@Jonathan We're all assuming there will be a Copeland By-election. If Labour really are delaying it till May 4th then Theresa may decide there won't be one.
All this excitable chatter about the importance of the LibDems is just vapour.
Labour will chose a Brexiteer, probably a traditional trade unionist. They'll hold the seat by about 2 to 3k.
What happens this time is strongly correlated with what happened last time, and the time before that and the time before that ... all the way back to 1931.
All this excitable chatter about the importance of the LibDems is just vapour.
Labour will chose a Brexiteer, probably a traditional trade unionist. They'll hold the seat by about 2 to 3k.
What happens this time is strongly correlated with what happened last time, and the time before that and the time before that ... all the way back to 1931.
.
Yes, probably. But what harm assessing whether, under certain conditions, they could tip the balance?
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
I still think that the Mayor holds the key . Mike Starkie looks like a genuine independent Independent but if he stands either as such or for one of the major parties he would be favourite
For all proportional representation aficionados: please explain how one is meant to construct a functioning Government for the Netherlands out of this mess...
Question 1 about Copeland is why did Reed resign the day after recess started. It means Labour can't move the writ till the Commons comes back on 9th of January. Why did he force Labour to run a longer campaign and who does a longer campaign benefit ?
@Jonathan We're all assuming there will be a Copeland By-election. If Labour really are delaying it till May 4th then Theresa may decide there won't be one.
Not sure Labour could delay it anywhere near that long. The convention is that the writ should be moved within 3 months of the vacancy appearing and the by election held a maximum of 19 working days later.
Should the by election be held on May 4th coinciding with the CC elections , I would expect the Lib Dems to concentrate their efforts in the 4 Allerdale wards with a good chance that they will gain the Keswick division
Essexit. Because there is likely to be a significant Lab-LD swing, which could easily hand the seat to the tories?
There is? Do the Lib Dems generally do well in former mining communities then? I would have thought they were better off going after Tory remoaners.
Well, if they can recover to where they were in 2010 and the Tories hold up about as well as 2015, Labour could be in trouble, a LD recovery more likely to come at Labour's expense and the Tories doing well nationally, if the polls are indeed correct. But if that is so likely as to make the Tories favourites is another matter,
But when the Lib Dems collapsed here in 2015 it wasn't to the benefit of Labour. People seem to have this weird idea that Labour and Lib Dem voters are all somehow interchangeable, perhaps this much vaunted "progressive alliance". Outside of the Richmond Parks of this world I'm not sure that bears much resemblance to reality. Indeed in Sleaford there was anecdotal evidence that Labour's fall was due to their areas not turning out, not switches to the Lib dems. I have a tough time believing the Lib Dem pitch goes down well in this sort of community, as I said if anything they are more likely to take off of the Tories.
@Jonathan We're all assuming there will be a Copeland By-election. If Labour really are delaying it till May 4th then Theresa may decide there won't be one.
Not sure Labour could delay it anywhere near that long. The convention is that the writ should be moved within 3 months of the vacancy appearing and the by election held a maximum of 19 working days later.
As he is not going to actually resign until end Jan that fits the bill for May 4th
I think that the PB Tory hivemind are getting Oldham West syndrome here - because they detest Corbyn, they think it's inconceivable that Labour could win anything. This simply isnt the picture being painted by facts on the ground, where Labour hasnt seen any spectacular failures in real electoral testing, unlike the embarrassing Tory showings in the local elections and Richmond.
Prediction:Tory gain. I think the polls are underestimating Labour at the moment because the turnout filters for the polls expect the next GE to be similar to the last GE. That is the problem for U.K polls they seem to be catching up to the last election. I think young people will turnout this time for Corbyn. But there aren't many universities here and we are seeing a rural vs. Urban split in our politics and many Labour former industrial rural areas are turning away from Labour. Labour second, UKIP third.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
Agreed. The polls were not quite accurate for the last election, but they weren't far out - and to the extent that they were wrong, of course, they understated rather than overstated Conservative support.
Obviously Copeland is a Labour seat, and there are always local factors, but I somehow doubt that it is such an exceptional outlier (unlike Richmond Park, for example) that it can buck the trend enough to return another Labour MP.
Starting with a majority of two-and-a-half thousand from 2015, and then allowing for a substantially lower turnout for the by-election, all Labour has to do is lose 700-800 voters each to the Lib Dems and the Stay at Home Party and its majority is already gone. The actual damage to Labour is likely to be worse, and both common sense and recent polling evidence suggest that the Tory vote ought to hold up well.
@Jonathan We're all assuming there will be a Copeland By-election. If Labour really are delaying it till May 4th then Theresa may decide there won't be one.
Not sure Labour could delay it anywhere near that long. The convention is that the writ should be moved within 3 months of the vacancy appearing and the by election held a maximum of 19 working days later.
He announced that he is resigning end January, which works for a May election.
No way are the LDs missing out on this one or Leigh. There is not much LD history here, but the same was true in Westmoreland until 2005.
