And that's that at Durban. Any market on Amla to resign? He looks exhausted, he never wanted the job anyway, he's not scoring runs and they've lost four on the spin (literally).
The only reason for apologies is to correct "bad phrasing" , not the opinion.
"Wen I was a child ... as St Paul said.
But I don't think, for instance, that Ken Livingstone should have apologised to Kevan Jones. He felt annoyed with him and meant to insult him. He meant to cause offence.
He succeeded.
Pretending to apologise "for causing offence" is then illogical.
Apologising for having opinions which were mainstream thirty years ago, is even sillier.
Should I apologise now for this comment if in thirty years time, someone finds it offensive?
Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?
"Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?"
As a race of super-intelligent rabbits, transmitting this message from the future and temporarily taking over this account, we would like to complain about your comment.
But we won't bother, as we won the human-rabbit wars. LOL.
Obviously mice. After all, they are are the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings. Super-intelligent rabbits would not stand a chance, even if they had been cross-bred with the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.
My biggest error of the year, like Alastair's, was believing that there would be a Labour minority government. I maintained that belief right up to the date of the election despite forecasting Armageddon for Labour in Scotland, noting the Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands. By election night I was persuaded that the Tories would be the largest party but an overall majority on those boundaries was beyond my wildest dreams.
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
What will take its place? Probably rather more wishful thinking given that the objective criteria of polling will be discounted. This really should improve the odds and the spreads if only by increasing the risks and the uncertainties.
And that's that at Durban. Any market on Amla to resign? He looks exhausted, he never wanted the job anyway, he's not scoring runs and they've lost four on the spin (literally).
And next time England will have a reinvigorated Anderson and they won't have Steyn at all. SA cricket seems to be in free fall at the moment.
If you import, en masse, people from a poor country, and bung them in estates with the poorest in the host country, you are asking for trouble. When there is a race element as well, there is more trouble as, when tensions crack, noticeable differences are blamed, and this dividing line becomes the focus when in reality it is not the main cause (that being low wages & unemployment)
If we only accepted immigrants that could support themselves and were professionals in middle class wage jobs, the ghettoization and segregation would not exist to the extent it does now, and did in the 80s
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
The fact that 30 years ago a politician of any kind felt that black people generally would prioritise drugs and discos with any aid they were given is exactly the kind of institutional racism that black people complained about. It turns out they were totally correct.
Letwin probably was reflecting a wider feeling that was held at the time. I genuinely don't think that it exists anymore and I think he is genuinely mortified that he held such views. He has rightly apologised unreservedly and that is that. We have moved on.
SO: it is wrong to assume that all black people will use money for drugs. Of course it is. But there was a significant drugs problem in Brixton, where I lived in the mid-1980's, and in Notting Hill, where I worked in the early 1980's and some in the black community were involved. Many of those who took drugs were white of course. It took a lot of effort to deal with it and the police did not behave well - as the Scarman report pointed out. But to pretend that there was no drugs issue is a fairy story. Just as it would be a fairy story to pretend now that there is not an issue with black-on-black knife violence - and for a time it was ignored because the police either preferred not to deal with it or through a sort of racism of indifference (no less damaging in its effects) thought it did not matter because it only affected blacks.
Very few of us will not have changed our views on some things over 30 years - unless we're Corbyn of course. It's the mark of an adult.
I completely agree. Letwin's apology should be the end of it. The world has changed significantly in the last 30 years, largely for the better.
He still is and always has been a real bell end. Your real nasty smug sneering Tory halfwitted cretin.
Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands.
That's *the* thing that I chastise myself over. I noticed it, thought about it, actually correctly figured out what it meant but was still mesmerised by the hung Parliament group-think.
The only reason for apologies is to correct "bad phrasing" , not the opinion.
"Wen I was a child ... as St Paul said.
But I don't think, for instance, that Ken Livingstone should have apologised to Kevan Jones. He felt annoyed with him and meant to insult him. He meant to cause offence.
He succeeded.
Pretending to apologise "for causing offence" is then illogical.
Apologising for having opinions which were mainstream thirty years ago, is even sillier.
Should I apologise now for this comment if in thirty years time, someone finds it offensive?
Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?
"Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?"
As a race of super-intelligent rabbits, transmitting this message from the future and temporarily taking over this account, we would like to complain about your comment.
But we won't bother, as we won the human-rabbit wars. LOL.
Obviously mice. After all, they are are the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings. Super-intelligent rabbits would not stand a chance, even if they had been cross-bred with the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
One reason I keep a record of yearly predictions is to see when I changed my mind and about what. The things I get wrong are always more interesting to me than the things I get right. Sometimes you can be right by accident. When you're wrong, you're wrong.
And that's that at Durban. Any market on Amla to resign? He looks exhausted, he never wanted the job anyway, he's not scoring runs and they've lost four on the spin (literally).
And next time England will have a reinvigorated Anderson and they won't have Steyn at all. SA cricket seems to be in free fall at the moment.
Possibly. Although if it were me, I would hold Anderson back for the third test and give him more time. No sense in rushing him back when Woakes did a perfectly serviceable fill-in job as fifth seamer and the South African batting line-up appear anxious to self-destruct to the mighty Mo!
The loss of Steyn would be a terrible blow for South Africa. He's not just the best seamer in the world, he's one of the best of all time. That would leave literally everything riding on poor old AB de Villiers, who has already been complaining about being overburdened.
