I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented, but I think the response to attacks has been good and I doubt that we would fare as well.
The response may well have been good. But politically / presentationally the French don't seem to think so. How fair or not that perception is it's hard to say. Even harder to assess whether any alternative would do anything different.
One thing France might want to look at is who they are letting into their country from outside the EU. Both the Nice attacker and one of the attackers yesterday were not born in France. They appear to have had no obvious skills that would benefit France which could not be found from people in France or the EU.
Why, then, did France permit them to enter the country and become residents?
And if the criteria are too loose or were applied wrongly in these cases, are they going to be tightened up?
Would be the questions I would ask, were I a French voter.
Owen Smith to build 300,000 homes a year in next Parliament. Yeh, right. 'Cos no one else has had the same aspiration in last twenty years.
I can get behind the more homes and more money for the NHS, but not sure about the IHT...
Building homes is great. But how? How is going to deliver this? Brown wanted to do it. Cameron wanted to do it.
I think there is alot both Brown and Cameron could do, but didn't. Ironically the posts of @Currystar seemed to indicate that housebuilding was really starting to pick up pre-Brexit
Personally I think a mix of LA and private is best - it's something that's best being non ideological about.
Well, house completions were heading towards where they were in the mid-1990s pre-Brexit, but still well below historical run rates.
As I put it on Twitter, the last time the UK built >300k homes, Johnny Mathis had the Christmas number one.
Well written as ever, though I will say that this bit
Conversely, if winning elections means becoming Blairite then what’s the point? In short, winning elections is less important than winning the argument.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
I also think, personally, that the psychological Rubicon you reference has not really been crossed yet, despite one or two MPs talking about it.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
When Owen Smith says he wants to smash Theresa May back on her heels, he's not meaning 'smash' in the urban dictionary sense is he?
Am I going to regret asking what "'smash' in the urban dictionary sense" means?
Yes
I like to help educate Cyclefree for her job, thanks to me, she now knows why so many of the staff she regulates change at Baker Street
And now I know that Owen Smith thinks Theresa May is a WILF.
See thanks to me, not only do you get excellent betting advice, political analysis, pop music references, science knowledge, subtle puns, and a deeper understanding of how the youth speaks these days.
I know. I know. And you forgot the classical stuff. How am I going to show my gratitude?
When Owen Smith says he wants to smash Theresa May back on her heels, he's not meaning 'smash' in the urban dictionary sense is he?
Am I going to regret asking what "'smash' in the urban dictionary sense" means?
Yes
I like to help educate Cyclefree for her job, thanks to me, she now knows why so many of the staff she regulates change at Baker Street
And now I know that Owen Smith thinks Theresa May is a WILF.
See thanks to me, not only do you get excellent betting advice, political analysis, pop music references, science knowledge, subtle puns, and a deeper understanding of how the youth speaks these days.
I know. I know. And you forgot the classical stuff. How am I going to show my gratitude?
Keep writing your threads and that's gratitude enough
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
When Owen Smith says he wants to smash Theresa May back on her heels, he's not meaning 'smash' in the urban dictionary sense is he?
Am I going to regret asking what "'smash' in the urban dictionary sense" means?
Yes
I like to help educate Cyclefree for her job, thanks to me, she now knows why so many of the staff she regulates change at Baker Street
And now I know that Owen Smith thinks Theresa May is a WILF.
See thanks to me, not only do you get excellent betting advice, political analysis, pop music references, science knowledge, subtle puns, and a deeper understanding of how the youth speaks these days.
I know. I know. And you forgot the classical stuff. How am I going to show my gratitude?
Keep writing your threads and that's gratitude enough
If Owen Smith is the answer, is the question "who could deliver the 1983 manifesto and looks like President Hollande"?
He does a bit. Hollande has some virtues though, his response to terrorism is a hell of a lot more forthright than anything you will get from a Labour politician.
François Hollande's response to terrorism has been almost as bad as could be imagined.
After Bataclan he declared a state of emergency. Then when someone drove a large lorry onto an obvious target area at a large public entertainment event, he declared that while it was a terrible thing, everything had been done to prevent such attacks. Such an incompetent butt-protecting president should resign. No wonder his prime minister Manuel Valls got booed when he went to Nice. Nice was a major security failure. Not just locally, but a failure of the entire posturing and pathetic "state of emergency".
Afterwards he managed to march soldiers up and down the promenade though.
If a soldier is told not to let lorries into an area, he won't let them into an area. Could you imagine what would happen if a soldier was given such orders, but failed to obey them, letting a terrorist drive a truck in and murder a few dozen soldiers? But the police who were supposed to protect the promenade in Nice drove their vans away. Maybe they'd heard on their radios that a suspected shoplifter was being a bit stroppy on the other side of town? Not that I am blaming individual police officers. The problem goes right to the top.
Most people with a site security role who aren't in the armed forces - this includes the police, private security staff, and staff who have a security role as well as other roles - view their security role as a combination (in varying degrees) of
a) walking and talking in a tough way b) playing with equipment as if they're really cool c) enforcing unnecessary "health and safety", especially when their bosses are looking
Yes there is a war. Get the army out of their barracks right now. Make the holding of all big entertainment events, the operation of shopping centres, etc., depend on army clearance, oversight, and in most cases an actual army presence.
