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One of the legacies of George Osborne’s chancellorship was the creation of an executive mayor to cover the greater Manchester region. This was the spearhead of the “Northern Powerhouse” which is no longer looked on favourably by the current occupant of Number 10.
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Those uniforms look like Heer, not SS. Though it's hard to make out the flashes. People are morons.
For example the good people of Manchester city (sic) rejected a souped Manchester City mayor, so we got a souped up Greater Manchester Mayor
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
Other than all the times when it is not.
Which seems to be most of the time.
In all seriousness, Labour's attempts at equality has seen the election of incredibly poor female candidates who get selected because they are women not because of what talents they have.
So you get the likes of Cat Smith, Jess Phillips (in the new intake) and the Eagles from earlier generations. No political or presentation skills. Just the right combination of chromosomes to tick a box.
It has hardly surprising that Labour keeps electing men when the women on offer are not strong candidates.
Labour’s deputy leader claims hard-left ‘old hands’ are not interested in winning elections and will destroy the party
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/09/trotskyists-young-labour-members-jeremy-corbyn-tom-watson?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The https://t.co/aWvDM92FMS website is worth a read right now https://t.co/znXQJuU7pe
The Burnham flag is brightest blue,
it flutters for his passion true
He's standing 'cause he thinks he ought
to mouth the words his forebears taught
His policies are full of air;
Look inside and nothings there.
But that fight's just his daytime one:
his true heart's Evertonian
How is he going to get that through the Corbynist NEC?
Prior to the Labour government deciding that there should be a referendum on which side of the bed to get out of, that was where all such iniatives got their mandate.
He put her in the Lords last week...
Agree, and it's not just about football, it's about being a figurehead for the Manchester city region. As a resident and worker there, I'm not small-minded enough to think "it has to be a Manc", and I don;t believe most others who live here are either, but other than representing a seat in between Manchester and Liverpool, which is not really "Manchester" at all other than via a Whitehall pen-pusher's edict in the early 70s, what has Andy Burnham ever done for or got to offer Manchester?
If there was one obvious, popular, leading "anti Burnham" figure to take him on, I could see that person having a chance. The Tories need to find a popular, bipartisan figure (a la Boris) rather than putting up some non-entity of a Tory local councillor.
Nick Cohen
Listen, this piece on PC censorship was one fuck of a lot of trouble to write. The least you can do is read it https://t.co/PL4Qslc6Yn
After years of wrangling with various governments the coalition finally agreed to the creation of statutory Combined Authorities. These allow local authorities to legally pool resources as well as to excerise powers that were originally taken away from them like transport planning, housing and training.
However the government handing over control of money pots to local authorities with no poltical accountability for them is a no no, so as a requirement to get more powers then a democratically elected mayor is required to take the blame for what the authorities do with their new powers.
If the shadow cabinet were elected, then they could stand at the despatch box slagging off Corbyn all day long, and if he complained they would just shout "mandate" at him.
It's (another) last ditch attempt to rescue the party. Probably doomed.
However, if there is one major city which encapsulates the disaffection of Labour voters from the wealthy metropolitan virtue signallers, it is Birmingham. Although it has several universities, most of them are quite small and very few graduates live in it. There is a large ethnic minority population and a large, effectively disenfranchised working class. The city has a big UKIP presence and still has pockets where the Conservatives are strong.
On top of this, while there may be a weaker candidate than Sion Simon, it is hard to think who it could be. He has the intellectual capacity of a village idiot, the charisma of a weighing machine, the political acumen of a Donald Trump crossed with the bloke who came up with Hilary's email defence, the charm of a Thameslink official and the efficiency of an Easyjet baggage handler. He won two elections in Erdington more or less by default, and his journalistic career was famously marked by The Spectator describing his as a Telegraph columnist and The Daily Telegraph describing him as 'associate editor of The Spectator.'
