But for Tony Marlow’s blazer, Michael Portillo might have ended up prime minister rather than a rail-hopping TV presenter. To have done so, he needed John Redwood to do sufficiently well in the first round of the Conservative Party leadership election against John Major.
Comments
That said, the leave campaign clearly need to get their shit together.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2011/dec/12/david-cameron-full-bladder-technique
If so, he must have had one hell of a wee this evening.
As someone on the centre left, I see the referendum as an argument between the soft right and the hard right. It is not my row. I suspect I may not be alone.
Agree that while most wont notice the Galloway (who I suspect is reasonably popular as a 'bit of a card' and a 'straight talker') attendance, others tempted to join leave will - and think twice.
While Gove is a formidable thinker he's not popular 'the weird brainy one'.......
It’s becoming pretty clear that the SNP won’t promise another referendum after the next Holyrood election. They think they’d lose.
But without it they’ll have nothing to talk about. So maybe their aim is to reject the fiscal framework, whatever is offered and so derail the new powers in the Scotland Bill.
Then they can spend the next five years arguing about power, not exercising it.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/devolution-expert-jim-gallagher-asks-7399820#WxZPkzQYIYO0wzF6.99
The headlines are negative for Cameron concerning Gove for Leave. No Galloway.
Whilst personalities can be important, you are correct in saying gut feeling does play a large part. As seen with the Scottish referendum, the level of support for Yes went from around 27% at the beginning of the campaign to an eventual 45% - and that was with the entire media and political class against Yes. In addition, there was also the emotional attachment to Britain and the British identity across a large part of the Scottish electorate.
Remain has none of this. Apart from running a campaign of scaremongering which will only get it so far until people stop believing, it has no emotional appeal to an identity like the No campaign in the Scottish referendum did. Even among those who wish to stay in the EU, the feeling is very much reluctance rather than any emotional bonds to the organisation.
None of us know what will happen so let's stop micro-analysing every single little blunder, marmite politician appearance at a rally of the faithful or bad QT performances. It's more than that sort of tittle tattle which only we political obsessives pay any attention to.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/files/2016/02/CbnEG-BWIAEY9JU-1.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-yYJgpQ-CE
My poems are on my website, if anybody's interested
www.croydonloony.co.uk
Yesterday the Record revealed a Nicola Sturgeon letter to Prime Minister David Cameron. As well as per capita indexation, she made welfare demands – £600million to administer the benefits that Holyrood can run from 2017.
That’s just to pay for the bureaucracy, on top of the £2.5billion cost of the benefits themselves, which the Treasury cover anyway. Administration usually costs three to four per cent of the benefit bill but the SNP want nearly 25 per cent.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-staffers-campaign-jobs-219518
On last night's thread it was mainly Leavers who were disappointed at Galloway's appearance.
I think David Herdson has got it about right - Galloway's appearance won't register with the public one way or another - but it will with other public figures who are considering joining Leave but may now have pause for second thoughts.
A new clause states that the terms of the deal will cease to apply if Britain votes to leave. Inserted at Belgian insistence, this "no second chance" measure is designed to head off the threat of a second referendum by making clear to British voters that they will not be able to use additional leverage from a vote for Brexit to secure an improved deal from Europe.
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-02-20/what-is-in-the-reform-deal-britain-reached-with-the-eu/
Favourite fiction books?
Nineteen Eighty Four, by George Orwell
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Aachen Memorandum, by Andrew Roberts
Fatherland, by Robert Harris
Bringing in the RESPECT Party helps Grassroots Out’s chance of getting the official designation for the referendum. Because those who check with the Electoral Commission would know that you could have every Cabinet Minister under the sun backing you, but it wouldn’t help with the “cross party” requirement. This is where the establishment Vote Leave are failing. And indeed it is a problem of their making.
So tonight’s events means the pro-establishment, pro-double referendum, Carswell-backed “Vote Leave” campaign won’t get the designation. The jig is up. The game is over. They’ll fold soon. And it means we the British public have a greater… a real chance of leaving the European Union. But what price do we have to pay for that?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/19/explaining-galloway-why-gorgeous-george-was-at-the-grassroots-out-event/
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/world/europe/croissants-tesco.html
Probably a good time to back Leave, the odds are likely to come in significantly from here if the PM's deal starts unraveling and the campaign gets under way. 9/4 from Bet365, 2/1 elsewhere.
And someone will be saying to JC: call for abstention, then you won't be lining up behind either of the two Right Wings, and you have nothing to lose by an absurdly low turnout.
Questions such as, which parts will never in practice see the light of day, have protections for the City been weakened, are British citizens worse off, will the courts strike most of it down anyway, etc, All the points that have been raised on PB since the draft agreement was revealed.
@Mortimer (I promise this is my last word on the subject!)
The reason we close ranks around criticism is because it never is 'some teachers are rubbish, how do we sort that out?' We're always lumped together and tarred with the same brush (cf. Gove's 'the blob' referring to all teachers, not the vocal 30-40% who were opposing him, therefore antagonising the majority who supported him).
OFSTED graded my school a 3 because one teacher had not marked his books within the fortnight school policy required. Never mind the high quality of the rest. My training provider was downgraded from a 1 to a 2 because of one physics teacher working a 70 hour week shouting at the children for talking across him. It didn't matter that the report classified every other pathway, especially history, as outstanding.
Under such circumstances it is very easy to develop a siege mentality, although actually in private we are often considerably angrier about bad teaching than outsiders because not only are they damaging the education of the children we want to do well, but they are damaging us as well. The damage done by Senator Joe Woodhead, failed teacher extraordinaire with his numbers plucked out of thin air to increase his own power base, lives on.
