Don't recall the media claiming the Conservatives holding Witney was a sign of approval of our departure from the EU, but there we are...
Mr. G, the next ten and twenty pound notes will be made using the same process, I understand. If so, the shop will be limited to coins and fifty pound notes.
MD they shoudl make them with beef jerky and give two fingers to teh halfwits. Serve them right to b erunning about with bags of shrapnel. Folk can go in and wave twenties under their noses.
Making complex decisions by plebiscite based largely on prospectuses packed with lies and exaggerations was hardly a great advert for democracy either.
We live in a parliamentary democracy not an episode of the X factor.
People democratically choose not to buy the Grauniad.. from what I have heard it may be deceased in the next decade.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
The treandline is well established. We went from 2/3 remain to under 1/2 remain in 40 years.
So do you think there will be enough Remain to Leave switchers over the next few years to compensate for the merciless swing of the reaper's scythe as it mows down oldies? Given just how smoothly the process is proceeding so far...
The problem with your suggestion is it does rather presuppose that the EU will remain static and therefore potentially desirable to remain in.
I would suggest, given the potential problems it faces in the next 12-18 months, that this is a very bold assumption. Take your pick of political issues in Greece, France, Portugal, Italy or Spain, the implosion of Germany's banking system, or further Russian meddling in Ukraine and the Baltic to lead to a major flashpoint/crisis and substantial changes.
I have always thought that the EU will ultimately have to federate or implode. It is now very evident that federation involving Britain is impossible. It also looks doubtful that it could involve France or Italy, which would therefore effectively rule it out entirely (given their size, location and prestige as founder members). Therefore the risks of it collapsing are more than merely theoretical.
That wouldn't be good news for Britain - chaos in an area that accounts for over 50% of our foreign earnings would be a disaster, indeed - but it wouldn't exactly help the remain side gain support either.
Mr. Recidivist, not in Richmond. It's the capital of Remainia.
People there voting for a Remain-styled candidate is as shocking as Islington voting for a teetotal socialist.
The only significant things to take from the by-election are that for some people, the EU stance of candidates matters more than anything else, and that Goldsmith was uniquely damaged by his unnecessary by-election after a stupid promise, his unpopular stance on the EU *and* his derided mayoral campaign.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
As someone else sort of posted, what happens if one goes in wearing leather shoes? Alsthough I suppose most of their clients wouldn't buy such.
They'd be given the regulation sandals, with optional false scrubby beard
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
23,000 majority - that's quite popular. However Brexit is even more unpopular.
I'd argue that if he had a strong personal vote, he would have easily held the seat. As it turned out, he didn't.
Or, he did have a personal vote but it was insufficient to withstand the unpopularity of Brexit. If his personal vote was not strong, if he was not popular, then how did he get a huge 23,000 majority only last year?
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
Don't recall the media claiming the Conservatives holding Witney was a sign of approval of our departure from the EU, but there we are...
Witney & Seaford are not in Affluent West London.
The people who live in Richmond are not Bumpkins and Carrot Munchers (both are hate terms used on pb.com).
A Narrow Victory in Richmond means we can reverse the vote to Leave the EU. It heralds a new dawn for “progressive parties” (which means the wealthy middle-classes who do so well out of the EU).
And by Sunday, tiny Tim Farron will be gearing up to reverse the election of Donald Trump.
It's clear that the fundamental problem is inequality, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and this has shifted from a class thing to a generational thing, exacerbated by globalisation. How can you redress this? The same people who weep crocodile tears will accuse any government that tries to do anything about these problems as anti business?
In this context, the vote on Europe is a chimera, Europe is but a symptom of the wider ill that is globalisation. The left would address this, rightly or wrongly through a socislistic solution, but as we've seen that appears not to have electoral support.
I ask again, how will the right tackle this problem?
Fundamentally in the past (at least the recent past), while there was inequality the wealthy were geographically co-located with the less well-off and felt some community loyalty towards them. In addition, most of the unskilled in Western countries had a reasonable standard of living.
Now you have got three trends:
(i) globalisation resulting in a relatively rebalancing of wealth between countries - this has hit most levels of society (even the 1%) but the absolute impact is felt worst by the less skilled who have seen their real incomes stagnate for a decade or more
(ii) the uber-wealthy has become an international class, many of whom feel no residual loyalties to their countries. Clearly this is not the case for many individuals in this country and others, but there are enough people who are too focused on minimising tax and avoiding their obligations to rankle badly
(iii) Companies have taken the concept of shareholder value rather than stakeholder value too far. Tax arbitrage is not a game that a responsible business should engage in. Their objective should be to maximise the value of the enterprise and then pay a decent return to shareholders out of that rather than to maximise the value of the shareholder payment at the expense of the enterprise or of the society from which they grew
In terms of solutions:
(i) globalisation is a given, but you can and should invest in people (and fix education) to give them a chance to compete in the new world. Additionally, restricting immigration (particularly unskilled immigration) is important as this is effectively a wealthy transfer from workers to owners
(ii) No tolerance for tax evaders. Needs to be a multi-lateral solution, which isn't easy, but bringing back shame would be a good start
(iii) Complex and, again, needs to be multi-lateral, but cracking down on some of the more egregious examples would be helpful. I'd also look at doing things like stopping shareholder loans being tax deductible (or at least making sure that they are only tax deductible where they are a real loan rather than just quasi-equity)
I doubt if it matters much what the UK govt's Brexit negotiating position is. I expect a Hard Brexit, because at least some of the remaining 27 EU members want to punish the UK and a degree of unanimity is required to ratify any agreement or to extend negotiations beyond the 2 year deadline after A50 has been triggered, if no agreement has been ratified by then.
Is unananimity required for all deals? I thought it was only for deals where a treaty change would be required..
Some knowledgeable people seem to be saying that a free trade agreement would require unanimity, even if a deal covering who pays Neil Kinnock's pension etc had already been agreed by QMV.
Free trade agreements do not require unanimity unless they include items outside of 'trade'. The reason the Belgians were able to upset CETA and the reason other countries could stop TTIP is because they included areas not covered by normal trade agreements.
The trick - which I think would probably be very difficult if not impossible to pull off - would be to ensure that all the 'non trade' stiff was covered in the Article 50 agreement which would then be decided by QMV and the subsequent or parallel trade agreements were strictly limited to trade - which again would mean they could be decided by QMV.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
23,000 majority - that's quite popular. However Brexit is even more unpopular.