A strong UKIP candidate or even a decent working-class Conservative could easily spring a surprise there. Of course, that does presuppose they can find such candidates. But I would say he's no more than about a 3-1 shot at the moment.
@williamdbrett: Over 85k voted for Labour's London mayoral candidate. The party, like the country, is catastrophically unbalanced. https://t.co/XsmAB9M0ed
@JohnRentoul: 12 reasons not to panic about Brexit – & why we probably won't leave the EU after all @DenisMacShane for @IndyVoices https://t.co/XSc1pBoU7S
Runs for cover...
"It is his determination to seek out the paltriest grounds for offence that makes Davies so contemporary. Much of modern “dissent” is not a protest against injustice but a kind of religious test. The inquisitor discovers sin where no one has seen it before and demands you prove your worth by seeing it too. The flimsier the pretext for complaint, the worthier complainants prove themselves to be. Our culture of competitive grievance is at root a form of showing off. I am more perceptive than you are, more compassionate, and more determined to purge the world until it is clean."
He did so much good work on the Hillsborough disaster inquiry, when very few were interested.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-wont-happen-eu-referendum-european-union-12-reasons-not-to-panic-leave-remain-a7178611.html
But still worth a read.
No idea about the good folk of Broxtowe, but in vox pop after vox pop after R5 phone-in and the rest, the majority of 50-70yr-old lifelong Lab voters absolutely know what they want. They want a sensible centre-left party which will win power and oppose the Tories. Such people are the ones who lived through the 18 years of Cons rule, via Michael Foot, and are desperate not to do it again.
Those are the people that Nick's elegantly theoretical musings on "what the Labour Party is for" are letting down.
Virgin East Coast rail staff vote to strike
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37023141
If Remain had won somehow I doubt that observations that 63% of the electorate didn't vote for it and that it was based on exaggerations and had less moral authority would be somewhat less forthcoming from journalists like Rentoul.
"On top of this, while there may be a weaker candidate than Sion Simon, it is hard to think who it could be. He has the intellectual capacity of a village idiot, the charisma of a weighing machine, the political acumen of a Donald Trump crossed with the bloke who came up with Hilary's email defence, the charm of a Thameslink official and the efficiency of an Easyjet baggage handler. He won two elections in Erdington more or less by default, and his journalistic career was famously marked by The Spectator describing his as a Telegraph columnist and The Daily Telegraph describing him as 'associate editor of The Spectator.'"
I'll put you down as a possible supporter then, Doc. The man maybe an idiot but he did have a weekly column in the Telegraph before he was elected to Parliament in 1997, for which he was presumably paid, so perhaps not a complete idiot.
P.S. Shame you missed the education conversation on the last thread, I would like to have heard your views.
http://tinyurl.com/hhvabys
Of course that may have been Osborne's intention all along, but given the basic idea seems sensible and could really have made a difference to some of our less than thriving cities, it's rather a tragedy.
I just don't see any leadership capability in him. He's a natural 1st lieutenant.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQe_jDq7oM
(but good read though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn4IpyVViw4
The 1980s called, they want their battleground instructions.
Just as well there is pretty much no risk of them forming a government.
Who wouldn't fancy being Greater Manchester's first Directly Elected DictatorMayor?
No, they are not, we should be proud of our record in comparison to the state doping of Russia, widespread collusion in places like China and the large stables of coaches in the like of the USA. We know this because of numbers and they say a lot. There is no doubt that such countries (and there are plenty more if you look at the figures) do not have the moral authority on the subject of countries like ours.
David Allen Green: Brexit means Brexit — but in reality it’s a long time away
Those wanting the UK to leave the European Union have won the referendum battle but it is still far from certain that they will win the Brexit war. The task before the UK is huge, and it may be that Article 50 is never invoked. If there is a Brexit, or a radical new basis for UK membership, this may have to be by an entirely new treaty.
Bountiful times ahead for the lawyers!
It is his baby after all.
