Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
Did either of them lie on their CV?
Obama had held elected office for 11 years (the State of Illinois being not insignificant) and he was tested by an intensive primary plus the GE. He's also shown his lack of executive experience during his presidency.
Cameron had been an MP for 9 years before he was PM and Leader of the Opposition for 5 years. Again he was elected at a GE.
Leadsom has been an MP for 6 years, and isn't being put to the wider electorate.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
I can't get over how quickly the news moves on - yet on other subjects, they twaddle on about fluff for days.
Chilcot has barely a mention now - and it's just two days ago.
Chilcot wasn't "news" - it told us what we'd known for many years. Hard to keep recycling that.
Well, this a betting site. Not much betting to be had on Chilcot. Although a book on how long before he would publish might have been interesting.
Personally, I think Goldsmith comes out the worst in the report over changing his legal advice. But then again, why didn't the Cabinet challenge and ask to see the written legal advice?
Apart from Gordon Brown the Cabinet was weak. Gordon Brown could have challenged Blair about the legality of the war but did not. Why not?
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported.
Yeah, just make it a defence to murder to show that the victim "did not pay their way"
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
It would win the battle and lose the war as she is too inexperienced and like Corbyn dosent have the support of enough MPs to see her through rough times.
During and after the referendum we had some pretty unpleasant accusations thrown around concerning the UK from one or two of the expat community. This seems apposite:
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Despite my assumption that Leadsom will win, is there actually much truth in the idea that Tory membership is dominated by hard-right hanger/flogger europhobic nutjobs?
Fully a third of the membership supported Remain, and presumably the free-market EEA wing of the party are also well represented in the selectorate.
The below article suggests that many of the frothers long ago defected to Ukip, and that, in fact, far more of the membership supported an alliance with the Liberals than with the Kippers.
Maybe, just maybe, the PB meme that the Tory membership is still a bunch of jackbooted blue-rinse suburban psychos is somewhat overdone, and May will win easily after all?
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
I get a sense people are only thinking Leadsom will win as a result of the huge number of shock results we've had in the last 12 months or so - corbyn, leave vote etc. I expected conservative home to endorse Leadsom so it was interesting that they didn't. People want a relatively safe pair of hands, no frills etc so I think May is nailed on.
This is a good point - normal service must at some time resume. Political obsessives (and especially gamblers) like surprising results and exciting events, but we don't often get them.
As the referendum approached, I (a solid remain voter) comforted myself with the thought that at least if Leave won it would be exciting. At 5am on 24th June - I didn't feel excited I felt sick. Enough Tories will have had enough of excitement.
I can't get over how quickly the news moves on - yet on other subjects, they twaddle on about fluff for days.
Chilcot has barely a mention now - and it's just two days ago.
Chilcot wasn't "news" - it told us what we'd known for many years. Hard to keep recycling that.
Well, this a betting site. Not much betting to be had on Chilcot. Although a book on how long before he would publish might have been interesting.
Personally, I think Goldsmith comes out the worst in the report over changing his legal advice. But then again, why didn't the Cabinet challenge and ask to see the written legal advice?
Apart from Gordon Brown the Cabinet was weak. Gordon Brown could have challenged Blair about the legality of the war but did not. Why not?
To be fair to Robin Cook, he did seem to have done as much as he could from inside and it got him nowhere.
FWIW, I don't think the war was illegal. Both UNSCR 1441 and 687 (I think) provided a legal basis - Saddam was clearly in breach of the inspection regime. The question shouldn't just be whether it was legal but whether it was sensible and whether its effects were on the whole beneficial. I can't honestly see how either of those questions can be answered remotely in the positive.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
There is a world of difference between this choice and the benches opposite. While Leadsom has a successful Ministerial career under Cameron and has worked with Osborne at the Treasury and Amber Rudd at DECC ... Corbyn never worked with anyone. He wasn't fit to be Minister for Picking Up Dog Turds. Three decades in the back benches is where he belonged.
There is a world of difference between not being able to work with someone, eg Corbyn, or not being first choice, eg Leadsom.
Yes of course there is a world of difference. Also Leadsom does not have a beard, and her surname does not begin with C. The trick is to focus on relevant similarities.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
And with foreign buyers seeing the effect amplified by sterling depreciation many new developments will struggle to sell 'off plan'.....
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
And I can think of worse things than that to say about "Andrea". Pants on fire, for starters.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
And I can think of worse things than that to say about "Andrea". Pants on fire, for starters.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Unlikely. A vote for May is hardly a win for the bogeyman elements you mention, Frankly Leadsom will have to prove herself over the next few weeks as being worthy of my vote - I don't rule out voting for her and I'm not impressed by all the guff written about her by her enemies in some of the categories above. For me though it's all about her ability to do the job here and now. As I wrote yesterday she will either unexpectedly shine or sink without trace.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
There is a world of difference between this choice and the benches opposite. While Leadsom has a successful Ministerial career under Cameron and has worked with Osborne at the Treasury and Amber Rudd at DECC ... Corbyn never worked with anyone. He wasn't fit to be Minister for Picking Up Dog Turds. Three decades in the back benches is where he belonged.
There is a world of difference between not being able to work with someone, eg Corbyn, or not being first choice, eg Leadsom.
Yes of course there is a world of difference. Also Leadsom does not have a beard, and her surname does not begin with C. The trick is to focus on relevant similarities.
Also being a bad LotO, such as Corbyn or IDS won't trash the country, being a bad PM would.
Despite my assumption that Leadsom will win, is there actually much truth in the idea that Tory membership is dominated by hard-right hanger/flogger europhobic nutjobs?
Fully a third of the membership supported Remain, and presumably the free-market EEA wing of the party are also well represented in the selectorate.
The below article suggests that many of the frothers long ago defected to Ukip, and that, in fact, far more of the membership supported an alliance with the Liberals than with the Kippers.
Maybe, just maybe, the PB meme that the Tory membership is still a bunch of jackbooted blue-rinse suburban psychos is somewhat overdone, and May will win easily after all?
What are the chances of a government of national unity (eg a coalition of the centre ground) before 2020?
Was out last night with some 'thinkers' and this was under discussion. Thinking was that it could happen by default when May needs the Labour 172 rebellion to get EEA through.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
That's true.
