I'm fascinated to note Rod Crosby's swingback take on 2015. Clearly the blues will want to monster Redward from here on in. The reds will be trying to ensure he gives Dave as little ammunition as possible.
Unfortunately for the reds we see that Labour 1997-2010 is a super fruitful ground for monstering fodder and the blues are developing a hearty appetite for having a go.
Would be interesting - if Mike was ok - to have a thread on different models (Baxter, L&N, etc) with a view on pros and cons? Perhaps something for the summer?
Baxter does quite well on predicting seats from votes (after he tweaked his model to remove his comedy results like LDs on zero seats.)
But he, Anthony Wells, Mike, and most everyone else is looking at the wrong inputs... Opinion polls, which should be ignored, as practically worthless predictors of the result in 2015. Opinion polls only become valuable in the last few weeks (perhaps months) before polling day.
Long-range forecasts are better derived from real votes, cast by hundreds of thousands of people, such as in locals and by-elections or, as L&N have discovered, in a proxy variable (PM approval), which gives a clearer view of what people truly think of the government...
... And it is Lord Borwick (conservative) winning the by-election after 16 rounds of transfers (losing only 15% of the total votes cast in the process due to partial completion of ballots). Viscount Hailsham (him with the moat) was the runner up.
... And it is Lord Borwick (conservative) winning the by-election after 16 rounds of transfers (losing only 15% of the total votes cast in the process due to partial completion of ballots). Viscount Hailsham (him with the moat) was the runner up.
... And it is Lord Borwick (conservative) winning the by-election after 16 rounds of transfers (losing only 15% of the total votes cast in the process due to partial completion of ballots). Viscount Hailsham (him with the moat) was the runner up.
Must say PB has been quiet over the past hour or so. Perhaps everyone is commuting from work (where they post on PB) back home (where they also post on PB)!
Well, with Ipsos-MORI published all is now clear on the polling front. As clear as a cup full of mud. The polls are all over the place. I blame the Heatwave: it's a well known fact that to much heat scrambles brains. Its SUMMER MADNESS. ---------------------- Thank god the Open golf championship opens tomorrow. I have £10 on Els who I always back and have placed £50 on Mickelson; I fancy Phil to win this one.
Must say PB has been quiet over the past hour or so. Perhaps everyone is commuting from work (where they post on PB) back home (where they also post on PB)!
Naaa it's the lack of provocation. As someone said at the last DD's do every oyster needs a little **it to make a decent pearl ;-)
Michael Gove has hit out at Labour after it emerged that at a school built while Ed Balls was Schools Minister is set to shut due to a lack of demand for places.
The £24m Christ the King Centre for Learning in Knowsley is the first of the institutions developed under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to close.
The Education Secretary said: “Ed Balls’ £55 billion pound building programme was hugely wasteful and ignored the huge need for new primary school places.
“Now one of his flagship schools costing £24million is shutting just a few years after it opened. This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
... And it is Lord Borwick (conservative) winning the by-election after 16 rounds of transfers (losing only 15% of the total votes cast in the process due to partial completion of ballots). Viscount Hailsham (him with the moat) was the runner up.
"Dave might not have been so upbeat at PMQs if this Ipsos-MORI poll had come out two hours earlier"
Why not? It was accurately predicted on here, well in advance of PMQ's, what questions Ed would lead with. Ed has backed himself into a corner with his policy free zone and Cameron has the ammunition and the ability to use it to effectively neutralize any attack that Ed can launch. Cameron would have been perfectly content going into the chamber if this had been released in time for him to read.
Now is the time for Ed to start stating what he is for, rather than against. He's going to be absolutely trashed nearer the election unless he starts to rehearse some of his policies now to see how they are recieved by the public. The preferred option, of some on here, of keeping quiet until the last moment (IOS) is looking more and more wrong as the days progress.
That's not a hand grenade, it's not even a rabbit.
The last IPCC report was up front about the uncertainties in mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, so they left them out completely from their projections of 21st century sea level rise.
On sea level rise - without the contribution from ice sheets - the consensus is very clear: sea levels will continue to rise as heat penetrates the deep oceans and mountain glaciers melt.
Not so. The IPCC report excluded the scaled up accelerated ice loss from their sea level calculations but included the standard predicted rate of loss.
More importantly both the Register article and the original paper from Nature Geoscience make it clear that their argument is not with the IPCC but with the claims of alarmists that there will be accelerated sea level rise. So you are making rather a straw man of this as a means of deflecting from a finding that clearly you find difficult to stomach.
Ah, okay, so AR4 left out the potential contribution from an acceleration of the mass loss from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. My mistake.