Anybody who thinks that that shouldn't be done because it might mean that fewer cinemas and theatres are allowed to operate, itself meaning that the terrorists have won, is an idiot.
The money is there. Tear up the £200bn contracts for replacing Britain's nuclear weapons systems for starters. Nuclear weapons are no defence against terrorism.
Well written as ever, though I will say that this bit
Conversely, if winning elections means becoming Blairite then what’s the point? In short, winning elections is less important than winning the argument.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
I also think, personally, that the psychological Rubicon you reference has not really been crossed yet, despite one or two MPs talking about it.
But isn't that first point slightly different from the one the Corbyn supporters are making. That is, that they don't believe there is a compromise to be made between policy and power both because they believe they're exercising power indirectly now, and also because they'll win in 2020? So those who think they'll win haven't really been asked which is the more important between policy and power because they think they'll get both.
Re the Rubicon on thinking about splitting, we're both speculating, bar the odd straw in the wind. But I do think it's significant that people - including Owen Smith today - talk about it openly, if in the abstract. People have accepted that it might well happen and that of itself is hugely significant; that the Labour movement is not necessarily destined to remain intact.
When Owen Smith says he wants to smash Theresa May back on her heels, he's not meaning 'smash' in the urban dictionary sense is he?
Am I going to regret asking what "'smash' in the urban dictionary sense" means?
Yes
I like to help educate Cyclefree for her job, thanks to me, she now knows why so many of the staff she regulates change at Baker Street
And now I know that Owen Smith thinks Theresa May is a WILF.
I thought she was a FLOTTILF...
I can't keep up! Dare I ask?
And there I was thinking that ILF stood to International Legal Foundation. I could get the M part (member of), but was getting confused with the W, the A and the FLOTT ...
It's a shame to see PB descend into the anti-Corbyn gutter. Your recent record is tainting past glories.
Well no-one is forcing you to be here.
PB is just reflecting the utter chaos that is the Labour Party today. They are the party that is engaged in the most bitter and violent period in modern political history. It is utterly shameful that a party that used to stand for something has become this current mess.
Amazing that just one man is responsible for all of this. One would have thought it would have taken at least 172.
Everyone has contributed to the mess, but of course even those few hundred can only cause this mess because the underlying position was primed for it by circumstance. It is the oft commented distance between membership and leadership finally being addressed. Corbyn was just the match being tossed into the kindling, and its so vicious because the MPs lit the match themselves thinking they could control the blaze.
Now, some will celebrate Labour being in such a mess, either because they think it will cripple them, or they think it will ultimately lead to a cleansing which will be good for them. Most commentators, rightly or wrongly, currently think it will be the former, but until it is settled it will be a vicious, destructive mess, there can be no question of that. As the figurehead for one of the competing sides, Corbyn will understandably draw the ire and ridicule of many, there is no getting around that. And until he proves himself right, that will continue.
It's going to be a long road, is the point. If he is right, if his supporters are right, it will be after a long fight, and things may well get worse before they get better.
Poor Poland. Bullied by Russia, Germany, the Soviets and now the EU.
They chose to join the EU though. As Peter Mannion MP once said, it's the difference between being punched in the face and punching yourself in the face.
And whether you feel the other benefits outweigh the occasional punch of course.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented, but I think the response to attacks has been good and I doubt that we would fare as well.
The response may well have been good. But politically / presentationally the French don't seem to think so. How fair or not that perception is it's hard to say. Even harder to assess whether any alternative would do anything different.
One thing France might want to look at is who they are letting into their country from outside the EU. Both the Nice attacker and one of the attackers yesterday were not born in France. They appear to have had no obvious skills that would benefit France which could not be found from people in France or the EU.
Why, then, did France permit them to enter the country and become residents?
And if the criteria are too loose or were applied wrongly in these cases, are they going to be tightened up?
Would be the questions I would ask, were I a French voter.
I'd also be asking why people sentenced to imprisonment are wandering around with tracker bracelets?
Someone yesterday suggested that as prisons are a hotbed of radicalization, isn't it better to let already radicalised toerags out. Well, clearly not because while they are in prison they are not going to murder innocent priests. To goto all the bother of identifying people who are a threat, gathering the evidence to prove that they are a threat, getting a conviction and then letting them out so they can realise their threat is plain daft.
Not that the UK is any better in this respect, indeed we are probably worse.
Well written as ever, though I will say that this bit
Conversely, if winning elections means becoming Blairite then what’s the point? In short, winning elections is less important than winning the argument.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
I also think, personally, that the psychological Rubicon you reference has not really been crossed yet, despite one or two MPs talking about it.
But isn't that first point slightly different from the one the Corbyn supporters are making. That is, that they don't believe there is a compromise to be made between policy and power both because they believe they're exercising power indirectly now, and also because they'll win in 2020? So those who think they'll win haven't really been asked which is the more important between policy and power because they think they'll get both.