A sensible local candidate advocating Red Brexit should win. I don't see May or the kippers doing well here. I am on Labour for this one.
Im expecting a slightly increased Labour majority. It isnt fertile ground for the Dems at all, UKIP are still in turmoil, the popularity of the Tories is certainly not going to increase in the first quarter of this year...
I think the Tories are letting their own prejudices run away with them and vastly overestimating any negative effect Corbyn may be having on the pool of broadly labour-sympathetic voters.
This is all predicated on a sensible choice of candidate of course - local, working-class, not a rabid europhile new labourite...
I can't see what the LDs have to gain by running a strong campaign which can only help increase the government's majority.
The Lib Dems have to be a bit careful here. I'm sure they won't, but if they were to stand aside, that would be a clear example for the Tories to point to at the next GE to say "the Lib Dems will support Corbyn, don't vote for them."
I don't see any reason at all for the Lib Dems to hold back. They have absolutely nothing to lose. It isn't their kind of seat so it won't be a disaster if they don't get many votes. Any kind of advance from where they were at the general election is progress. There aren't many upsides to were the Lib Dems are right now, but when expectations are so low you can't really go wrong.
Blackadder "Sense and Senility" on Yesterday Channel (Freeview 19) at 10.05 tonight.
"Escape from New York 3: Escape from Earth" is on E4. For some unfathomable reason Snake Plissken is played by Guy Pearce and they've changed the title to "Lockout", but they're not fooling me...
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
I think that the PB Tory hivemind are getting Oldham West syndrome here - because they detest Corbyn, they think it's inconceivable that Labour could win anything. This simply isnt the picture being painted by facts on the ground, where Labour hasnt seen any spectacular failures in real electoral testing, unlike the embarrassing Tory showings in the local elections and Richmond.
The Tory results at the local elections were quite creditable for a governing party, and they didn't contest Richmond...
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
Worth noting that this seat was resistant to Cleggmania in 2010 because at the time the LibDems were strongly anti-nuclear; they have since done a reluctant U-turn because of climate change.
The closing of the Grasmere-Keswick road for 5 months after flooding was perceived to have been handled badly.
The power lines for the proposed nuclear power station near Sellafield are a big issue.
The seat will be split between the Labour Workington and Tory Penrith in the boundary review, so this is not a long-term job - and the marginality of it means that the candidates will have to work hard in the campaign. That doesn't sound appealing to any big beasts.
Tories have to be favourites but can also see them splitting votes with UKIP and letting Labour in. Fascinating contest though.
PB Tory expectation management seems to be predicting a Conservative win . Will be hard to explain away failure .
It won't be particularly hard to explain away, given that Government gains from the main Opposition under such circumstances are almost unheard of. However, Labour is in such a bad way that I do think that the Tories would be disappointed, in private, not to win this one, even if they put a brave face on any defeat in public. Unexpected events not withstanding, I certainly think that they ought to be able to pull it off.
I think that the PB Tory hivemind are getting Oldham West syndrome here - because they detest Corbyn, they think it's inconceivable that Labour could win anything. This simply isnt the picture being painted by facts on the ground, where Labour hasnt seen any spectacular failures in real electoral testing, unlike the embarrassing Tory showings in the local elections and Richmond.
The Tory results at the local elections were quite creditable for a governing party, and they didn't contest Richmond...
The May locals were not that bad true , sadly for them their expectation management was cr*p forecasting heavy losses for Corbyns Labour and gains for the Conservatives
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
One of the many positive effects of the Brexit vote is that it has exposed the natural fault lines between Libs and Lab. There are going to be whole swathes of seats where 'Liberal' NOTA votes will be up for grabs now the Libs have nailed the European flag to their mast...
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
14.
17 with the most recent YouGov
The majority, not the poll lead.
10 now, you can't assume the Shinners won't turn up
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
14.
17 with the most recent YouGov
The majority, not the poll lead.
10 now, you can't assume the Shinners won't turn up
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
If Farage mentions this I make him worse than the killer
Everything about this attack - EVERYTHING - is just horrendous for Merkel and German officialdom in general.
But the Germans are so cuckolded - and misled by a sincerely biassed media - I'm not sure there will be any major response
That may come in France or Holland.
It is all so predictable. Each time it occurs, people think surely this will be the one which makes the authorities and media sit up and alter course, but no we are already on the "fear of backlash"....and the cycle continues...
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
It is very difficult to deport people, and a number of African countries are notorious for not co-ooperating with deportations.
Of course we don't always do well ourselves. Take this fellow who has been a bit inflammatory over the 6 years our current PM was in charge of deportations:
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
14.
17 with the most recent YouGov
The majority, not the poll lead.
10 now, you can't assume the Shinners won't turn up
Personally, I'd love it if they turned up to abstain in person like another Irish MP did in 1979
Would they have to swear an oath to HMQueen? What would John McDonell say!
Funniest thing in the last Parliament, both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness stood down as MPs and triggered by elections, to do that they had to become Steward of the Manor of Northstead, which is an office of profit under The Crown.