I still think my main point stands - the study in Nature Geoscience is a no change on the existing IPCC consensus, with the [excellent] GRACE satellites not yet providing enough data. No-one would have expected that ten years worth of data would be enough to detect acceleration, so this is not a surprise either.
I have no difficulty with the finding, I'm just pointing out that it isn't a "hand grenade".
My 'hand grenade' phrase referred to the angry conversations that occur when such reports are mentioned on here, one way or the other. :-)
It's like mentioning a report that shows Scotland will return to the stone age, or be a land of milk and honey, if they vote for independence.
Michael Gove has hit out at Labour after it emerged that at a school built while Ed Balls was Schools Minister is set to shut due to a lack of demand for places.
The £24m Christ the King Centre for Learning in Knowsley is the first of the institutions developed under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to close.
The Education Secretary said: “Ed Balls’ £55 billion pound building programme was hugely wasteful and ignored the huge need for new primary school places.
“Now one of his flagship schools costing £24million is shutting just a few years after it opened. This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
After the trial run of the poll tax I wonder if that is such a good idea!
This time its their idea......in any case, not sure the Rates revaluation that would have happened instead of the community charge would have been popular either....
Michael Gove has hit out at Labour after it emerged that at a school built while Ed Balls was Schools Minister is set to shut due to a lack of demand for places.
The £24m Christ the King Centre for Learning in Knowsley is the first of the institutions developed under Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to close.
The Education Secretary said: “Ed Balls’ £55 billion pound building programme was hugely wasteful and ignored the huge need for new primary school places.
“Now one of his flagship schools costing £24million is shutting just a few years after it opened. This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
This sort of thing will always happen; it is extremely difficult to predict demand, especially in local areas subject to changing populations, emigration and immigration. I'm not surprised it happened, and it'll happen again.
I think Labour are keen the government pursues it - for the reasons you mention.....expect much wailing about 'being in the pockets of big booze', followed by a deafening silence when asked if they'd do it....
This 'deck clearing' (or barnacle scraping) appears to be gathering pace - two potentially unpopular policies kicked into the long grass in one week.....
"...If there is any difference at all between Labour and the Tories on the haranguing-poor-people front, it's that Labour's haranguing was worse...Certain Tories' proposals to put teem mums in hostels and limit what welfare benefits they receive are driven largely by financial considerations. It's mean-spirited, yes, not to mention daft (how much money do teen mums really use up?), but that's about it. Labour, by contrast, genuinely believed it had a moral duty to correct the antics of these fallen women of Britain's council estates. It pumped £60m – £60m! – into a Teenage Pregnancy Unit, which lectured teenage boys against having sex and peered into the the "family circumstances" of those at risk of becoming teen mums.
It contrasted teen mums against what Blair called "the decent majority". Blair also described his crusade against the scourge of teen motherhood as "tak[ing] a lead in defining a new moral purpose [for Britain]". Okay, so some Tories are bashing teen mums in an attempt to save cash; but Labour did the same in a vainglorious effort to save souls. Labour is scarier than the Tories because it really believes it has the right, and ability, to save the little people from their own dumb, junk-food-guzzling, non-condom-wearing selves.
So, if we're going to talk about the use of welfare payments, or the threatened trimming of welfare payments, to reshape the blob-like masses' behaviour, then let's talk about Labour. And whatever you do, dear reader, do not say that Labour's recent pontificating on the antics of teen mums and other morally lax tearaways was just a Blairite blip in the party's otherwise honourable track record of leaving folk alone or helping them when they need it. Right from its early days Labour used welfare payments, and welfare withdrawal, to try to control the throng..."
'This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
Something which should have happened a long time ago.
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
Exactly what the government is proposing with blank cigarette packets, except it is the Australians testing it.
As for tobacco, figure 1 in (1) shows that tobacco sales have been falling for a while now, mainly due to regulatory changes (the common market and the price escalator). Whether that equates to less usage (the fag trip abroad and the black market) is another matter.
Have there been any studies showing the effect of the ban on smoking in public places?
On a similar topic, I was just chatting to a 17-year old youth down the local (the joys of home working). He had a stroke a few months ago whilst bench-pressing, and the doctors claimed his intake of Red Bull and other energy drinks had not helped...
'This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
Something which should have happened a long time ago.
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
That's what I keep telling Mr Pole. Much better to stop the mindless ramping and watch Labour flounder in a policy free vacuum with a shot fired across their bows every so often.
'This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
Something which should have happened a long time ago.
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
I think you misread the Labour mood? MPs are in holiday mode, and non-MPs but would-be candidates are quietly confident. Tory aggression as a substitute for actually governing competently is a very good way of driving up our turnout - it's reminiscent of the good old "Are you thinking what we're thinking" days, but without the excuse that they're not in government. We will win a cut-throat fight - what would be more difficult is if people decided that the government was actually really good at something.