I'd argue that if he had a strong personal vote, he would have easily held the seat. As it turned out, he didn't.
Or, he did have a personal vote but it was insufficient to withstand the unpopularity of Brexit. If his personal vote was not strong, if he was not popular, then how did he get a huge 23,000 majority only last year?
The unpopularity of Brexit? Didn't Richmond Park vote something like 70% remain? Surely Olney should have hovered them all up.
Making complex decisions by plebiscite based largely on prospectuses packed with lies and exaggerations was hardly a great advert for democracy either.
We live in a parliamentary democracy not an episode of the X factor.
People democratically choose not to buy the Grauniad.. from what I have heard it may be deceased in the next decade.
Ah, Mr Root, maybe you'd like to rise to the challenge of the question I posed in my post of about half an hour ago...
I found my religious sensitivity exceeded with the fiver story, it's so stupid. I guarantee animal products are in a lot of things people don't realise in trace amounts, if they think merely touching a fiver or having it in their premises is against the rules, they are already irreversibly contaminated and it's too late.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
A pharmacist, told me the pill casings used in her hospital were made from pork gelatine. I thought that was a hostage to fortune as patients have no choice but to consume them.
You can get vegan alternatives
They are not as widely used as they could be. Phamaceutical companies, like banknote printers are not as culturally sensitive as they should be.
Vegan softgels are definitely available, and if all else fails you give one of the Specials a call and you'll have it in the pharmacy by 10am the next morning...
This was the hospital pharmacy. You take what you are given.
Hospital pharmacies have specials contracts as well, although they treat the companies very badly and therefore don't get the kind of service that a Boots or Rowlands gets.
As I said, I'm almost certainly out of date, but in my day hospital pharmacies usually dealt with their own 'specials', either alone or as part of consortia.
Edited to prevent the isolated being treated as the norm.
That's the problem. They do the easy stuff in-house (inefficently) and then expect rapid turnaround from the professionals on the expensive/difficult stuff - but expect to hammer them on prices as well. And then they complain when the professionals refuse to dedicate capacity to them because they can't make a return
Don't recall the media claiming the Conservatives holding Witney was a sign of approval of our departure from the EU, but there we are...
Witney & Seaford are not in Affluent West London.
The people who live in Richmond are not Bumpkins and Carrot Munchers (both are hate terms used on pb.com).
A Narrow Victory in Richmond means we can reverse the vote to Leave the EU. It heralds a new dawn for “progressive parties” (which means the wealthy middle-classes who do so well out of the EU).
And by Sunday, tiny Tim Farron will be gearing up to reverse the election of Donald Trump.
I would have thought Witney was very similar to affluent west London. Lots of luvvies with second homes or indeed main homes commuting up to Oxford or London. Also a high proportion of privately educated - the constituency contains Cokethorpe, one of England's most prestigious and expensive private schools, not to mention all those schools in Oxford and Cheltenham on either flank.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Morning malcolm. I take it you haven't had your morning turnip based on that outburst... titters
Rob, reading about these absolute toss**s and their pathetic demands has wound me up right off. Is it any wonder this country is absolutely down the drain , pandering to every half witted crank who thinks they hav ea right to be cretinous and have their pathetic wants catered to. Time to sort out all these whinging halfwitted cranks and tell them to like it or lump it elsewhere.
It's past time for you to transfer your skills set to Sud Bavaria. Get on with it slow coach.
Making complex decisions by plebiscite based largely on prospectuses packed with lies and exaggerations was hardly a great advert for democracy either.
We live in a parliamentary democracy not an episode of the X factor.
I sympathise very much with your referendum aversion, but this particular decision, once made, cannot be unmade. At least, not without dire consequences for the standing of democratic governance in this country. For, if people in positions of power and influence are given carte blanche to start ignoring votes that don't go their way, it will very soon come to the point of the defeated side in every General Election refusing to acknowledge the result.
If Parliament wasn't willing to implement whatever directive the people gave in this referendum, then it should not have legislated to have one in the first place.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Morning malcolm. I take it you haven't had your morning turnip based on that outburst... titters
Rob, reading about these absolute toss**s and their pathetic demands has wound me up right off. Is it any wonder this country is absolutely down the drain , pandering to every half witted crank who thinks they hav ea right to be cretinous and have their pathetic wants catered to. Time to sort out all these whinging halfwitted cranks and tell them to like it or lump it elsewhere.
It's past time for you to transfer your skills set to Sud Bavaria. Get on with it slow coach.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
23,000 majority - that's quite popular. However Brexit is even more unpopular.
I'd argue that if he had a strong personal vote, he would have easily held the seat. As it turned out, he didn't.
Or, he did have a personal vote but it was insufficient to withstand the unpopularity of Brexit. If his personal vote was not strong, if he was not popular, then how did he get a huge 23,000 majority only last year?
Indeed. Even with collapsing LDs the vote woukd go to someone else rather than massively boost him if he were not popular. It would seem a combination of factors, including Brexit, overcame that. Though again we cannot be sure ecpveryone who voted LD in the constituency woukd agree with olney that Brexit should be prevented, if it can. Some may just want a LD MP, others to put pressure on the Gov for a soft Brexit. The SNP swept the board and are not yet certain that their primary goal would win a vote (too close to call, unfortunately), but win or lose that, chances are Scotland woukd still want SNP MPs.
I found my religious sensitivity exceeded with the fiver story, it's so stupid. I guarantee animal products are in a lot of things people don't realise in trace amounts, if they think merely touching a fiver or having it in their premises is against the rules, they are already irreversibly contaminated and it's too late.
Am I the only one who likes the new fiver so much, that I find myself reluctant to actually use them? I keep them in my wallet while I've still got grubby tenners to spend.
Don't recall the media claiming the Conservatives holding Witney was a sign of approval of our departure from the EU, but there we are...
Witney & Seaford are not in Affluent West London.
The people who live in Richmond are not Bumpkins and Carrot Munchers (both are hate terms used on pb.com).
A Narrow Victory in Richmond means we can reverse the vote to Leave the EU. It heralds a new dawn for “progressive parties” (which means the wealthy middle-classes who do so well out of the EU).
And by Sunday, tiny Tim Farron will be gearing up to reverse the election of Donald Trump.