However, falling house prices will tend to push up household savings rates. If you no longer feel you have as much equity in your house, you will tend to save more to compensate.
While this sounds like a good thing (and is, truth be told, a necessity in the longer term), you'd do well to remember this chart:
During the first period when the household savings rate soared (the early 80s) unemployment trebled; in the second (the early 90s), it doubled; in the third ('07-'10), it doubled. We are now coming from a point of a lower savings rate than ever before, so the unemployment effect could be horrendous.
(This effect: falling house prices, leading to soaring savings rate and jumping unemployment, is exactly what happened to Spain in 2009 to 2014.)
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
And with foreign buyers seeing the effect amplified by sterling depreciation many new developments will struggle to sell 'off plan'.....
And those who have already bought will watch in horror as housing associations buy the rest as a job lot at a knockdown price and fill them with antisocial tenants who they dont want on their council estates lol.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
Despite my assumption that Leadsom will win, is there actually much truth in the idea that Tory membership is dominated by hard-right hanger/flogger europhobic nutjobs?
Fully a third of the membership supported Remain, and presumably the free-market EEA wing of the party are also well represented in the selectorate.
The below article suggests that many of the frothers long ago defected to Ukip, and that, in fact, far more of the membership supported an alliance with the Liberals than with the Kippers.
Maybe, just maybe, the PB meme that the Tory membership is still a bunch of jackbooted blue-rinse suburban psychos is somewhat overdone, and May will win easily after all?
The membership is actually quite sensible; it's just that the B-RSPs are most noticeable. And even some of the most right wing members know that they're out of touch with the mainstream. The Tory desire for power shouldn't be underestimated; we lost it for a while under Blair but we've remembered now.
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported.
Yeah, just make it a defence to murder to show that the victim "did not pay their way"
Especially if they're of a leftish persuasion, p'raps?
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
There is a world of difference between this choice and the benches opposite. While Leadsom has a successful Ministerial career under Cameron and has worked with Osborne at the Treasury and Amber Rudd at DECC ... Corbyn never worked with anyone. He wasn't fit to be Minister for Picking Up Dog Turds. Three decades in the back benches is where he belonged.
There is a world of difference between not being able to work with someone, eg Corbyn, or not being first choice, eg Leadsom.
Yes of course there is a world of difference. Also Leadsom does not have a beard, and her surname does not begin with C. The trick is to focus on relevant similarities.
What similarities? Three decades on the backbenches? Never having worked with anyone? Oh yes those are the same at all ...
Mr. Jonathan, point of order: puritanism tends to be the preserve of the left.
Not sure that's true. Left and right aren't really very helpful terms when discussing matters of public morality. The left and the right can find arguments within both traditions to support either censorship or a libertarian approach.
There's also a strong tendency for Out Groups to argue for tolerance, but then when they become In Groups, to argue for the enforcement of the new orthodoxy.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
It's like a diet. If you're overweight, losing weight is good.
But seeing the pounds shed at too quick a rate is dangerous. It leaves millions in negative equity (reducing labour mobility), and rapidly pushes up the savings rate.
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported is a problem.
Note: edited because it didn't make sense.
Optics not great on that one, Robert.
All EEA nationals in a room. "OK will everyone who has no family or other connections with the UK please move to that side."
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
The art of leading the Labour party, indeed any party, is about aligning and growing all the factions that make up your coalition.
When those factions start fighting that symptom is the very definition of poor leadership.
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
On the coup incompetence scale - it scores a solid 9/10.
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Once again, rather than making vacuous wiser-than-thou posts, could you suggest a strategy? When I put this out to appeal the other evening, I was given various ideas, some of them which had merit.
Yet your pronouncements on the subject belie your lack of knowledge the system. You do realise that the PLP and PCP are bound by different rules right? You do grasp that?
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
I think comparisons with IDS are entirely fatuous. IDS never held a ministerial post in government before becoming leader, Leadsom has. She reached Economic Secretary within her first parliament and is a Minister of State, not bad going for someone who has been in Parliament only six years. That all happened under Cameron, IDS got nothing under Major.
The worst that can be said about Andrea is its maybe too early for her. Though both our incumbent PM AND the President of the United States had less experienced than her when they got their jobs.
The point I was hoping the members will focus on, is the mismatch between what they might want and what the MPs want. By a massive feat of generalisation, they might also draw some useful conclusions from what is going on on the benches opposite.
There is a world of difference between this choice and the benches opposite. While Leadsom has a successful Ministerial career under Cameron and has worked with Osborne at the Treasury and Amber Rudd at DECC ... Corbyn never worked with anyone. He wasn't fit to be Minister for Picking Up Dog Turds. Three decades in the back benches is where he belonged.
There is a world of difference between not being able to work with someone, eg Corbyn, or not being first choice, eg Leadsom.
Yes of course there is a world of difference. Also Leadsom does not have a beard, and her surname does not begin with C. The trick is to focus on relevant similarities.
What similarities? Three decades on the backbenches? Never having worked with anyone? Oh yes those are the same at all ...
Having a leader whom the members want and the MPs don't. This is where we came in.
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported is a problem.
Note: edited because it didn't make sense.
Optics not great on that one, Robert.
All EEA nationals in a room. "OK will everyone who has no family or other connections with the UK please move to that side."
As an EEA national, if you don't have a job, you already need to prove self sufficiency to get Permanent Residence in the UK.
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
On the coup incompetence scale - it scores a solid 9/10.
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Any coup where (eventually) the answer is Angela Eagle hasn't just been under-thought, it has positively been infiltrated by the bat-shit crazy.
(It is not her fault, but whenever I hear "Angela Eagle", my mind turns to Monty Python and Anne Elk, with her remarkable contribution to palaeontology: 'All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.'....)
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
It's like a diet. If you're overweight, losing weight is good.
But seeing the pounds shed at too quick a rate is dangerous. It leaves millions in negative equity (reducing labour mobility), and rapidly pushes up the savings rate.
Yes, but rents will fall, more people will buy and houses will become homes not investments.
Mr. Jonathan, I largely agree, although I do think Labour has a tricky task keeping its coalition of support together, with UKIP keen to gain the support of the working class and willing to say things that would come across dreadfully at a dinner party.