'This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
Something which should have happened a long time ago.
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
I think you misread the Labour mood? MPs are in holiday mode, and non-MPs but would-be candidates are quietly confident. Tory aggression as a substitute for actually governing competently is a very good way of driving up our turnout - it's reminiscent of the good old "Are you thinking what we're thinking" days, but without the excuse that they're not in government. We will win a cut-throat fight - what would be more difficult is if people decided that the government was actually really good at something.
Ho ho Nick, and through it all Burnham struggles in his debate while the holiday mood Labourites leave him high and dry. And what were Labour ever good at except wasting money ?
"...Labour’s backbenches returned to Lynton Crosby. Questioner after questioner tried to depict the PM as Mr Crosby’s corporate puppet. They failed because the format of PMQs is hopeless at exposing insincere or dishonest replies. The ramshackle and near-mutinous atmosphere allowed Cameron to turn every Crosby missile into an attack on Labour’s union links and the influence of Len McCluskey. Not that this stopped Labour from trying. Clearly they were under orders from the top to promote the Crosby connection.
Miliband’s hope is that Crosby will make Miliband more attractive to the people who’d vote for Miliband anyway. (Strange ploy but it’s all Ed’s got for now). Labour members would regard Crosby as a major sleazebag even if he weren’t a Tory consultant. He’s Australian and therefore optimistic; he’s a proven electoral winner; and he hobnobs with wealthy businessfolk. These values – prosperity, professional success and a positive outlook – belong to New Labour. And Miliband is on a bizarre mission to purge his Blairite past and to pursue the scorched-earth, core-vote strategy that worked so badly for Gordon Brown.
For Ed, the upside is that Crosby is unlikely to break his vow of silence and acquire a public profile. And as long as he remains unknown, his value as a hate-figure is infinite. With McCluskey the opposite is true. He rushes towards the cameras like a kid making for a candy-floss van. With each appearance he becomes more ridiculous and less threatening. After two weeks on our TV screens he’s emerged as a gobby but innocuous spiv with a cheese-grater voice and a set of political opinions that belong to the Teasmade era. Even his beer-gut looks a bit 1970s..."
'This is what Ed Balls did with education spending. Imagine what damage he will do to your tax bill if he becomes Chancellor.”
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
Something which should have happened a long time ago.
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
I think you misread the Labour mood? MPs are in holiday mode, and non-MPs but would-be candidates are quietly confident. Tory aggression as a substitute for actually governing competently is a very good way of driving up our turnout - it's reminiscent of the good old "Are you thinking what we're thinking" days, but without the excuse that they're not in government. We will win a cut-throat fight - what would be more difficult is if people decided that the government was actually really good at something.
Have you seen the economic and employment figures? It's easy to argue (although it is arguable) that this government is governing competently, and on a very sticky wicket. Especially when you compare us to many European countries.
As for aggression: the get-Crosby line from Labour is about as aggressive as it gets. Sod the truth: just smear to try to get a good headline. Especially when this government (not the taxis-for-hire one you were a part of) is the one bringing in a much -needed lobbying bill.
As Labour have few, if any policies (and u-turn on the ones they do have), all they really have is aggression.
LOL Burnham now blaming Lynton Crosby for NHS failings. Bizarre.
Edit : and now he's back on to it's not fair.
The tories have turned one of Labour's more capable and ambitious ministers into a grease spot.
The labour party resembles an international cricket dressing room when the team goes from 230 for one to 250 for four. An undignified scramble for pads and boxes and a setting of jaws.
I wonder whether AfD might be closer to the 5% threshold than the polls are currently recording. In Germany a lot of people are still embarrassed about admitting to being anti-European and it may be that there's a bit of a spiral of silence as regards support for AfD. So instead of being on 3% they could be on 4-5%.
LOL Burnham now blaming Lynton Crosby for NHS failings. Bizarre.
Edit : and now he's back on to it's not fair.
The tories have turned one of Labour's more capable and ambitious ministers into a grease spot.
The labour party resembles an international cricket dressing room when the team goes from 230 for one to 250 for four. An undignified scramble for pads and boxes and a setting of jaws.
LOL Burnham now blaming Lynton Crosby for NHS failings. Bizarre.
Edit : and now he's back on to it's not fair.
The tories have turned one of Labour's more capable and ambitious ministers into a grease spot.
The labour party resembles an international cricket dressing room when the team goes from 230 for one to 250 for four. An undignified scramble for pads and boxes and a setting of jaws.
That only 18 Labour MPs turned out in this *show of confidence* in Burnham speaks volumes. It's their emergency debate on Keogh FFS.