Perhaps. I think maybe there is hard core who simply don't care about electoral success, although the key figures are canny enough to avoid saying that, and then the rest who think the current path will be electorally successful in addition to being what they want to hear, policy wise.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
That's why the latest polling is so important, because the evidence that Corbyn doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning really does challenge those who aren't content for Labour to be reduced to yet another far left debating society looking on forever from the sidelines.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
That's why the latest polling is so important, because the evidence that Corbyn doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning really does challenge those who aren't content for Labour to be reduced to yet another far left debating society looking on forever from the sidelines.
But of course people who think Corbyn will be electorally successful were already ignoring the polls - if they believed it before, they will believe it now.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Compare like for like results. The voting system hasn't changed, only the results changed.
Tories went from no majority to a majority under the same voting system. SNP went from a majority to no majority under the same voting system.
Well if he is saying he respects Corbyn's ideas but Corbyn is not capable of winning an election I'd not be surprised if literally had the same platform on everything.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Compare like for like results. The voting system hasn't changed, only the results changed.
Tories went from no majority to a majority under the same voting system. SNP went from a majority to no majority under the same voting system.
Maybe that's because it is alot harder to get a majority under the Holyrood rules ! They're still more popular in Scotland than the Conservatives are UK wide anyway.
If so, it's news to me. Taking them at their word (something they are not prepared to do in the case of Owen Smith) it just goes to confirm how ineffectual the Labour leader's team had been at communicating any policy detail to the wider public.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
Let me guess, another 'expert' who couldn't name another SCon msp without a Google let alone identify any strength in depth among their ranks.
1 Scottish MSP other than Ruth Davidson follow me on twitter, so I can name at least one.
Queen's 11 Murdo or WATP Tomkins?
Professor Tomkins.
Dare I ask what 'WATP' means?
We Are The People, the self-description of those blue-clad chaps who love singing folk songs about being up to their knees in Fenian blood. Tomkins seems to have discovered an affinity with that side of Glasgow.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Fortunately, AMS means we know pretty much how the SNP would get on under FPTP (assuming the same constituencies and hence a much smaller parliament), and it would have been an epic landslide.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
Let me guess, another 'expert' who couldn't name another SCon msp without a Google let alone identify any strength in depth among their ranks.
1 Scottish MSP other than Ruth Davidson follow me on twitter, so I can name at least one.
Queen's 11 Murdo or WATP Tomkins?
Professor Tomkins.
Dare I ask what 'WATP' means?
We Are The People, the self-description of those blue-clad chaps who love singing folk songs about being up to their knees in Fenian blood. Tomkins seems to have discovered an affinity with that side of Glasgow.
The money is there. Tear up the £200bn contracts for replacing Britain's nuclear weapons systems for starters. Nuclear weapons are no defence against terrorism.
Lots of things are no defence against terrorism, in fact most things we do are no defence against terrorism, but that doesn't mean we don't need them for their intended purposes.
We need to defend against all threats, or at least the ones that carry a high risk or cost, not just the one threat that is currently in the news.
Clearly Smith trying to appeal to members because there's no way his list of "policies" would be particularly appealing to voters. The reversal of corporation tax an interesting one, on the day GFK invested in UK precisely because of low corporation tax rates.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Fortunately, AMS means we know pretty much how the SNP would get on under FPTP (assuming the same constituencies and hence a much smaller parliament), and it would have been an epic landslide.
Yep - personally I think AMS would improve Westminster. And no it wouldn't mean Nick Clegg forever...
The money is there. Tear up the £200bn contracts for replacing Britain's nuclear weapons systems for starters. Nuclear weapons are no defence against terrorism.
Lots of things are no defence against terrorism, in fact most things we do are no defence against terrorism, but that doesn't mean we don't need them for their intended purposes.
We need to defend against all threats, or at least the ones that carry a high risk or cost, not just the one threat that is currently in the news.
Indeed. We also need to defend ourselves against all potential threats over future decades.
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented, but I think the response to attacks has been good and I doubt that we would fare as well.
The response may well have been good. But politically / presentationally the French don't seem to think so. How fair or not that perception is it's hard to say. Even harder to assess whether any alternative would do anything different.
One thing France might want to look at is who they are letting into their country from outside the EU. Both the Nice attacker and one of the attackers yesterday were not born in France. They appear to have had no obvious skills that would benefit France which could not be found from people in France or the EU.
Why, then, did France permit them to enter the country and become residents?
And if the criteria are too loose or were applied wrongly in these cases, are they going to be tightened up?
Would be the questions I would ask, were I a French voter.
I'd also be asking why people sentenced to imprisonment are wandering around with tracker bracelets?
Someone yesterday suggested that as prisons are a hotbed of radicalization, isn't it better to let already radicalised toerags out. Well, clearly not because while they are in prison they are not going to murder innocent priests. To goto all the bother of identifying people who are a threat, gathering the evidence to prove that they are a threat, getting a conviction and then letting them out so they can realise their threat is plain daft.
Not that the UK is any better in this respect, indeed we are probably worse.
Indeed, and why are tracker bracelets allowed to be switched off?
At the moment, I feel that people convicted of terrorist offences should be locked up for the rest of their lives.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
Let me guess, another 'expert' who couldn't name another SCon msp without a Google let alone identify any strength in depth among their ranks.
1 Scottish MSP other than Ruth Davidson follow me on twitter, so I can name at least one.
Queen's 11 Murdo or WATP Tomkins?
