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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ex-LAB MP Nick Palmer says “Don’t underestimate the interest that MPs have in survival”
The current turbulence in Labour is part of a wider picture seen across the West. Simmering dissatisfaction with established parties and politicians is generating support for iconoclastic individuals and movements in nearly every country to an extent not seen for a long time.
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well they've got others.
1) The disconnect between the Lab MPs and Corbyn
2) The disconnect between Lab MPs and the members
3) The disconnect between Corbyn & Lab members and the wider electorate
I think a war between Russia and Turkey is close to inevitable now, they have traditionally fought a war on each other since 1700 every 30 years on average, the last one was 100 years ago so another one is overdue.
Turkey is protected by NATO, however from the Russian view Turkey shot first and NATO covers it's members only if they are attacked not if they are the attackers, the first step I expect the russians to counterattack militarily on turkish targets or western targets in Syria if NATO suports Turkey.
Anyway because of this I now have to switch against UK military action over Syria having been in favour since the UN resolution passed, Turkey has militarily attacked Russia in that powder keg of the middle east therefore western fighter jets can possibly become russian military targets and shot down as payback over the Turkish attack.
Britain cannot afford a war with Russia, especially over Syria.
The Russians will counterattack, I hope they limit it on Turkey only and not drag the rest of NATO in it, but that depends on NATO disavowing the Turkish attack at least politically.
In any case Cameron's plan to bomb Syria is dead again, my apologies to Corbyn for doubting his judgement over this, Syria is too large of a powderkeg to get involved.
So Corbyn is rare?
One thing to be grateful for.
Britain cannot afford a war. Period.
80-85% of Labour MP's will always hate Corbyn.
But No.2 is not far behind.
Around 80-85% of Labour MP's have a radically different political opinion than the majority of Labour members.
No.3 is last due to the difference between the 30% that support Corbyn's views and the 60% that oppose is smaller that the ratio of Labour MP's to Corbyn and members.
Labour has painted itself into a corner, electing the holy fool, and they can't afford the luxury of opposition for another 9 years. They were pulverised in Scotland, the result in England was almost back to pre 1935 levels of support. Current polling would suggest that Corbyn would out perform in Miliband and Brown, taking Labour further out of sight and away from power.
Playing the long game, remind me how many elections the Tories needed to undo their catastrophic defeat of 1997. Labour can't wait 18 years.
Politicians, generally, play the long game. In Britain, it’s often the only game in town.
Politics is disastrously short term in the UK. The the ambition for the survival of an individual politician may be long term, in the eyes and actions of the politician.
When the prospect of Osborne no longer being Chancellor looked likely, the voters came out in force and gave Dave a majority to ensure Osborne remained Second Lord of the Treasury.
Vox populi, vox Dei
At the same time a poll of national voting intentions was published. It showed the Conservative party have opened up a 12 point lead over Labour, a rise of 5 points from last month. This followed on a poll from the weekend that showed the Tories ahead by 15 points.
Does anyone know which this poll is? Can't see it on the YG site.
And what's coherent or attractive about what Corbyn is offering? Voting both for and against the same motion depending on the time of the month, abstaining on key matters like defence, having the party and leader take diametrically opposed positions, and being against the peace process in Northern Ireland.
All those things you don't find attractive are designed to help real people. Small steps, maybe. Worthy - yes - but telling that you seem to imply that being worthy is not attractive. But above all focused on what politicians can do to help people. It may not be much but it's a lot better than someone focused on not sullying his precious principles with the reality of life as the rest of us live it, even to the extent of not being able to say in clear words that of course he would take all necessary action to stop maniacs slaughtering people on the streets of Britain.
I mean how F**king hard would that have been?! And yet plain speaking principled Mr Corbyn could only come out with some tortuous paragraph about stopping maniacs getting hold of guns.
Turkish warplanes have shot down a Russian military aircraft on the border with Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Su-24 was hit by air-to-air missiles fired by Turkish F-16s while it was flying over Syrian territory.
But Turkish military officials said the plane was engaged after being warned that it was violating Turkish airspace.
Mr Putin described the incident as a "stab in the back" committed by "accomplices of terrorists".
The crew ejected before the jet crashed in Latakia province, but Syrian rebels said at least one was dead.
For Morris Dancer, if you need me to explain the above tweet I'll happy educate you on it later on today.
I can't work out whether this meant to be damning of all Labour MPs - or is just Mr Palmer trying to rationalise his own weather-cock actions of recent months...
@RuthDavidsonMSP: Thought I'd try to Crowdfund 5k in a month. We're on course to hit target in a week. Thanks to everyone who's helped
https://t.co/50R3QfdNtD
@RuthDavidsonMSP: To be clear - as political crowdfunders seem under the spotlight at the moment - I have no access to the cash myself. #probity
Sounds like a very decent prospectus for a party.
Why does Nick dismiss such things ?!
So Putin's implication would appear to be this was a revenge attack for putting a stop to Turkey's cut price oil racket.
...
A fourth is “set up a new party”, but we’ve seen where that tends to lead with FPTP – oblivion, and the end of your working life."
