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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks says George Osborne’s star is dimming
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks says George Osborne’s star is dimming
The last few months have not been good for George Osborne. When he rose to give the last budget in July, he looked like a man ready to take over the top job. Following the general election he had been appointed First Secretary of State, recognising his place as second among equals. He had carved out a distinct policy agenda of his own within government on the northern powerhouse. The economy was…
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Edit INC should, of course, be ICM - the curse of course of predictive text
Amen.
What is drilled into you time after time, lesson after lesson, when learning to be a pilot is 'Fly the plane' - yes, there will be distractions and real emergencies, but NONE of them are ever as important as 'flying the plane' - Osborne has ONE job to do above all others, if he can't do that well, he doesn't deserve the top job.
Meanwhile, if Boris is such an asset for LEAVE and 'PM in Waiting' why isn't he LEADING it?
Not up to the job?
That would of course be a worse problem if he were to become PM, as a certain Dr Brown found out the hard way...
FWIW, my folks have met both Cameron and Osborne on multiple occasions. Osborne is far nicer and more charming than Cameron in person.
@CarlottaVance what is your obsession with whether Boris Johnson is leading leave or not? Of course he's an asset to the campaign, but Gove and Stuart are co-chairing the organisation. I personally think this is a better choice.
Neither Gove nor Stuart are (widely) spoken of as 'Prime Ministerial' - but yet they have taken the leadership roles......
FWIW I think Gove & Stuart much better co-chairs than Boris ever would be - but then I don't think Boris is remotely up to the top job....
But you are changing the subject: your original contention was that it was odd that "if he's such an asset" why he wasn't leading the campaign.
I think it's great that Leave has multiple talented individuals at the forefront of the campaign rather than relying on one mendacious individual (and Peter Mandelson)
The only bit I disagree with is your final paragraph where you suggest he campaigns hard for Remain. That'll be toxic for him to lead strongly on that and his chances with internal party politics. He isn't granted the leeway that Cameron is, for example, and it's already started to damage his image.
The best strategy for Osborne is just to campaign for Remain softly, and point out the economic risks to the UK and his deficit reduction plans of a Leave vote, but otherwise signal an ambivalence about the EU and desire to reach a sensible accommodation with the rest of the party afterwards, no matter what happens.
1) although it is not required for younger children to know the technical grammatical terms, the guidance is usually so unclear (indeed ungrammatical) that it might not be obvious to a horrendously overworked teacher that the children should only learn how to use them, not what to call them;
2) it sounds like the sort of cretinous mistake the DfE's civil servants, most of whom have a less than perfect grasp of English, would make. We've had grammatical mistakes in literacy tests, illiterate drafts of the National Curriculum and guidance demanding the chronic misuse of exclamation marks. Now we have a muddle over technical terms that enforces guidelines debunked in 1784.
I have long taken the view that the greatest obstacle to improving literacy among children is not the poor quality of teachers (although in many cases that is definitely a problem too) but the abysmal quality of the civil servants who rule our profession. If the DfE were abolished, it's hard not to imagine we would see a radical improvement in the nation's schools.
EDIT - see here for a very good analysis of the problem:
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/one-primary-teachers-open-letter-government-standards-expected-are
That being said, you are right that they must be more careful about infighting and need to be a lot less complacent in their formulation of policy - if only for the good of the country.
Agree entirely that Remain is in a strong position. Not sure Osborne campaigning hard for it would help either Remain or Osborne.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35809144
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35808955
But he doesn't have any actual arguments for it doing so (in the article, at least). That's just wibble about 'unity' over the migrant crisis.
Hmm. Did the US and others kick up this much fuss when Scotland had its referendum? I can't recall.
Government does.
On the other hand, L&N stuck by the historical performance of first term governments in the UK with a more popular PM/leader and decent record on the economy, rather than raw poll data, and so consistently estimated a fair chance of a Con majority.
Imagine how Labour could do if they had a vaguely competent leader!
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/vote-leave-seeks-creative-agency/1385970
Any chance of a link to the Independent's article on snow becoming a thing of the past?
So his argument is actually fairly little to do with us, other than begging us not to rock the boat.
https://xkcd.com/1321/
The problem is this is a very difficult budget. Even with the extra money found at the time of the Autumn statement he is on a very tight and narrow trajectory towards a balanced budget by the end of the Parliament. Any adverse impacts, such as even a modest slowing of the economy, and he will fail. I expect him to say that voting for Leave will make the task of removing the deficit completely impossible, that the short term effects of Leave will increase the deficit by knocking GDP by at least 2%. As Alastair says he has burnt his boats with the Leave contingent anyway and it is probably true.
I would like to see plans to break up our TBTF Banks, especially Lloyds and RBS, to combine IT and NI into a single tax and to prioritise capital spending on infrastructure over current spending in the difficult years ahead. But I fear this, once again, may not be the year for such difficult steps.
I'm increasingly angry at the stupidity of the ecoleftists on this, who have so radically politicised the issue of climate change (with a combination of ultra-internationalism, rampant anti-capitalism, neo-socialist and identity politics writ-large) that there's virtually no chance of winning over a cross party consensus across the political Right in many of those countries.
We will all probably pay a price.