Professor Tomkins.
Dare I ask what 'WATP' means?
We Are The People, the self-description of those blue-clad chaps who love singing folk songs about being up to their knees in Fenian blood. Tomkins seems to have discovered an affinity with that side of Glasgow.
Thank you.
FTP is another of their favoured acronyms. I was initially puzzled why Glasgwegians seemed to be such enthusiasts for file transfer protocols.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Compare like for like results. The voting system hasn't changed, only the results changed.
Tories went from no majority to a majority under the same voting system. SNP went from a majority to no majority under the same voting system.
Maybe that's because it is alot harder to get a majority under the Holyrood rules ! They're still more popular in Scotland than the Conservatives are UK wide anyway.
Nobody is disputing that. But then no sensible Tories hubristically believe they have an inevitable right to rule for the foreseeable decades even if the opposition were to.get a sensible leader. SNP supporters do seem to believe that.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
That's why the latest polling is so important, because the evidence that Corbyn doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning really does challenge those who aren't content for Labour to be reduced to yet another far left debating society looking on forever from the sidelines.
But of course people who think Corbyn will be electorally successful were already ignoring the polls - if they believed it before, they will believe it now.
They were previously arguing that Corbyn was just about in touch with the Conservatives and taking undue heart from the results of the May 2015 elections.
Regular double-digit polling leads for the Conservatives are a different ball game. A 16% deficit leads to this sort of headline in today's i newspaper (which unlike the Guardian is a fine source of polling news since it can't afford to commission any and instead views them as a free news source): "Labour as far behind Tories as when Thatcher wiped out Foot". Far harder to argue away.
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Fortunately, AMS means we know pretty much how the SNP would get on under FPTP (assuming the same constituencies and hence a much smaller parliament), and it would have been an epic landslide.
One would have to assume that voters would vote the same way under a different system. I don't think you can assume that. You're probably correct that SNP would have won a majority under FPTP, but you cannot simply take the constituency vote and translate that directly to the FPTP equivalent.
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
But it isn't the same cycle - the council polls are every 4 years - so you can't compare the two.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
So the SNP are due a comeuppance in 7-10 years? We can hope I guess.
The unkind might suggest they had a marginal comeuppance only 2 months ago with the loss of their majority ...
Still the most popular party in any individual country of the UK, just really the voting system flatters the Conservatives in Westminster compared to the SNP in Holyrood.
Fortunately, AMS means we know pretty much how the SNP would get on under FPTP (assuming the same constituencies and hence a much smaller parliament), and it would have been an epic landslide.
One would have to assume that voters would vote the same way under a different system. I don't think you can assume that. You're probably correct that SNP would have won a majority under FPTP, but you cannot simply take the constituency vote and translate that directly to the FPTP equivalent.
No, you can't - and it's a different election too (some parties only ran on the list vote, for example). Still, the raw numbers don't seem that far off what the polls are currently producing for Westminster so I don't think the outcome would have been all that different.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...
Great start by Hammond - he really has hit the ground running as Chancellor - excellent figures for him.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
That's why the latest polling is so important, because the evidence that Corbyn doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning really does challenge those who aren't content for Labour to be reduced to yet another far left debating society looking on forever from the sidelines.
But of course people who think Corbyn will be electorally successful were already ignoring the polls - if they believed it before, they will believe it now.
They were previously arguing that Corbyn was just about in touch with the Conservatives and taking undue heart from the results of the May 2015 elections.
Regular double-digit polling leads for the Conservatives are a different ball game. A 16% deficit leads to this sort of headline in today's i newspaper (which unlike the Guardian is a fine source of polling news since it can't afford to commission any and instead views them as a free news source): "Labour as far behind Tories as when Thatcher wiped out Foot". Far harder to argue away.
Yes - but it is unlikely to continue like that. There is a significant May 'honeymoon' factor in the figures which will be flattering the Tories at the moment but that will inevitably fade with time. By September we could well be seeing headlines of 'Tory lead slashed to 5%' or something similar. I expect polling figures to return to roughly pre-Brexit levels long before Xmas.
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
That's a fair point but you need also to look at the vote share which was much worse than that Miliband achieved.
What I think explains the difference is that Labour picked up lots of seats in 2012 where the party did not previously have representation. On the back of that a lot of those newly elected councillors managed to build up a personal vote through four years of hard graft of casework and regular newsletters, on the back of which they hung on in 2016 despite a decline in Labour vote share in other seats in the same councils. It's not dissimilar to the way that newly elected Conservative MPs managed to increase their majorities in 2015 despite a small swing back to Labour at the GE.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...
Osborne's legacy is a mountain of debt. He's got nothing to brag about.
"The news comes as the company invests £275 million in its plants across the UK despite GSK chief executive Andrew Witty backing the Remain campaign during the European Union referendum."
I see the BBC are "surprised" again at the good economic news - BUT, BUT, BUT!!!!!! The Deputy Director of the CBI was on SKY and sounded reasonably positive, then 10 minutes I saw him on the BBC and he was almost completely negative. What a complete shower these people are.
I shall watch with interest to see if Owen Smith's comments about Theresa May make the BBC news. I said a few weeks ago he was a nasty piece of work and like John McDonnell, they can't keep the Mr Nice Guy up for long.