Not a happy situation for them. Almost as bad as ours during that last horror tour of Australia.
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
One reason I keep a record of yearly predictions is to see when I changed my mind and about what. The things I get wrong are always more interesting to me than the things I get right. Sometimes you can be right by accident. When you're wrong, you're wrong.
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
No, we wouldn't. Knowing the difference between right and wrong and behaving accordingly has nothing to do with wealth and certainly nothing to do with living on a council estate.
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
No, we wouldn't. Knowing the difference between right and wrong and behaving accordingly has nothing to do with wealth and certainly nothing to do with living on a council estate.
The pressure of scraping a living or relying on benefits due to unemployment is a major factor in the bad decisions people make
My biggest error of the year, like Alastair's, was believing that there would be a Labour minority government. I maintained that belief right up to the date of the election despite forecasting Armageddon for Labour in Scotland, noting the Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands. By election night I was persuaded that the Tories would be the largest party but an overall majority on those boundaries was beyond my wildest dreams.
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
What will take its place? Probably rather more wishful thinking given that the objective criteria of polling will be discounted. This really should improve the odds and the spreads if only by increasing the risks and the uncertainties.
My final prediction (IIRC) was something like Con 285, Lab 265, SNP 45, Lib Dem 25, UKIP 6, Others 24. I was expecting Con/Lab vote shares of something like 35/33%.
LOL. This England team are becoming increasingly resilient, even to my less than helpful comments.
But Taylor surely has everyone wondering why he wasn't in the team years ago, Finn has his mojo back, Ali is back to where he belongs in the batting order and I have to accept that Compton is adding solidity at the top, albeit slowly.
I would still like to see Buttler in the team, I hope Hales gets a proper chance and there is an inevitable worry about what happens when the Broad/Anderson era comes to an end but for now they are very much on the up.
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
One reason I keep a record of yearly predictions is to see when I changed my mind and about what. The things I get wrong are always more interesting to me than the things I get right. Sometimes you can be right by accident. When you're wrong, you're wrong.
eh?
Sorry that was a bit oblique. Yes, I changed my mind during 2014 about UKIP's prospects. I expected it to decline in the polls after the EU elections. They didn't - how much that was down to the publicity from the two defections I'm still not sure. I was consistently behind the curve about UKIP's rise in the polls. By the end, however, I overestimated how many seats that rise would translate into.
As for the rest, it's much harder to learn from success than from failure. Have you been lucky or were you skilful? You can't ignore failure if you expect to improve.
The fact that 30 years ago a politician of any kind felt that black people generally would prioritise drugs and discos with any aid they were given is exactly the kind of institutional racism that black people complained about. It turns out they were totally correct.
Letwin probably was reflecting a wider feeling that was held at the time. I genuinely don't think that it exists anymore and I think he is genuinely mortified that he held such views. He has rightly apologised unreservedly and that is that. We have moved on.
SO: it is wrong to assume that all black people will use money for drugs. Of course it is. But there was a significant drugs problem in Brixton, where I lived in the mid-1980's, and in Notting Hill, where I worked in the early 1980's and some in the black community were involved. Many of those who took drugs were white of course. It took a lot of effort to deal with it and the police did not behave well - as the Scarman report pointed out. But to pretend that there was no drugs issue is a fairy story. Just as it would be a fairy story to pretend now that there is not an issue with black-on-black knife violence - and for a time it was ignored because the police either preferred not to deal with it or through a sort of racism of indifference (no less damaging in its effects) thought it did not matter because it only affected blacks.
Very few of us will not have changed our views on some things over 30 years - unless we're Corbyn of course. It's the mark of an adult.
I completely agree. Letwin's apology should be the end of it. The world has changed significantly in the last 30 years, largely for the better.
He still is and always has been a real bell end. Your real nasty smug sneering Tory halfwitted cretin.
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
No, we wouldn't. Knowing the difference between right and wrong and behaving accordingly has nothing to do with wealth and certainly nothing to do with living on a council estate.
The pressure of scraping a living or relying on benefits due to unemployment is a major factor in the bad decisions people make
No, it is an excuse put forward for bad behaviour by, and often on behalf of, people who do not know the difference between right and wrong or are too self-centred to care.
Taylor surely has everyone wondering why he wasn't in the team years ago, Finn has his mojo back, Ali is back to where he belongs in the batting order and I have to accept that Compton is adding solidity at the top, albeit slowly.
I agree about Taylor and Compton, and I have been puzzled about Taylor's omission for a very long time. But I disagree about Ali. He should really be at no. 6 and told to hit the ball as hard and often as he can. He's a better batsman than Stokes and has a better record as a bowler - a genuine all-rounder if he keeps this up - but he doesn't get the chance to show his batting talent properly because he's either a place too low or 4 places too high.
And if Stokes and Ali are in the same team, why not play a specialist keeper, e.g. Chris Read? Would be great fun watching him standing up to Ben Stokes to put the batsman under pressure.
My biggest error of the year, like Alastair's, was believing that there would be a Labour minority government. I maintained that belief right up to the date of the election despite forecasting Armageddon for Labour in Scotland, noting the Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands. By election night I was persuaded that the Tories would be the largest party but an overall majority on those boundaries was beyond my wildest dreams.
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
What will take its place? Probably rather more wishful thinking given that the objective criteria of polling will be discounted. This really should improve the odds and the spreads if only by increasing the risks and the uncertainties.