I would have thought Witney was very similar to affluent west London. Lots of luvvies with second homes or indeed main homes commuting up to Oxford or London. Also a high proportion of privately educated - the constituency contains Cokethorpe, one of England's most prestigious and expensive private schools.
Witney Town itself is more mixed.
Agreed, though, that the constituency also has affluent Cotswold villages with high proportion of second homers. But, as always in the countryside, there are some (almost always overlooked) very poor people.
Mr. Tyndall, a mischievous fellow might suggest that if you compare the referendum and by-election results, it shows a substantial swing away from Remain and towards Leave...
Yesterday, the Sheffield library where I work part-time received a donation from Nick Clegg, though we're not in his constituency.
The donation was a pro-refugee book, written by one of his constituents. I forget the title, but it had a cartoon showing a refugee panicking at the sight of a large dog because they thought it was a wild wolf. The attached letter said Clegg was donating a copy of this book to every Sheffield library, to help educate the public.
Normally, donating books wouldn't be a problem, but asking libraries to stock propaganda feels a little iffy.
The GE would bring MORE Brexit MPs, as on a constituency basis Brexit has massive, massive majorities. (Something like 401 independence, 231 sell out to Brussels)
Ah, the first cuckoo of Spring and it is not even Christmas, how sweet. People voted for Brexit without appreciating the pain that comes with it. As that becomes apparent even 23,000 majorities crumble. I take it your definition of massive, massive is the same as the rest of us would say nano and milli. Brexit it finished, it has passed on, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it's passed its expiry date and gone to meet's makers in the dustbin of time. Sure a few Luddites will espouse its virtues, just as with the Emperor's New Clothes, but the wise have seen through it.
We'll have Brexit-lite now; EEA membership and freedom of movement for 'some'. (I don't remember the Referendum being about our EEA membership, only EU). So we may get a bum deal and be worse off but hey ho that's what those who voted to leave appreciated would happen.
Yet the majority for Remain in Richmond Park got slashed....
Don't recall the media claiming the Conservatives holding Witney was a sign of approval of our departure from the EU, but there we are...
Witney & Seaford are not in Affluent West London.
The people who live in Richmond are not Bumpkins and Carrot Munchers (both are hate terms used on pb.com).
A Narrow Victory in Richmond means we can reverse the vote to Leave the EU. It heralds a new dawn for “progressive parties” (which means the wealthy middle-classes who do so well out of the EU).
And by Sunday, tiny Tim Farron will be gearing up to reverse the election of Donald Trump.
I would have thought Witney was very similar to affluent west London. Lots of luvvies with second homes or indeed main homes commuting up to Oxford or London. Also a high proportion of privately educated - the constituency contains Cokethorpe, one of England's most prestigious and expensive private schools.
Witney Town itself is more mixed.
Agreed, though, that the constituency also has affluent Cotswold villages with high proportion of second homers. But, as always in the countryside, there are some (almost always overlooked) very poor people.
And there are poor people in Richmond as well. The profile of the two, looked at with a cold eye, would be very similar. I think this is more about London once again not thinking about what happens beyond the M25 as quite legitimate in terms of news.
Edit - I'm not suggesting you are doing that, BTW, I'm just commenting on the wider reporting. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
They won't go out of business. It's a rather good caff. The issue will, I expect, increase their trade.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Morning malcolm. I take it you haven't had your morning turnip based on that outburst... titters
Rob, reading about these absolute toss**s and their pathetic demands has wound me up right off. Is it any wonder this country is absolutely down the drain , pandering to every half witted crank who thinks they hav ea right to be cretinous and have their pathetic wants catered to. Time to sort out all these whinging halfwitted cranks and tell them to like it or lump it elsewhere.
It's past time for you to transfer your skills set to Sud Bavaria. Get on with it slow coach.
On the ball as ever Monica,
Have you kept your word ? If so better late than never.
Making complex decisions by plebiscite based largely on prospectuses packed with lies and exaggerations was hardly a great advert for democracy either.
We live in a parliamentary democracy not an episode of the X factor.
I sympathise very much with your referendum aversion, but this particular decision, once made, cannot be unmade. At least, not without dire consequences for the standing of democratic governance in this country. For, if people in positions of power and influence are given carte blanche to start ignoring votes that don't go their way, it will very soon come to the point of the defeated side in every General Election refusing to acknowledge the result.
If Parliament wasn't willing to implement whatever directive the people gave in this referendum, then it should not have legislated to have one in the first place.
A second referendum won by remain woukd be just as valid. I don't want or expect one, but it is simply not the case that any decision, no matter how big, cannot be unmade, and if it were undone by popular mandate it would not have consequences for democratic governance. Ive explained that I cannot see a path to that happening, I see insufficient appetite to try even among remainers, but if asked again the people gave a different answer, democracy would still have been maintained. That's the thing about democracy, people are fickle.
Mr. Tyndall, a mischievous fellow might suggest that if you compare the referendum and by-election results, it shows a substantial swing away from Remain and towards Leave...
LOL. I like that line. Sure to wind a few people up :-)
Ms Olney comes across as reasonably honest but not a good politician. She is defending a hypocritical scenario - the referendum needs re-running but her election doesn't. Her only defence to that is that she and her party know best, and the voters only do so when they vote the 'right' way. I suspect that's the view of the other parties
Fair enough, but the LDs perhaps should drop the 'Democrat' and become the Liberal Party. Perhaps not though. I know countries with 'Democratic' in their name were almost all non-democratic.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Yesterday, the Sheffield library where I work part-time received a donation from Nick Clegg, though we're not in his constituency.
The donation was a pro-refugee book, written by one of his constituents. I forget the title, but it had a cartoon showing a refugee panicking at the sight of a large dog because they thought it was a wild wolf. The attached letter said Clegg was donating a copy of this book to every Sheffield library, to help educate the public.
Normally, donating books wouldn't be a problem, but asking libraries to stock propaganda feels a little iffy.
No one has to pick it up if they don't want, nor I presume is the library obliged to pimp the book to people who visit, so I should think it's fine.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Making complex decisions by plebiscite based largely on prospectuses packed with lies and exaggerations was hardly a great advert for democracy either.
We live in a parliamentary democracy not an episode of the X factor.
People democratically choose not to buy the Grauniad.. from what I have heard it may be deceased in the next decade.
Ah, Mr Root, maybe you'd like to rise to the challenge of the question I posed in my post of about half an hour ago...