Mark Austin ITV A load of sport bodies clear Russia for Rio. The state sponsored doping now replaced by state sponsored laughter at the world. #Rio #doping
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
But it isn't the same cycle - the council polls are every 4 years - so you can't compare the two.
The real comparison should be between 2011 - Milliband's first year as leader - and 2016. In 2011 the Tories led Labour by 1% in the projected National Vote Share whereas in 2016 Laboue had a 1% lead. Corbyn, therefore, on a like for like basis somewhat outperformed Miliband. The 2012 figures are of interest in that they represented peak Miliband and when the Tories were at their most unpopular in the last Parliament. There was a general expectation that the Tories would recoup some of their heavy 2012 losses this year - instead they went on to lose a further 50 seats or so. Labour rather confounded pundits who had predicted losses of 150 - 200 by losing a mere 18.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
LOL, how delusional can you get and that from a handful of people.
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
But it isn't the same cycle - the council polls are every 4 years - so you can't compare the two.
The real comparison should be between 2011 - Milliband's first year as leader - and 2016. In 2011 the Tories led Labour by 1% in the projected National Vote Share whereas in 2016 Laboue had a 1% lead. Corbyn, therefore, on a like for like basis somewhat outperformed Miliband. The 2012 figures are of interest in that they represented peak Miliband and when the Tories were at their most unpopular in the last Parliament. There was a general expectation that the Tories would recoup some of their heavy 2012 losses this year - instead they went on to lose a further 50 seats or so. Labour rather confounded pundits who had predicted losses of 150 - 200 by losing a mere 18.
But they aren't the same seats being contested. The 1st year leadership stuff is interesting but not significant as the battlegrounds are not the same.
You can only really compare like with like. And that 'analysis' really doesn't show anything.
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented
Why is terrorism the only crime we think we can 'prevent'?
Minimise yes (unless like McDonnell you think MI5 have more pressing tasks like disrupting Labour) - but eliminate - no more than we can eliminate burglary or GBH...
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...
Usually people try to explain away underwhelming GDP figures with excuses such as "the weather was too cold" or "there was an extra bank holiday for the royal wedding". In Q3 I expect we'll be hearing "the weak pound has been an unfair help", etc.
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
LOL, how delusional can you get and that from a handful of people.
When the SNP's popularity does start to wane -- and it can only defy political gravity for so long -- where do you think SNP votes will go?
I know its a subsample, but have the Tories ever been more than double Labour (and more than half the SNP(!)) before?
Not quite half the SNP score, but next year's Scottish council elections are going to be fun.
Still can't get over those Scottish YouGov leader ratings from yesterday
Tory fanboys wetting their pants on a subsample
It seems to be pretty much unarguable now that the Tories are the party on the march in Scotland, and are best placed to hoover up the SNP when their arrogance and incompetence finally smashes them on the rocks.
The SNP's current complacency reminds many of SLab's a decade ago. So smug and so stupid.
As TuD observed yesterday 'Only Diamonds are forever.....'(I suspect he meant it about something else....)
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented
Why is terrorism the only crime we think we can 'prevent'?
Minimise yes (unless like McDonnell you think MI5 have more pressing tasks like disrupting Labour) - but eliminate - no more than we can eliminate burglary or GBH...
And, of course, we don't 'prevent' the risks that are pretty much in our own individual hands to eliminate - obesity, smoking, drinking, speeding (the last to ensure I am not absolving myself from this critique) - which kill far more than terrorism.
Risk perception is fickle. It is one of the most important jobs of government to place a reality filter on public perceptions before allocating risk management resources, be they intelligence assets, hardening of infrastructure, or emergency planning and response.
That's why the latest polling is so important, because the evidence that Corbyn doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of winning really does challenge those who aren't content for Labour to be reduced to yet another far left debating society looking on forever from the sidelines.
But of course people who think Corbyn will be electorally successful were already ignoring the polls - if they believed it before, they will believe it now.
They were previously arguing that Corbyn was just about in touch with the Conservatives and taking undue heart from the results of the May 2015 elections.
Regular double-digit polling leads for the Conservatives are a different ball game. A 16% deficit leads to this sort of headline in today's i newspaper (which unlike the Guardian is a fine source of polling news since it can't afford to commission any and instead views them as a free news source): "Labour as far behind Tories as when Thatcher wiped out Foot". Far harder to argue away.
Yes - but it is unlikely to continue like that. There is a significant May 'honeymoon' factor in the figures which will be flattering the Tories at the moment but that will inevitably fade with time. By September we could well be seeing headlines of 'Tory lead slashed to 5%' or something similar. I expect polling figures to return to roughly pre-Brexit levels long before Xmas.
She's a month into the job, but Corbyn is only nine months in. He's in the process of going backwards still himself and I think will continue to do so for a while as these perceptions of Labour's unelectability under his leadership sink in further. If May does fade in due course, and a lot will depend on whether she is perceived to having broken with Osborne's trajectory, Corbyn's personal ratings are nonetheless so bad already that there's no reason to expect those presently drawn to the Conservatives to favour Corbynite Labour over UKIP, the Lib Dems, SNP/Plaid or even the Greens.