My final prediction (IIRC) was something like Con 285, Lab 265, SNP 45, Lib Dem 25, UKIP 6, Others 24. I was expecting Con/Lab vote shares of something like 35/33%.
By election day I was pretty much the same but I was still concerned about how much advantage voting efficiency would give Labour despite endless posts by me explaining why I thought it would be much reduced. Sometimes even I should listen to me!
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
Regarding GE polling, we do know that error wasn't random but that there has been a consistent tendency to overstate Lab/understate Con (except in 2010). We are getting methodological changes and I expect we'll spend time debating if they have gone too far or not far enough. I think we can still get some intelligence from polls, however, and that there will be profit to be made from those who say "the polls don't know anything".
What I'm very doubtful about is referendum polling.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
One reason I keep a record of yearly predictions is to see when I changed my mind and about what. The things I get wrong are always more interesting to me than the things I get right. Sometimes you can be right by accident. When you're wrong, you're wrong.
eh?
Sorry that was a bit oblique. Yes, I changed my mind during 2014 about UKIP's prospects. I expected it to decline in the polls after the EU elections. They didn't - how much that was down to the publicity from the two defections I'm still not sure. I was consistently behind the curve about UKIP's rise in the polls. By the end, however, I overestimated how many seats that rise would translate into.
As for the rest, it's much harder to learn from success than from failure. Have you been lucky or were you skilful? You can't ignore failure if you expect to improve.
I was pretty much spot on in terms of UKIP's vote share (I long predicted 11-13%) but not the seats. I would have predicted that Boston, Thurrock, Castle Point, Thanet South, and one other out of Grimsby, Hartlepool, Rotherham, Rother Valley, would go UKIP.
"Thousands of British tourists are preparing to take advantage of cut price holiday bargains at resorts Egypt and Tunisia, despite the threat of further terrorist attacks"
The Brits at their best - sod the terrorists we want a good cheap holiday in the sun. Excellent.
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
No, we wouldn't. Knowing the difference between right and wrong and behaving accordingly has nothing to do with wealth and certainly nothing to do with living on a council estate.
The pressure of scraping a living or relying on benefits due to unemployment is a major factor in the bad decisions people make
No, it is an excuse put forward for bad behaviour by, and often on behalf of, people who do not know the difference between right and wrong or are too self-centred to care.
I can forgive Antifrank as he made the bet in 2013, and may well have changed his mind by this time last year, but it is baffling for me to read comments from people that bet me at odds on/Even money that UKIP would get less than 9-10% claiming they knew UKIP would do well in votes but not seats
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
One reason I keep a record of yearly predictions is to see when I changed my mind and about what. The things I get wrong are always more interesting to me than the things I get right. Sometimes you can be right by accident. When you're wrong, you're wrong.
eh?
Sorry that was a bit oblique. Yes, I changed my mind during 2014 about UKIP's prospects. I expected it to decline in the polls after the EU elections. They didn't - how much that was down to the publicity from the two defections I'm still not sure. I was consistently behind the curve about UKIP's rise in the polls. By the end, however, I overestimated how many seats that rise would translate into.
As for the rest, it's much harder to learn from success than from failure. Have you been lucky or were you skilful? You can't ignore failure if you expect to improve.
Well I cant believe anyone who is semi successful in gambling doesn't keep a record of every bet and analyse the results, that's a Republic of Ireland goalkeeper. On the morning of the election my bets were worth 50% more than my stake and I saw no reason to get out of them... but I lost! What do I draw from that? I'd take the same value of book on the morning of the next GE
Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands.
That's *the* thing that I chastise myself over. I noticed it, thought about it, actually correctly figured out what it meant but was still mesmerised by the hung Parliament group-think.
Yep, the warning signs were there and we generally spotted them but allowed the polls to dominate our thinking. JackW was clearly getting inside information from the Tory campaign and they knew what was really going on.
I find the fact that they (and Labour to a certain extent) got it so right when the polls were really wrong is also really interesting and maybe indicates a way ahead for the pollsters whose future otherwise looks bleak.
But the main reason all these attacks have bounced off Corbyn and Co, and left them more or less still standing and seemingly undamaged, is that they are, after all, only attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. They are not attacks on individuals who might be considered serious candidates for high office by the wider electorate.
If such serious individuals were to suffer such attacks, you could be sure there would be a public appetite for a deeper, longer examination of the charges.
Instead there’s an apathetic shrug; people have more important things to worry about.
The only reason for apologies is to correct "bad phrasing" , not the opinion.
"Wen I was a child ... as St Paul said.
But I don't think, for instance, that Ken Livingstone should have apologised to Kevan Jones. He felt annoyed with him and meant to insult him. He meant to cause offence.
He succeeded.
Pretending to apologise "for causing offence" is then illogical.
Apologising for having opinions which were mainstream thirty years ago, is even sillier.
Should I apologise now for this comment if in thirty years time, someone finds it offensive?
Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?
"Have I just fallen down a rabbit hole?"
As a race of super-intelligent rabbits, transmitting this message from the future and temporarily taking over this account, we would like to complain about your comment.
But we won't bother, as we won the human-rabbit wars. LOL.
there is an inevitable worry about what happens when the Broad/Anderson era comes to an end but for now they are very much on the up.
If we don't find replacements then we go back to being rubbish?
Imo, the power rankings in test cricket mostly come down to whether a team has one or more seriously threatening fast bowlers. If they do, they are contenders, otherwise not.
Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands.