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
On the coup incompetence scale - it scores a solid 9/10.
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Once again, rather than making vacuous wiser-than-thou posts, could you suggest a strategy? When I put this out to appeal the other evening, I was given various ideas, some of them which had merit.
Yet your pronouncements on the subject belie your lack of knowledge the system. You do realise that the PLP and PCP are bound by different rules right? You do grasp that?
Oh, no. It seems you don't.
Frankly Bob, when you are berating Tories for not giving you great ideas to save the Labour Party.....you may have a problem.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Unlikely. A vote for May is hardly a win for the bogeyman elements you mention, Frankly Leadsom will have to prove herself over the next few weeks as being worthy of my vote - I don't rule out voting for her and I'm not impressed by all the guff written about her by her enemies in some of the categories above. For me though it's all about her ability to do the job here and now. As I wrote yesterday she will either unexpectedly shine or sink without trace.
Those who have first hand experience of her in Parliament are very not confident of her abilities.
Despite my assumption that Leadsom will win, is there actually much truth in the idea that Tory membership is dominated by hard-right hanger/flogger europhobic nutjobs?
Fully a third of the membership supported Remain, and presumably the free-market EEA wing of the party are also well represented in the selectorate.
The below article suggests that many of the frothers long ago defected to Ukip, and that, in fact, far more of the membership supported an alliance with the Liberals than with the Kippers.
Maybe, just maybe, the PB meme that the Tory membership is still a bunch of jackbooted blue-rinse suburban psychos is somewhat overdone, and May will win easily after all?
I think and hope that most Tory members will prove to less stupid and self-indulgent than most Labour members seem to be. It's always worth remembering that PB is representative of nothing much at all, but even on here sane Tories seem to outnumber the headbangers.
Setting aside the specific issue of gay marriage, Andrea Leadsom's inexperience certainly showed in her stated preference for marriage to be reserved as an exclusively "Christian" institution. Was she really thinking that it would be better if Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and those of other faiths - and presumably atheists and agnostics as well - couldn't legally marry in the UK, or was she just not thinking at all?
Someone said this would amount to turning back the clock to 1837. In fact, Jewish marriages have been legal since 1753, so that was an underestimate of her Conservatism.
I'm an atheist, Cameron called Khan a proud muslim, Leadsom says she's a christian and people jump up and down.
We're a strange bunch.
Did you read his post? She didn't just say she's a christian, she said she thought that marriage should be the preserve of christians, whereas everyone else can have civil partnerships.
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported is a problem.
Note: edited because it didn't make sense.
Optics not great on that one, Robert.
All EEA nationals in a room. "OK will everyone who has no family or other connections with the UK please move to that side."
As an EEA national, if you don't have a job, you already need to prove self sufficiency to get Permanent Residence in the UK.
I'm sure. I just mentioned the optics on it. Plus requiring "other connections with the UK" is opening up a bag of whoopass unintended consequences.
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
From the latest bulletin:
Exports (goods) to Eurozone:
2011: 146.5bn 2015: 118.3bn
The EU might work for some parts of Europe, but it doesn't for us.
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
I remain amazed at what Labour is doing. Or not doing. How can dozens of resignations be so ineffectively executed? Where is their Great White Hope? The gulf between voters/members/PLP/Leadership is mind-boggling.
Just glad I'm only watching from afar. Even the LDs were pretty merciless when dumping the likes of Ming.
The current Tory rivalries don't worry me much in comparison to what Labour faces.
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
There's a huge variance in expected growth rates, because there are different assumptions about when Article 50 is triggered and what it means (EEA vs WTO).
Redburn still thinks the UK does 1% growth next year; Goldman thinks its approximately zero; while Credit Suisse think -0.7%.
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic myself right now. I think a rapid move to EFTA/EEA would result in negligible issues with 2017 growth (1.5% or so), but a long period of uncertainty (i.e. where we don't know by end 2017 what our EU trading relationship will be) could result in a pretty horrible recession.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
Just read Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, he says May needs to come clean about deporting EU citizens, I agree. If that is her stance I hope Leadsom wins.
Fraser Nelson is pursuing a journalistic line that is based on wilfully mishearing what has been said. It is not a mechanism I can respect as it is basically synthetic outrage to generate readership/Internet traffic.
No Leadsom has 'refused to back Brits in the EU' - if we apply the same logic to her statements that is being applied to May's
Well she's just as bad then, what a situation we find ourselves in.
Actually - if it was true - and it isn't of either ladies - a case could be made that its marginally worse for ignoring Brits abroad, than solely being concerned about EU nationals in the UK.
However, as others have observed, this is a manufactured 'crisis' of synthetic virtue signalling.
We have tough negotiations ahead of us - no one is going to get everything they want - and giving away positions before we start is amateurism of the highest order....
I disagree, we should say that anybody currently living here legally will continue to do so, threatening people with deportation is obscene.
While we would be mad to send away, law abiding, tax paying, EEA nationals currently in our country, I'm struggling to understand why not extending the right of residency to those who do not pay their way - and have no family or other connections with the UK - could not be deported.
Yeah, just make it a defence to murder to show that the victim "did not pay their way"
Especially if they're of a leftish persuasion, p'raps?
Absolutely, old bean. Slay then all, slay then now!!!
What are the chances of a government of national unity (eg a coalition of the centre ground) before 2020?
Was out last night with some 'thinkers' and this was under discussion. Thinking was that it could happen by default when May needs the Labour 172 rebellion to get EEA through.
The chances seemed higher 10 days ago. May will have little need to reach out to Labour rebels. If Leadsom were to win the chances rise again. The formation of a radical progressive centrist Party made up of 150 Labour MPs, 50 Tories and 8 Lib Dems seems plausible; the party of the 48%. Who knows what happens next!!
Should May give Leadsome a big job if she wins? Rude not to I suppose. But what?
No.
She comes with baggage (Cash, Redwood, other assorted nutters). Giving her a post would be inviting this strand of Conservatism, call it "nasty", back into the mainstream party.
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
There's a huge variance in expected growth rates, because there are different assumptions about when Article 50 is triggered and what it means (EEA vs WTO).
Redburn still thinks the UK does 1% growth next year; Goldman thinks its approximately zero; while Credit Suisse think -0.7%.
