Has anyone seen this woman? Although her (rather threadbare) CV describes her as "Leader of the Scottish Labour Party" (sic) she has gone AWOL during the biggest crisis of her "leadership" (sic).
You must stop listening to tim and start appreciating boy George's master strategy through all the camouflage of complexity.
Whatever else Osborne achieves (probably not much) he will always be remembered fondly by me as the politician that got tim to pay for our cocktail party.
Watching the Sky coverage, if they all got out safely, as some reports are saying, then they've been blooming lucky. A piece of the tail is in the water; it hit the rip-rap that protects the land from the waves.
First and probably utterly incorrect thought: a 777 crash-landed at Heathrow in 2008 when engine thrust reduced on final approach. They were very lucky as well not to land much before the runway. I wonder if the Asiana plane uses Rolls Royce engines? If so, might it be another slush problem?
You must stop listening to tim and start appreciating boy George's master strategy through all the camouflage of complexity.
Whatever else Osborne achieves (probably not much) he will always be remembered fondly by me as the politician that got tim to pay for our cocktail party.
I crashed in a Bell Jet Ranger at that very spot, total write off ,but the pilot and i got out ok....caused a bit of ATC panic tho, ..Apparently the gyro assist packed in..twenty seconds later we would have gone into the bay
I hope that train explosion in Canada hasn't caused too many injuries.
The question is why did the train derail.
Reports says the train separated on a gradient - the locomotive was found further up the track, where it had been 'parked' for a driver change. If this is true, a broken coupling is the most likely cause. However the wagon's air brakes should have operated automatically. It's sad there were no catch or trap points to stop derailed trains before the town, although they sometimes depend on knowing a train has runaway.
If you wanted to cause a terrorist outrage with a chemical train, there'd be easier ways of doing it. Possible, though.
Does Paddy Power know something the rest of us don't?
They are at odds with the other major bookies in terms of the date of birth of the royal baby, which they are clearly expecting to take place very soon:
07/07/13 ......Paddy Power 7/2 ...... Hills 10/1 08/07/13 ......Paddy Power 9/2 ...... Hills 10/1 09?07/13 ......Paddy Power 8/1 .... Corals 11/1
I believe on Betfair that NOM has now overtaken Lab Maj as the most likely outcome based on the market odds. If I knew how to chart these 2, I'd be able to say if that's a common event or something more worthy of note...
Jane Merrick@janemerrick233m Lots of Lab MPs are tweeting about Ed's "strong" piece on unions in Obs tomorrow. But in private, many are worried he's not on front foot
Andrew Neil@afneil Met somebody from cast of Made in Chelsea. Said the show made me think of voting Communist. She had no idea what I was talking about
Tony Blair in Observer: Egyptian army had no alternative but to oust President Morsi from power, given strength of opposition on streets (of course over a million on the streets over Iraq was merely a storm in a teacup)
Tony Blair in Observer: Egyptian army had no alternative but to oust President Morsi from power, given strength of opposition on streets (of course over a million on the streets over Iraq was merely a storm in a teacup)
If a million turned up on the streets of the UK they would be "kettled"?
Mr McCluskey said: "Unite is proud that it is trying to reclaim Labour from the people that bought in to the free-market myth wholesale, who bet the country's future on the City of London - and who sometimes fiddled their expenses while they were at it."
Parliament had become "increasingly the preserve of an out-of-touch elite - Oxbridge-educated special advisers who glide from university to think tank to the green benches [of the House of Commons] without ever sniffing the air of the real world", he said.
"That is what Unite is trying to change. We want to give our democracy back to ordinary working people."
First bit of yougov polling out (From the Sunday Times Editorial)
Nearly half the country regards Ed Miliband as weak and only 20% of voters believe he is up to the job of prime minister.
Unnervingly for Mr Miliband, only 22% of Labour voters describe him as “strong”; 26% perceive him as “weak”. His character is now pretty well known to the public. He certainly has patience, as Mr Watson put it, and perhaps he thinks deeply, although not to any great discernible purpose. But resolve? It would be good to see some.
News Flash - NBC now reporting 2 dead, dozens injured in today's crash at San Francisco International airport, of Aisiana airlines Boeing 777 from South Korea.