One thing's for sure - Crosby will continue to be the story.
Ed has shot his load
@SkyNewsBreak Ed Miliband writes to Cabinet Sec with concerns on lobbyist & Downing St adviser Lynton Crosby's influence on Govt tobacco packaging policy
When the Cab Sec says no, Ed will be left empty handed
I'm only just started following her tweets - some interesting stuff
Julie Bailey @curetheNHS @Toryhealth@andyburnhammp tactic was to fob us off with a independent inquiry which scuppered our chances of a judicial review against him
Crosby is the Latvian Homophobes all over again. Something Labour activists, LibDems and assorted Guardianistas think is a huge story, but which is actually of precisely zero interest to anyone else.
Keep on saying this to yourself - the Tories can NEVER win on the NHS
Best strategy is to shut up.
Exactly this. The Tories need to just shut up about the NHS now. Labour have trashed their reputation and now won't be able to campaign on it, but neither should the Tories. It is now going to be one of those policy areas that voters will trust neither party on.
I wonder whether AfD might be closer to the 5% threshold than the polls are currently recording. In Germany a lot of people are still embarrassed about admitting to being anti-European and it may be that there's a bit of a spiral of silence as regards support for AfD. So instead of being on 3% they could be on 4-5%.
What evidence have you got that there are a lot of Germans embarrassed about admitting they are anti European ?
I'm unclear, however, whether Lynton Crosby has directly been involved in selling cigarettes to Latvians, or whether any of them are homophobes. But no doubt Owen Jones is on the case already.
I really don't understand what Andy Burnham thinks he's gaining from this or his many media outings since Saturday.
Given I didn't really mind him up to now, he's managed to sound toddlerish, self-righteous, feel-sorry-for-me and complained at length about evil Tories playing politics when he's done precisely that himself ad nauseum. And to top it off, he's barely mentioned the actual patients affected by it all.
He'd have been better advised to shut up - as I said the other day - he'd never have acted like this over Hillsborough.
I wonder whether AfD might be closer to the 5% threshold than the polls are currently recording. In Germany a lot of people are still embarrassed about admitting to being anti-European and it may be that there's a bit of a spiral of silence as regards support for AfD. So instead of being on 3% they could be on 4-5%.
What evidence have you got that there are a lot of Germans embarrassed about admitting they are anti European ?
from FAZ this am. EU becoming more popular but still in negative territory by 2-1. CDU seen as most pro-EU.
I wonder whether AfD might be closer to the 5% threshold than the polls are currently recording. In Germany a lot of people are still embarrassed about admitting to being anti-European and it may be that there's a bit of a spiral of silence as regards support for AfD. So instead of being on 3% they could be on 4-5%.
What evidence have you got that there are a lot of Germans embarrassed about admitting they are anti European ?
from FAZ this am. EU becoming more popular but still in negative territory by 2-1. CDU seen as most pro-EU.
I wonder whether AfD might be closer to the 5% threshold than the polls are currently recording. In Germany a lot of people are still embarrassed about admitting to being anti-European and it may be that there's a bit of a spiral of silence as regards support for AfD. So instead of being on 3% they could be on 4-5%.
What evidence have you got that there are a lot of Germans embarrassed about admitting they are anti European ?
from FAZ this am. EU becoming more popular but still in negative territory by 2-1. CDU seen as most pro-EU.
Yes but are those people anti European embarrassed that they are ?
quite obviously not. The biggest sceptics will be working germans ( Bild readers) and particularist Bavarians. Germans tend not to be backward about coming forward.
OGH. We will see..you will be proved wrong. Crosby will eviscerate the Labour Party, he knows what he is doing, and they know it, but carry on with your wishful thinking..
Having said that, people who take offence at the incorrect salutation or valediction (as opposed to title or name) in informal documents really need to get a reality check.
I think it dangerous and bad for politics for political parties to have matters which are off limits. The Tories may not win on the NHS but they have a perfect right to make sure that, when matters go wrong, as they have done, they are put right and to make the changes they think are necessary.
The NHS is not - and should not be - the private plaything of one political party. It's our health we are talking about and I - for one - want a health system that works for me and the rest of the population. Whether it helps or harms Labour or the Tories or any other party is of no concern, indeed, is monumentally trivial and self-regarding.
It's that attitude by Labour - the idea that because they "love" the NHS (as if the idea of loving a particular organisational structure isn't itself peculiar and a tad sinister - as opposed to loving the idea of what it provides - good quality care free at the point of use, whatever the structure) they and the NHS should therefore be immune to criticism which is so off-putting.