That's *the* thing that I chastise myself over. I noticed it, thought about it, actually correctly figured out what it meant but was still mesmerised by the hung Parliament group-think.
Yep, the warning signs were there and we generally spotted them but allowed the polls to dominate our thinking. JackW was clearly getting inside information from the Tory campaign and they knew what was really going on.
I find the fact that they (and Labour to a certain extent) got it so right when the polls were really wrong is also really interesting and maybe indicates a way ahead for the pollsters whose future otherwise looks bleak.
Yes!
What was so striking was that both campaigns seemed to know what was happening but no-one else did.
Though here's an oddity. It's said that Ed was working on his victory speech at 21.59. Did he not find it strange that he had been campaigning in North Warwickshire the day before?
It's a peculiar phenomenon. I watched a docu about the behaviour a while ago - the stereotype being the gangsta who will kill you for disrespecting his mother, not because he feels slurred or wants to enjoy killing you, but because some *respectable behaviour* line has been crossed. Honour amongst thieves is another.
Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands.
That's *the* thing that I chastise myself over. I noticed it, thought about it, actually correctly figured out what it meant but was still mesmerised by the hung Parliament group-think.
Yep, the warning signs were there and we generally spotted them but allowed the polls to dominate our thinking. JackW was clearly getting inside information from the Tory campaign and they knew what was really going on.
I find the fact that they (and Labour to a certain extent) got it so right when the polls were really wrong is also really interesting and maybe indicates a way ahead for the pollsters whose future otherwise looks bleak.
I think you might be trying to build some cunning masterplan here when it didn't exist.
I don't think the Conservatives had any idea that they would gain seats from Labour:
' There were a lot of rumblings from the Conservative faithful of not enough support from the central party. One said Lucy Allan had been "left hung out to dry", with no heavy hitters, let alone Cameron himself, visiting the seat. '
Likewise is there any evidence that the Conservative leadership made any effort in the other seats they gained from Labour ? Or indeed into some of the 'surprise' holds in the midlands and North.
I think its easy to read too much into Cameron campaigning in LibDem seats - you take gains where you can get them and the LibDems were not likely to be the willing coalition partners a second time as some people thought they would be. It might well have been that the Conservative leadership thought it would easier to gain seats from the LibDems than hold seats against Labour.
Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands.
That's *the* thing that I chastise myself over. I noticed it, thought about it, actually correctly figured out what it meant but was still mesmerised by the hung Parliament group-think.
By May, it was clear that Labour were going to get a monumental stuffing in Scotland. SLAB were admitting it.
By May, all the signs were there that the LibDems were going to get a stuffing everywhere. The poll of the SW constituencies showing this was almost certainly not given enough weight at the time. But even I - one of the most bearish on LibDem prospects with 17 seats in the competitions - was more than surprised when the Home Secretary's Special Branch bod told me they were going on from Torbay to Yeovil. That was a seat that I thought would take two elections to fall. That it was getting top tier visits was remarkable.
By May, it did seem that UKIP weren't going to get much of a breakthrough in seats. It wasn't a surprise to me that Farage didn't win - I had also been very bearish on UKIP seats, consistently saying they would get just the one seat - Carswell.
However, the joker in the pack was the extent to which Labour would fail to make progress against Tory target seats. We did have some reports on here from some canvassing by East Midlands Tories that the Tory vote was holding up very well - and places like Amber Valley were going to be a hold. Again, we should have paid more attention to that. I know there is a good deal of skepticism about unduly optimistic assessments from workers on the ground. But we were't hearing anything back from Labour to say this was all toss. Indeed, when the report on (I think) Labour Uncut said the postals were looking horrible, this should have been seen as a validation of those reports from Tories on the ground.
And then there was Ed Miliband. Every ounce off my political nous told me that people just would not vote for him as PM. He was Kinnock 2.0...
Tory majority always looked a stretch. It needed some very unlikely holds - and frankly, some truly unusual wins. But going into the last week of the campaign, Labour were always going to be a distant second place when it came to their chances of getting into Downing Street.
Not sure of the exact date but after Salmond had boasted about writing the Labour budget I knew the polls had to be wrong, I overheard two women in my town centre who were unlikely Tories but who had both voted Tory because of the THREAT from the SNP. For me that was the turning point. I had felt the polls couldn't all be showing the same thing and was very suspicious of them. I certainly didn't know 12 months previously and would have been even more wrong than Antifrank.. predictionwise
The powers that be on here don't like this being discussed, but it was blindingly obvious that the polls were being produced to fit the narrative. That said, I didn't think the Tories would end up 6.6 pp ahead of Labour. I think it would good to have more regional polling. There was a Comres (I think) for the South West that hinted at what was coming to the Lib Dems.
My biggest error of the year, like Alastair's, was believing that there would be a Labour minority government. I maintained that belief right up to the date of the election despite forecasting Armageddon for Labour in Scotland, noting the Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands. By election night I was persuaded that the Tories would be the largest party but an overall majority on those boundaries was beyond my wildest dreams.
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
What will take its place? Probably rather more wishful thinking given that the objective criteria of polling will be discounted. This really should improve the odds and the spreads if only by increasing the risks and the uncertainties.
My final prediction (IIRC) was something like Con 285, Lab 265, SNP 45, Lib Dem 25, UKIP 6, Others 24. I was expecting Con/Lab vote shares of something like 35/33%.