Few minutes ago, Seattle aviation journalist (and a good one) Brian Johnston (sp) said that this crash bears similarities with crash at Heathrow, in which (if I got what he said right) ice formed inside fuel lines of Rolls Royce engines.
In Seattle, it's ALWAYS news when a Boeing airplane crashes.
Sadly, it's NOT news hear or anywhere else when a Microsoft computer product crashes . . .
I think Len is quite right, and potentially tapping into a strong feeling in the country of dissafection, the NOTA vote that is vulnerable to UKIP.
His description of Oxbridge educated SPADs sliding onto the Green benches of power without a proper days work in the real one is an accurate summary of our political class.
It is also a very good description of UNITEs preferred choice of leader, Ed Milliband. I am all in favour of more diversity of background in politics, but are UNITEs preferred candidates just another bunch of professional wannabes rather than horny handed sons and daughters of toil?
Mr McCluskey said: "Unite is proud that it is trying to reclaim Labour from the people that bought in to the free-market myth wholesale, who bet the country's future on the City of London - and who sometimes fiddled their expenses while they were at it."
Parliament had become "increasingly the preserve of an out-of-touch elite - Oxbridge-educated special advisers who glide from university to think tank to the green benches [of the House of Commons] without ever sniffing the air of the real world", he said.
"That is what Unite is trying to change. We want to give our democracy back to ordinary working people."
I haven't said much re the current Labour problems, but I have now formed a more positive view of EdM. I'm not sure he's going to get much, or indeed, any credit with the public - for he fell into the common trap of acting too late - and he's on a losing hand. I wonder if he can pull it back to a draw - if Unite don't stop supporting Labour to a similar extent to what they currently do; if few (preferably no) new mines explode over other selections, and so on. Should be interesting to observe.
His position is not in doubt in my mind and very difficult to see anything on the horizon either for the others.
YOKEL - re; today's other major transport disaster, the Lac-Megantic train derailment in Quebec, just a few miles from the Maine border, of oil shipment headed to US.
Crash ocurred in semi-howling wilderness. From there westward is Beauce region of Quebec, to the east in Maine lot of trees and not much else for long way.
Always posiblity of terrorism in these woods, indeed considerable history from time of settlement of New England and New France. During the US Civil War a squad of Confederates attacked US border town in northern Vermont. Few years later, Fenians staged running series of armed invasions along the Canadian border westward from Manitoba to Campobello Island (future summer home of FDR until he contracted polio there in 1920s) at the eastern terminus.
No doubt the boyos considered it, but so far as I know, no Fenian outrages at Lac-Megantic crossing. Further west, a Fenian raid versus Victoria, BC (where the sun will NEVER set on the British Empire) never happened, though would have been a great story (except for the casulities of course) if it had!
Technical - these days PB is ALWAYS problematic, not just on my home computer but also on Seattle Public Library computers. Which it LOVES to crash! In homage to Bill Gates?
I think Oxbridge educated SpAd policiticians will just be a new normal thing for people to complain endlessly about, like misbehaving teenagers or the compensation culture: true, but not clear what conclusion is really merits.
No indication (yet) that they punish such people personally at the polls. Taking the voter for granted, however, is something different. I suppose the former could contribute to the latter, but so could much else; and it is on the latter I think most attention should be focussed.
TSE, how you getting along on the reseach re: West West Virginia. Is it time to alter the BC goverment (suggest we leave Alberta for later)? Would like to stage the formal seizure of soverignty at the Peace Arch this Labor Day, weather should be great!
Technical - these days PB is ALWAYS problematic, not just on my home computer but also on Seattle Public Library computers. Which it LOVES to crash! In homage to Bill Gates?
What's going wrong specifically? If it's crashing your whole computer then I'd say, a) There's already something seriously wrong with the computer. b) The most likely trigger is the ads. You might like to try using an ad blocker.
TSE, how you getting along on the reseach re: West West Virginia. Is it time to alter the BC goverment (suggest we leave Alberta for later)? Would like to stage the formal seizure of soverignty at the Peace Arch this Labor Day, weather should be great!
Is all irrelevant, Her Majesty is going to seize back the colonies of America and Canada.