Ms Olney comes across as reasonably honest but not a good politician. She is defending a hypocritical scenario - the referendum needs re-running but her election doesn't. Her only defence to that is that she and her party know best, and the voters only do so when they vote the 'right' way. I suspect that's the view of the other parties
Fair enough, but the LDs perhaps should drop the 'Democrat' and become the Liberal Party. Perhaps not though. I know countries with 'Democratic' in their name were almost all non-democratic.
There is already a Liberal Party. It is, inter alia, anti EU, on the grounds that it Ithe EU) does not provide or promote Free Trade. And her election will be re-run in approximately 4 years time.
Fair enough, but the LDs perhaps should drop the 'Democrat' and become the Liberal Party. Perhaps not though. I know countries with 'Democratic' in their name were almost all non-democratic.
They're not Liberal either. They should rebrand as the European Party or Party of Europe, with a slogan like 'Give back control'.
I doubt if it matters much what the UK govt's Brexit negotiating position is. I expect a Hard Brexit, because at least some of the remaining 27 EU members want to punish the UK and a degree of unanimity is required to ratify any agreement or to extend negotiations beyond the 2 year deadline after A50 has been triggered, if no agreement has been ratified by then.
Is unananimity required for all deals? I thought it was only for deals where a treaty change would be required..
Some knowledgeable people seem to be saying that a free trade agreement would require unanimity, even if a deal covering who pays Neil Kinnock's pension etc had already been agreed by QMV.
Free trade agreements do not require unanimity unless they include items outside of 'trade'. The reason the Belgians were able to upset CETA and the reason other countries could stop TTIP is because they included areas not covered by normal trade agreements.
The trick - which I think would probably be very difficult if not impossible to pull off - would be to ensure that all the 'non trade' stiff was covered in the Article 50 agreement which would then be decided by QMV and the subsequent or parallel trade agreements were strictly limited to trade - which again would mean they could be decided by QMV.
Free trade agreements are not going to happen within the planning horizon. Neither with the EU nor with third countries. They take far too much time and political capital and the world has stopped doing them. See bottom right chart below.
The options that we need to plan for are: (1) quasi-EU dependent on whatever the EU decides for us; (2) generic MFN with everyone including the EU and outside all the preferential trade arrangements that are already in place. It's not quite take it or leave it. There will be things to negotiate at the margins, but as far as the public need to understand them, those are the two basic options.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
They are legal tender but they can be refused. Maundy money is also legal tender but try finding a shop that will accept it in payment. The meaning of legal tender with respect to debts is that a debtor cannot be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender. If you offer to pay a debt direct to the debtor in legal tender and they refuse to accept your payment the debt is not extinguished.
You can force a vendor to sell you something, as the Asher's case in Northern Island proved.
The Asher's case was about discrimination. A vendor cannot refuse to sell something to you if their reasons for doing so relate to some protected characteristic - sex, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. As long as their reason for refusal is not related to a protected characteristic the vendor cannot be forced to sell.
(i) globalisation is a given, but you can and should invest in people (and fix education) to give them a chance to compete in the new world. Additionally, restricting immigration (particularly unskilled immigration) is important as this is effectively a wealthy transfer from workers to owners
(ii) No tolerance for tax evaders. Needs to be a multi-lateral solution, which isn't easy, but bringing back shame would be a good start
(iii) Complex and, again, needs to be multi-lateral, but cracking down on some of the more egregious examples would be helpful. I'd also look at doing things like stopping shareholder loans being tax deductible (or at least making sure that they are only tax deductible where they are a real loan rather than just quasi-equity)
I wouldn't disagree with that, but the vested interests that fund our current Government our other parties, and Governments elsewhere, are relentless in their efforts to subvert any move towards dealing with issues of tax reform.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
What about the Lds who voted to leave. In my constituency of Carshalton and Wallington there were loads of them. How does the pro remain LD mp Tom Brake play that one?
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
(i) globalisation is a given, but you can and should invest in people (and fix education) to give them a chance to compete in the new world. Additionally, restricting immigration (particularly unskilled immigration) is important as this is effectively a wealthy transfer from workers to owners
(ii) No tolerance for tax evaders. Needs to be a multi-lateral solution, which isn't easy, but bringing back shame would be a good start
(iii) Complex and, again, needs to be multi-lateral, but cracking down on some of the more egregious examples would be helpful. I'd also look at doing things like stopping shareholder loans being tax deductible (or at least making sure that they are only tax deductible where they are a real loan rather than just quasi-equity)
I wouldn't disagree with that, but the vested interests that fund our current Government our other parties, and Governments elsewhere, are relentless in their efforts to subvert any move towards dealing with issues of tax reform.
Although our government is making baby steps in the right direction.
But you basically need a non-politician to go in and rewrite the tax code. Brown did so much damage
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You're assuming that those who voted Leave will not drift away as they see the consequences.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Isn't the LD position pro-full membership (probably to include the Euro and Schengen, once we've actually left)? In which case they'd alienate at least 52% of the country but could do very well in places where Remain scored 70%+.
The treandline is well established. We went from 2/3 remain to under 1/2 remain in 40 years.
So do you think there will be enough Remain to Leave switchers over the next few years to compensate for the merciless swing of the reaper's scythe as it mows down oldies? Given just how smoothly the process is proceeding so far...
Hitherto, people have consistently become more eurosceptic as they get older. Demographic change is, as Sean Trende put it, "the god that failed."
"And her election will be re-run in approximately 4 years time."
That is the system we have in our democracy. For EU referenda, it seems to be every 40 years.
The cries of "It must be stopped and re-run because the verdict was wrong. We are right because we know best. Therefore the voters must have been misled." is very childish. It reminds me strongly of the Marxists in the 1960s. They also claimed that it was only the mass media that stopped the public seeing the truth. But fair play to them, they didn't claim they were democrats.
Remain lost despite having nearly all the advantages. In a democracy, you have to accept that often your opinion, magnificent as it is with its all knowing wisdom, may be outvoted. As a senior LD, you should be used to that.
No one said democracy was a panacea, but you have to take the rough with the smooth.
Before I investigate this myself, has this poll been debunked already? I can't see how opinion can have shifted so far and so fast even in an area which has more to lose than most.
