Basically there is an exhaustive ballot of MPs to choose two of their number whose names will go forward to the membership in a secret postal ballot. Given that so many of the blue team at Westminster owe their positions to Osborne it is highly likely that he’ll make the final cut. The issue is whether the membership will back him.
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FPT:
On the topic of movies:
Inside Out - quite brilliant. A work of genius by Pixar.
Steve Jobs - some superb dialogue, but structural issues (following the launch of each new project was very restricting. It felt and looked like a piece of filmed theatre.) Fassbender is good in the leading role - but not awards good.
The Revenant - a story of trappers in the snowy wastes of north America in the early 1800's, apparently based on a true story. It is beautifully filmed (worth the extreme measures they went to on location) - and the director (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who last did Birdman) stands a real shot at the Directors awards. But at two and a half hours, it is just way too long. di Caprio will no doubt get an Oscar nomination. He'll deserve it - it was clealy a gruelling film to make. It is hard watching in places - and not one for horse lovers! That said, there is one utterly astonishing moment that literally took my breath away.
The Hateful Eight - a Tarantino movie is always something to look forward to. One with eight bounty hunters trapped in a snowbound store, with a prisoner who has a ten thousand bucks bounty on her head - that was always promising. And I adored Django Unchained. Sadly, this movie is no Django. Another long movie, at close on two and a half hours, it feels like a much earlier work. The tone is uneven - a gross-out Stand By Me/Witches of Eastwick barforama for example seemed straight out of a student movie. Unusually, Samuel L. Jackson gives a not great performance. Maybe you will enjoy it more if you go into it without high expectations.
Another evening of movie watching to come - will let you know what I thought....
I thought he would have resigned after hiring Coulson or crying at Thatcher's funeral.
LOUISE!!!!!!!!!
On the movie front, I saw the last Mockingbird part last night - having enjoyed the books, I was curious how they'd do it. It's pretty close to the novels, making it curiously downbeat for a mass-market thriller. The import of some smash-bang special effects was an irritating innovation for the series (they're not going to get the Bond market anyway) but otherwise it was a good nuanced production.
Also finished The Bridge on BBC4 - distinctly bloodier than the earlier ones, but stylish as usual and Saga is always good fun. At one point her lover says something ambiguous about sex and gets the following exchange:
"Were you asking if you're the best lover I've had?"
"Er, no. But if I were to ask..."
"No. You aren't."
in her usual polite "You wished for information?" manner. I thought that this series was a bit short on detection breakthroughs - a lot of the case is solved serendipitously, with a bit of help from the murderer. It's not clear if there will be a sequel - the author hasn't yet decided.
The latest Homeland series finishes next week - still pretty controversial by European standards, but gripping anyway, with an ingenious nasty Russian double agent stealing some of the drama highlight from Kerry.
Couldn't the DKs simply be people waiting to make up their minds i.e. whether or not they vote Osborne depends on who else is standing.? After all, a lot of people assumed that David Davis would be the shoo-in after Howard until a young Mr Cameron appeared from nowhere.......
I'm not a particular fan of Osborne but I don't dislike him in the way others seem to, which seems a bit unhinged to me - but I do know people who have worked him with closely and they speak highly of him. They are people whose opinion I trust so that may colour my view.
I do not see Hammond or May or Boris as serious alternatives, TBH. May has even less of the common touch. Hammond is too dull and will not inspire and Boris is, I think, past it. With him, it's too much about him and his performance rather than about us.
Osborne swings 3% of the Labour vote to him, while he swings 4% of the Tory vote over to Corbyn.
Yet there's still PBTories who somehow think Osborne as leader has a chance of outdoing Cameron's General Election performances.
Things can change quickly as we saw in Scotland and there is clearly less loyalty to parties than there has ever been.
come back to the bear pit.
He's a non-starter for that reason.
At least with Jezza, there's a lot of reasons to dislike him.
Us politicos can gnash our teeth at how shallow the public are to judge politicians in those terms, but fair or not, that's the reality.
https://twitter.com/DanHannanMEP/status/678898983482298369
BTW, This thread is what one has come to expect over the Christmas Season.
