I know I have. I'm not denying the effect, I'm saying we shouldn't renew Trident.
Of course you would, you'd be OK with Putin having the only nukes in the world.
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
That is an ignorant lie. Where is the nomination phase for Corbyn to get nominations mentioned?
Why did Kinnock not need to get nominations?
Kinnock got 5/6 of the parliamentary party in that election in the electoral college, there were no nominations in those days. Once an election is forced it is conducted under normal rules and Corbyn is required to get nominated too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_1988
Categorically wrong Benn required nominations to get on the ballot.
There was no requirement for 12.5% of the PLP to provide nominations, all that was needed was a proposer and seconder as in those days the PLP provided a third of the electoral college
You could cut defence spending at a slash and improve our armed forces by getting rid of the fantasy that is Trident. In what way were ISIS deterred by the French nuclear arsenal. We can't afford it, it's not necessary and politicians should grow up.
As long as Putin and N Korea have nuclear weapons so should we and who knows what ISIS could acquire in future
Russia (and probably North Korea, the state we're in) could invade us several times over and we couldn't stop them. That's more of a real worry than domesday weapon top trumps. Trident no thanks. Conventional forces yes.
Not if send a nuclear strike on Moscow or Pyonyang. Russia and N Korea would have to get through Western Europe too and NATO would inevitably already have intervened against them, including ourselves, however what happens if they send a nuclear weapon first, of course we would need a response
Trident (even allowing the day dream that we can send it independently without the Americans using a back door kill switch) is a doomsday weapon. It is not there to prevent anyone being invaded, because you can be invaded without introducing nuclear Armageddon. It is there to prevent nuclear attack by another nuclear state - by the Soviet Union to be precise.
The USSR is called Russia nowadays. Only one nation has voluntarily and unilaterally disarmed its nuclear armaments and it has recently been invaded by Russia.
We've just been quite convincingly told in this thread that we can't be invaded by Russia. Which is it? Is the Bear knocking on our door or is it a load of overhyped bollocks?
So ii would be required first and a challenger would need to get 20%. Once that is achieved i would then come into play a contest having being forced and Corbyn would need to get his 12.5%. It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all. You said 'in practice' ie you have no evidence to back up your assumption. The advice was given by a Labour Party historian of decades standing.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
Can we have a name for this 'historian' please Hyufd? Because I am afraid at the stage where I do not believe you in your increasingly wild claims.
"It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all."
It is quite obvious that there is a different procedure for a challenge and a contest for a vacancy, but for some reason you are unwilling to let go of this strange belief that Corbyn would have to be renominated. Is it merely wishful thinking or do you have a large bet on Benn?
Look through the BBC Daily Politics archive.
What is taken for granted is that once a challenger has forced a contest that will be conducted under normal contest rules ie all candidates need nominations. Once a challenger has received his 20% of nominees then in effect a vacancy has actually been created and a contest forced. As I have also consistently pointed out Kinnock won over 75% of MPs in the electoral college in 1988 so if anything that reinforces my point, no candidate could go forward without sufficient MPs nominating him and behind him
No you are wrong a vacancy only exists if there is no leader. Once a challenger has received nominees then in effect he is a challenger and will proceed to the next stage against any other challengers to get nominated against the incumbent.
The precedent for Kinnock goes against you. Kinnock was not renominated while Benn did get nominated.
No wrong, if there is a leader and a challenger has received sufficient nominations to force a contest then he is a candidate and the incumbent is also required to get nominations to go forward to the ballot to be a candidate too.
Benn needed a proposer and seconder and then the contest was fought under normal rules, ie with the electoral college and the PLP comprising a third of the votes, a new contest now would again be fought under normal rules so that actually reinforces my point too
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
How much is enough in your opinion, just a rough percentage of GDP, will do
probably about £30bn pa extra including proper funding for social care would probably raise it to the top of the league and make us comparable with the likes of Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands etc but we would still be short of doctors and nurses in the short term because we train nowhere near enough.
I do understand how it happens, snipping for length etc, but the comments under my name in this little bit of a conversation are not mine. I do have some sympathy with the gist. People in places like Germany are finding it increasingly difficult to afford top up insurance and the result is a two tier service.