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic myself right now. I think a rapid move to EFTA/EEA would result in negligible issues with 2017 growth (1.5% or so), but a long period of uncertainty (i.e. where we don't know by end 2017 what our EU trading relationship will be) could result in a pretty horrible recession.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
UK property is a specialist subject in and of itself. However, a few points.
Almost everyone agrees that property prices are too high, yet most home owners channel St Augustine - house prices should fall, just not yet. We are collectively supreme hypocrites on this topic.
Companies often borrow against the value of commercial property. It's not just householders that will be affected by a decline.
Our economy is out of kilter in many ways. We have become addicted to the idea that growth is perpetual, asset values increase always and so on. We're desperate not to go through another normal business cycle.
To come over all Leadsom, Brexit hasn't caused the next recession. It's advanced the timetable. PMI (the measure of business confidence) has been falling for over two years.
There are some positives. Rate rises are off the table, so debt servicing isn't going to get any harder. Houses are going to become more affordable for the young (remember them?).
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
The art of leading the Labour party, indeed any party, is about aligning and growing all the factions that make up your coalition.
When those factions start fighting that symptom is the very definition of poor leadership.
That's one big problem, although good party leadership should, as you say, be able to resolve it. The Conservatives also suffer from tensions between the different elements of their support, as the EU referendum showed.
Another problem is that one gets the impression that both Labour and Conservative leadership teams aren't terribly keen on some of the people that vote for their respective parties.
Tories comfortably held the Co. Council seat in Suffolk, as expected. Interestingly UKIP, second last time, didn’t stand and, a probably unrelated fact, the LD share.and actual vote increased.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
I don't think picking Clegg was necessarily the problem, the problem was they should have got rid of him long before 2015. The Lib Dems were looking at being squeezed in 2010, with the Iraq bump from 2005 wearing off. Clegg did well to steal the 'fresh face' mantle from Cameron, and he is a genuinely good debater, which made a lot more difference in 2010 than subsequent elections as it was a novelty (obviously they underperformed against Cleggmania, but I think they would have done a lot worse without Clegg).
Tuition fees did it for Clegg - they lost their motivated bedrock of youth support, and the liar narrative was set. I'll never get why they didn't just kick that issue into the grass for the next parliament - we've been doing it with Trident for years.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
They also picked Farron and lost in Wales and London.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
The LD's didn't pick Nick Clegg. The postal strike did....
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
From the latest bulletin:
Exports (goods) to Eurozone:
2011: 146.5bn 2015: 118.3bn
The EU might work for some parts of Europe, but it doesn't for us.
So, on that basis, the EU in 2007 - following seven years of strong growth - was working really well for us?
I'm not sure staring at short-term moves (during which the EU had the Eurozone crisis) is that meaningful.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
I think you've miscalculated the £80k tax bill, although I agree with the broader point
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
On the coup incompetence scale - it scores a solid 9/10.
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Any coup where (eventually) the answer is Angela Eagle hasn't just been under-thought, it has positively been infiltrated by the bat-shit crazy.
(It is not her fault, but whenever I hear "Angela Eagle", my mind turns to Monty Python and Anne Elk, with her remarkable contribution to palaeontology: 'All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.'....)
Mine turns to the expression "the lesser of two Eagles".
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
It's like a diet. If you're overweight, losing weight is good.
But seeing the pounds shed at too quick a rate is dangerous. It leaves millions in negative equity (reducing labour mobility), and rapidly pushes up the savings rate.
Yes, but rents will fall, more people will buy and houses will become homes not investments.
Not at all - this did not happen in the last housing recession in the early 90s and it won't now. No one wants to buy an asset whose value is likely to drop. First time buyers least of all. And lenders will be more cautious and refuse loans to those with small deposits.
He never objected to her calling herself a proud Christian. He objected to her calling a global civil institution respected by all religions an exclusively Christian one.
More than that, she actually said "I would have preferred civil partnership to be available to heterosexual and gay couples and for marriage to have remained as a Christian service for men and women who wanted to commit in the eyes of God."
In fact, it's pretty mind-bending that she seems to think that - in legal terms - marriage had been available only as a "Christian service" before the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
How could any educated person think that, let alone an MP? Has she never heard of register offices?
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
If UKIP are not eyeing the North East they are utterly mad. It's ripe for the taking - the number of people who would vote for anyone who can win that is not Labour (and not the Tories as we can't vote for them come what may) is enough to win every seat...
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
I remain amazed at what Labour is doing. Or not doing. How can dozens of resignations be so ineffectively executed? Where is their Great White Hope? The gulf between voters/members/PLP/Leadership is mind-boggling.
Just glad I'm only watching from afar. Even the LDs were pretty merciless when dumping the likes of Ming.
The current Tory rivalries don't worry me much in comparison to what Labour faces.
By not challenging Corbyn because they believe they can't win, a large portion of the 172 have effectively accepted that their political careers are over. They won't or won't be allowed to run at the next GE. Weird.
Are Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna etc really accepting that their is no Party of the centre left in the UK!?
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
Really? The insinuation is that house prices are falling as a result of Brexit, which simply isn't true. Besides, property prices falling is a good thing.
It's like a diet. If you're overweight, losing weight is good.
But seeing the pounds shed at too quick a rate is dangerous. It leaves millions in negative equity (reducing labour mobility), and rapidly pushes up the savings rate.
Yes, but rents will fall, more people will buy and houses will become homes not investments.
I quite agree that it's a necessity. As I said in a piece I wrote for work: "This analysis may seem doom and gloom; but the truth is that the UK economy has been living on an unsustainable cocktail of borrowing, importing and spending for some time. Unwinding it was always going to be painful. Brexit merely makes the process more rapid and more unpleasant."
What are the chances of a government of national unity (eg a coalition of the centre ground) before 2020?
Was out last night with some 'thinkers' and this was under discussion. Thinking was that it could happen by default when May needs the Labour 172 rebellion to get EEA through.
The chances seemed higher 10 days ago. May will have little need to reach out to Labour rebels. If Leadsom were to win the chances rise again. The formation of a radical progressive centrist Party made up of 150 Labour MPs, 50 Tories and 8 Lib Dems seems plausible; the party of the 48%. Who knows what happens next!!