By election day I was pretty much the same but I was still concerned about how much advantage voting efficiency would give Labour despite endless posts by me explaining why I thought it would be much reduced. Sometimes even I should listen to me!
I could never get my head around where 20+, let alone 30+, LD seats were going to come from. With their vote share so far down it would have required lost deposits in the vast majority of seats they didn't hold whilst holding on to tactical votes in their Tory-facing marginals. The latter would have required most of the Labour supporters who previously voted Lib Dem "to keep the Tories out" to continue to do so, whilst the former would have required significant numbers of people who voted LD in 2010 because they actually supported them to have switched.
It never seemed plausible. I regret not having had the bankroll available in the spring to be able to take advantage of it.
It's a peculiar phenomenon. I watched a docu about the behaviour a while ago - the stereotype being the gangsta who will kill you for disrespecting his mother, not because he feels slurred or wants to enjoy killing you, but because some *respectable behaviour* line has been crossed. Honour amongst thieves is another.
Apart from Byrne and Laws = No Money Left note, I'd struggle to name any ChSec to Treasury. Was that Danny Alexander's job? The shadow version - not a chance.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
From Protein World to Donald Trump, militant feminist Julie Bindel to the Phil Collins comeback, 2015 was the year when Protest Culture Syndrome became a new disease.
Globally, millions succumbed to this devastating virus of the brain, spread via Twitter and NUS meetings. Sufferers lurched towards gagging orders and change.org petitions the moment absolutely anything even remotely offended them.
Loved this bit
Sticking with the same happy-go-lucky conference, certain tinpot despots at the Solihull meet issued a Zero Tolerance Statement that banned heterosexual men from “cross-dressing as a mode of fancy dress” not because they look horrible, but because it is "a pillory of trans people”.
Confusingly, gay fellas were still allowed to dress as drag queens, as it is an “exploration of queer identity”.
Not sure of the exact date but after Salmond had boasted about writing the Labour budget I knew the polls had to be wrong, I overheard two women in my town centre who were unlikely Tories but who had both voted Tory because of the THREAT from the SNP. For me that was the turning point. I had felt the polls couldn't all be showing the same thing and was very suspicious of them. I certainly didn't know 12 months previously and would have been even more wrong than Antifrank.. predictionwise
The powers that be on here don't like this being discussed, but it was blindingly obvious that the polls were being produced to fit the narrative. That said, I didn't think the Tories would end up 6.6 pp ahead of Labour. I think it would good to have more regional polling. There was a Comres (I think) for the South West that hinted at what was coming to the Lib Dems.
Yes, and Survation self-censoring their outlier poll was truly disgraceful.
'Mrs Thatcher asked for an investigation into whether the adverts might breach the advertising code as well as the Obscenity Act. When the answer came back that the campaign was legal, she said: 'I remain against certain parts of this advertisement. Adverts where every young person will read and learn of practices they never knew about will do harm.' Sir Norman wrote back: "Unless there is a reference to anal intercourse, which has been linked with 85 per cent of Aids cases so far, the advertisement would lose all its medical authority and credibility."'
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
That is a good one. David Willetts is supposed to be very clever. However, when I read his book 'The Pinch' I was appalled. Not only were most of its facts wrong - for example, most British people were not homeowners in the 1950s - but his English was terrible. Unintentionally, I am sure, he spent most of his time talking about the difficulties the Baby Boomer generation face in bringing up their baby goats and getting onto the housing ladder. Which makes no sense, as goats don't live in houses.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
Miss Plato, ha, I've seen a few piss-taking covers of that.
The rampant hypocrisy when it comes to people wearing very little is somewhere between despicable and amusing. I'm a relatively skinny bloke, but the idea of someone else having a sixpack making me feel inferior is odd (I bet those shirtless chaps don't have the first idea of Aurelian's achievements in the 3rd century).
Much as men would be better off imitating women when it comes to talking about problems (which would hopefully reduce the suicide rate), women should copy men when it comes to being a bit less over-sensitive about photos of attractive people.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
I'm sure I could find pix on Twitter of goats in houses. I once viewed a property that unexpectedly had a house sheep - a massive ram called Rambo. Let's just say that the estate agent forgot to mention that domestic nugget.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
That is a good one. David Willetts is supposed to be very clever. However, when I read his book 'The Pinch' I was appalled. Not only were most of its facts wrong - for example, most British people were not homeowners in the 1950s - but his English was terrible. Unintentionally, I am sure, he spent most of his time talking about the difficulties the Baby Boomer generation face in bringing up their baby goats and getting onto the housing ladder. Which makes no sense, as goats don't live in houses.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
Most of what Letwin said is the same point that Tebbit made about his father not rioting just because he was poor / unemployed. Letwin's error seems to be that he inserted the word "white" into his anecdote about the good-old-days, and then said the silly stuff about discos-and-drugs.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
That is a good one. David Willetts is supposed to be very clever. However, when I read his book 'The Pinch' I was appalled. Not only were most of its facts wrong - for example, most British people were not homeowners in the 1950s - but his English was terrible. Unintentionally, I am sure, he spent most of his time talking about the difficulties the Baby Boomer generation face in bringing up their baby goats and getting onto the housing ladder. Which makes no sense, as goats don't live in houses.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
I was listening to an interview with Willetts on R4 just before Xmas,
He was heading some think tank which was trying to sound concerned about young folk being crapped on. It didn't seem to occur to him that if you shaft the young with uni fees, push up house prices and raise their taxes while doshing up pensioners, then the gap between the baby boomers and the current 20 somethings is only going to get bigger.