Sunil - how much luck are you having, with screenplay of "Boy Named Sunil"? My suggestion is to merging footage from Johnny Cash prison concerts (forget which one he sang "Boy Named Sue" at) with big Bollywood production numbers?
The most annoying thing about Vanilla for me is the fact that the page keeps flicking to the top of the page after a few seconds so that if you're looking at a comment half way down the page you have to keep going back to it.
Sunil - how much luck are you having, with screenplay of "Boy Named Sunil"? My suggestion is to merging footage from Johnny Cash prison concerts (forget which one he sang "Boy Named Sue" at) with big Bollywood production numbers?
SSI, you know I'm a big Depeche Mode fan, right (I've seen them this year, 2009 and 2006 in concert in London). And I'm guessing you like Johnny Cash? Well, Johnny covered the Mode's 1989 hit Personal Jesus!
Technical - these days PB is ALWAYS problematic, not just on my home computer but also on Seattle Public Library computers. Which it LOVES to crash! In homage to Bill Gates?
What's going wrong specifically? If it's crashing your whole computer then I'd say, a) There's already something seriously wrong with the computer. b) The most likely trigger is the ads. You might like to try using an ad blocker.
c) or use the domain www.politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com
The main PB page opens pretty quickly (say within one second). But opening the comments is a nightmare - it can literally take well over one minute.
I don't think it's my computer - BBC pages open in the blink of an eye - so quickly that I couldn't time it but probably less than half a second.
Next time it happens, after you've waited about 10 seconds, try hitting "Escape" and see if what you've been waiting for shows up. Sometimes sites will be slow when there's an ad that won't load, and the browser doesn't want to show you the page until it gets it. Hitting "escape" makes it give up and show you whatever it's already got, which may turn out to be the thing you wanted in the first place.
UNBOUND: Unite & Paisley 06/07/2013, 06:48:45 PM We have withdrawn an article today relating to Unite and Mr Len McCluskey that contained allegations concerning Unite’s role in nominating Labour MPs with particular reference to Paisley. This withdrawal follows correspondence form Unite’s solicitors to the effect that information contained in the article was false. Pending further enquiries, we have withdrawn the article and request that media outlets do not report further the information contained in it.
The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Dave, for lack of a better word, is good. Dave is right, Dave works. Dave clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Dave, in all of his forms; Dave for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Dave, you mark my words, will not only save the Tory Party, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the UK. Thank you very much.
A SENIOR minister has suggested that the government should scrap the HS2 high-speed rail line and spend the money on other transport projects instead.
David Lidington, the Europe minister, whose Aylesbury constituency in Buckinghamshire will be severely affected by the proposed railway from London to Birmingham, has written to Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, detailing concerns over the new route.
Lidington is known to have serious reservations, but his letter is the closest he or any government figure has come to calling for it to be scrapped altogether.
The political class have gained power for their SPAD children to play with largely because the remainder have left the field. Political parties are tinynumbers of members, and only a minority of these are active contributors.
How would anyone feel as a regular member of the party, when tens of new members mysteriously appear just before selection time to vote in the UNITE candidate? No one likes to be abused and taken for granted this way.
I think Oxbridge educated SpAd policiticians will just be a new normal thing for people to complain endlessly about, like misbehaving teenagers or the compensation culture: true, but not clear what conclusion is really merits.
No indication (yet) that they punish such people personally at the polls. Taking the voter for granted, however, is something different. I suppose the former could contribute to the latter, but so could much else; and it is on the latter I think most attention should be focussed.
29% of people think that Ed Miliband has been too close to the Unions, 13% too distant and 22% about right. 36% say don't know.
Despite all the coverage of Falkirk, the Unite row and Tom Watson's resignation (which happened just before fieldwork started), this is almost unchanged from when we asked the same question last month, suggesting the row has had no real cut through yet.
Ed Miliband was battling to contain the crisis in the Labour party last night as the row over trade union tactics spread across the country.
As a poll showed just one in five voters believed Miliband is up to the job of prime minister, police were asked to investigate parliamentary selection processes in several new areas, including Glasgow, Crawley in West Sussex, and East Dunbartonshire.
The Tory MP Henry Smith has asked officers to look at whether the Unite union may have committed fraud during campaigns to help favoured candidates secure safe and winnable Labour seats.