The 1st Lieutenant's role has always been to deliver a working ship that the Captain can use. As such the 1st Lieutenant had, and still has to have, very good leadership skills as indeed do do all members of the wardroom and senior rates' mess decks.
The correct analogy for someone with no leadership skill is, wanker.
The Morning Star. My life's work is complete
Late Autumn/Spring next year is when it'll start to get fruity, with a burst of activity after the French/German elections.
If you're referring to selection, I skimmed through the posts. Based on my personal, very difficult time as an intelligent boy in a comprehensive school where laziness was prized, failure was rewarded and brilliance was usually met with actual violence - which undoubtedly held me back very considerably - I am in principle in favour of selection.
I also taught in a really good grammar school in Gloucester which - oddly - made me more dubious about its merits. Because Gloucester does not oblige all pupils to sit the 11+, it was only sat by those children with pushy parents and often, the means to pay for private tuition. As my rather frustrated Head of Department, who had been to the same school I had, commented, 'We seem to be a school for those whose parents can't be bothered to fork out the fees for King's or Dean Close.' In fact, I think only five pupils that I taught there came from working class backgrounds.
I confess I have no easy solutions to either problem. However, I have sometimes speculated that selection at 14 rather than 11, based on a universal non-coachable test (if such a thing can ever be formulated) might be the answer. That would allow those with great potential to dance ahead, and those who really will never cope at that level to be taught in different styles at a different pace. And after all, such a thing de facto happens anyway with setting and different subjects/exam tiers.
But I think that is politically unacceptable. When I was in Bristol, we were given significant grief by the council for running a 'Gifted and Talented' Stream for 16 very able students (which incidentally was a Labour initiative). Because all children are obviously equally gifted and talented and picking a few as specially so was discriminatory to the rest. Small wonder that Bristol's schools have such dire results, eh?
In an interesting example of this crassness, Steven Moffat, the rather unpleasant dogmatist famous for writing bad TV dramas, also once said that it was a scandal the school he formerly taught in was providing extra resources for able students 'because it meant the most education went to those who need it the least' - a rather terrifying arse-about-face attitude from an English teacher who clearly doesn't understand the basic principles of education.
On your point about me being a 'possible' supporter of Simon, I am irresistibly reminded of the DUP member who asked what it would take for him to support Cameron's government - 'a couple of billion should do it' (not that I have a vote in Cannock, of course)!
I doubt he'd win a competitive election in many other places.
Incidentally, do any of our London posters know if Thameslink ever have days where they do not cancel services? There is a reason why I am asking, but since if I am right it is a criminal matter and if I am wrong it would definitely be libellous, I trust people will forgive me for not mentioning it.
The politics and actual mechanics of Brexit are horrendously complicated. What I hadn't fully appreciated until now is that, never mind negotiating with our 27 EU friends, we'll also need to negotiate a new status within the WTO - an organisation necessarily so sclerotic because of its 170 members that it makes the EU look like a model of quick decisiveness. The problem is that, although we are members of the WTO in our own right, all of the tariff schedules and other WTO arrangements we are currently signed up to will have to be re-negotiated because they exist only as part of our EU membership - and that's just to maintain the current trading position with non-EU countries. That includes negotiating with countries like Argentina which are not well-disposed towards us.
That is of course separate from the challenge of trying to do new trade deals, but interacts with it. For example, the EU-Korea trade deal contains a clause saying Korea can't grant more favourable terms to anyone else.
Overall, as the dust has settled after the referendum the challenge looks no easier than it did before. If anything, it looks worse as attention has belatedly begun to be given to what should actually happen.
I was looking at rebalancing my portfolio back towards the UK to take advantage of some of the price drops of UK-focused companies, which I'd thought were overdone. But, having looked a bit more at the detail, I've decided to do the opposite; the prospects for the UK over the next few years look pretty dire to me.
I note you say selection at 14. What if we made it at 13 and called it "common entrance"?
Andy Burnham is Switzerland.