Was this a poll, or a "poll". If it was conducted by a member of the British Polling Council, the data tables should be available somewhere.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You're assuming that those who voted Leave will not drift away as they see the consequences.
You're assuming that those who voted Remain will not drift away as they see the lack of consequences. We could go back and forth on this all day.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Isn't the LD position pro-full membership (probably to include the Euro and Schengen, once we've actually left)? In which case they'd alienate at least 52% of the country but could do very well in places where Remain scored 70%+.
The treandline is well established. We went from 2/3 remain to under 1/2 remain in 40 years.
So do you think there will be enough Remain to Leave switchers over the next few years to compensate for the merciless swing of the reaper's scythe as it mows down oldies? Given just how smoothly the process is proceeding so far...
Hitherto, people have consistently become more eurosceptic as they get older. Demographic change is, as Sean Trende put it, "the god that failed."
I'd argue that it's demographic change that is the main explanation for the remarkable shift in attitudes towards homosexuality over the last 30 years.
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
The treandline is well established. We went from 2/3 remain to under 1/2 remain in 40 years.
So do you think there will be enough Remain to Leave switchers over the next few years to compensate for the merciless swing of the reaper's scythe as it mows down oldies? Given just how smoothly the process is proceeding so far...
Hitherto, people have consistently become more eurosceptic as they get older. Demographic change is, as Sean Trende put it, "the god that failed."
I'd argue that it's demographic change that is the main explanation for the remarkable shift in attitudes towards homosexuality over the last 30 years.
That shift has taken place across most social groups.
But taking attitudes to the EU, immigration, or voting Conservative, people tend to move right as they age.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Morning malcolm. I take it you haven't had your morning turnip based on that outburst... titters
Rob, reading about these absolute toss**s and their pathetic demands has wound me up right off. Is it any wonder this country is absolutely down the drain , pandering to every half witted crank who thinks they hav ea right to be cretinous and have their pathetic wants catered to. Time to sort out all these whinging halfwitted cranks and tell them to like it or lump it elsewhere.
It's past time for you to transfer your skills set to Sud Bavaria. Get on with it slow coach.
On the ball as ever Monica,
Have you kept your word ? If so better late than never.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Just goes to show how stupid people are and how soon they have forgotten the perfidy of the cheating , lying , toerag LD's.
"And her election will be re-run in approximately 4 years time."
That is the system we have in our democracy. For EU referenda, it seems to be every 40 years.
The cries of "It must be stopped and re-run because the verdict was wrong. We are right because we know best. Therefore the voters must have been misled." is very childish. It reminds me strongly of the Marxists in the 1960s. They also claimed that it was only the mass media that stopped the public seeing the truth. But fair play to them, they didn't claim they were democrats.
Remain lost despite having nearly all the advantages. In a democracy, you have to accept that often your opinion, magnificent as it is with its all knowing wisdom, may be outvoted. As a senior LD, you should be used to that.
No one said democracy was a panacea, but you have to take the rough with the smooth.
I don't know where you get the idea that I'm a senior LD. I'm a senior citizen who usually votes LD, but that's about as far as it goes. I used to be a Liberal party member and 'activist', but I can't really have been so categorised since about 1980.
As for Remain having all the advantages, the majority of the popular press was for Leave. Generally speaking rabidly so. If you mean that on the balance of mature, sensible discussion Remain shold have won, then, of course, you are right.
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Isn't the LD position pro-full membership (probably to include the Euro and Schengen, once we've actually left)? In which case they'd alienate at least 52% of the country but could do very well in places where Remain scored 70%+.
Who would know, they have so many faces and will drop principles at the drop of a hat if some money and a ministerial car is in the offing.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
I think David Herdson is right that we need an election. The disadvantage for the Tories is that -- as he puts it -- " That does of course mean putting at least some kind of plan forward and it’s clear that right now, the government is some way from being able to do that."
The good thing about a general election is that it would force all parties to clarify their position. The disadvantage is universal.
Whilst a lot has been written about the incoherence of the Government’s position, the same is true of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. At present, their job is to oppose, so that they merely need to point out the shortcomings of the Tories.
In a General Election, Labour & the LibDems would also need to articulate what they would do. I think both of them would find it at least as much as a challenge as the Tories.
It could be the craziest elections of our lives, and I seriously wonder whether all three parties would emerge at the end of it in one piece.
Labour seem to me to have most problems.
The LibDems may have least problems in articulating a common position, but -- if I understand their position --- they are really deluding themselves if they think it will be highly popular.
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
Why do you think that Mrs May is not a centrist remainer?
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
Why do you think that Mrs May is not a centrist remainer?
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Just goes to show how stupid people are and how soon they have forgotten the perfidy of the cheating , lying , toerag LD's.
"The Bank of England declined to say whether there was a legal obligation to accept the notes."
Last time I checked, Bank of England banknotes were legal tender that can not be refused for payment of goods/services.
I presume for consistency that they are searching anyone for leather items. And being concerned about wool, dairy and eggs.
Presumably the Rainbow cafe is not obliged to accept leather items in payment for its products? People have the right to express their beliefs, and like other Britons not required to be consistent.
The tallow fivers are becoming an issue in Leicester, not just with Hindus and Sikhs. There are lots of white vegetarians too.
The statement from the owner was that they don't want animal products in their shop.
Snarky edit: unlike a number of posters here I read articles before commenting....
Hopefully they go out of business , bunch of absolute toss****
Morning malcolm. I take it you haven't had your morning turnip based on that outburst... titters
Rob, reading about these absolute toss**s and their pathetic demands has wound me up right off. Is it any wonder this country is absolutely down the drain , pandering to every half witted crank who thinks they hav ea right to be cretinous and have their pathetic wants catered to. Time to sort out all these whinging halfwitted cranks and tell them to like it or lump it elsewhere.
I've never actually been in the Rainbow, but if they annoy you that much then you perhaps should avoid the city: there are more (ahem) interesting places. Like a cafe where, many years ago, I attended a lesbian poetry competition. That's not a competition for poetry by lesbians, but a competition for poetry about lesbians.
If it gets a bit much, then I can recommend the great, manly Gardenias for a great sloppy burger.
Except he didn't ally himself with anyone of the sort, and nor did Roland Smith or myself. He was always open to an EEA based interim solution - exactly as Roland and myself were.