Good intentions are not the best way of assessing whether a particular course of action is good, wise or sensible. Labour's approach is to say that they have the best intentions on the NHS ergo we should trust them regardless of the outcome. I'd rather rely on the outcomes to determine whether a policy is any good or not.
Keep on saying this to yourself - the Tories can NEVER win on the NHS
Best strategy is to shut up.
The Tories are being very Karl Rove with this. The importance is long-term. The importance is the next election. This is framing the argument for the election campaign. If Labour goes with "only we can save the NHS", "only x days to save the NHS" the rebuttal is there in the wider consciousness. If Labour put up Andy Burnham he's the guy who oversaw and covered - up NHS scandals. If Andy Burnham is sacked Labour imply his culpability. Either way Labour has a fight and has to put greater resources into the NHS part of their campaign which weakens their other fronts. This makes it good strategy.
Government lobbying proposals published. Time to play spot the booby traps
"Introduce a statutory register of lobbyists to identify whose interests were being represented by consultant lobbyists and those who were paid to lobby on behalf of a third party
Set a £390,000 cap on the amount any organisation - excluding political parties - could spend across the UK during elections
Set limits for organisations that campaign for or against a specific party or target their spending at a particular constituency
End self-certification of union membership numbers for all but the smallest unions
Enable an independent certification officer to check records and take enforcement action if necessary"
If Labour put up Andy Burnham he's the guy who oversaw and covered - up NHS scandals. If Andy Burnham is sacked Labour imply his culpability. Either way Labour has a fight and has to put greater resources into the NHS part of their campaign which weakens their other fronts. This makes it good strategy.
Yesterday, Jeremy Hunt mentioned patients 19 times in his speech. Andy Burnham mentioned them twice.
This is the battle they think they can win. Labour are on the side of the producers, Tories on the side of patients.
The NHS is not - and should not be - the private plaything of one political party. It's our health we are talking about and I - for one - want a health system that works for me and the rest of the population. .
Well said. Labour failed to properly regulate the Banks, failed to regulate the newspapers, failed to control the police and failed to regulate MP expenses. Its no surprise that they messed up the NHS as well.
Well said. Dan Hannan has a rather pertinent piece making your point.
"Three years ago, at the very moment that he was presiding over the abominations at Mid Staffs – and, as we now know, several other hospitals – Andy Burnham, then Health Secretary, was calling me ‘unpatriotic’ for pointing out the poor performance of the NHS in international league tables.
I mention it, not to have a go at the poor fellow – the rest of the country is already doing that – but to explore the connection between the tendency to shout down any criticism of the NHS and the number of British hospitals which are, as the Keogh Report put it, ‘trapped in mediocrity’ ...For a fair chunk of the British Left, a state-run NHS is beyond criticism. It is not a question on which different parties may reasonably disagree (‘Stop treating the NHS like a political football!’) Rather, it is seen, as in Andy Burnham’s formulation, or in Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony, as a test of patriotism. The same people who are quick to deplore the sentiment ‘my country right or wrong’ often take precisely such an attitude to the NHS.
...The trouble is that a general attachment to the status quo has been twisted into a vicious, even violent, intolerance of any suggested alternative. When I pointed out that the NHS fared badly by most international comparisons three years ago, my since-deceased mother was harassed by Left-wing journalists. I suppose I should be grateful that her grave has not been vandalized – as happened to the mother of the woman who drew attention to the barbarities in Mid Staffs.
That, thank Heaven, was an isolated case. But listen to the language habitually used by those opposed to change. Consider the shrill, shouty way in which Labour MPs behaved in the House of Commons during the Health Secretary’s statement yesterday. A foreign observer would not have believed that this was a legislature assembled to debate tragic and unnecessary deaths.
This is the battle they think they can win. Labour are on the side of the producers, Tories on the side of patients.
I'm not sure they think it's a battle they can win, but it's a battle they need to fight in order to reduce the advantage Labour (inexplicably, given their record) gets from it.
What Sarah is doing makes it far far more likely she will get elected. We all know the Tory brand is trash so winning votes on a personal level is what will keep her in.
The only two Tories I would vote for are her and Zac.
Comments
Unfortunately for the reds we see that Labour 1997-2010 is a super fruitful ground for monstering fodder and the blues are developing a hearty appetite for having a go.
But he, Anthony Wells, Mike, and most everyone else is looking at the wrong inputs... Opinion polls, which should be ignored, as practically worthless predictors of the result in 2015. Opinion polls only become valuable in the last few weeks (perhaps months) before polling day.
Long-range forecasts are better derived from real votes, cast by hundreds of thousands of people, such as in locals and by-elections or, as L&N have discovered, in a proxy variable (PM approval), which gives a clearer view of what people truly think of the government...