Oppositions by this stage in the electoral cycle should be enjoying substantive polling leads, whether they win or lose. With ICM and YouGov, in terms of Labour's position relative to the Conservatives Miliband was by this stage between 15% and 20% ahead of where Corbyn is now, and still lost.
these are accumulative though, this is the same cycle as Miliband gained 800 seats last time around (2012). To lose 12 is the same as saying that he micro marginally did slightly worse than Miliband. To only lose 12 on a cycle they gained 800 last time isnt bad....
But it isn't the same cycle - the council polls are every 4 years - so you can't compare the two.
The real comparison should be between 2011 - Milliband's first year as leader - and 2016. In 2011 the Tories led Labour by 1% in the projected National Vote Share whereas in 2016 Laboue had a 1% lead. Corbyn, therefore, on a like for like basis somewhat outperformed Miliband. The 2012 figures are of interest in that they represented peak Miliband and when the Tories were at their most unpopular in the last Parliament. There was a general expectation that the Tories would recoup some of their heavy 2012 losses this year - instead they went on to lose a further 50 seats or so. Labour rather confounded pundits who had predicted losses of 150 - 200 by losing a mere 18.
But they aren't the same seats being contested. The 1st year leadership stuff is interesting but not significant as the battlegrounds are not the same.
You can only really compare like with like. And that 'analysis' really doesn't show anything.
That depends on whether you attach importance to the projected National Vote Share. Most psephologists see that as more significant than changes in number of councillors elected. There is no other obvious way of making a meaningful comparison because the Parliamentary and Local Election cycles are out of sync - ie MPs elected for 5 years - councillors for 4 years. It makes little sense to compare 2012 to 2016 - despite the fact that the same seats are up for election - because 2012 was 'midterm' whereas 2016 was not!
Mark Austin ITV A load of sport bodies clear Russia for Rio. The state sponsored doping now replaced by state sponsored laughter at the world. #Rio #doping
Such a farce."Russia systematically doped athletes in a complex scam for years. But no, it's fine".
Yes - but it is unlikely to continue like that. There is a significant May 'honeymoon' factor in the figures which will be flattering the Tories at the moment but that will inevitably fade with time. By September we could well be seeing headlines of 'Tory lead slashed to 5%' or something similar. I expect polling figures to return to roughly pre-Brexit levels long before Xmas.
She's a month into the job, but Corbyn is only nine months in. He's in the process of going backwards still himself and I think will continue to do so for a while as these perceptions of Labour's unelectability under his leadership sink in further. If May does fade in due course, and a lot will depend on whether she is perceived to having broken with Osborne's trajectory, Corbyn's personal ratings are nonetheless so bad already that there's no reason to expect those presently drawn to the Conservatives to favour Corbynite Labour over UKIP, the Lib Dems, SNP/Plaid or even the Greens.
Oppositions by this stage in the electoral cycle should be enjoying substantive polling leads, whether they win or lose. With ICM and YouGov, in terms of Labour's position relative to the Conservatives Miliband was by this stage between 15% and 20% ahead of where Corbyn is now, and still lost.
''François Hollande's response to terrorism has been almost as bad as could be imagined.''
Its difficult to see how France gets out of its dire predicament without huge upheaval.
Well, sometimes problems can seem - indeed can be - so vast that, if looked at like that, they induce paralysis. An alternative way is to try and break up the problem into smaller bits and take small steps to start dealing with each.
So, for instance, in France's case - and speaking with no special knowledge:-
1. Looking at better information-sharing/co-ordination amongst the security/police services. 2. Possibly looking at what they can learn from the UK's Prevent programme - assuming they don't have something similar already. 3. Reviewing sentencing guidelines/rules/recommendations for terrorism offences. 4. Tightening up the use of electronic tags. 5. Reviewing immigration policies for non-EU countries and, specifically, countries where there is a known terrorism risk (e.g. Tunisia and Algeria) 6. Resources for the monitoring of those on the terror watch list.
And so on. There may not be a Big Bang answer but one way of minimizing and, one would like to hope, eventually eliminating the risk of terrorism is by the accumulation of many individual small steps such as these covering a number of different areas.
The wider issue of an unintegrated and hostile Muslim population - or a part of it - is more difficult I agree. But even there a one step at a time approach may be helpful.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...
Osborne's legacy is a mountain of debt. He's got nothing to brag about.
The mountain of debt would have happened regardless, particularly since the only alternatives seriously mooted was to cut even less. His legacy is failing to even put us on the path to eliminating the deficit even within his own extended timescale of 10 years.
I give up with trying to edit stuff to cope with the word limit and then to amend stuff incorrectly to try and make amends. For the record, my apologies to @justin124 for attributing in my 1.29 post my previous posting to him and his to me.
"The news comes as the company invests £275 million in its plants across the UK despite GSK chief executive Andrew Witty backing the Remain campaign during the European Union referendum."
Lies by the Remainiacs.
When do we get the extra £350million/week for ht NHS?
Read an interesting calculation from a US bank this morning. JP Morgan (I think) have said that the ECB QE programme will be larger than the Fed programme by the end of the year and reach 35% of EMU GDP. To put it into context our QE programme is about 20% of GDP and most people think we have reached the limiter on what is now possible.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...