We were entirely clear, as was Flexcit/Leave Alliance - Hannan and the Adam Smith 'Liberal Case for Leave'.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
Against Corbyn virtually any Tory you could name should win, even someone like John Redwood would have a good chance.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
By next May, the Govt. will have triggered Article 50. That will mean the LibDems are the Party of Rejoining. Euro, EUropean Army, all that shite. Good luck selling that in the South West. Setting up a Cold Sick Franchise in every town will have better prospects.....
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
Yes, and Labour won the Ramsgate Parish Council by-election.
If the LDs go into a GE with an explicitly pro-Remain/rejoin message they can forget about taking back strongly Leave areas. Which is not to say it would be a bad strategy - in the ultra-Remain, mainly urban areas, there is a large constituency of people who blame the Tories for Brexit, Labour for not stopping/preventing Brexit, and have forgotten about tuition fees by now.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
Wouldn't write off Colchester either. The new Tory MP was grumbling after the last Council elections that in spite of all the complaints in his mailbox about the Council, the LD and Lab vote share rose and the Conservative share fell.
"In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this."
You can't draw many conclusions from by-elections.
The Tories lost almost half their vote in Corby in 2012, losing to Labour, before winning it back fairly easily in 2015.
Witney Euro ref, Remain 53.7%, Leave 46.3%
Also UKIP would have got around 1% of the vote in Richmond, had they stood, consistent with their performance in previous elections. They are not a force in Richmond.
It is difficult to comment on the extent to which the Remain vote is collapsing in by-elections.
For instance, in Witney, the Remain vote was 53.7% to 46.3%, but the Remain parties (Lab/Lib/Luddite) got 50.1% to Con/UKIP 49.9% at the by-election. So that's only a pro-Brexit swing of 3.6%.
In Richmond, Remain won by around 70-30, but 45.8% of people voted for Brexit Goldsmith.
So that's a pro-Brexit swing of more than 15%.
"So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent"
That's why Labour suffered 29% swings in Brent East, 21% in Leicester South, and others before going onto win the 2005 GE easily, is it?
Pull the other one, the Tories have lost one seat in a Liberal Remain area and held one in Tory Remain area, and this is a disaster?
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
Perhaps, but even if they were all lost, we should expect off-setting gains from Labour, under current leadership. Realistically, I'd expect the Conservatives to lose Croydon Central, Brighton Kemptown, a couple in SW London, perhaps Cheadle, Bath, Eastleigh, Cheltenham at present. But, I'd expect them to gain places like Southampton, Wolverhampton South West, Halifax, NE Derbyshire, Newcastle under Lyme, Birmingham Northfield, Chester, Darlington, and a few others from Labour.
Except he didn't ally himself with anyone of the sort, and nor did Roland Smith or myself. He was always open to an EEA based interim solution - exactly as Roland and myself were.
We were entirely clear, as was Flexcit/Leave Alliance - Hannan and the Adam Smith 'Liberal Case for Leave'.
Yep. He has remained utterly consistent throughout and continues to push for what he believes is best for the country. It is rich to see those who allied themselves with the political wing of the IRA trying to smear their opponents.
Country bumpkins like yourself denegrating your own folk in a desperate act of sophistication have been the key useful idiots in Brexit. Keep it up, my friend.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
By next May, the Govt. will have triggered Article 50. That will mean the LibDems are the Party of Rejoining. Euro, EUropean Army, all that shite. Good luck selling that in the South West. Setting up a Cold Sick Franchise in every town will have better prospects.....
I think the Lib Dems will have a decent set of County elections, but the Conservatives will remain dominant. There's still 20% or so who are angry about Brexit.
'the erstwhile Richmond Park MP has contrived to pull off a stunning shitshow accumulator this year'. LOL.
Kicking people when they're down is nasty but that's a very funny piece.
The NE poll has a voodoo air about it - no indication of how they sampled their readers, or what the demographic is. Nonetheless I think the Government should anticipate a slide in Brexit support as the complications and compromises become manifest, and a "are we sure we want this?" portion of the Leave voters will grow.
The question for Remainers is how to handle that. I don't see anything undemocratic in urging a second vote when the terms are clear, but it would need to be coordinated with pretty authoritative signals from the Continent that they would accept an "oh, forget it" decision. Legally they wouldn't have to - Article 50 triggers the process. In reality EU history is full of pragmatic compromise and they probably would if they wanted to - suspend Article 50 discussions forever or whatever, a way would be found if there had been a genuine change of mind in Britain. And there's no sign that May would even consider offering a referendum that gave a bigger choice than "leave with our horrible deal" or "leave without a deal", because most Tory MPs would hate it.
But an election to resolve the issue of whether to have a "Do you want to leave on the terms available or stay after all?" vote might be interesting, and not quite the walkover that the Tories expect.
Mr. Palmer, that's an argument for the Establishment and EU to conspire to get us the worst possible deal in order that we might then baulk at actually leaving.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
The strong second place in Witney, the win in Richmond and the success of LDs in council byelections suggests that LD support is not restricted to ultra-remainia.
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
Isn't the LD position pro-full membership (probably to include the Euro and Schengen, once we've actually left)? In which case they'd alienate at least 52% of the country but could do very well in places where Remain scored 70%+.
They are in the main still mostly pro Euro
Any evidence for that? I'd be surprised if that was true, and my guess is the party wouldn't stand for Euro & Schengen even if the leadership tried to go down that route.
'The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds'.
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
The LDs' future may well be as a party of ultra-Remain seats in London, Cambridge if they take it back, plus other Remain bastions like Edinburgh and Oxford. Of course the corresponding strategy would put some of their northern seats at risks and kill off any hope of taking back Cornwall or Colchester.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
By next May, the Govt. will have triggered Article 50. That will mean the LibDems are the Party of Rejoining. Euro, EUropean Army, all that shite. Good luck selling that in the South West. Setting up a Cold Sick Franchise in every town will have better prospects.....
I think this is a danger for the LDs, but I'm not sure how big a danger. For all the LDs collapsed across the SW, I find it hard to believe long term Labour would replace them as the anti-Tories of choice, so I'd think there'd be some fertile territory down here as/if Tory support dips. But rejoining is a more daunting prospect even then preventing exit in the first place, and would surely put some off, but for locals at least it doesn't matter quite so much.
You have not noticed the massive swings to the Lib Dems in Cornwall County Council bye elections this year . Watch for the Lib Dems to take control of the council next May as the Conservatives and UKIP support collapses .