17/07/2013 14:12
Gay Marriage is now legal - hooray, but having had three straight ones I don't think I can afford one
norman smith @BBCNormanS 58s
Tory Julian Morris writes to Ed Miliband over whether he has been lobbied by ex aide and now Philip Morris PR James Barge over policy.
If he's suffering from depression, he probably should not check into hospital.
Http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/2013/Hereditary-peers-by-election-result-July-2013.pdf
Steve Miller ****
Saying that, they could have been hugely popular in terms of second-preference votes, but we will never know.
I'm trying to get a little work done. I imagine those able to take themselves to cooler places have done so.
As clear as a cup full of mud.
The polls are all over the place.
I blame the Heatwave: it's a well known fact that to much heat scrambles brains.
Its SUMMER MADNESS.
----------------------
Thank god the Open golf championship opens tomorrow. I have £10 on Els who I always back and have placed £50 on Mickelson; I fancy Phil to win this one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23346532
Good.
Let the Scots test market it first.....
I was sure it was Sensational Alex Harvey ****
Or is that the one for Scots Nationalists?
Now everyone knows he has no friends ;-)
Why not? It was accurately predicted on here, well in advance of PMQ's, what questions Ed would lead with. Ed has backed himself into a corner with his policy free zone and Cameron has the ammunition and the ability to use it to effectively neutralize any attack that Ed can launch. Cameron would have been perfectly content going into the chamber if this had been released in time for him to read.
Now is the time for Ed to start stating what he is for, rather than against. He's going to be absolutely trashed nearer the election unless he starts to rehearse some of his policies now to see how they are recieved by the public. The preferred option, of some on here, of keeping quiet until the last moment (IOS) is looking more and more wrong as the days progress.
It's like mentioning a report that shows Scotland will return to the stone age, or be a land of milk and honey, if they vote for independence.
The Zen approach to policy making is to examine the blank sheet of paper and wait for the policies to form upon it...
If someone needs a bootle of vodka or so many cans of cheap cider per day, they buy that first and use whatever they have left over for food etc.
Also, because someone drinks cheaper types of drink, it does not necessarily mean they have a problem with alcohol.
This sort of thing will always happen; it is extremely difficult to predict demand, especially in local areas subject to changing populations, emigration and immigration. I'm not surprised it happened, and it'll happen again.
Polls or no polls, there is undoubtedly a new mood of confidence in tory ranks. And, for the first time since I can remember, real aggression.
This 'deck clearing' (or barnacle scraping) appears to be gathering pace - two potentially unpopular policies kicked into the long grass in one week.....
Just 18 Labour MPs in Chamber for its own debate on NHS. Burnham looking very unloved by his own side
"...If there is any difference at all between Labour and the Tories on the haranguing-poor-people front, it's that Labour's haranguing was worse...Certain Tories' proposals to put teem mums in hostels and limit what welfare benefits they receive are driven largely by financial considerations. It's mean-spirited, yes, not to mention daft (how much money do teen mums really use up?), but that's about it. Labour, by contrast, genuinely believed it had a moral duty to correct the antics of these fallen women of Britain's council estates. It pumped £60m – £60m! – into a Teenage Pregnancy Unit, which lectured teenage boys against having sex and peered into the the "family circumstances" of those at risk of becoming teen mums.
It contrasted teen mums against what Blair called "the decent majority". Blair also described his crusade against the scourge of teen motherhood as "tak[ing] a lead in defining a new moral purpose [for Britain]". Okay, so some Tories are bashing teen mums in an attempt to save cash; but Labour did the same in a vainglorious effort to save souls. Labour is scarier than the Tories because it really believes it has the right, and ability, to save the little people from their own dumb, junk-food-guzzling, non-condom-wearing selves.
So, if we're going to talk about the use of welfare payments, or the threatened trimming of welfare payments, to reshape the blob-like masses' behaviour, then let's talk about Labour. And whatever you do, dear reader, do not say that Labour's recent pontificating on the antics of teen mums and other morally lax tearaways was just a Blairite blip in the party's otherwise honourable track record of leaving folk alone or helping them when they need it. Right from its early days Labour used welfare payments, and welfare withdrawal, to try to control the throng..."
Labour and their minions are terrified of it. That's why the 'get Crosby' message has gone out hard and fast.
The current labour strategy is based on the economy being crap, and the sell by date is passing on that, and they have nothing at all to replace it with.
Exactly what the government is proposing with blank cigarette packets, except it is the Australians testing it.
As for tobacco, figure 1 in (1) shows that tobacco sales have been falling for a while now, mainly due to regulatory changes (the common market and the price escalator). Whether that equates to less usage (the fag trip abroad and the black market) is another matter.