There were plenty of Tories in the 48% who would stick with the Tories.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
Or, shock horror, a chancellor could realise Stamp Duty is a tax on mobility and zero rate it below a sum that equals small house/decent flat in a city (£500k?). The UK's housing sector is much more heavily taxed than most countries'. Or zero Stamp Tax on newbuilds and gut the planning laws. What we lack is Tory political will due to nimbyism.
Mr. Mark, I think I remember reading here (and posted by Mr. Smithson) that Clegg would've won anyway, and the postal strike 'robbing' Huhne is a myth.
Miss Plato, quite. We need a functioning opposition. The PLP needs to try and axe Corbyn in a new leadership election and, if that fails, to form a new party which would then become the official Opposition.
Not at all - this did not happen in the last housing recession in the early 90s and it won't now. No one wants to buy an asset whose value is likely to drop. First time buyers least of all. And lenders will be more cautious and refuse loans to those with small deposits.
This is actually an important point. In a falling house price world, the banks panic about credit quality (the worst loans you make are when times are good), and it becomes tough to borrow. Which further exacerbates the issue.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
When Jenny and I looked at downsizing in 2014, we calculated it would take 22 years to make it worthwhile in terms of lower bills.
The only reason we still considered it was that we could have used the equity to buy our daughter a house. Circumstances changed so I'm now rattling around inside a five bedroomed house.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
They also picked Farron and lost in Wales and London.
Way back in the day they picked Jo Grimond and initially went back in Wales.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
Or, shock horror, a chancellor could realise Stamp Duty is a tax on mobility and zero rate it below a sum that equals small house/decent flat in a city (£500k?). The UK's housing sector is much more heavily taxed than most countries'. Or zero Stamp Tax on newbuilds and gut the planning laws. What we lack is Tory political will due to nimbyism.
Where are the areas where a modest 2 bedroom bungalow costs 1.6 million? That is almost Hampstead prices, rather than the South-East, if I have my numbers right.
Or he could remove CGT exemption on personal dwellings in London.
That would control prices a little, while generating revenue, and taking a small slice off money made from the house price bubble.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
The LD's didn't pick Nick Clegg. The postal strike did....
If Huhne has been leader - would he still have been caught fibbing over those points/ended up in jail?
He was an MEP at the time IIRC, but can't recall when.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
I get a sense people are only thinking Leadsom will win as a result of the huge number of shock results we've had in the last 12 months or so - corbyn, leave vote etc. I expected conservative home to endorse Leadsom so it was interesting that they didn't. People want a relatively safe pair of hands, no frills etc so I think May is nailed on.
If people were confident that May would try and do something with FoM, like moving it to a working basis she would definitely have it in the bag, its only the concern that she will go for "so close to being IN that you can't actually tell the difference" or that she backslide completely, that is holding her back from a landslide.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
If you look at the list of species of animals which have been shown in lab tests to learn from their mistakes, it is so long that there must be some hope that even tory party members make the cut, and enough of them will think, yebbut IDS and look how that turned out. How badly do they want Leadsom back and turning up the volume at the 2022 party conference?
Parties that have added representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader last time? Conservatives SNP Parties that have lost representatives in major assemblies after changing their Leader? Labour Lib Dems (Wales, London...)
On balance the members in Conservative and SNP parties are better at choosing Leaders than Labour and the Lib Dems.
LD’s picking Nick Clegg was a bad idea, but given that the alternative was Chris Huhne......
The LD's didn't pick Nick Clegg. The postal strike did....
If Huhne has been leader - would he still have been caught fibbing over those points/ended up in jail?
He was an MEP at the time IIRC, but can't recall when.
Good morning all. All the signs are that PB is going to enter one of its periodic spells of tedium, which is disappointing.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
From the latest bulletin:
Exports (goods) to Eurozone:
2011: 146.5bn 2015: 118.3bn
The EU might work for some parts of Europe, but it doesn't for us.
So, on that basis, the EU in 2007 - following seven years of strong growth - was working really well for us?
I'm not sure staring at short-term moves (during which the EU had the Eurozone crisis) is that meaningful.
That depends on whether you believe the EU is in temporary or terminal decline, I suppose.
If they pursue more accession with low wage, low wealth nations whilst acting as an obstacle to trade with wealthier non-EU nations I can't see how we will benefit.
It is noticeable that export trade with Switzerland, South Korea, China and the US has grown over that same period.
Should May give Leadsome a big job if she wins? Rude not to I suppose. But what?
No.
She comes with baggage (Cash, Redwood, other assorted nutters). Giving her a post would be inviting this strand of Conservatism, call it "nasty", back into the mainstream party.
Is my opinion.
So a metropolitan liberal lock-out of the 52% is a good idea? Kensington 1 - Kettering 0?
I can't get over how quickly the news moves on - yet on other subjects, they twaddle on about fluff for days.
Chilcot has barely a mention now - and it's just two days ago.
Chilcot wasn't "news" - it told us what we'd known for many years. Hard to keep recycling that.
Well, this a betting site. Not much betting to be had on Chilcot. Although a book on how long before he would publish might have been interesting.
Personally, I think Goldsmith comes out the worst in the report over changing his legal advice. But then again, why didn't the Cabinet challenge and ask to see the written legal advice?
Apart from Gordon Brown the Cabinet was weak. Gordon Brown could have challenged Blair about the legality of the war but did not. Why not?
To be fair to Robin Cook, he did seem to have done as much as he could from inside and it got him nowhere.
FWIW, I don't think the war was illegal. Both UNSCR 1441 and 687 (I think) provided a legal basis - Saddam was clearly in breach of the inspection regime. The question shouldn't just be whether it was legal but whether it was sensible and whether its effects were on the whole beneficial. I can't honestly see how either of those questions can be answered remotely in the positive.
Any amount of pretending about UN this and UN that or "bad man" does not cut the mustard, it was totally wrong , totally unnecessary and has led to the ME being a disaster area and all the migration etc. A clusterfcuk of immense proportions and down to one man and a set of Westminster patsies.
Should May give Leadsome a big job if she wins? Rude not to I suppose. But what?
No.