How about a fifth.
Agree an amicable divorce, split into two parties.
Agree not to stand against each other via an electoral pact.
Agree to a short reforming parliament with a limited number of reforms.
Agree to implement Proportional Representation (preferably STV).
After a year (say) hold a new election and may the best new party win.
OK, it's a tall order, but all the other scenarios are pretty bleak for Labour. As others have noted not great for Britain either.
Nick, trust me, this guy is slightly less bonkers than Jeremy Corbyn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermin_Supreme
Or alternatively, Russian aircraft should not have overflown Turkish territory.
Again. (If they did so this time, which is looking distinctly possible).
Especially when those aircraft are of the same type as those from another combatant nation.
You could easily argue the opposite: Putin wants to make Turkey the outsider, allowing his puppet Assad to mop up the areas of the country Putin wants ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34906011
Survation do not support or endorse the way in which this poll’s findings have been interpreted.
Neither the headline nor the body text of articles published were discussed with or approved by Survation prior to publication. For reference, our own coverage and analysis can be found here:
Furthermore, Survation categorically objects to the use of any of our findings by any group, as has happened elsewhere on social networks, to incite racial or religious tensions.
In Conclusion.
Our view remains that the most meaningful way to interpret the results of this polling is in the proper context alongside a comparable sample of non-muslims, as we did in March of this year using identical methodology and the same question wording.
This comparison shows that “sympathy with” (distinct from “support for”) those travelling to fight in Syria (among any group) exists as a limited, minority view among both muslims and non-muslims, particularly among young people of both groups.
Such comparative polling was reported in March in a balanced way by Sky News “Poll: Majority Have No Sympathy With Extremists” and was uncontroversial at the time, despite the fact that that poll found higher levels of "sympathy" as described.
This latest poll in fact shows a fall in sympathy with fighters travelling to Syria among Muslims since March, something which we would consider the most pertinent new finding of that particular question.
I quote:
"Edinburgh Central covers the heart of Scotland’s capital. ... The constituency is currently held by the SNP (by a wafer-thin margin), but with your help, we can spread Tory blue across the length and breadth of the Edinburgh Central seat."
I was surprised to learn that Edinburgh Central was such a SNP/Tory marginal, so I checked out the last results....:
SNP 9,480
Labour 9,243
Liberal Democrats 5,937
Conservative 4,354
Hm. Well, it IS wafer thin, I suppose...
What's interesting in Nick's analysis - which I don't necessarily disagree with - is how little the voters feature in it. It's almost entirely internal. That's fine but those who define success in such insular terms often come a cropper when it's the electorate's turn.
The unanswered question is what these MPs, who value their survival so highly, do when Labour keeps losing elections? Is upsetting the membership and the leadership worth it if the alternative is doom anyway?
Political Parties have always changed their policies over time, often over a relatively short timescale and often successfully, with no surprise or disconnect from the public. Sometimes small groups of MPs and members sometimes accept that they're out of step with their party's mainstream on a particular issue but are in line with general principles enough that it is inconceivable that they could be anywhere else. Labour's trouble is twofold. A small group of very left wing Labour MPs but apparently a larger number of members increasingly began to feel during the Blair/Brown years that the general principles of the Party had changed and that they weren't sure that they did agree any more - and then they got elected to the Leadership.
An ex MP who slavishly and sycophantically supported 2 dreadful Labour leaders whose unelectability resulted in candidates like him losing 2 back to back elections tells us that Labour MPs may be wise to slavishly and sycophantically support an even worse leader.
What am I missing ?
I think it was a clever move by Ms Kuenssberg to ask such a daft question as "if the worst came to the worst, would you authorise a shoot to kill policy by the police?" There's only one possible answer to that - and that's why its a daft question.
Only to Jezza would it be a difficult question and obviously, she'd taken that into account. And she hit the jackpot. He could have said told her it was a silly question ... "Of course, there are circumstances where that was allowable but .." Then he could have gone on to go on to urge caution.
She left a gigantic elephant trap for him and he blundered in. She must think he's the biggest idiot she's ever interviewed, And she's right.
The UK should steer well clear of Syria.
Some poor kid, who was much brighter than him, more than likely missed out on a place at the same school.
No MP who has been there has anything positive to say about what they’ve seen, other than that their candidate, Jim McMahon, is hugely impressive. Some Labourites with a good knowledge of the seat are worried that the party may do well in postal votes, but perform poorly on polling day itself. ‘It therefore depends on us having a sophisticated postal vote operation in order to win,’ says one source."
http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/11/labour-nerves-build-about-oldham-west-and-royton-by-election/
But - it doesn't necessarily mean that's a good thing!
BTW, I dislike Erdogan. I shouldn't really need to say that, but the more frenetic on here need to be reminded occasionally ...
A corbynist party with even as low as 150 seats would be a triumph given its lunatic policies. Why would Corbyn resign even then? Why would even age cause him to resign Thank's to him his clique have their hands on labour power. With any luck for them an election defeat would sweep away the moderates, and that's before boundary changes and deselections.