Labour is under pressure to begin its own inquiry into Unite’s activities in Chester and Brighton. The union has denied any wrongdoing.
One alleged incident involves two of Miliband’s frontbenchers — Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, and Luciana Berger, the shadow climate change minister.
Miliband's other ratings remain poor, and if anything are getting worse rather than improving. Only 10% think he is a strong leader, 47% a weak leader (even amongst Labour voters only 22% think he is strong, 26% weak).
Only 20% think he would be up to the job of Prime Minister (including fewer than half of Labour voters and down from 25% in May). Only 18% think he has provided an effective opposition to the government. As before, Labour's lead in the polls appears to be despite Ed Miliband, not because of him.
A SENIOR minister has suggested that the government should scrap the HS2 high-speed rail line and spend the money on other transport projects instead.
David Lidington, the Europe minister, whose Aylesbury constituency in Buckinghamshire will be severely affected by the proposed railway from London to Birmingham, has written to Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, detailing concerns over the new route.
Lidington is known to have serious reservations, but his letter is the closest he or any government figure has come to calling for it to be scrapped altogether.
Absolutely nothing to do with the fact that UKIP got the most votes in Lidington's constituency a few weeks ago...
“I haven’t known the atmosphere this jolly since the start of the coalition,” a Tory backbencher observed. “We all felt a big sigh of relief that we could agree about Europe for once. Cameron finally seemed to be getting the message that he needs to do a bit of man management and he was in full tummy-tickling mode. The fact that Labour were having such a dire time rounded off what was just a beautiful summer evening.”
On the regular economic tracks optimism continues to creep upwards - the feel good factor (those thinking things will get better minus those who think things will get worse) is now minus 26, now the best (or least worst) figure since April 2010.
I'd be surprised if auto-pilot is responsible for the San Francisco crash.
More likely to be a case of the pilots wrongly thinking the was a problem with the system, over-riding it, and then making mistakes due to lack of practice at flying manually.
"I think Len is quite right, and potentially tapping into a strong feeling in the country of dissafection, the NOTA vote that is vulnerable to UKIP."
@foxinsoxuk Spot on with that observation about McCluskey tapping into a strong feeling in the country of dissafection, the NOTA vote that is vulnerable to UKIP. I was just thinking exactly the same when I read this McCluskey article.
Its interesting to note just how deeply rooted the loathing towards the Blairite faction is within the previous and current UNITE Leaderships. Its turning into a very Brownite like vendetta against what they perceive as the Blairite enemies within the Labour party. This is despite Blair departing the stage six years ago, and also the success of their anyone but David Miliband campaign which also saw their preferred candidate winning the Labour Leadership contest. And for that successful candidate to be none other than David Miliband's own brother Ed, who could have written the script of this one despite them being long time opponents of each other while split into the Blair/Brown camps during the last Labour Government?
Douglas Alexander is an interesting figure, like Jim Murphy I really rate him as a Scottish Labour politician. And judging by the obsession and constant attacks of the Nats on here, so does the SNP. Alexander was a very able media operator, and part of Blair's government while very much being seen as one of the young turks along with Ed Balls and Ed Miliband within Brown's inner circle. Poor Alexander was became the scapegoat in the Brown team when the Autumn GE that was never officially called, but then had to be formally and humiliatingly called off. So not only was it interesting that both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband went onto contest that Labour Leadership contest, and while Alexander along with Jim Murphy backed their main Blairite opponent David Miliband. It was also Ed Balls and Ed Miliband that ran a hard won contest to get the backing of the UNITE union in a Leadership contest, and this was a campaign well up and running before Brown even left Office.
So the real irony of Ed Miliband's current predicament is three fold, he won't garner any support or loyalty from the Blairite faction of his Shadow Cabinet if he backs down against Len McCluskey and UNITE in the circumstances. As for the old Brownite factions now led by Ed Balls, I doubt he will be going out to bat too strongly for Ed Miliband in a war against UNITE and its powerful position within the Labour party movement. And then there is the PLP who face a tough fight in a GE drawing ever closer, and Ed Miliband and the Labour party need the vital funding for that GE that UNITE brings.
