On this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast I was joined by Leo Barasi and Rob Vance to discuss Labour’s future. You can find the episode below. After a thumping re-election victory Jeremy Corbyn looks here to stay and we discussed where Labour goes from here.
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https://soundcloud.com/guardianaustralia/first-ever-recording-of-computer-music
Clinton 42.2 .. Trump 46.9
http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/
Clinton 50 .. Trump 29
https://eagletonpollblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/rutgers-eagleton-poll-2016-election-head-to-head-results1.pdf
cute tunes tho. have a listen. and some fine 1950s academic diction
sounds a bit like this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7D_UN9adnQ
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/02/nigel-farage-invited-as-a-guest-of-donald-trump-for-next-preside/
There always is, and it never seems to happen.
Not a bad tip by Keiran, but too short at 8/1.
Keiran makes the mistake of assuming that the leadership thinks and acts like normal career politicians, and that their activist supporters are interested in running a large mainstream party challenging for power. Neither is the case.
Corbyn is not interested in compromise beyond giving those who disagreed a second chance to show unconditional loyalty; the activists are - as he notes in the anecdote quoted - still less forgiving or pragmatic. To them, there is only one acceptable face of Corbynism and it is Corbyn.
What about after 2020 and a disastrous result? For a start, Lewis has to be returned to parliament. His current Norwich South seat is far from rock-solid (the Lib Dems won it in 2010), and it's surrounded by a sea of blue. The boundary reforms look to have made it at best marginal and quite probably Con-leaning (one Lab/Grn ward out three Con/LD wards in).
If he does get back then if he runs he stands a chance. But that's a lot of ifs over the course of four years. Not anything like 8/1 value in my book.
You will find that statements about odds and probabilities quite often refer to future rather than past events.
If you disagree I'll have £1000 for Arkle to win the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup at any odds you care to name.
So far there is very little in the way of philosophy or deep political thought. He simply comes across as an amusing, intelligent and articulate human being. Admittedly that is at least 2 strikes against him in the current Labour party, possibly 4.
What is funny is all the Trumpsters piling in on Labour while ignoring the Donald's problems with Jewish voters and donors in Americaland.
The best bet for the next Jewish Labour leader is the last Labour Jewish leader: an Ed Miliband comeback. It's not absurd and it's not 3000/1 but it is still bloody unlikely. He may even stand down at the next election; many (but not all) former leaders do so.
"the British Health Service would do for Down’s people what the Nazis tried to do to the Jews: total elimination.
Actually, the mentally disabled had been the guinea-pigs for the mass extermination by gassing of the Jewish population. In 1939, German doctors launched the Aktion T-4 programme to kill roughly 200,000 disabled people, mostly children. It was openly argued that this was for their own good, as their lives were ‘not worthy of living’; and also for that of society as a whole, as the cost of their care was an unfair burden on the ‘healthy’ population....
...My daughter [who has Downs] is now 21 and intelligent enough to understand this. When I told her about the controversy yesterday, she emailed me to say: ‘But they don’t know what I am capable of and they didn’t know that when I was born. We don’t deserve this hate. It is just wrong and you know it.’"
DOMINIC LAWSON: A chilling medical test that I fear will make humanity so much the poorer
http://dailym.ai/2dkpUw6
If he goes before the next election it will only be to an anointed successor. The two candidates for that are John McDonnell and Clive Lewis. Personally I cannot imagine John McDonnell sitting it out bad he has sufficient influence over his leader to get the endorsement. Maybe in the 1 in 4 chance of Jeremy Corbyn stepping down Clive Lewis has a 1 in 10 chance of being next up.
More likely, Jeremy Corbyn will fight the next election and lose. The assumption now is that the general election won't be before 2020 and that seems to me a considerably less safe assumption, despite the constant briefings from government to that effect. Its hand may be forced or Theresa May may yet decide to cut and run. I'd place about a 2 in 5 chance on an election before that date, mostly front end loaded to 2017.
The significance of this is the age of the candidates next time and the state of the Labour Party structures. The longer Jeremy Corbyn is in charge, the harder it will be for non-Corbynites to use party structures to deny candidates of the left a place on the ballot. In the next year or two it will matter to show some distance from Jeremy Corbyn, to ensure a place on the ballot. After that, the opposite will be true: the place on the ballot will be best secured and the vote then won by being Jeremy Corbyn's loyallest lieutenant.
Clive Lewis is currently riding both of these horses quite effectively. But he shows promise rather than necessarily being the finished article. 8/1 overall is good value, even taking into account the time value of money, but only in the context of a field that has no obvious alternatives that will appeal to the special tastes of this electorate.