He would stay until a replacement version of him can be promoted forward for his cultist followers to elect.
How could this cult collapse? Money. Or rather lack of it. And only if serious money could be raised d to oppose it could be expect an alternative.
A Greek's response to Turkey's claim of overflight of Turkish airspace.
Time to suspend NATO membership of Turkey? If we had done that before then the Turks would likely not have done this.
From the pie chart I saw on the last thread, the tory vote could be important.
Dave must have mixed feelings.
But it's amazing how often you don't get the obvious answer and how revealing the answers you do get are.
Nick's failure to continue as an MP followed the booting out of Blair.
Please get basic facts right.
It also begs the question of why they were allowing such activities to continue unhindered for the past 13 months.
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=e17762efe2cccb1f0ed943c1f&id=fbe2f0c637&e=50c0187e78
Remember, two Syrian aircraft were shot down in previous years for going over the Turkish border.
Why would Turkey shoot them down? Because the last thing they want are unknown foreign combat planes flying out of a war zone into their country. Not only does it break their sovereignty, as they're warplanes, they could bomb anywhere, whether on purpose or accidentally (if they're so off course as to overfly the wrong country, their bomb aiming might be similarly askew).
What do you expect Turkey to do in that situation?
(This all presupposes that the plane did overfly Turkey).
Labour's @JWoodcockMP really going for it with the SNP on Trident: "I would be happy to take on every one of you robots."
EDIT.
https://twitter.com/IsraelHatzolah/status/669140790107590656
The latest PC madness — yoga is racist and a form of "cultural appropriation"
http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/11/this-obsession-with-cultural-appropriation-is-leading-us-down-a-very-dark-path/
But remember that the Russians have apologised in the recent months for overflying Turkey, including planes allegedly locking on to Turkish planes:
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151005/1028036764/russia-turkey-airspace-border-violation.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/06/nato-chief-jens-stoltenberg-russia-turkish-airspace-violations-syria
Therefore there is precedent. Also, at this early stage the Turkish flight plan seems more persuasive than the Russian picture released. Both might be accurate (they need not be inconsistent), or one or both faked or inaccurate.
As for why shoot it down: see my previous post. The last thing a country wants is an unknown foreign aircraft flying over your border without permission from a war zone.
This was bound to happen: some on here (including me) have been warning about it for ages. There was a scare a few weeks ago that turned out to be just a rumour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Caliphate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegean_dispute#Turkish_Military_overflights
If so, it it easy to see the problems with your argument, and also why it is a very different matter. Even then accidents do occur, as in 2006.
But that's very different from an unknown plane entering an undisputed area of a country from an active, hot war zone.
When it comes to food, what’s appropriation and what’s not can be tricky to think about.
Cultural appropriation is when members of a dominant culture adopt parts of another culture from people that they’ve also systematically oppressed. The dominant culture can try the food and love the food without ever having to experience oppression because of their consumption.
With food, it isn’t just eating food from someone else’s culture. It might not be appropriation if you’re White and you love eating dumplings and hand pulled noodles. Enjoying food from another culture is perfectly fine.
But, food is appropriated when people from the dominant culture – in the case of the US, white folks – start to fetishize or commercialize it, and when they hoard access to that particular food.
So, next time you have a Lamb Biryani you should remember that you are racist scum continuing the vile oppression of Indians, Pakistanis, or Bangladeshis. I think.
My suggestion is he is one of those people whose notions arose without being taught indeed learning could be problematic if it conflicted with preconceptions.
I see he only lasted one year at polytechnic and that was doing trade union studies. It seems to me he does not like to 'think' too much.
It's a shame he seems to have given up wearing his Lenin cap
"However, the democratisation of leadership elections (membership rather than MPs) increases the likelihood that restless members elect a leader with different views to most MPs – who by definition were selected when the party was whatever it was before."
Yeah, that's your basic problem. And I wouldn't describe the Labour leadership election as particularly democratic; people were paying to take part in it even after the candidates were known. Grounds for failing an NVQ Level 1 in How To Run a Party.
Elections are won on the centre ground. I don't disagree that the concept may be shifting. But Corbyn is leading you in the wrong direction.
It amazes me how entitled some people think they are.
(This comment does not come with a trigger warning - if you are feeling oppressed by it, please take to Tumblr and complain loudly to your 2 followers there)
Also: 'Trigger Warnings' are such a piece of eye-roll-tastic bullshit from the professionally offended. Tossers, all.
Had more MPs stood up and manned up then these "leaders" may have been ditched and the MPs jobs saved.
History now repeating itself but worse..
BTW, we still need to have a "hair-off" to see who's the hairiest.
Now that's something for PBers to look forward to ...
Also, *if* the Turkish map is correct, they overflew it several times.
You never know. Maybe those middle class Liberals that migrated to and then took over the Labour Party, after their own party was shattered might go back home now.
Besides, how could I go walking when Sunil is working in his lab? Sunil, is your workplace mobile? How do you fancy working at the top of a mountain or two?
Or the really tricky question: do you fancy changing the little 'un's nappy ...