She comes with baggage (Cash, Redwood, other assorted nutters). Giving her a post would be inviting this strand of Conservatism, call it "nasty", back into the mainstream party.
Is my opinion.
So a metropolitan liberal lock-out of the 52% is a good idea? Kensington 1 - Kettering 0?
Are you seriously suggesting that people like Cash and Redwood represent the 52%? The men of the people who are going to launch a fightback on behalf of provincial England?
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic myself right now. I think a rapid move to EFTA/EEA would result in negligible issues with 2017 growth (1.5% or so), but a long period of uncertainty (i.e. where we don't know by end 2017 what our EU trading relationship will be) could result in a pretty horrible recession.
Quite so. If the Leave campaign had done its economic and political homework, we might have been able to move to an EEA-style deal with relatively little damage. But the new PM has to start from scratch doing what Leave failed to do, and at best that's going to take time.
I'm also very far from convinced that we are heading down the EEA route at all. For a start, as Professor Michael Dougan has pointed out*, we'd have to overcome a possible 32 vetoes (Switzerland, 3 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, 27 EU countries, and the European Parliament.) That might be doable, but I can't see that it's doable fast from a position where we haven't even yet decided ourselves that it's what we want.
In addition, is it what we want? Or, more precisely, is it what the next PM is likely to go for? Again I'm sceptical. Leadsom wants unicorns and fairies, but when she discovers those aren't on offer would she be able to do the about-turn on migration - given that she's asserted that there's no economic risk in the first place, and given that if she does become PM it will be as a True Believer? Alternatively, Theresa May has (quite rightly in my view) made clear that the referendum result rules out free movement on current terms.
That all seems to indicate that we're heading for a looser deal: signing up to the Single Market in goods but not services, restricted movement, no Financial Passporting.
Not at all - this did not happen in the last housing recession in the early 90s and it won't now. No one wants to buy an asset whose value is likely to drop. First time buyers least of all. And lenders will be more cautious and refuse loans to those with small deposits.
This is actually an important point. In a falling house price world, the banks panic about credit quality (the worst loans you make are when times are good), and it becomes tough to borrow. Which further exacerbates the issue.
I had this argument elsewhere a while back and someone actually found the information.
In the previous crash (1989-94 say) mortgage lending remained the same throughout the period - yes I was very surprised to discover that and even more so when it was using proper RPI adjusted figures
We have been overdue a rebalancing of the economy for a long time. Lower asset prices (ie housing), less household debt, etc.
But the shock of such a rebalance would have produced effects and after-effects both uncontrollable and potentially very damaging.
Our domestic politicians knew this, and hence the issue has not been addressed. We now have that shock, an exogenous one, and as Robert says, the outcome has the potential to be rapid and unpleasant.
The irony is that a course of action that every UK politician knew would get them thrown out at a GE has now been voted for directly by, er, the electorate.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
Mr Cole, where did you get the idea that house prices are falling in the Home Counties? They certainly are not in this Home County, though I think I wish they were.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
Or, shock horror, a chancellor could realise Stamp Duty is a tax on mobility and zero rate it below a sum that equals small house/decent flat in a city (£500k?). The UK's housing sector is much more heavily taxed than most countries'. Or zero Stamp Tax on newbuilds and gut the planning laws. What we lack is Tory political will due to nimbyism.
Where are the areas where a modest 2 bedroom bungalow costs 1.6 million? That is almost Hampstead prices, rather than the South-East, if I have my numbers right.
I meant '£500k?' as the HOUSE PRICE above which Stamp Duty should kick-in. Not the amount of Stamp Duty to be paid! Would enable most of the downsizing / stuck in their homes oldies to cash out.
Leadsom will win. The Tory hard-right are absolutely loving the humiliation they inflicted upon Cameron, Osborne, Londoners, European leaders, the liberal media class and other assorted bogeymen who they've felt have had the whip hand over them in recent years. They're not going to stop there. A Leadsom victory will be yet another poke in the eye for all that lot and too delicious an opportunity to miss.
Yes, I think that's very likely.
But I don't expect her to last very long. She will promise to trigger Article 50 soon after her election but inevitably she will have no clear idea of what deal she will get from the EU and so Parliament will refuse to agree. By this stage the economic damage of Brexit will be much starker - the economy in recession, falling house prices, sterling quite possibly below the euro (£1 buying less than 1 Euro).
This crisis is only going to get worse and there are no solutions in sight. It has already destroyed Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Gove. It will certainly destroy Leadsom and quite possibly several more PMs after that.
What crisis?
Falling house prices, in London’s outer ring and the Home Counties anyway, are a problem for those downsizing, but not for those wanting to get their feet on the ladder.
House prices aren't falling
They are. Prime London is easily down 30% from peak already, and we are seeing prices on new developments like Battersea being slashed. It hasn't spread out from the Zones One and Two yet, but it will.
And with foreign buyers seeing the effect amplified by sterling depreciation many new developments will struggle to sell 'off plan'.....
Good heavens, you mean homes might get sold to people that want to live in them, thats a slippery slope
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
If UKIP are not eyeing the North East they are utterly mad. It's ripe for the taking - the number of people who would vote for anyone who can win that is not Labour (and not the Tories as we can't vote for them come what may) is enough to win every seat...
The contempt that the Labour Party has for the voters of the NE was amply demonstrated when they foisted Peter Mandelson on the good people of Hartlepool....
(I have fond memories of Hartlepool. Been to the headland many a time to twitch rare birds - it seems to be a first landfall for stuff crossing the North Sea. Recall one occasion when a group of us were standing around peering into a patch of shrubbery. We probably had fifty grand worth of optics and cameras and lenses between us. Suddenly a group of youths on bikes turned up. When they asked us what we were doing there, we somewhat feared the worst. On being told we were searching for a rare bird, they cheerfully said "Well, good look with seeing it then lads!" and off they went....)
The Chicken Coup plotters were just using the EUref as an excuse to implement their anti-democratic exercise in ageism and bullying.I call as evidence ,Prof.J.Curtice.
On the coup incompetence scale - it scores a solid 9/10.
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Once again, rather than making vacuous wiser-than-thou posts, could you suggest a strategy? When I put this out to appeal the other evening, I was given various ideas, some of them which had merit.