I made the mistake of actually doubting my own instinct - the reports of Miliband in odd constituencies, that Brand interview, poor postal vote returns, milbands dire ratings...
And yet I somehow convinced myself the polls were right and that they couldn't be wrong...
(And reliving this election makes me realise just how awful it'll be for Labour if corbyn remains in charge)
Incidentally, i happened to notice earlier today that today is what would have been the 80th birthday of President Omar Bongo of Gabon. I noticed it because I have his Daily Telegraph obituary on my bedroom wall (it's next to those of Gwyneth Dunwoody and Nicholas Fairbairn).
I'm sure I could find pix on Twitter of goats in houses. I once viewed a property that unexpectedly had a house sheep - a massive ram called Rambo. Let's just say that the estate agent forgot to mention that domestic nugget.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
That is a good one. David Willetts is supposed to be very clever. However, when I read his book 'The Pinch' I was appalled. Not only were most of its facts wrong - for example, most British people were not homeowners in the 1950s - but his English was terrible. Unintentionally, I am sure, he spent most of his time talking about the difficulties the Baby Boomer generation face in bringing up their baby goats and getting onto the housing ladder. Which makes no sense, as goats don't live in houses.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
Somethings are just so surprising. My dad used to wander round the house in his leopard print smalls, my husband didn't know if his dad had a hairy chest as he'd never seen him without shirt and tie. Both the same age - but totally different social values.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
Incidentally, i happened to notice earlier today that today is what would have been the 80th birthday of President Omar Bongo of Gabon. I noticed it because I have his Daily Telegraph obituary on my bedroom wall (it's next to those of Gwyneth Dunwoody and Nicholas Fairbairn).
I know I'm going to regret this question, but how do you decide which obituaries to put on your bedroom wall?
(I'll leave to one side the bigger question why you put obituaries on your bedroom wall.)
By May, it was clear that Labour were going to get a monumental stuffing in Scotland. SLAB were admitting it.
By May, all the signs were there that the LibDems were going to get a stuffing everywhere. The poll of the SW constituencies showing this was almost certainly not given enough weight at the time. But even I - one of the most bearish on LibDem prospects with 17 seats in the competitions - was more than surprised when the Home Secretary's Special Branch bod told me they were going on from Torbay to Yeovil. That was a seat that I thought would take two elections to fall. That it was getting top tier visits was remarkable.
By May, it did seem that UKIP weren't going to get much of a breakthrough in seats. It wasn't a surprise to me that Farage didn't win - I had also been very bearish on UKIP seats, consistently saying they would get just the one seat - Carswell.
However, the joker in the pack was the extent to which Labour would fail to make progress against Tory target seats. We did have some reports on here from some canvassing by East Midlands Tories that the Tory vote was holding up very well - and places like Amber Valley were going to be a hold. Again, we should have paid more attention to that. I know there is a good deal of skepticism about unduly optimistic assessments from workers on the ground. But we were't hearing anything back from Labour to say this was all toss. Indeed, when the report on (I think) Labour Uncut said the postals were looking horrible, this should have been seen as a validation of those reports from Tories on the ground.
And then there was Ed Miliband. Every ounce off my political nous told me that people just would not vote for him as PM. He was Kinnock 2.0...
Tory majority always looked a stretch. It needed some very unlikely holds - and frankly, some truly unusual wins. But going into the last week of the campaign, Labour were always going to be a distant second place when it came to their chances of getting into Downing Street.
By the start of the last week I was expecting about 300 Con seats. I had been expecting more like 285 up to that point. JackW's prediction on here helped change my mind. Also the Ed Stone.
It is very difficult to evaluate reports from people campaigning on the ground as they do tend to be optimistic. I remember your own predictions for the South-West were solid (and thanks btw). Thing is, there was plenty of Labour optimism as well. Of PB denizens, Nick Palmer seemed very confident of victory.
I do try to keep a note of who has been a true and false prophet.
Somethings are just so surprising. My dad used to wander round the house in his leopard print smalls, my husband didn't know if his dad had a hairy chest as he'd never seen him without shirt and tie. Both the same age - but totally different social values.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
It was the strangest viewing. The eccentric owner showed me with great pride how Venetian blinds worked, the puce coloured sink plumbed onto the landing and the three legged cat/voracious German Shepherd that ate the missing one. Oh and his daughter's black painted bedroom.
Oh and a horse in the garden shed. It was up a lane nr Christs Hospital school.
I'm a pretty Bohemian sort, but even I was Okaayyy... and smiled along just in case he was a serial killer.
I'm sure I could find pix on Twitter of goats in houses. I once viewed a property that unexpectedly had a house sheep - a massive ram called Rambo. Let's just say that the estate agent forgot to mention that domestic nugget.
Uncorrect yourself, he was appointed Shadow Chancellor in December 2003 and reshuffled to Agriculture in May 2005 after Howard's defeat.
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
hard to know of Letwin or David Willetts is the bigger numpty.
That is a good one. David Willetts is supposed to be very clever. However, when I read his book 'The Pinch' I was appalled. Not only were most of its facts wrong - for example, most British people were not homeowners in the 1950s - but his English was terrible. Unintentionally, I am sure, he spent most of his time talking about the difficulties the Baby Boomer generation face in bringing up their baby goats and getting onto the housing ladder. Which makes no sense, as goats don't live in houses.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
Mr. Wanderer, worth noting that the last two General Election exit polls have been highly accurate, and highly disbelieved initially, due to being out of whack with pre-vote polling.