Have there been any studies showing the effect of the ban on smoking in public places?
On a similar topic, I was just chatting to a 17-year old youth down the local (the joys of home working). He had a stroke a few months ago whilst bench-pressing, and the doctors claimed his intake of Red Bull and other energy drinks had not helped...
(1): http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/research/cig-consumption-uk.pdf
GMS:
CDU/CSU: 41%
FDP: 5%
--------------------
SPD: 25%
Green: 13%
Linke: 7%
--------------------
Pirates: 2%
AfD: 2%
Others: 4%
Forsa:
CDU/CSU: 41%
FDP: 5%
--------------------
SPD: 23%
Green: 14%
Linke: 8%
--------------------
Pirates: 2%
Others: 7%
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm
"...Labour’s backbenches returned to Lynton Crosby. Questioner after questioner tried to depict the PM as Mr Crosby’s corporate puppet. They failed because the format of PMQs is hopeless at exposing insincere or dishonest replies. The ramshackle and near-mutinous atmosphere allowed Cameron to turn every Crosby missile into an attack on Labour’s union links and the influence of Len McCluskey. Not that this stopped Labour from trying. Clearly they were under orders from the top to promote the Crosby connection.
Miliband’s hope is that Crosby will make Miliband more attractive to the people who’d vote for Miliband anyway. (Strange ploy but it’s all Ed’s got for now). Labour members would regard Crosby as a major sleazebag even if he weren’t a Tory consultant. He’s Australian and therefore optimistic; he’s a proven electoral winner; and he hobnobs with wealthy businessfolk. These values – prosperity, professional success and a positive outlook – belong to New Labour. And Miliband is on a bizarre mission to purge his Blairite past and to pursue the scorched-earth, core-vote strategy that worked so badly for Gordon Brown.
For Ed, the upside is that Crosby is unlikely to break his vow of silence and acquire a public profile. And as long as he remains unknown, his value as a hate-figure is infinite. With McCluskey the opposite is true. He rushes towards the cameras like a kid making for a candy-floss van. With each appearance he becomes more ridiculous and less threatening. After two weeks on our TV screens he’s emerged as a gobby but innocuous spiv with a cheese-grater voice and a set of political opinions that belong to the Teasmade era. Even his beer-gut looks a bit 1970s..."
Edit : and now he's back on to it's not fair.
As for aggression: the get-Crosby line from Labour is about as aggressive as it gets. Sod the truth: just smear to try to get a good headline. Especially when this government (not the taxis-for-hire one you were a part of) is the one bringing in a much -needed lobbying bill.
As Labour have few, if any policies (and u-turn on the ones they do have), all they really have is aggression.
CDU/CSU 38%
FDP 5%
SPD 26%
Green 15%
Linke 8%
Pirates 2%
AFD 3%
Others 3%
Three months ago I would have agreed with you hands down.
Now, I'm not so sure.
'Where is tim today?'
It's his monthly date at Jobcentre Plus.
Remember his wonderful performance in Oxtober 2007 when Brown was dithering over an election while LAB had double digit poll leads.
It will be interesting to see how voters respond to the new Tory hyper-agression
Edit : and now he's back on to it's not fair.
The tories have turned one of Labour's more capable and ambitious ministers into a grease spot.
The labour party resembles an international cricket dressing room when the team goes from 230 for one to 250 for four. An undignified scramble for pads and boxes and a setting of jaws.
Best strategy is to shut up.
@SkyNewsBreak
Ed Miliband writes to Cabinet Sec with concerns on lobbyist & Downing St adviser Lynton Crosby's influence on Govt tobacco packaging policy
When the Cab Sec says no, Ed will be left empty handed
Julie Bailey @curetheNHS
@Toryhealth @andyburnhammp tactic was to fob us off with a independent inquiry which scuppered our chances of a judicial review against him
Takes me back to the eighties and labour's obsession with the Saatchis.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/17/email-sign-off-etiquette
I was taught that you should only use anything with "regards" in or "best wishes" for someone that you'd actually met.
Otherwise, I usually write the body of the email and end with my name, with no intervening sign-off.
LOL
Bit of a mistake wasn't it?
I know, and I have been the first to point out that all conservative offensives to date have met with utter failure in the polls on the NHS.
The whole idea, I guess, is the narrow the gap.
http://www.pmi.com/marketpages/pages/market_en_lv.aspx
I'm unclear, however, whether Lynton Crosby has directly been involved in selling cigarettes to Latvians, or whether any of them are homophobes. But no doubt Owen Jones is on the case already.