Great start by Hammond - he really has hit the ground running as Chancellor - excellent figures for him.
Well that's not saying much given that the Labour leadership think terrorists should be their friends.
And in any case the French don't appear to think much of Hollande's response to the terrorism they have been suffering.
True, it will take a long time to fix the problems with the security and intelligence services so that attacks are prevented
Why is terrorism the only crime we think we can 'prevent'?
Minimise yes (unless like McDonnell you think MI5 have more pressing tasks like disrupting Labour) - but eliminate - no more than we can eliminate burglary or GBH...
And, of course, we don't 'prevent' the risks that are pretty much in our own individual hands to eliminate - obesity, smoking, drinking, speeding (the last to ensure I am not absolving myself from this critique) - which kill far more than terrorism.
Risk perception is fickle. It is one of the most important jobs of government to place a reality filter on public perceptions before allocating risk management resources, be they intelligence assets, hardening of infrastructure, or emergency planning and response.
Isn't one reason for the difference in perception the fact that eating, drinking, driving and (until relatively recently) smoking are seen as normal, desirable and enjoyable activities? So we are prepared to take the risks because the upsides are worth it. Whereas running around a city centre with a Kalashnikov or machete is not desirable or enjoyable or normal so people don't see why they should put up with the risk of it at all.
Comments
1. The action/process of fucking someone good.
1a. Hittin' it
1b. Tappin that ass.
1. Damn, Keri looks good as shit!..I just wanna smash her!
One thing France might want to look at is who they are letting into their country from outside the EU. Both the Nice attacker and one of the attackers yesterday were not born in France. They appear to have had no obvious skills that would benefit France which could not be found from people in France or the EU.
Why, then, did France permit them to enter the country and become residents?
And if the criteria are too loose or were applied wrongly in these cases, are they going to be tightened up?
Would be the questions I would ask, were I a French voter.
As I put it on Twitter, the last time the UK built >300k homes, Johnny Mathis had the Christmas number one.
Conversely, if winning elections means becoming Blairite then what’s the point? In short, winning elections is less important than winning the argument.
while seemingly true, doesn't seem to take account of the fact that apparently over half of current Labour members (or something like that, it was on a thread recently) think they will win an election under Corbyn. So while I think there is ample evidence there is a strain of thought that winning is not important if you do it the wrong way, many others in Labour would continue to say they do care about winning above all, and they think a party united behind Corbyn would do it. I think they would be wrong about that, but they don't all think winning is less important than argument winning, many think they are doing both for once.
I also think, personally, that the psychological Rubicon you reference has not really been crossed yet, despite one or two MPs talking about it.
(And now I really must do some work.)
After Bataclan he declared a state of emergency. Then when someone drove a large lorry onto an obvious target area at a large public entertainment event, he declared that while it was a terrible thing, everything had been done to prevent such attacks. Such an incompetent butt-protecting president should resign. No wonder his prime minister Manuel Valls got booed when he went to Nice. Nice was a major security failure. Not just locally, but a failure of the entire posturing and pathetic "state of emergency".
Afterwards he managed to march soldiers up and down the promenade though.
If a soldier is told not to let lorries into an area, he won't let them into an area. Could you imagine what would happen if a soldier was given such orders, but failed to obey them, letting a terrorist drive a truck in and murder a few dozen soldiers? But the police who were supposed to protect the promenade in Nice drove their vans away. Maybe they'd heard on their radios that a suspected shoplifter was being a bit stroppy on the other side of town? Not that I am blaming individual police officers. The problem goes right to the top.
Most people with a site security role who aren't in the armed forces - this includes the police, private security staff, and staff who have a security role as well as other roles - view their security role as a combination (in varying degrees) of
a) walking and talking in a tough way
b) playing with equipment as if they're really cool
c) enforcing unnecessary "health and safety", especially when their bosses are looking
Yes there is a war. Get the army out of their barracks right now. Make the holding of all big entertainment events, the operation of shopping centres, etc., depend on army clearance, oversight, and in most cases an actual army presence.
Anybody who thinks that that shouldn't be done because it might mean that fewer cinemas and theatres are allowed to operate, itself meaning that the terrorists have won, is an idiot.
The money is there. Tear up the £200bn contracts for replacing Britain's nuclear weapons systems for starters. Nuclear weapons are no defence against terrorism.
Re the Rubicon on thinking about splitting, we're both speculating, bar the odd straw in the wind. But I do think it's significant that people - including Owen Smith today - talk about it openly, if in the abstract. People have accepted that it might well happen and that of itself is hugely significant; that the Labour movement is not necessarily destined to remain intact.
Now, some will celebrate Labour being in such a mess, either because they think it will cripple them, or they think it will ultimately lead to a cleansing which will be good for them. Most commentators, rightly or wrongly, currently think it will be the former, but until it is settled it will be a vicious, destructive mess, there can be no question of that. As the figurehead for one of the competing sides, Corbyn will understandably draw the ire and ridicule of many, there is no getting around that. And until he proves himself right, that will continue.
It's going to be a long road, is the point. If he is right, if his supporters are right, it will be after a long fight, and things may well get worse before they get better.