Edited extra bit: apparently 4-5" of rain expected for Cumbria.
Not just the last 2 - every one since 1997 onwards has been near spot on. If anything 2015's was unusually inaccurate in that it under predicted the Conservatives by about 20 seats.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
Fowler saying CONDOM was my personal highlight. A very scary time, it changed my behaviour and a superb PR campaign. I can't find the clip of him on YouTube, boo.
Incidentally, i happened to notice earlier today that today is what would have been the 80th birthday of President Omar Bongo of Gabon. I noticed it because I have his Daily Telegraph obituary on my bedroom wall (it's next to those of Gwyneth Dunwoody and Nicholas Fairbairn).
I know I'm going to regret this question, but how do you decide which obituaries to put on your bedroom wall?
(I'll leave to one side the bigger question why you put obituaries on your bedroom wall.)
The main criterion seems to be: if I feel like it at the time.
Comments
My biggest error of the year, like Alastair's, was believing that there would be a Labour minority government. I maintained that belief right up to the date of the election despite forecasting Armageddon for Labour in Scotland, noting the Ed was visiting some very strange constituencies and being frankly bewildered that Cameron was spending so much time in Lib Dem heartlands. By election night I was persuaded that the Tories would be the largest party but an overall majority on those boundaries was beyond my wildest dreams.
This error was of course induced by the polls which indicated precisely that. I say that not as an excuse but as a reflection that over the next electoral cycle all of us will be less trusting of the polls and less confident of our predictions as a result. It will take some time before the polls rebuild a track record that puts us back to where we were in April/May.
What will take its place? Probably rather more wishful thinking given that the objective criteria of polling will be discounted. This really should improve the odds and the spreads if only by increasing the risks and the uncertainties.
LOL
If you import, en masse, people from a poor country, and bung them in estates with the poorest in the host country, you are asking for trouble. When there is a race element as well, there is more trouble as, when tensions crack, noticeable differences are blamed, and this dividing line becomes the focus when in reality it is not the main cause (that being low wages & unemployment)
If we only accepted immigrants that could support themselves and were professionals in middle class wage jobs, the ghettoization and segregation would not exist to the extent it does now, and did in the 80s
If you took all the people on Broadwater Farm in the 80s, and gave them the resources of the aristocracy, and vice versa, we would see racist aristocrats and high minded, liberal ex Broadwater Farmists
Baffling to the extent that it is a bare faced lie!
The loss of Steyn would be a terrible blow for South Africa. He's not just the best seamer in the world, he's one of the best of all time. That would leave literally everything riding on poor old AB de Villiers, who has already been complaining about being overburdened.
Not a happy situation for them. Almost as bad as ours during that last horror tour of Australia.
He only ever seems to get mentioned for incompetence.
It was in the context of SA having named a squad of 13 for the first two Tests but that not being carved in stone.
But Taylor surely has everyone wondering why he wasn't in the team years ago, Finn has his mojo back, Ali is back to where he belongs in the batting order and I have to accept that Compton is adding solidity at the top, albeit slowly.
I would still like to see Buttler in the team, I hope Hales gets a proper chance and there is an inevitable worry about what happens when the Broad/Anderson era comes to an end but for now they are very much on the up.
So this is what Letwin actually said...
Apologise for this?! https://t.co/zzWwYTcglw
Norman Fowler '(mops brow) Crikey!'
After a civil servant had explained to him what oral sex was. A reminder of a more innocent age?
But my favourite was his announcement of the AIDS campaign in the House of Commons:
'We're sending 23 million leaflets to every household in Britain.'
I suppose burying everyone in a huge mountain of paper would at least deter promiscuity!
As for the rest, it's much harder to learn from success than from failure. Have you been lucky or were you skilful? You can't ignore failure if you expect to improve.
That said, Letwin's also been shadow chancellor (under Howard, I think).
Hard to imagine a worse... oh.
And if Stokes and Ali are in the same team, why not play a specialist keeper, e.g. Chris Read? Would be great fun watching him standing up to Ben Stokes to put the batsman under pressure.
And at least a certain amount of mockery and scorn from inside his party as well.
What I'm very doubtful about is referendum polling.
"Thousands of British tourists are preparing to take advantage of cut price holiday bargains at resorts Egypt and Tunisia, despite the threat of further terrorist attacks"
The Brits at their best - sod the terrorists we want a good cheap holiday in the sun. Excellent.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12073246/British-tourists-ready-to-defy-terror-fears-for-cheap-holidays.html
I find the fact that they (and Labour to a certain extent) got it so right when the polls were really wrong is also really interesting and maybe indicates a way ahead for the pollsters whose future otherwise looks bleak.
In space, no one can hear you squeak.
Imo, the power rankings in test cricket mostly come down to whether a team has one or more seriously threatening fast bowlers. If they do, they are contenders, otherwise not.
What was so striking was that both campaigns seemed to know what was happening but no-one else did.
Though here's an oddity. It's said that Ed was working on his victory speech at 21.59. Did he not find it strange that he had been campaigning in North Warwickshire the day before?
I suppose Siegfried is Nicola Sturgeon, which is a bit disturbing in itself, but the big question is who will turn out to be Hagen?