It appears the Paris attack conspirators based in France/Belgium was at least 13 in number if you don't include the apparent planner who is Belgian but based in Syria.
In these dark times, only an utter fool should entrust it to Mr Corbyn."
Ouch, ouch, ouch
Amusing comment from the thread
"I would have thought every sane state on earth, however keen on rule of law, has to allow "shoot to kill" in some circumstances, unless of course JC has technological whizz friends who are as we speak developing a weapon that will harmlessly yet instantaneously immobilise those on the point of killing other people, or maybe beam them up to the starship "Stop the War" where they will be treated humanely, and given a cuppa and a comfy chair until JC finds time to come up and chat with them sympathetically about their legitimate political grievances."
You do speak some tripe. The fact that people treat the NHS as a service not a religion does not mean that they care less about the sick than you do. Your sanctimony is nauseating.
Well you either ration or pay more you cannot have it both ways. What would you do?
How much is enough in your opinion, just a rough percentage of GDP, will do
probably about £30bn pa extra including proper funding for social care would probably raise it to the top of the league and make us comparable with the likes of Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands etc but we would still be short of doctors and nurses in the short term because we train nowhere near enough.
You heartless Bastard, just a few billion more and we could be the best in the world, why ration health care? Are you some sort of tory. You should be ashamed of yourself. Wives and daughters not receiving the best possible care, just so you can pay less tax.
LG83..You have yet to tell us how Russia and North Korea could easily invade the UK..take your time..you may have to confer with your minders..we can wait
"Some of the problems are thought to have deeper roots, including a 1970s decision to allow Saudi Arabia to send preachers with fundamentalist, Salafist teachings to Moroccan immigrants. The Great Mosque of Brussels is still owned by the Saudi royal family."
To ydoethur... Yes I agree with your reading and logic. Just think for a moment. It a challenger to an incumbent has to get 20% to force a contest (not 12.5 when there is no leader) then is the leader (the incumbent leader!) expected to get 20% himself as well before standing??? To pretend that the leader would need to seek nominations if challenged is plain stupid. But as I said at the time of the last campaign, the damage is done. Labour are a joke. And Labour would be revilled and split on the left amongst their activists if they fiddled a vote to remove Corbyn. They would be split by civil war anyway before during and after such an election rerun
No, of course 20% is more than 12.5% automatically, the incumbent is then also required to get the normal 12.5% once a challenge has been initiated as per normal party rules. Once a challenge has been forced then of course a leader needs nominations as that is part of the rules for a Labour leadership contest.
As I again pointed out a replacement for Corbyn would only plausibly be Hilary Benn who is of the Left anyway and thus less likely to trigger any real protests, much as Michael Howard, being a firm rightwinger too, never triggered any major protests from supporters of IDS
I'd cut health too. The concept that we are putting huge amount of resources into ensuring that humans eek out an extra few days, months or years in the most unbearable circumstances, whether t's terminal illness, dementia, old age or whatever surely needs looking at. It's not about resources either, it's about morality.
I spent an afternoon today on an acute ward in Florence- akin to night of the living dead. A ward populated by really old, sick people being kept alive. I felt sorrier for the families actually than the patients who were too sick, old and ill to care about anything.
(snipped)
IMHO we need to have a serious re-think about what we expect from the NHS. Part of the problem is, it's just too huge.
But I doubt if that re-think will be effective until our society is prepared to accept that we all have to die some day.
An anecdote: a friend's mother was in a situation such as you describe - really elderly, really sick - and the patients there were being kept alive by continuing to give them the daily medication they'd been taking for years. Withdrawing those medications would have enabled natural death to occur far sooner, without any horror stories about euthanasia or dying of thirst.
I have some sympathy with this view - I have a mother with terminal cancer, in a serious amount of pain essentially all the time.
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
Write a living will as soon as possible and tell your family what is in it and where you keep it.
Something that broke my heart a couple of weeks back was my mother being put in an ambulance and her continuously telling my father" I don't want to be resuscitated"
Back home again now, in a serious amount of pain and bed ridden.
My deepest sympathies. I hope her wishes are respected. Condolences to the entire family.
Comments
Earlier on, you say that Kinnock had to be renominated, now you admit he didn't. Of course he had to get support in that ballot - it was an election! That is an altogether different prospect from being nominated. Are you now going to admit you were wrong about that?