Yet your pronouncements on the subject belie your lack of knowledge the system. You do realise that the PLP and PCP are bound by different rules right? You do grasp that?
Oh, no. It seems you don't.
Frankly Bob, when you are berating Tories for not giving you great ideas to save the Labour Party.....you may have a problem.
Well PB at its best is when intelligent posters from left and right are broad-minded enough to come up with ideas, even if those ideas are for their opponents.
If someone is going to get involved with the Labour leadership debate and the mechanism behind it, I suggest they first puts the effort into understanding the system, just as I understand the PCP's rules. To do otherwise is to simply add to the vapid sanctimonious bilge, of which we have more than plenty.
Miss Plato, I actually thought the PLP, after the no-confidence vote, might actually take Corbyn on. And they've bottled it. Again.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
I remain amazed at what Labour is doing. Or not doing. How can dozens of resignations be so ineffectively executed? Where is their Great White Hope? The gulf between voters/members/PLP/Leadership is mind-boggling.
Just glad I'm only watching from afar. Even the LDs were pretty merciless when dumping the likes of Ming.
The current Tory rivalries don't worry me much in comparison to what Labour faces.
By not challenging Corbyn because they believe they can't win, a large portion of the 172 have effectively accepted that their political careers are over. They won't or won't be allowed to run at the next GE. Weird.
Are Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna etc really accepting that their is no Party of the centre left in the UK!?
Michael Dugher has some interesting ideas, as did Glasman during EdM's reign. I've honestly no idea what Labour stands for anymore.
It's been 6yrs since they'd any sort of coherent platform - that infamous "vote Labour and win a free microwave" quote summed it up.
Until they decide what their purpose is, I'm not sure they're going anywhere. Only 10 months ago, all the ABC candidates had nothing to say...
I never predicted 70/30. My long-term prediction was 60/40, but as the referendum approached I moved it downwards and followed Smithson Jnr in selling at 54%.
But don't let mere facts get in the way of your fantasies.
Should May give Leadsome a big job if she wins? Rude not to I suppose. But what?
No.
She comes with baggage (Cash, Redwood, other assorted nutters). Giving her a post would be inviting this strand of Conservatism, call it "nasty", back into the mainstream party.
Is my opinion.
So a metropolitan liberal lock-out of the 52% is a good idea? Kensington 1 - Kettering 0?
Calm down dear, we are leaving.
It is no more simple or complicated than Leadsome is just not up to the job of running the Party or the Country.
It is for this reason, however, that the nutters have seized upon her candidature to try to influence the Partyand push it in their desired direction. I don't happen to think that direction is a good one for the Country.
Comments
Cameron had been an MP for 9 years before he was PM and Leader of the Opposition for 5 years. Again he was elected at a GE.
Leadsom has been an MP for 6 years, and isn't being put to the wider electorate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36744207
What's the point of demanding a head, when you don't have one to replace him with? It's baffling.
Looks as if there's a consensus developing on Brexit:
Credit rating agency Moody's has reduced its expectation for the growth in the UK to 1.5% this year and 1.2% in 2017, down from 1.8% and 2.1%, respectively.
That's the third report I've seen where the growth is ~1.5 this and ~1.3 next year.
Trade gap was down by £4 billion in May to a mere £12.7 billion. What's worrying is the downward trend in UK exports (which started in 2013) continued.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36733575
Fully a third of the membership supported Remain, and presumably the free-market EEA wing of the party are also well represented in the selectorate.
The below article suggests that many of the frothers long ago defected to Ukip, and that, in fact, far more of the membership supported an alliance with the Liberals than with the Kippers.
Maybe, just maybe, the PB meme that the Tory membership is still a bunch of jackbooted blue-rinse suburban psychos is somewhat overdone, and May will win easily after all?
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/why-andrea-leadsom-will-struggle-be-tory-jeremy-corbyn
As the referendum approached, I (a solid remain voter) comforted myself with the thought that at least if Leave won it would be exciting. At 5am on 24th June - I didn't feel excited I felt sick. Enough Tories will have had enough of excitement.
FWIW, I don't think the war was illegal. Both UNSCR 1441 and 687 (I think) provided a legal basis - Saddam was clearly in breach of the inspection regime. The question shouldn't just be whether it was legal but whether it was sensible and whether its effects were on the whole beneficial. I can't honestly see how either of those questions can be answered remotely in the positive.
Months ago, I said they should either have a separate PLP leader or split. They're prevaricating and the risk for Labour is that they're signing the death warrant of the party by not splitting and having a Not-Quite-Labour Party (which is effectively the same) because they lack the nerve.
Labour might be undergoing tricky times anyway, with the metropolitan multi-cultural side of their support seemingly opposed to the traditional working class support, but Corbyn isn't helping that.
If he remains, UKIP may well be eyeing up the north-east.
However, falling house prices will tend to push up household savings rates. If you no longer feel you have as much equity in your house, you will tend to save more to compensate.
While this sounds like a good thing (and is, truth be told, a necessity in the longer term), you'd do well to remember this chart:
During the first period when the household savings rate soared (the early 80s) unemployment trebled; in the second (the early 90s), it doubled; in the third ('07-'10), it doubled. We are now coming from a point of a lower savings rate than ever before, so the unemployment effect could be horrendous.
(This effect: falling house prices, leading to soaring savings rate and jumping unemployment, is exactly what happened to Spain in 2009 to 2014.)
#maidenbower
But seeing the pounds shed at too quick a rate is dangerous. It leaves millions in negative equity (reducing labour mobility), and rapidly pushes up the savings rate.
All EEA nationals in a room. "OK will everyone who has no family or other connections with the UK please move to that side."
When those factions start fighting that symptom is the very definition of poor leadership.
Yet your pronouncements on the subject belie your lack of knowledge the system. You do realise that the PLP and PCP are bound by different rules right? You do grasp that?
Oh, no. It seems you don't.
(It is not her fault, but whenever I hear "Angela Eagle", my mind turns to Monty Python and Anne Elk, with her remarkable contribution to palaeontology: 'All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.'....)
Probably in HR.
Her 1922 speech was jaw-droppingly bad.
Exports (goods) to Eurozone:
2011: 146.5bn
2015: 118.3bn
The EU might work for some parts of Europe, but it doesn't for us.