Remember, no teacher wakes up on Monday morning thinking 'how do I screw the children I'm teaching?' (other than a few gruesome exceptions like Woodhead and Jeremy Forrest). Those who don't at least want to do well don't last. But we never seem to get praise - only criticism. It's very frustrating.
Thank you @MyBurningEars for those lovely clear explanations of the new maths GCSE. That was really helpful. Can I reiterate I much prefer the new history GCSE, although the comment on pitching and targeting applies even more there. I'm just worried at how rushed the whole thing is, which was a decision made by Gove for personal political reasons.
Swapping from nights to days with a day off is nothing unusual.
But if the week is swinging from nights to days and back again, then that is very unfair.
The BMA JDC is meeting this weekend to decide its response to contract imposition.
And yes, the new proposed contract requires staff to opt out of the EWTD for many rotas.
All I ask of the junior doctors is that they don't agree to a deal that simply gives them more money. They've, quite rightly, questioned the safety of some of the changes and that should remain key to the negotiations.
it's becomming difficult to see how this group of essentially rightwing mavericks and ne'er do wells are going to compete with the massed forces of reason they're going to face. I'll go 70/30
More interesting than the result might be the political careers that will end in ruin. What can the future hold for the six Tory cabinet ministers sharing a platform with Farage and Galloway?
99% of those actively involved are self serving, ignore them, make your judgement on the issues not the personalities involved.
The scenario is playing out exactly as predicted so far, it will be interesting when the smoking gun from the negotiations is found. I still refuse to predict the outcome and I'm not a trader but I'd suggest backing Leave today, the price between now and June will tighten at some stage.
Last night we had Ms Cyclefree saying that she had to vote REMAIN because if Leave wins people like Galloway might get into power in an independent UK. This, of course, follows on from Mr Meeks, who is voting REMAIN because if Leave wins people like Farage might get into power in an independent UK.
Neither of them seems to trust the British electorate not to vote for such nutcases, and I don't understand why.
Look, if we vote to Leave it means we are free from EU restrictions and regulations, our councillors, MPs and Lords won't change. It doesn't mean Cameron is taken to the Tower and Farage becomes PM with Galloway as Chancellor.
The EU referendum reduced to celebrity endorsement.
"Under this gaberdine there is no other shelter hereabout.
Misery aquaints a man with strange bedfellows"
It may well drive awareness of 'Desperate Supermarket's Croissants' but the overwhelming majority of British people will think 'Jamie Oliver's being paid to say that' - and while that may tempt a tiny minority, but most will file it under 'The croissants probably cost more 'coz they've got to pay Jamie Oliver'.
On EURef - the views of Farage & co will be discounted - though as we've seen from the polling, Cameron will add weight to 'Remain'.
Luvvies will be discounted - 'what does Michael Caine/Emma Thomson know about the tapered child benefit rules...?'
Among undecided Conservatives I suspect Gove will carry some weight - whereas Boris will be seen as either a brown nose merchant or schemer.....
I'm struggling to think of any 'big names' who might help tip things one way or the other.....
Yuk.
versus
Cameron, Hilary Benn, George Osborne, Chuka Umunna, Tim Farron, Alan Johnson
Wonder who will win.
Only heard a little last night. What's the state of play regarding the financial sector?
Depends how much the mood is kick the establishment.
What is extremely likely, following a Leave win, is that Cameron resigns and that the Tory Eurosceptic right gains control of the Government. For me, that would be deeply unwelcome. It's far from the only reason I will be voting Remain but it's one of them.
That the EU is of transcendent importance is something Leave needs to persuade people of. It's not self-evident.
Not a difficult choice for me.
https://twitter.com/alexebarker/status/700795501726343168
As David Herdson says, it's not about sidelining any political strand of opinion: it was about making him centre stage, and the special guest, that was the problem. Having him as just an early speaker would have probably have been ok, although even then I'm not sure.
It's like BSE making Gerry Adams or John McDonnell their special guest.
As I suspected, and you suspect, it's a crock. It's worse than the status quo.
I think I'd like David Cameron more if he were in the barrel of the space cannon.
Which I perfectly understand.
you might as well conjecture that if we stay in Blair regains control and goes around invading places.
No the Leavers are just a little shall we say 'eccentric'.
By "transcendent importance" I mean the view, which some Leavers seem to hold, that it would be worth paying any price to leave the EU.
So it's not all bad news.
Martin McGuinness or Gerry Adams wouldnt worry me in the slightest.
If LEAVE is going to take on the establishment it will have some strange bedfellows.
Mr. Song, many would agree with your eccentric point. That said, the eccentrics won the last European vote...
Waiting for the detail, but from what I've seen so far the wording looks to have more fudge than Mrs Sweet-tooth's Fudge Shop. Cameron is going to be skewered when people ask him "if we can't agree - what happens then?"
Farage has to be a sleeper agent for the EU. Has to be.
When Leave looked like it might be gaining ground, he sabotages it.
Both sides have shall we say "eccentrics" - Remain has Blair, Izzard, Rolf Harris
Tories suck up to big business
Labour sucks up to middle class "progressives"
Nats fume but cant quite bring themselves to leave
Great British public goes back to thinking they're all mad and watching Coronation Street
If you look at the rally line-up sans George Galloway, it was scarcely more alluring than with George Galloway. Making him the special guest merely confirmed what we already knew, that Leave is led by palookas. That should have all been priced in.
Michael Gove is a good scalp for Leave and they might profitably use his organisational skills.
Now the attention turns to Boris Johnson. Could he make his mind up quickly, I have a thread header to complete?
Is Cameron the luckiest PM in history?
do you honestly think anyone outside PB gives a shit about a who's at a rally ?
It's pantomime villain time you might as well write that Baron Hardup favours remain.
That's it.
It is not an "emergency break" of any kind.
There should be a fine system for every time that phrase is used.