@BBCNormanS: So new May/Hammond economic strategy = more borrowing, more investment and intervention; less austerity
https://norwich.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/09/13/all-change-for-norwich-as-electoral-boundaries-set-to-shift/
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/gbpusd=x?ltr=1
Interesting that the amount of the fall didn't make it into the article.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/social-affairs/politics/news/67847/labour-mp-clive-lewis-faces-probe-over-four-letter
My fear - as highlighted by Herdie-boy is that Norwich-South is too marginal. He needs somewhere safe. [Lewisham-Greenwich?]
As for the next leader of the Labour party being a woman; why? Lady-whats-her-name hates white-van-man and what has the delectable Nandy achieved so far...?
I fear that Labour has no leadership and no suitable candidates at present: So maybe time for a Michael-Howard interim? Hilary Benn as next leader...?
* As a Thatcherite liberal I disagree much with much about social-democracy but accept that opposition is better than orthodoxy. I was also going to replace 'patriot' with HM Subject but I am not sure of the youngster's views on our Gracious Monarchy.
https://youtu.be/w68qZ8JvBds
Meantime, JC could help them both by stating clearly whether or not he believes in Parliamentary democracy. He won't of course, because if he does one or other half of the Party's membership will walk out in disgust.
The next leader of the Labour Party really needs to get that. So far the field is clear.
I'd avoid even looking at him in case he chinned me.
I'm also doubtful about his leadership potential - he seems very gaffe prone which suggests poor judgement. A bit like a more serious and grounded version of Boris, or perhaps an honest Jeffrey Archer.
As abortion is legal in GB for significant foetal abnormalities, it makes sense to have better, safer, more reliable antenatal testing.
Glad we got that cleared up.
Humanities capacity not to see gross evil staring them in the face because it is convenient not to see it.
On the positive side of medicine, are we one step closer to a cure for AIDS?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/02/hiv-cure-close-after-disease-vanishes-from-blood-of-british-man/
Not a defence at Nuremburg. Should not be legal in the UK.
As the implications of Brexit percolate through to the people, we shall see whether the government continues to look competent. I think that for Labour to keep quiet on the subject was probably wise. I think that the LDs should not have had such a knee jerk response, better to have accepted Brexit and campaigned for an EEA arrangement rather than demand a neverendum.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Edit: refreshed and it was gone. Weird seeing headlines about Cameron/Osborne again.
However, I respect other people's views and do not want to impose my beliefs on them. The politicisation of abortion in the USA is something that I would not want to see here.
You'd have thought it'd be a journal of full throated capitalism, like City AM.
There are no quick and easy fixes in this area.
One of the most poignant sights when growing up was geriatric parents leading 40-leading Downs syndrome children around supermarkets. Their life had been subordinated to said DS children.
The problem has grown more acute as people have children older.
Paul Bedfordshire world is a unhealthy mix of the moral cer tainity of the Daily Mail and the Catholic Church.
I was at a conference (no, not Tory conference!) at the weekend and a speaker in one session mentioned having a TV interview with Piers Morgan, "which didn't go well".
So we get to the Q & A.
Q: What was so bad about the interview with Piers Morgan?
A: Piers.
The Hillary Clinton campaign has canceled joint appearances with former primary opponent Bernie Sanders after he admitted that "of course" it bothered him that Clinton seemed to be talking down to his supporters in hacked audio from a fundraiser.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2603412/
May be this time it's different?
I've read that in the event of a bad loss - let's say 200 seats but the number doesn't matter - the PLP will be much more heavily weighted to the left on the basis that many of the leading moderates are in relative marginals + retirements of the older moderates + boundaries/reselection
If this is true, wouldn't he stay on until 2022, say, but use his regained control of the NEC to change the rules in his favour?
But a functional cure is the holy grail.
One of the most interesting companies in this field, in my opinion, is UBP out of Taiwan
http://www.unitedbiopharma.com/eng/index.html
It's one of those political switches that makes sense and we all accept, but every now and again you do a doubletaje as the
Necessity of political language talking points contradicts their earlier stance.
Prof Frank McDonough
3 October 1906. SOS became the international distress signal.
It is entirely possible (indeed likely) that a significant amount of people could see a potential leave scenario that was better than remaining but saw a great deal of risk, uncertainty, difficulty and other scenarios that were worse ... so they backed Remain not due to an inability to see a good leave scenario, but due to the perceived risks of the bad ones.
Now that the decision is made, that risk issue is moot. It is their job to get us now to the good scenario.
They are lying about the quote. Sander does not say he is bothered by Clinton talking down to his supporters, that is a complete fabrication .
F1: Perez staying at Force India:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/37536845
For now, at least.
Labour will need to work hard to continue its run of ever-worsening leaders.