This is yet another fine mess that the last two Labour Leader bequeathed their party, but one a Labour Leader with a strong mandate, and an even stronger Leadership qualities would have taken on and tackled the minute they were elected. Time is now too short to find a replacement for your biggest donor. Ed Miliband will fold with an attempt at some face saving gesture to avert an all out fight against a UNITE Leader well up for the fight. Ed simple hasn't managed to garner the united respect and loyalty of his Shadow Cabinet, and without their rock solid support he won't win this fight.
Edit - Blairs biggest single internal party failure was to not water down the Union block voting in Labour Leadership contests when he was in a strong enough position to do so. And because without a rule change weakening their vote, the Blairite legacy was always going to end with him no matter how his party voted. Like Blair, David Miliband has now departed the Westminster stage for more lucrative pastures new after being seen off in the Leadership contest by the Unions. And I cannot see anyone emerging to officially claim the Blairite torch any time soon.
Given that we are now more than 63% of the way through this Parliament we must be pretty close to the end of 'mid-term'. This year's Autumn conference season surely will mark the start of 'late term'.
Khat - on the surface not a big deal as a drug in a lot of ways but personally i think it has an unhinging effect on people who are partly unhinged to start with. The correlation between khat and unhinged behaviour would be more obvious if the news wasn't so filtered.
I was just reading this New Statesman interview with Len McCluskey from April of this year linked to earlier on the thread, and this paragraph jumped out at me?! While Ed Miliband has been allowing both a huge policy and power vacuum grew within the Labour party, it appears that Len McCluskey was not going to let that happen over at UNITE HQ with a GE just two years away. This makes Ed Miliband's current position and posturing look even more precarious. Lets hope that he doesn't have to back down in this fight in much the same public and humiliatingly way that Brown did after he called off that Autumn 2007 GE hype.
"McCluskey, a man similarly fond of sinking his teeth into his opponents, is in an ebullient mood after winning re-election this month as head of Unite. It is Britain’s biggest trade union and Labour’s largest donor, accounting for 28 per cent of all donations to the party last year.
When first elected in 2010 at the age of 60, he planned only to serve a single five-year term but was persuaded to stand again after the government scrapped the default retirement age of 65. Having brought forward the date of the contest to avoid a clash with the 2015 general election (“I don’t think that would have been good for the Labour Party or Unite,” he tells me), McCluskey will now remain general secretary until at least 2018.
“The message is crystal clear to our members, first, that I’m not going to leave the battlefield in these difficult times, I’m going to stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” he says. “It sends a message to the government that I’m going to be here and hound them from here to the general election. It also sends a message out to the Labour leaders that I’m going to be here up to and beyond the next election, so any promises and any issues that we’re seeking from them will be implemented if they get into power.”"
The article then finishes by highlighting just why Ed Miliband has inevitable turned a weak mandate into weak Leadership.
"The facade of unity that has held since Miliband’s election is beginning to crack as the right of the party warns that Labour faces defeat unless it commits to cuts after 2015, while the left insists that the reverse is true. After McCluskey’s intervention, the unenviable task facing the Labour leader will now be to chart a course between these two irreconcilables."
Next time it happens, after you've waited about 10 seconds, try hitting "Escape" and see if what you've been waiting for shows up. Sometimes sites will be slow when there's an ad that won't load, and the browser doesn't want to show you the page until it gets it. Hitting "escape" makes it give up and show you whatever it's already got, which may turn out to be the thing you wanted in the first place.
Comments
comment
https://twitter.com/stefanielaine/status/353591123958173696/photo/1
https://twitter.com/navarrobryan/status/353589030849503233/photo/1
https://twitter.com/vini_1914/status/353584593800138752/photo/1
Clearly a squirrel looking for nuts.
https://path.com/p/1lwrZb
First and probably utterly incorrect thought: a 777 crash-landed at Heathrow in 2008 when engine thrust reduced on final approach. They were very lucky as well not to land much before the runway. I wonder if the Asiana plane uses Rolls Royce engines? If so, might it be another slush problem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38
Almost certainly wrong, but it's piqued my interest. Anyway, let's hope the reports are right and everyone got out.
Edit: guess I'm wrong. It looks as though the Asiana 777's use Pratt & Whitney engines, not RR. So unlikely to be slush again.