Paul Swinney
Which cities will be most impacted by next month's minimum wage rise? #Budget16 #LivingWage https://t.co/iWgdqY65ct https://t.co/lf1FUPSH1i
Bruno Waterfield
Ha. Matt via @TelegraphNews https://t.co/d7PFPMCq3b
At 9am: your first chance to #AskBoris since he backed the Brexit. Watch Boris Johnson live https://t.co/ADT89Vf6nw https://t.co/1uWYJTget2
I had a couple of these lecturing dickheads preach at me at university in several lectures. One of them felt (and said) that the private motorcar was morally indefensible.
As a Rightist I walked away with every impression that ecoism meant collectivism, socialism and an objection to individual choice.
It put me right off. Thankfully, I still have the technical background to understand the science behind it but these idiots polarise the debate and turn off millions.
Quite possibly - and you could extend that analysis to a few other departments as well, most notably 'Business, Innovation and Skills'
In the same way Leave is focussed on pointing out the absurdities of some of project Fear than addressing the real issues that departure from the EU would give rise to and their vision as to how to address those problems.
Trump 52 .. Cruz 22 .. Kasich 11 .. Rubio 10
Clinton 52 .. Sanders 40
National - Morning Consult
Trump 42 .. Cruz 23 .. Rubio 12 .. Kasich 9
Florida - Opinion Survey/Fox/Florida Times Union
Trump 44 ..Rubio 26 .. Cruz 18 .. Kasich 10
California - NSON/LR
Trump 38 ..Cruz 22 ..Kasich 20 .. Rubio 10
But that's not what he's doing, hence my TP article yesterday suggesting it's time for him to do something else.
Incidentally the role Boris is playing in Leave suggest if he got to No10 he would be a similar style of leader to Cameron. That is to say collegiate and leaving ministers to do their job while he does the presentation.
The above also goes for the MPs' votes, as although they will know Osborne in person, they'll also be keenly aware of how the public perceive him.
But, in general, if a party is doing badly, the fault lies with those in charge.
A big gap at the moment for a central party not involved in feuding over Europe. LDs should be showing signs of life but are imitating the Norwegian Blue instead.
Mr. F, that's the problem. It's politics as much (perhaps more than) science. A popularity contest more than scientific inquiry. Science, after all, welcomes competing theories and begins with scepticism.
Great article, and quite touching as they struggle to see things from other points of vciew.
Remain could be disadvantaged if Labour supporters don't think this is their referendum too.
I know this is a bitter truth to many on here who sprout nonsense such as "AGW trough" etc (not you Mr Dancer) but the facts are as clear as day...
No one cares what you have to say.
My guess is that he'll put in a number of unpleasant contingency plans, so people can see he's prepared to be tough but won't unless he has to, plus one or two rabbits for now.
I also disagree that climate scientists actually know enough to rule out natural variation. Their repeatedly wrong forecasts (including the 'snow will become a thing of the past' article for the Independent) do not fill me with confidence in their predictive powers.
Increasingly confident for Leave in the past 24 hours. Amazed at how many Millennial mates in London are for Leave, and how few adults outside of London support Remain.
Just not sure the emotional attachment to the EU is what the elite think it is. The Easyjet generation know that if we leave the EU it'll still be a great place for a minibreak.
Fear Fatigue has arrived very early in PR terms. I see this as a good thing - it forces both sides to make sensible cases for their votes.
But lots of things are plain stupid. The Western middle class guilt fad of biofuel was a perfect example. It led to Indonesia (I think) cutting down swathes of ancient, pristine forest for oil plantation to sell the oil to the West. Wind is stupid, because it's too unpredictable.
The photovoltaic windows (essentially solar panels) sound very intriguing and could reduce energy requirements from the National Grid by a significant margin if properly developed and built into new homes.
I also think we should be going for gas-fired rather than nuclear power, based on the seemingly insane cost of the proposed new reactor (nothing against nuclear in principle but the cost seems excessive).
Technological development is the way to go. That, and a proper scientific debate rather than some seeking to close down discussion by bleating about 'deniers' [glad to see you've not done that here] and 'the consensus' as if consensus is somehow a scientifically valid argument.
There is no emotional attachment at all outside a narrow circle of lefties and luvvies and a few old fashioned Heathites. It's all transactional.
That's why the government is eschewing any attempt at making an emotional case for staying in and is instead making wild claims about economic collapse, expensive holidays, an end to booze cruises and refugee camps in Kent.
It might have been possible to paint the EU as a shining beacon of the future forty years ago, but the intervening time has shown quite clearly what kind of an organisation it really is.
Still, it's easier for leavers to screech 'theatrically' about Cameron, as their arguments on the EU itself are so poor.
Besides, I was wondering why so-called Conservative leavers (not people on the leave side) were attacking Cameron in such a way, when the risks of a Corbynist government are so major. And whilst the probability of that government is low, it is getting more probable the longer he stays in and the more the Conservative party tars itself apart.
Oh, wait...
@JohnRentoul: How commentary should be done, by @JananGanesh https://t.co/9SzHKhgOtS https://t.co/GWB0tS99KJ
Analysis of the survey by Sir Lynton Crosby shows that voters who want Britain to leave the European Union are more motivated than those who say they are in favour of staying in. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/12193963/EU-referendum-Exclusive-Telegraph-poll-says-Leave-campaign-most-likely-to-win-in-June.html
Well worth looking at the 'Leave' Ad. Very effective for a particular audience
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/expect-eu-referendum-campaigns/1382012#KMVZX6TkwMBj7o8i.99