Yes, and Labour won the Ramsgate Parish Council by-election.
I
A unitary authority is somewhat more significant than a parish council
I see that the pb bumpkin reaction to the by-election is to decide that the opinions of Londoners don't count.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
In general election conditions, I can't think of many seats where the Conservatives would be vulnerable, they'd be fewer at any rate, than seats where Labour are vulnerable to them.
They do not need to be vulnerable in many. A dozen would turn them into a minority government. We have not yet seen how effective May is at electioneering, but worth noting that David Cameron was the only leader capable of winning an election since 1992, and that election was also won by a centrist Remainer.
Why do you think that Mrs May is not a centrist remainer?
"Brexit is Brexit and we're going to make it a success." Actually her government is in denial about Brexit. At some point the tyre will hit the road. Hopefully not just days before Article 50 runs out. It doesn't mean there will be a referendum and we will Remain after all. Mrs May will be doing her damnedest to stop people having second thoughts about Brexit. Or indeed any thoughts at all.
Except he didn't ally himself with anyone of the sort, and nor did Roland Smith or myself. He was always open to an EEA based interim solution - exactly as Roland and myself were.
We were entirely clear, as was Flexcit/Leave Alliance - Hannan and the Adam Smith 'Liberal Case for Leave'.
Yep. He has remained utterly consistent throughout and continues to push for what he believes is best for the country. It is rich to see those who allied themselves with the political wing of the IRA trying to smear their opponents.
Daniel Hannan was on the campaign committee of Vote Leave whose main poster read "Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU".
That confection of mendacity and pandering to xenophobia won it for Leave. Daniel Hannan cannot evade this stain on his character but he could at least repent it publicly.
But an election to resolve the issue of whether to have a "Do you want to leave on the terms available or stay after all?" vote might be interesting, and not quite the walkover that the Tories expect.
Against Corbyn? It would be the walkover that the Tories expect.
Comments
The view that Richmond Park is entirely unrepresentative needs to be challenged. Indicative of a 'national anti-Brexit reaction', perhaps not, but it does tell us a lot about how angry London is at the moment.
What this result tells me is that an unambiguous pro-EU message from the LDs could help them make big and potentially spectacular gains in the Capital. Let's just take the Lab/ Con marginal Ealing Central & Acton, which is held by Rupa Huq at the moment. She nominated Corbyn, despite supporting Yvette Cooper, and my view ever since has been that this would be an easy Con gain next time round. Yet if there were to be a vote now, one in which Brexit is the main issue, potentially a LD could take up to half each of the 2015 Con and Lab vote to win.
I would suggest, given the potential problems it faces in the next 12-18 months, that this is a very bold assumption. Take your pick of political issues in Greece, France, Portugal, Italy or Spain, the implosion of Germany's banking system, or further Russian meddling in Ukraine and the Baltic to lead to a major flashpoint/crisis and substantial changes.
I have always thought that the EU will ultimately have to federate or implode. It is now very evident that federation involving Britain is impossible. It also looks doubtful that it could involve France or Italy, which would therefore effectively rule it out entirely (given their size, location and prestige as founder members). Therefore the risks of it collapsing are more than merely theoretical.
That wouldn't be good news for Britain - chaos in an area that accounts for over 50% of our foreign earnings would be a disaster, indeed - but it wouldn't exactly help the remain side gain support either.
People there voting for a Remain-styled candidate is as shocking as Islington voting for a teetotal socialist.
The only significant things to take from the by-election are that for some people, the EU stance of candidates matters more than anything else, and that Goldsmith was uniquely damaged by his unnecessary by-election after a stupid promise, his unpopular stance on the EU *and* his derided mayoral campaign.
If his personal vote was not strong, if he was not popular, then how did he get a huge 23,000 majority only last year?
The people who live in Richmond are not Bumpkins and Carrot Munchers (both are hate terms used on pb.com).
A Narrow Victory in Richmond means we can reverse the vote to Leave the EU. It heralds a new dawn for “progressive parties” (which means the wealthy middle-classes who do so well out of the EU).
And by Sunday, tiny Tim Farron will be gearing up to reverse the election of Donald Trump.
Now you have got three trends:
(i) globalisation resulting in a relatively rebalancing of wealth between countries - this has hit most levels of society (even the 1%) but the absolute impact is felt worst by the less skilled who have seen their real incomes stagnate for a decade or more
(ii) the uber-wealthy has become an international class, many of whom feel no residual loyalties to their countries. Clearly this is not the case for many individuals in this country and others, but there are enough people who are too focused on minimising tax and avoiding their obligations to rankle badly
(iii) Companies have taken the concept of shareholder value rather than stakeholder value too far. Tax arbitrage is not a game that a responsible business should engage in. Their objective should be to maximise the value of the enterprise and then pay a decent return to shareholders out of that rather than to maximise the value of the shareholder payment at the expense of the enterprise or of the society from which they grew
In terms of solutions:
(i) globalisation is a given, but you can and should invest in people (and fix education) to give them a chance to compete in the new world. Additionally, restricting immigration (particularly unskilled immigration) is important as this is effectively a wealthy transfer from workers to owners
(ii) No tolerance for tax evaders. Needs to be a multi-lateral solution, which isn't easy, but bringing back shame would be a good start
(iii) Complex and, again, needs to be multi-lateral, but cracking down on some of the more egregious examples would be helpful. I'd also look at doing things like stopping shareholder loans being tax deductible (or at least making sure that they are only tax deductible where they are a real loan rather than just quasi-equity)
The trick - which I think would probably be very difficult if not impossible to pull off - would be to ensure that all the 'non trade' stiff was covered in the Article 50 agreement which would then be decided by QMV and the subsequent or parallel trade agreements were strictly limited to trade - which again would mean they could be decided by QMV.
If Parliament wasn't willing to implement whatever directive the people gave in this referendum, then it should not have legislated to have one in the first place.
Agreed, though, that the constituency also has affluent Cotswold villages with high proportion of second homers. But, as always in the countryside, there are some (almost always overlooked) very poor people.
The donation was a pro-refugee book, written by one of his constituents. I forget the title, but it had a cartoon showing a refugee panicking at the sight of a large dog because they thought it was a wild wolf. The attached letter said Clegg was donating a copy of this book to every Sheffield library, to help educate the public.