Fox News.
http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12/04/malcolm-gladwell-on-culture-cockpit-communication-and-plane-crashes/
If you wanted to cause a terrorist outrage with a chemical train, there'd be easier ways of doing it. Possible, though.
It reminds me of the Summit Tunnel fire: see 1:35 in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMkokwMROGs
***** Betting Post *****
Does Paddy Power know something the rest of us don't?
They are at odds with the other major bookies in terms of the date of birth of the royal baby, which they are clearly expecting to take place very soon:
07/07/13 ......Paddy Power 7/2 ...... Hills 10/1
08/07/13 ......Paddy Power 9/2 ...... Hills 10/1
09?07/13 ......Paddy Power 8/1 .... Corals 11/1
Lots of Lab MPs are tweeting about Ed's "strong" piece on unions in Obs tomorrow. But in private, many are worried he's not on front foot
Parliament had become "increasingly the preserve of an out-of-touch elite - Oxbridge-educated special advisers who glide from university to think tank to the green benches [of the House of Commons] without ever sniffing the air of the real world", he said.
"That is what Unite is trying to change. We want to give our democracy back to ordinary working people."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23214554
Nearly half the country regards Ed Miliband as weak and only 20% of voters believe he is up to the job of prime minister.
Unnervingly for Mr Miliband, only 22% of Labour voters describe him as “strong”; 26% perceive him as “weak”. His character is now pretty well known to the public. He certainly has patience, as Mr Watson put it, and perhaps he thinks deeply, although not to any great discernible purpose. But resolve? It would be good to see some.
Few minutes ago, Seattle aviation journalist (and a good one) Brian Johnston (sp) said that this crash bears similarities with crash at Heathrow, in which (if I got what he said right) ice formed inside fuel lines of Rolls Royce engines.
In Seattle, it's ALWAYS news when a Boeing airplane crashes.
Sadly, it's NOT news hear or anywhere else when a Microsoft computer product crashes . . .
His description of Oxbridge educated SPADs sliding onto the Green benches of power without a proper days work in the real one is an accurate summary of our political class.
It is also a very good description of UNITEs preferred choice of leader, Ed Milliband. I am all in favour of more diversity of background in politics, but are UNITEs preferred candidates just another bunch of professional wannabes rather than horny handed sons and daughters of toil?
His position is not in doubt in my mind and very difficult to see anything on the horizon either for the others.
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges 1m
Len McCluskey in S.Mirror complains about too many special advisors becoming MPs. Remind me, what is Karie Murphy's job?
Crash ocurred in semi-howling wilderness. From there westward is Beauce region of Quebec, to the east in Maine lot of trees and not much else for long way.
Always posiblity of terrorism in these woods, indeed considerable history from time of settlement of New England and New France. During the US Civil War a squad of Confederates attacked US border town in northern Vermont. Few years later, Fenians staged running series of armed invasions along the Canadian border westward from Manitoba to Campobello Island (future summer home of FDR until he contracted polio there in 1920s) at the eastern terminus.
No doubt the boyos considered it, but so far as I know, no Fenian outrages at Lac-Megantic crossing. Further west, a Fenian raid versus Victoria, BC (where the sun will NEVER set on the British Empire) never happened, though would have been a great story (except for the casulities of course) if it had!
I think Oxbridge educated SpAd policiticians will just be a new normal thing for people to complain endlessly about, like misbehaving teenagers or the compensation culture: true, but not clear what conclusion is really merits.
No indication (yet) that they punish such people personally at the polls. Taking the voter for granted, however, is something different. I suppose the former could contribute to the latter, but so could much else; and it is on the latter I think most attention should be focussed.
a) There's already something seriously wrong with the computer.
b) The most likely trigger is the ads. You might like to try using an ad blocker.
The main PB page opens pretty quickly (say within one second). But opening the comments is a nightmare - it can literally take well over one minute.
I don't think it's my computer - BBC pages open in the blink of an eye - so quickly that I couldn't time it but probably less than half a second.