The rules appear to be perfectly clear, and for all the reasons I state, there is no realistic prospect of them being interpreted in the way you suggest. Even if they were, they would fail at a legal challenge.
And with that, goodnight to all.
EDIT - no, Hyufd, they would not be held under 'normal' rules. There are two procedures, for when there is a vacancy and when there isn't. There are clearly different procedures for a challenge to an incumbent from when there is no leader at all. A challenge backed by 20% of the party does not unseat the leader, it triggers an election. As the leader is the incumbent, they stand in that election unless they withdraw. The 12.5% threshold only applies when there is no leader in place.
Hope that is now cleared up for you.
The alternative to the above is a no shoot policy. The other point of course is that a terrorist with explosives strapped to him is extremely difficult to arrest. So even here it is difficult to justify a negotiation effort even if there is the appearance of surrender. If someone was stark naked I suppose they could be arrested and no doubt the intelligence they could provide would be worthwhile.
The best one can say of Corbyn is that he has little connection with reality.
Ever heard of multiple responses to multiple threats?
The rules distinguish explicitly between when there is a vacancy and when there is not, and specify the requirements in each case. So there is no implied "normal".
You are making this bilge up.
To arrest him and bring him to trial you would have to put boots on the ground, capture him if you could and then extract. No doubt the locals may not be overly cooperative to this activity.
The problem is for someone opposed to boots on the ground, bombing, intervention in the Middle East or even shoot to kill ...........how the hell does he intend anyone going in to make this " arrest" to actually achieve the task or even come out alive?
That in a nutshell shows that Corbyn is not only dangerous he is unstable to the point of deranged and should stick to manhole covers.
There could be no legal challenge as there is no legal evidence he would have to go on
I obviously would prefer her not to die, but it is coming and in truth she just wants the pain to end.
https://www.lawdepot.co.uk/contracts/living-will-advance-directive/?ldcn=livingwilluk&loc=GB&
I promise I've read every word, and not completely skipped over any of your posts.
Why did Kinnock not need to get nominations?
That is not credible.
Quadruple the excitement
North Korea then lobs a couple of battlefield nukes and it's all over. Wouldn't even need to take the covers off the ballistic ones. The left will never understand that though no matter how many times you try to explain it. I hate nukes but I understand the realities and understand disarmament should be done together and by mutual agreement.
........... Which brings us neatly back to North Korea.
He then proceeds to play an instrumental version of John Lennon's Imagine.
http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/05/06/12/labour-ed-miliband-stone-v2.jpg
I am sure the likes of Putin, Obama, Hollande, etc will have been a keen to find out what "Hug a Jahadi" Jez's view on manhole covers are.
"It says NOTHING about the contest then jumping straight to the membership with the incumbent being required to get no nominations at all."
No. Nor does it say they have to wear clothes. Or be Members of Parliament. Or indeed breathe. Those are sort of taken for granted. The key point is that it only requires challengers to have nominations. That means that the leader does not need renominating, because there is no vacancy. A challenge does not create such a vacancy. From a legal point of view, the Kinnock precedent alone is indeed sufficient.
It is quite obvious that there is a different procedure for a challenge and a contest for a vacancy, but for some reason you are unwilling to let go of this strange belief that Corbyn would have to be renominated. Is it merely wishful thinking or do you have a large bet on Benn?
They have a huge nuclear umbrella - the US'. And the UK's at 200 warheads at 100 kilotons each is all it needs to be to secure its deterrence objective.
Your argument seems to be changing from the UK's force is so puny it is useless to we don't need one because the Germans don't. Which is it?
As I have pointed out once a challenge is initiated an election is triggered under normal rules and the leader having had a contest forced requires nominations to enter it as any other candidate would
You just simply cannot put this stance before the voters at the general election. Well, you can, but it will be a bloodbath. Under a hundred seats.
Congratulations.
But obviously you are unwilling to let go of your manifestly erroneous position. Which is rather sad, as I've always treated your posts with considerable respect in the past, and hope I will be able to do so again in the future. On this point you are now being rather unreasonable.
However, I have controlled assessments to sort out in the morning, and cannot wait any longer to get to bed.
Good night.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_1988
Back home again now, in a serious amount of pain and bed ridden.