To be sure, I find it very hard to imagine the public electing Corbyn as PM - but I find it no harder to imagine than the idea that people who didn't even vote for Cameron would EVER be willing to vote for Osborne. The latter lacks so many of the former's strengths in terms of public perceptions.
I view my own party's membership as an asset, not a "problem".
Poor lad, out there in the twitter wilderness, ranting away to his ~100 followers. Even the library teaboy, who is wrong on everything, has managed to build some sort of following.
TWEETS
9,570
Sigh...
If he doesn't, would he be decisive as a kingmaker? I would think that his endorsement could get someone into the last two but would the membership care what Osborne thought? A lot of Tories seem to view him as not truly one of the tribe (and, indeed, I'm not sure he is).
http://www.tnsglobal.co.uk/press-release/snp-shrugs-opposition-attacks-increase-holyrood-poll-lead
Davidson looks to have picked the wrong list with the Tories doing better in Glasgow than Lothian and the Greens looking like they are good for at least two MSPs from Lothian alone. If the Tory vote slips even a little then Davidson could be out of a job my May.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/679020671351971840
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2015/12/21/tis-the-season-to-be-trolling/
In the real world you don’t get to claim victimhood because you’re a hopelessly incompetent mendacious clown, but you do if you’re a Unionist in Scotland. And their trolling bleats of complaint are presented in all seriousness by a media which lost the plot years ago. It’s the fault of the SNP that Labour in Scotland are clueless balloons.
Dec 2014 Con 28 Lab 33
May 2015 Con 34 Lab 35
Dec 2015 Con 39 Lab 34
Even Mike on a recent thread said "From where I stand there are two ways that Corbyn could be brought down. The first is a growing realisation from polling and elections results that the Tories are a certainty for GE2020 and that the red team will be out of power till at least 2025. Nearly ten years is an awful long time."
However I am operating on a working assumption of a final two of Osborne & (ex-Leave Leader) May.
I'm really casting around trying to understand what other scenarios are likely.
I don't pretend that it is an unintended consequence of using the term.
He's dead right on those Osborne numbers.
Can anyone trust the polls after the shambles in May ?
One trilogy I'm reading which I think you may like is the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb.
Obviously you won't object to being referred to in such a manner, as you are perfectly willing to use such loaded terminology the other way.
So traitor, how are you today?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA17CsRffXI
Oil price hits 11 year low.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7QqgNcktbSA
Barring any event the 2020 result will be the 2015 result.
That's what he's trying to do: equate support for the Union with the more thuggish (or downright illegal) aspects of the Protestant Loyalists.
It's wrong, of course, divisive and sectarian. But that's what he's trying to achieve.
Immigration no longer the most important issue according to Ipsos Mori.
Leave really should listen to me
https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3673/EconomistIpsos-MORI-December-2015-Issues-Index.aspx
I don't really believe that the Tory leadership race will be allowed to interfere with the 2020 election. There's a massive and difficult hurdle before that with the EU, and if the Tories can negotiate that it'd be beyond daft to trip themselves up thereafter. With Corbyn at the Labour helm it should be a fairly straight run home.
The five year election cycle is having an effect on parties of all ilks. I imagine that both red and blue strategists are casting an envious eye at all that fresh raw material that the SNP have. Some is dross clearly, but there's the odd diamond being discovered. (Apologies to geologists).
Labour haven't had a great deal of new blood since 1997 - winning big has an enormous downside to that extent.
A UKIP full house.
NHS is the most important issue for just 8% of people.
Nuclear Weapons = 0%
Nationalisation = 0%
Issues of Some Importance
Nuclear Weapons = 3%
Nationalisation = 3%
Corbyn's 3% strategy.
A whole range of events could intervene.
These events could help or hinder just about everyone connected with any leadership ambitions.
Many many people have only the sketchiest knowledge of political personalities.
By basically giving in, they have now made a bigger story out of this and also hostage to fortune in regards to anything else from the past that somebody today doesn't agree with their morals. And lets be honest, Oxford and Cambridge is full of trappings of wealth granted to it, where by if you go looking hard enough, I am sure a huge percentage of people would have had activities or views that are no longer deemed acceptable.