And whether you feel the other benefits outweigh the occasional punch of course.
Someone yesterday suggested that as prisons are a hotbed of radicalization, isn't it better to let already radicalised toerags out. Well, clearly not because while they are in prison they are not going to murder innocent priests. To goto all the bother of identifying people who are a threat, gathering the evidence to prove that they are a threat, getting a conviction and then letting them out so they can realise their threat is plain daft.
Not that the UK is any better in this respect, indeed we are probably worse.
I genuinely have no idea to whom Smith is supposed to appeal. To what question is "Owen Smith" a satisfactory answer?
Tories went from no majority to a majority under the same voting system.
SNP went from a majority to no majority under the same voting system.
We need to defend against all threats, or at least the ones that carry a high risk or cost, not just the one threat that is currently in the news.
At the moment, I feel that people convicted of terrorist offences should be locked up for the rest of their lives.
I was initially puzzled why Glasgwegians seemed to be such enthusiasts for file transfer protocols.
https://t.co/LPSYQQ6USp
I would caution any side against hubris.
Regular double-digit polling leads for the Conservatives are a different ball game. A 16% deficit leads to this sort of headline in today's i newspaper (which unlike the Guardian is a fine source of polling news since it can't afford to commission any and instead views them as a free news source): "Labour as far behind Tories as when Thatcher wiped out Foot". Far harder to argue away.
You're probably correct that SNP would have won a majority under FPTP, but you cannot simply take the constituency vote and translate that directly to the FPTP equivalent.
@George_Osborne: Welcome news that GDP grew by 0.6% in quarter to end of June, with especially strong manufacturing output. Comes with record employment too.
just wait for the next quarter...What I think explains the difference is that Labour picked up lots of seats in 2012 where the party did not previously have representation. On the back of that a lot of those newly elected councillors managed to build up a personal vote through four years of hard graft of casework and regular newsletters, on the back of which they hung on in 2016 despite a decline in Labour vote share in other seats in the same councils. It's not dissimilar to the way that newly elected Conservative MPs managed to increase their majorities in 2015 despite a small swing back to Labour at the GE.
"The news comes as the company invests £275 million in its plants across the UK despite GSK chief executive Andrew Witty backing the Remain campaign during the European Union referendum."
Lies by the Remainiacs.
I shall watch with interest to see if Owen Smith's comments about Theresa May make the BBC news. I said a few weeks ago he was a nasty piece of work and like John McDonnell, they can't keep the Mr Nice Guy up for long.
A load of sport bodies clear Russia for Rio. The state sponsored doping now replaced by state sponsored laughter at the world. #Rio #doping
The 2012 figures are of interest in that they represented peak Miliband and when the Tories were at their most unpopular in the last Parliament. There was a general expectation that the Tories would recoup some of their heavy 2012 losses this year - instead they went on to lose a further 50 seats or so. Labour rather confounded pundits who had predicted losses of 150 - 200 by losing a mere 18.
Its difficult to see how France gets out of its dire predicament without huge upheaval.
You can only really compare like with like. And that 'analysis' really doesn't show anything.
Minimise yes (unless like McDonnell you think MI5 have more pressing tasks like disrupting Labour) - but eliminate - no more than we can eliminate burglary or GBH...
Risk perception is fickle. It is one of the most important jobs of government to place a reality filter on public perceptions before allocating risk management resources, be they intelligence assets, hardening of infrastructure, or emergency planning and response.
She's a month into the job, but Corbyn is only nine months in. He's in the process of going backwards still himself and I think will continue to do so for a while as these perceptions of Labour's unelectability under his leadership sink in further. If May does fade in due course, and a lot will depend on whether she is perceived to having broken with Osborne's trajectory, Corbyn's personal ratings are nonetheless so bad already that there's no reason to expect those presently drawn to the Conservatives to favour Corbynite Labour over UKIP, the Lib Dems, SNP/Plaid or even the Greens.
Oppositions by this stage in the electoral cycle should be enjoying substantive polling leads, whether they win or lose. With ICM and YouGov, in terms of Labour's position relative to the Conservatives Miliband was by this stage between 15% and 20% ahead of where Corbyn is now, and still lost.
It makes little sense to compare 2012 to 2016 - despite the fact that the same seats are up for election - because 2012 was 'midterm' whereas 2016 was not!
So, for instance, in France's case - and speaking with no special knowledge:-
1. Looking at better information-sharing/co-ordination amongst the security/police services.
2. Possibly looking at what they can learn from the UK's Prevent programme - assuming they don't have something similar already.
3. Reviewing sentencing guidelines/rules/recommendations for terrorism offences.
4. Tightening up the use of electronic tags.
5. Reviewing immigration policies for non-EU countries and, specifically, countries where there is a known terrorism risk (e.g. Tunisia and Algeria)
6. Resources for the monitoring of those on the terror watch list.
And so on. There may not be a Big Bang answer but one way of minimizing and, one would like to hope, eventually eliminating the risk of terrorism is by the accumulation of many individual small steps such as these covering a number of different areas.
The wider issue of an unintegrated and hostile Muslim population - or a part of it - is more difficult I agree. But even there a one step at a time approach may be helpful.