Normally, donating books wouldn't be a problem, but asking libraries to stock propaganda feels a little iffy.
Edit - I'm not suggesting you are doing that, BTW, I'm just commenting on the wider reporting. Apologies if that wasn't clear.
Fair enough, but the LDs perhaps should drop the 'Democrat' and become the Liberal Party. Perhaps not though. I know countries with 'Democratic' in their name were almost all non-democratic.
Mr. Tyndall, I can't imagine why the broadcast media hasn't mentioned it
Edit: damn, there no goat in it?
And her election will be re-run in approximately 4 years time.
The options that we need to plan for are: (1) quasi-EU dependent on whatever the EU decides for us; (2) generic MFN with everyone including the EU and outside all the preferential trade arrangements that are already in place. It's not quite take it or leave it. There will be things to negotiate at the margins, but as far as the public need to understand them, those are the two basic options.
In a strongly Remain-voting constituency, Zac Goldsmith mislaid a quarter of his vote share despite being, we were told, an MP with a personal following and despite UKIP not standing against him. It seems reasonable to assume that even in more Leave-leaning constituencies there will be a chunk of the 2015 Conservative support that will now no longer turn out for the blue team. Perhaps others can produce a handy ready reckoner for calculating this.
So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent.
Theresa May should probably have held an autumn general election. 2017 is beginning to look much riskier.
But you basically need a non-politician to go in and rewrite the tax code. Brown did so much damage
There is plenty of support for sensible pragmatic financially sane politics, and being pro soft-Brexit is not out of line with any party other than UKIP.
"And her election will be re-run in approximately 4 years time."
That is the system we have in our democracy. For EU referenda, it seems to be every 40 years.
The cries of "It must be stopped and re-run because the verdict was wrong. We are right because we know best. Therefore the voters must have been misled." is very childish. It reminds me strongly of the Marxists in the 1960s. They also claimed that it was only the mass media that stopped the public seeing the truth. But fair play to them, they didn't claim they were democrats.
Remain lost despite having nearly all the advantages. In a democracy, you have to accept that often your opinion, magnificent as it is with its all knowing wisdom, may be outvoted. As a senior LD, you should be used to that.
No one said democracy was a panacea, but you have to take the rough with the smooth.
But taking attitudes to the EU, immigration, or voting Conservative, people tend to move right as they age.
https://twitter.com/rolandmcs/status/804965260310564864
But the damage is already irreparably done.
As for Remain having all the advantages, the majority of the popular press was for Leave. Generally speaking rabidly so.
If you mean that on the balance of mature, sensible discussion Remain shold have won, then, of course, you are right.
The good thing about a general election is that it would force all parties to clarify their position. The disadvantage is universal.
Whilst a lot has been written about the incoherence of the Government’s position, the same is true of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats. At present, their job is to oppose, so that they merely need to point out the shortcomings of the Tories.
In a General Election, Labour & the LibDems would also need to articulate what they would do. I think both of them would find it at least as much as a challenge as the Tories.
It could be the craziest elections of our lives, and I seriously wonder whether all three parties would emerge at the end of it in one piece.
Labour seem to me to have most problems.
The LibDems may have least problems in articulating a common position, but -- if I understand their position --- they are really deluding themselves if they think it will be highly popular.
If it gets a bit much, then I can recommend the great, manly Gardenias for a great sloppy burger.
We were entirely clear, as was Flexcit/Leave Alliance - Hannan and the Adam Smith 'Liberal Case for Leave'.
@SophyRidgeSky
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CyvkEveXcAAqTax.jpg
Matt on Heathrow and the Lib Dems
If the LDs go into a GE with an explicitly pro-Remain/rejoin message they can forget about taking back strongly Leave areas. Which is not to say it would be a bad strategy - in the ultra-Remain, mainly urban areas, there is a large constituency of people who blame the Tories for Brexit, Labour for not stopping/preventing Brexit, and have forgotten about tuition fees by now.
You can't draw many conclusions from by-elections.
The Tories lost almost half their vote in Corby in 2012, losing to Labour, before winning it back fairly easily in 2015.
Witney Euro ref, Remain 53.7%, Leave 46.3%
Also UKIP would have got around 1% of the vote in Richmond, had they stood, consistent with their performance in previous elections. They are not a force in Richmond.
It is difficult to comment on the extent to which the Remain vote is collapsing in by-elections.
For instance, in Witney, the Remain vote was 53.7% to 46.3%, but the Remain parties (Lab/Lib/Luddite) got 50.1% to Con/UKIP 49.9% at the by-election. So that's only a pro-Brexit swing of 3.6%.
In Richmond, Remain won by around 70-30, but 45.8% of people voted for Brexit Goldsmith.
So that's a pro-Brexit swing of more than 15%.
"So far Theresa May has seen two by-election defences and (treating Zac Goldsmith as remaining a Tory for these purposes) she has seen average swings against the Conservatives of 20%. This is not the performance of a party 15+% ahead in the polls. Support in the polls for the Comservatives seems highly contingent"
That's why Labour suffered 29% swings in Brent East, 21% in Leicester South, and others before going onto win the 2005 GE easily, is it?
Pull the other one, the Tories have lost one seat in a Liberal Remain area and held one in Tory Remain area, and this is a disaster?
The NE poll has a voodoo air about it - no indication of how they sampled their readers, or what the demographic is. Nonetheless I think the Government should anticipate a slide in Brexit support as the complications and compromises become manifest, and a "are we sure we want this?" portion of the Leave voters will grow.
The question for Remainers is how to handle that. I don't see anything undemocratic in urging a second vote when the terms are clear, but it would need to be coordinated with pretty authoritative signals from the Continent that they would accept an "oh, forget it" decision. Legally they wouldn't have to - Article 50 triggers the process. In reality EU history is full of pragmatic compromise and they probably would if they wanted to - suspend Article 50 discussions forever or whatever, a way would be found if there had been a genuine change of mind in Britain. And there's no sign that May would even consider offering a referendum that gave a bigger choice than "leave with our horrible deal" or "leave without a deal", because most Tory MPs would hate it.
But an election to resolve the issue of whether to have a "Do you want to leave on the terms available or stay after all?" vote might be interesting, and not quite the walkover that the Tories expect.
That confection of mendacity and pandering to xenophobia won it for Leave. Daniel Hannan cannot evade this stain on his character but he could at least repent it publicly.