Given I didn't really mind him up to now, he's managed to sound toddlerish, self-righteous, feel-sorry-for-me and complained at length about evil Tories playing politics when he's done precisely that himself ad nauseum. And to top it off, he's barely mentioned the actual patients affected by it all.
He'd have been better advised to shut up - as I said the other day - he'd never have acted like this over Hillsborough.
Twitter has spoken: the PM gave Ed M a shoeing this morning http://bit.ly/1dEXzHb
The opinions are like the DT meets germans.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/europaeische-union/
is no big deal and when have they ever been wrong?
LOL
LINK PROVIDED.
@ITVLauraK
Fitch downgrades major French banks including Credit Agricole and Societe Generale
Why on earth did Ed not ask about something sensible and of interest to voters, such as the fact that earnings haven't kept up with inflation?
This is not going to go away - Sarah Woolaston will see to that.
A bit??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valediction#English
The salutation goes at the start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salutation_(greeting)
The rules vary somewhat by country, and the email age has really confused things. But I use rules similar to the following:
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/yours-faithfully-or-yours-sincerely/
Having said that, people who take offence at the incorrect salutation or valediction (as opposed to title or name) in informal documents really need to get a reality check.
I see Hodges took as little time to jump back into his 'Ed is crap' comfort zone as I predicted after his brief infatuation. *chortle*
*snigger*
The NHS is not - and should not be - the private plaything of one political party. It's our health we are talking about and I - for one - want a health system that works for me and the rest of the population. Whether it helps or harms Labour or the Tories or any other party is of no concern, indeed, is monumentally trivial and self-regarding.
It's that attitude by Labour - the idea that because they "love" the NHS (as if the idea of loving a particular organisational structure isn't itself peculiar and a tad sinister - as opposed to loving the idea of what it provides - good quality care free at the point of use, whatever the structure) they and the NHS should therefore be immune to criticism which is so off-putting.
Good intentions are not the best way of assessing whether a particular course of action is good, wise or sensible. Labour's approach is to say that they have the best intentions on the NHS ergo we should trust them regardless of the outcome. I'd rather rely on the outcomes to determine whether a policy is any good or not.
"Introduce a statutory register of lobbyists to identify whose interests were being represented by consultant lobbyists and those who were paid to lobby on behalf of a third party
Set a £390,000 cap on the amount any organisation - excluding political parties - could spend across the UK during elections
Set limits for organisations that campaign for or against a specific party or target their spending at a particular constituency
End self-certification of union membership numbers for all but the smallest unions
Enable an independent certification officer to check records and take enforcement action if necessary"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23346037
This is the battle they think they can win. Labour are on the side of the producers, Tories on the side of patients.
Well said. Labour failed to properly regulate the Banks, failed to regulate the newspapers, failed to control the police and failed to regulate MP expenses. Its no surprise that they messed up the NHS as well.
"Three years ago, at the very moment that he was presiding over the abominations at Mid Staffs – and, as we now know, several other hospitals – Andy Burnham, then Health Secretary, was calling me ‘unpatriotic’ for pointing out the poor performance of the NHS in international league tables.
I mention it, not to have a go at the poor fellow – the rest of the country is already doing that – but to explore the connection between the tendency to shout down any criticism of the NHS and the number of British hospitals which are, as the Keogh Report put it, ‘trapped in mediocrity’ ...For a fair chunk of the British Left, a state-run NHS is beyond criticism. It is not a question on which different parties may reasonably disagree (‘Stop treating the NHS like a political football!’) Rather, it is seen, as in Andy Burnham’s formulation, or in Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony, as a test of patriotism. The same people who are quick to deplore the sentiment ‘my country right or wrong’ often take precisely such an attitude to the NHS.
...The trouble is that a general attachment to the status quo has been twisted into a vicious, even violent, intolerance of any suggested alternative. When I pointed out that the NHS fared badly by most international comparisons three years ago, my since-deceased mother was harassed by Left-wing journalists. I suppose I should be grateful that her grave has not been vandalized – as happened to the mother of the woman who drew attention to the barbarities in Mid Staffs.
That, thank Heaven, was an isolated case. But listen to the language habitually used by those opposed to change. Consider the shrill, shouty way in which Labour MPs behaved in the House of Commons during the Health Secretary’s statement yesterday. A foreign observer would not have believed that this was a legislature assembled to debate tragic and unnecessary deaths.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100226912/by-howling-down-all-criticism-those-who-think-theyre-defending-the-nhs-are-making-it-mediocre/
What Sarah is doing makes it far far more likely she will get elected. We all know the Tory brand is trash so winning votes on a personal level is what will keep her in.
The only two Tories I would vote for are her and Zac.
Great poll for Labour and Ed. Three 11% lead polls this week despite a rocky time.