BTW in your own words you have described a deterrent effect.
They said they are ambiguous and there are technically actually 3 possibilities.
However legal advice has been taken by the Labour Party and that advice is that the leader does not need to be nominated.
No point whatsoever in having an argument about it - it is ambiguous - the only way it would be decided for 100% certain is if it goes to Court (if anyone challenged the procedure they decided to follow).
http://hurryupharry.org/2015/11/02/seumas-milne-hailing-the-london-riots/
What is taken for granted is that once a challenger has forced a contest that will be conducted under normal contest rules ie all candidates need nominations. Once a challenger has received his 20% of nominees then in effect a vacancy has actually been created and a contest forced. As I have also consistently pointed out Kinnock won over 75% of MPs in the electoral college in 1988 so if anything that reinforces my point, no candidate could go forward without sufficient MPs nominating him and behind him
The implication is that UKIP are value @ 3/1 or above.
I had £200 @ 9/1 on Friday night....
Just think for a moment. It a challenger to an incumbent has to get 20% to force a contest (not 12.5 when there is no leader) then is the leader (the incumbent leader!) expected to get 20% himself as well before standing??? To pretend that the leader would need to seek nominations if challenged is plain stupid.
But as I said at the time of the last campaign, the damage is done. Labour are a joke. And Labour would be revilled and split on the left amongst their activists if they fiddled a vote to remove Corbyn. They would be split by civil war anyway before during and after such an election rerun
The precedent for Kinnock goes against you. Kinnock was not renominated while Benn did get nominated.
I will get my coat :-)
-I have no belief that the USA would arm another country with the ability to inflict mass destruction on the USA with impunity. The idea is beyond ludicrous. Therefore I believe that Trident comes with 'kill switch' circuitry or some such system to give the US ultimate sanction. It's what we would all do if we were them.
-Even if this isn't true, the partnership with the USA on the programme means that without their support, it would collapse in months. Therefore if relations with that country should become cooler, the spend would become useless and we would be undefended. The same fact means that quite frankly they know too much - such as when they gave the serial numbers of all our nukes to the Russians a few years back during their 'reset'. What dependable ally does that?
-It is a vast and unwarranted contribution to the USA military industrial complex.
-I believe the technology to be out-dated, and the submarines to be detectable with new technologies, destroying the 'continuous at sea deterrent' aspect.
-Lastly and most importantly, we can't afford it. Not in the sense that we can't scrimp and save and keep it, but that it deals with a very limited set of scenarios, but spends a massively disproportionate proportion of our defence budget on them, leaving us ill equipped to face the actual and more common challenges that we face day to day.
I think HYUFD is proving that people believe what they want to believe.
;-)
http://hurryupharry.org/2015/11/16/an-idiot-speaks/
"The most fundamental right is life itself.
In these dark times, only an utter fool should entrust it to Mr Corbyn."
Ouch, ouch, ouch
Benn needed a proposer and seconder and then the contest was fought under normal rules, ie with the electoral college and the PLP comprising a third of the votes, a new contest now would again be fought under normal rules so that actually reinforces my point too
I do have some sympathy with the gist.
People in places like Germany are finding it increasingly difficult to afford top up insurance and the result is a two tier service.
"I would have thought every sane state on earth, however keen on rule of law, has to allow "shoot to kill" in some circumstances, unless of course JC has technological whizz friends who are as we speak developing a weapon that will harmlessly yet instantaneously immobilise those on the point of killing other people, or maybe beam them up to the starship "Stop the War" where they will be treated humanely, and given a cuppa and a comfy chair until JC finds time to come up and chat with them sympathetically about their legitimate political grievances."
"Some of the problems are thought to have deeper roots, including a 1970s decision to allow Saudi Arabia to send preachers with fundamentalist, Salafist teachings to Moroccan immigrants. The Great Mosque of Brussels is still owned by the Saudi royal family."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-attack-why-belgium-is-at-the-heart-of-a-destructive-wave-of-terror-in-europe-a6736996.html
As I again pointed out a replacement for Corbyn would only plausibly be Hilary Benn who is of the Left anyway and thus less likely to trigger any real protests, much as Michael Howard, being a firm rightwinger too, never triggered any major protests from supporters of IDS