Lab 39
Con 33
UKIP 12
Lib Dems 11
Acceptable 32%
Unacceptable 42%
There's nothing wrong with it 27%
Reliance on union money risks giving them too much influence 46%
(remember to "skip advert"!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQcNiD0Z3MU
Cameron -20 (-3)
Ed - 34 (-3)
06/07/2013, 06:48:45 PM
We have withdrawn an article today relating to Unite and Mr Len McCluskey that contained allegations concerning Unite’s role in nominating Labour MPs with particular reference to Paisley. This withdrawal follows correspondence form Unite’s solicitors to the effect that information contained in the article was false. Pending further enquiries, we have withdrawn the article and request that media outlets do not report further the information contained in it.
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1284401.ece
A SENIOR minister has suggested that the government should scrap the HS2 high-speed rail line and spend the money on other transport projects instead.
David Lidington, the Europe minister, whose Aylesbury constituency in Buckinghamshire will be severely affected by the proposed railway from London to Birmingham, has written to Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, detailing concerns over the new route.
Lidington is known to have serious reservations, but his letter is the closest he or any government figure has come to calling for it to be scrapped altogether.
How would anyone feel as a regular member of the party, when tens of new members mysteriously appear just before selection time to vote in the UNITE candidate? No one likes to be abused and taken for granted this way.
Despite all the coverage of Falkirk, the Unite row and Tom Watson's resignation (which happened just before fieldwork started), this is almost unchanged from when we asked the same question last month, suggesting the row has had no real cut through yet.
Ed Miliband was battling to contain the crisis in the Labour party last night as the row over trade union tactics spread across the country.
As a poll showed just one in five voters believed Miliband is up to the job of prime minister, police were asked to investigate parliamentary selection processes in several new areas, including Glasgow, Crawley in West Sussex, and East Dunbartonshire.
The Tory MP Henry Smith has asked officers to look at whether the Unite union may have committed fraud during campaigns to help favoured candidates secure safe and winnable Labour seats.
Labour is under pressure to begin its own inquiry into Unite’s activities in Chester and Brighton. The union has denied any wrongdoing.
One alleged incident involves two of Miliband’s frontbenchers — Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, and Luciana Berger, the shadow climate change minister.
Only 20% think he would be up to the job of Prime Minister (including fewer than half of Labour voters and down from 25% in May). Only 18% think he has provided an effective opposition to the government. As before, Labour's lead in the polls appears to be despite Ed Miliband, not because of him.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23214821
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jul/06/john-inverdale-marion-bartoli
291 Passengers
18 Crew
----
307 Total
190 Transported to Terminal (82 subsequently hospitalised)
48 Initially transported to Hospitals
60 "Unaccounted for" (approx number?)
2 Deaths confirmed
The problem seems to be the "unaccounted for"
More likely to be a case of the pilots wrongly thinking the was a problem with the system, over-riding it, and then making mistakes due to lack of practice at flying manually.
Dan Hodges @DPJHodges
Ed Miliband's Observer piece is disastrous. For the umpteenth time he's saying what he won't do, rather than what he will do.
@foxinsoxuk Spot on with that observation about McCluskey tapping into a strong feeling in the country of dissafection, the NOTA vote that is vulnerable to UKIP. I was just thinking exactly the same when I read this McCluskey article.
Its interesting to note just how deeply rooted the loathing towards the Blairite faction is within the previous and current UNITE Leaderships. Its turning into a very Brownite like vendetta against what they perceive as the Blairite enemies within the Labour party. This is despite Blair departing the stage six years ago, and also the success of their anyone but David Miliband campaign which also saw their preferred candidate winning the Labour Leadership contest. And for that successful candidate to be none other than David Miliband's own brother Ed, who could have written the script of this one despite them being long time opponents of each other while split into the Blair/Brown camps during the last Labour Government?
Douglas Alexander is an interesting figure, like Jim Murphy I really rate him as a Scottish Labour politician. And judging by the obsession and constant attacks of the Nats on here, so does the SNP. Alexander was a very able media operator, and part of Blair's government while very much being seen as one of the young turks along with Ed Balls and Ed Miliband within Brown's inner circle. Poor Alexander was became the scapegoat in the Brown team when the Autumn GE that was never officially called, but then had to be formally and humiliatingly called off. So not only was it interesting that both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband went onto contest that Labour Leadership contest, and while Alexander along with Jim Murphy backed their main Blairite opponent David Miliband. It was also Ed Balls and Ed Miliband that ran a hard won contest to get the backing of the UNITE union in a Leadership contest, and this was a campaign well up and running before Brown even left Office.