I don't think the Conservatives had any idea that they would gain seats from Labour:
' There were a lot of rumblings from the Conservative faithful of not enough support from the central party. One said Lucy Allan had been "left hung out to dry", with no heavy hitters, let alone Cameron himself, visiting the seat. '
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000989
Likewise is there any evidence that the Conservative leadership made any effort in the other seats they gained from Labour ? Or indeed into some of the 'surprise' holds in the midlands and North.
I think its easy to read too much into Cameron campaigning in LibDem seats - you take gains where you can get them and the LibDems were not likely to be the willing coalition partners a second time as some people thought they would be. It might well have been that the Conservative leadership thought it would easier to gain seats from the LibDems than hold seats against Labour.
By May, all the signs were there that the LibDems were going to get a stuffing everywhere. The poll of the SW constituencies showing this was almost certainly not given enough weight at the time. But even I - one of the most bearish on LibDem prospects with 17 seats in the competitions - was more than surprised when the Home Secretary's Special Branch bod told me they were going on from Torbay to Yeovil. That was a seat that I thought would take two elections to fall. That it was getting top tier visits was remarkable.
By May, it did seem that UKIP weren't going to get much of a breakthrough in seats. It wasn't a surprise to me that Farage didn't win - I had also been very bearish on UKIP seats, consistently saying they would get just the one seat - Carswell.
However, the joker in the pack was the extent to which Labour would fail to make progress against Tory target seats. We did have some reports on here from some canvassing by East Midlands Tories that the Tory vote was holding up very well - and places like Amber Valley were going to be a hold. Again, we should have paid more attention to that. I know there is a good deal of skepticism about unduly optimistic assessments from workers on the ground. But we were't hearing anything back from Labour to say this was all toss. Indeed, when the report on (I think) Labour Uncut said the postals were looking horrible, this should have been seen as a validation of those reports from Tories on the ground.
And then there was Ed Miliband. Every ounce off my political nous told me that people just would not vote for him as PM. He was Kinnock 2.0...
Tory majority always looked a stretch. It needed some very unlikely holds - and frankly, some truly unusual wins. But going into the last week of the campaign, Labour were always going to be a distant second place when it came to their chances of getting into Downing Street.
It never seemed plausible. I regret not having had the bankroll available in the spring to be able to take advantage of it.
The best prediction that DIDN'T come true!
IS
AN
OXYMORON!!!
His appallingly inept response to the 2004 budget was one of the worst parliamentary performances I have seen. He spent most of it shrieking and shouting about figures he didn't know, things that hadn't been discussed and never once did he make any reasonable points. The best bit was when he broke off mid rant to drink an entire glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand high in the air. At least that was vaguely funny!
Fair play to Norman Fowler.
'Mrs Thatcher asked for an investigation into whether the adverts might breach the advertising code as well as the Obscenity Act. When the answer came back that the campaign was legal, she said: 'I remain against certain parts of this advertisement. Adverts where every young person will read and learn of practices they never knew about will do harm.'
Sir Norman wrote back: "Unless there is a reference to anal intercourse, which has been linked with 85 per cent of Aids cases so far, the advertisement would lose all its medical authority and credibility."'
Shirtless man with ridiculous sixpack = no-one cares.
Fit woman in a bikini = oh noes!
It's depressingly infantile.
On the other hand, he did not drink a whole glass of water very slowly while waving his right hand inconsequentially in the air on the one chance he had per year to duff up Gordon Brown while people were actually listening. So I'll give that to Letwin.
The rampant hypocrisy when it comes to people wearing very little is somewhere between despicable and amusing. I'm a relatively skinny bloke, but the idea of someone else having a sixpack making me feel inferior is odd (I bet those shirtless chaps don't have the first idea of Aurelian's achievements in the 3rd century).
Much as men would be better off imitating women when it comes to talking about problems (which would hopefully reduce the suicide rate), women should copy men when it comes to being a bit less over-sensitive about photos of attractive people.
*thinks for a moment*
Or perhaps not.
But anyway.
He was heading some think tank which was trying to sound concerned about young folk being crapped on. It didn't seem to occur to him that if you shaft the young with uni fees, push up house prices and raise their taxes while doshing up pensioners, then the gap between the baby boomers and the current 20 somethings is only going to get bigger.
Hypocrital or just plain stupid ? Hard to call.
And yet I somehow convinced myself the polls were right and that they couldn't be wrong...
(And reliving this election makes me realise just how awful it'll be for Labour if corbyn remains in charge)
Has a single person ever had such a malign effect for so long on a political party and still remained near the top ?
Are we fated to read about his idiocies of thirty years ago every year for the rest of our lives ?
Silly question though. Do wearers of facial-hair shampoo their distinguishments or merely exercise soap-and-flannel...?
:maybe-one-for-mr-dancer:
(I'll leave to one side the bigger question why you put obituaries on your bedroom wall.)
It is very difficult to evaluate reports from people campaigning on the ground as they do tend to be optimistic. I remember your own predictions for the South-West were solid (and thanks btw). Thing is, there was plenty of Labour optimism as well. Of PB denizens, Nick Palmer seemed very confident of victory.
I do try to keep a note of who has been a true and false prophet.
Oh and a horse in the garden shed. It was up a lane nr Christs Hospital school.
I'm a pretty Bohemian sort, but even I was Okaayyy... and smiled along just in case he was a serial killer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35196245
Very interesting. The company I work for is causing a disturbance within a - somewhat - moribund sector of finance. If only they let me do more.....