Just glad I'm only watching from afar. Even the LDs were pretty merciless when dumping the likes of Ming.
The current Tory rivalries don't worry me much in comparison to what Labour faces.
Redburn still thinks the UK does 1% growth next year; Goldman thinks its approximately zero; while Credit Suisse think -0.7%.
I'm feeling pretty pessimistic myself right now. I think a rapid move to EFTA/EEA would result in negligible issues with 2017 growth (1.5% or so), but a long period of uncertainty (i.e. where we don't know by end 2017 what our EU trading relationship will be) could result in a pretty horrible recession.
As for downsizing and staying in the same area we have looked at it and financially it just doesn't make sense. The costs of moving in the SE to a smaller house are appaling, for a start one has to pay 5% of the purchase price to HMG; for a modest 2 bed bungalow around here that is a tax bill of £80,000. I think it is actually possible to end up out of pocket for the privilege of moving to a smaller home (with all the loss of amenities that entails). The only way downsizing makes sense is to either move to a much cheaper area of the country (we are thinking about Northumberland) or to quit the UK altogether (we are thinking about Holland or Portugal).
She comes with baggage (Cash, Redwood, other assorted nutters). Giving her a post would be inviting this strand of Conservatism, call it "nasty", back into the mainstream party.
Is my opinion.
Almost everyone agrees that property prices are too high, yet most home owners channel St Augustine - house prices should fall, just not yet. We are collectively supreme hypocrites on this topic.
Companies often borrow against the value of commercial property. It's not just householders that will be affected by a decline.
Our economy is out of kilter in many ways. We have become addicted to the idea that growth is perpetual, asset values increase always and so on. We're desperate not to go through another normal business cycle.
To come over all Leadsom, Brexit hasn't caused the next recession. It's advanced the timetable. PMI (the measure of business confidence) has been falling for over two years.
There are some positives. Rate rises are off the table, so debt servicing isn't going to get any harder. Houses are going to become more affordable for the young (remember them?).
Another problem is that one gets the impression that both Labour and Conservative leadership teams aren't terribly keen on some of the people that vote for their respective parties.
Tuition fees did it for Clegg - they lost their motivated bedrock of youth support, and the liar narrative was set. I'll never get why they didn't just kick that issue into the grass for the next parliament - we've been doing it with Trident for years.
I'm not sure staring at short-term moves (during which the EU had the Eurozone crisis) is that meaningful.
In fact, it's pretty mind-bending that she seems to think that - in legal terms - marriage had been available only as a "Christian service" before the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
How could any educated person think that, let alone an MP? Has she never heard of register offices?
Are Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna etc really accepting that their is no Party of the centre left in the UK!?
Miss Plato, quite. We need a functioning opposition. The PLP needs to try and axe Corbyn in a new leadership election and, if that fails, to form a new party which would then become the official Opposition.
The only reason we still considered it was that we could have used the equity to buy our daughter a house. Circumstances changed so I'm now rattling around inside a five bedroomed house.
Or he could remove CGT exemption on personal dwellings in London.
That would control prices a little, while generating revenue, and taking a small slice off money made from the house price bubble.
He was an MEP at the time IIRC, but can't recall when.
If they pursue more accession with low wage, low wealth nations whilst acting as an obstacle to trade with wealthier non-EU nations I can't see how we will benefit.
It is noticeable that export trade with Switzerland, South Korea, China and the US has grown over that same period.
I'm also very far from convinced that we are heading down the EEA route at all. For a start, as Professor Michael Dougan has pointed out*, we'd have to overcome a possible 32 vetoes (Switzerland, 3 European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, 27 EU countries, and the European Parliament.) That might be doable, but I can't see that it's doable fast from a position where we haven't even yet decided ourselves that it's what we want.
In addition, is it what we want? Or, more precisely, is it what the next PM is likely to go for? Again I'm sceptical. Leadsom wants unicorns and fairies, but when she discovers those aren't on offer would she be able to do the about-turn on migration - given that she's asserted that there's no economic risk in the first place, and given that if she does become PM it will be as a True Believer? Alternatively, Theresa May has (quite rightly in my view) made clear that the referendum result rules out free movement on current terms.
That all seems to indicate that we're heading for a looser deal: signing up to the Single Market in goods but not services, restricted movement, no Financial Passporting.
* http://www.legalcheek.com/2016/07/the-day-of-the-constitutional-lawyer-has-come-says-prof-dougan/
In the previous crash (1989-94 say) mortgage lending remained the same throughout the period - yes I was very surprised to discover that and even more so when it was using proper RPI adjusted figures
But the shock of such a rebalance would have produced effects and after-effects both uncontrollable and potentially very damaging.
Our domestic politicians knew this, and hence the issue has not been addressed. We now have that shock, an exogenous one, and as Robert says, the outcome has the potential to be rapid and unpleasant.
The irony is that a course of action that every UK politician knew would get them thrown out at a GE has now been voted for directly by, er, the electorate.
(I have fond memories of Hartlepool. Been to the headland many a time to twitch rare birds - it seems to be a first landfall for stuff crossing the North Sea. Recall one occasion when a group of us were standing around peering into a patch of shrubbery. We probably had fifty grand worth of optics and cameras and lenses between us. Suddenly a group of youths on bikes turned up. When they asked us what we were doing there, we somewhat feared the worst. On being told we were searching for a rare bird, they cheerfully said "Well, good look with seeing it then lads!" and off they went....)
If someone is going to get involved with the Labour leadership debate and the mechanism behind it, I suggest they first puts the effort into understanding the system, just as I understand the PCP's rules. To do otherwise is to simply add to the vapid sanctimonious bilge, of which we have more than plenty.
It's been 6yrs since they'd any sort of coherent platform - that infamous "vote Labour and win a free microwave" quote summed it up.
Until they decide what their purpose is, I'm not sure they're going anywhere. Only 10 months ago, all the ABC candidates had nothing to say...
But don't let mere facts get in the way of your fantasies.
It is no more simple or complicated than Leadsome is just not up to the job of running the Party or the Country.
It is for this reason, however, that the nutters have seized upon her candidature to try to influence the Partyand push it in their desired direction. I don't happen to think that direction is a good one for the Country.