So the real irony of Ed Miliband's current predicament is three fold, he won't garner any support or loyalty from the Blairite faction of his Shadow Cabinet if he backs down against Len McCluskey and UNITE in the circumstances. As for the old Brownite factions now led by Ed Balls, I doubt he will be going out to bat too strongly for Ed Miliband in a war against UNITE and its powerful position within the Labour party movement. And then there is the PLP who face a tough fight in a GE drawing ever closer, and Ed Miliband and the Labour party need the vital funding for that GE that UNITE brings.
This is yet another fine mess that the last two Labour Leader bequeathed their party, but one a Labour Leader with a strong mandate, and an even stronger Leadership qualities would have taken on and tackled the minute they were elected. Time is now too short to find a replacement for your biggest donor. Ed Miliband will fold with an attempt at some face saving gesture to avert an all out fight against a UNITE Leader well up for the fight. Ed simple hasn't managed to garner the united respect and loyalty of his Shadow Cabinet, and without their rock solid support he won't win this fight.
Edit - Blairs biggest single internal party failure was to not water down the Union block voting in Labour Leadership contests when he was in a strong enough position to do so. And because without a rule change weakening their vote, the Blairite legacy was always going to end with him no matter how his party voted. Like Blair, David Miliband has now departed the Westminster stage for more lucrative pastures new after being seen off in the Leadership contest by the Unions. And I cannot see anyone emerging to officially claim the Blairite torch any time soon.
Khat - on the surface not a big deal as a drug in a lot of ways but personally i think it has an unhinging effect on people who are partly unhinged to start with. The correlation between khat and unhinged behaviour would be more obvious if the news wasn't so filtered.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334499/Police-war-extremists-khat-houses-amid-fears-recruiting-grounds-Islamic-extremists.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355258/Home-Secretary-Theresa-May-overrules-advisers-bans-herbal-stimulant-khat.html
Home office report into the effects of immigration when (numbers / time) is disregarded.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355208/Toll-mass-migration-UK-life-Half-Britons-suffer-strain-places-schools-police-NHS-housing.html
Methinks the consequences of what New Labour did are going to be the driving force in British politics from now on.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI&desktop_uri=/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI
(a) Note their advice.
(b) Do the opposite.
I'm pleased to see Theresa May understands this.
I was just reading this New Statesman interview with Len McCluskey from April of this year linked to earlier on the thread, and this paragraph jumped out at me?! While Ed Miliband has been allowing both a huge policy and power vacuum grew within the Labour party, it appears that Len McCluskey was not going to let that happen over at UNITE HQ with a GE just two years away. This makes Ed Miliband's current position and posturing look even more precarious. Lets hope that he doesn't have to back down in this fight in much the same public and humiliatingly way that Brown did after he called off that Autumn 2007 GE hype.
"McCluskey, a man similarly fond of sinking his teeth into his opponents, is in an ebullient mood after winning re-election this month as head of Unite. It is Britain’s biggest trade union and Labour’s largest donor, accounting for 28 per cent of all donations to the party last year.
When first elected in 2010 at the age of 60, he planned only to serve a single five-year term but was persuaded to stand again after the government scrapped the default retirement age of 65. Having brought forward the date of the contest to avoid a clash with the 2015 general election (“I don’t think that would have been good for the Labour Party or Unite,” he tells me), McCluskey will now remain general secretary until at least 2018.
“The message is crystal clear to our members, first, that I’m not going to leave the battlefield in these difficult times, I’m going to stand shoulder to shoulder with them,” he says. “It sends a message to the government that I’m going to be here and hound them from here to the general election. It also sends a message out to the Labour leaders that I’m going to be here up to and beyond the next election, so any promises and any issues that we’re seeking from them will be implemented if they get into power.”"
The article then finishes by highlighting just why Ed Miliband has inevitable turned a weak mandate into weak Leadership.
"The facade of unity that has held since Miliband’s election is beginning to crack as the right of the party warns that Labour faces defeat unless it commits to cuts after 2015, while the left insists that the reverse is true. After McCluskey’s intervention, the unenviable task facing the Labour leader will now be to chart a course between these two irreconcilables."