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
If Farage mentions this I make him worse than the killer
Everything about this attack - EVERYTHING - is just horrendous for Merkel and German officialdom in general.
But the Germans are so cuckolded - and misled by a sincerely biassed media - I'm not sure there will be any major response
That may come in France or Holland.
While SeanT does his best at impersonating Corporal Jones having an attack of the vapours, the Germans demonstrate a bit of stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on Christmas shopping.
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
14.
17 with the most recent YouGov
The majority, not the poll lead.
10 now, you can't assume the Shinners won't turn up
I have just backed Ed Balls to be next PM after Teresa May with Ladbrokes at 250/1. I have no idea if Balls will seek to be the Labour candidate in Copeland but after "Strictly” if he were to do so I expect he would be chosen, would win and would be the obvious person to replace Corbyn if Corbyn stepped down or was voted out before the next General Election.
@Stjohn The previous MP for Copeland never lived in the seat. He stayed in his original North East as his family didn't want to move. A celebrity parashute is slightly different though. Though the Harmans manage to represent London and Birmingham.
The bigger issue for Balls would be Sellafield wanting a tame MP but not one who attracted scrutiny. A player but a party leader might be too much.
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
If Farage mentions this I make him worse than the killer
Everything about this attack - EVERYTHING - is just horrendous for Merkel and German officialdom in general.
But the Germans are so cuckolded - and misled by a sincerely biassed media - I'm not sure there will be any major response
That may come in France or Holland.
Have you read 'reflections on the revolution in Europe' by Christopher Caldwell? Incredible book on Islamic immigration by a neutral journo w no axe to grind.
At times while reading it I had LSD-like out of body experiences/ flashbacks where for a second or two I genuinely thought it was all a bad dream and we hadn't brought this madness on ourselves.
That we are even talking about this as a possible Labour defeat is the most shocking indictment imaginable of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership - even if talk of a party with 9 MPs imminently replacing Labour seems a trifle hyperbolic. But if they lose, surely he has to go even if it doesn't lead May to find a pretext for an election.
Of course he won't go if he loses this by-election. Why would he? Electoral success isn't part of his project and doesn't matter to him.
One thing that I rather like about Corbyn is that he is not the sort of leader who arranges Celebrity parachutes.
No Tristans dropped into Stoke or Mandelson to Hartlepool for him. So far all of the by elections under his tenure have featured candidates picked by the local party. True of Oldham, and Tooting where they won, as well as Kingston or Sleaford where they were no-hopers. It doesn't even seem to trouble him if they are not Corbynites. Whether he is a genuine believer in CLP selection processes or simply unable to host a piss up in a brewery, I do not know, but in Copeland I would expect a local candidate, possibly a councillor or Union official.
@Stjohn The previous MP for Copeland never lived in the seat. He stayed in his original North East as his family didn't want to move. A celebrity parashute is slightly different though. Though the Harman's manage to represent London and Birmingham.
The bigger issue for Balls would be Sellafield wanting a tame MP but not one who attracted scrutiny. A player but a party leader might be too much.
Sunil, it is not wise to respond to a post complaining about cutting-and-pasting by cutting-and-pasting...
Viewcode, do stop re-moaning!!
I don't remoan. I correct people's errors and make amusing and interesting posts, thereby improving the lot of humanity and making the world a better place. And I do all this for free. No, no, don't thank me...
One thing that I rather like about Corbyn is that he is not the sort of leader who arranges Celebrity parachutes.
Apart from Tracy Brabin obviously.
Was that a Parachute? I understood that she came from the constituency, was politically active there (when no vacancy expected) and selected after local hustings.
Jezza is doing it perhaps by accident rather than design, but is replacing the SPADocracy with local people selected by local parties.
Maybe, just maybe, the swamp is being drained before our very eyes, and in plain sight. I hope he keeps it up with the new boundaries. This potentially is the grass roots renewal that Labour needs, and neither a Blairite nor a Momentum stitch up.
Do people on here see me as a pb Tory? Out of interest.
As someone fluent in Urdu and Punjabi, you really don't want to know what I think 'Nunu' means
Would I be really horrible if I suggested it was a somewhat sweet euphemism for, er, "ladygarden"?
Close but no cigar.
It means todger
It's a bit counter-intuitive. Wouldn't the the Bouba-Kiki Effect dictate that "nunu" be used for the innie bit and a more spiky phrase for the outie bit? Or is this a phrase that adults use to children (cf "jobbie" for "shit") as a childish euphemism until they grow up and can cope with Big Words?
'Whoever wins will only keep the seat until the next election, where under the new boundaries the Labour MP for Workington takes it over with a 14500 majority.'
But that is making the rash assumption that there will be new boundaries!
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
If Farage mentions this I make him worse than the killer
Everything about this attack - EVERYTHING - is just horrendous for Merkel and German officialdom in general.
But the Germans are so cuckolded - and misled by a sincerely biassed media - I'm not sure there will be any major response
That may come in France or Holland.
While SeanT does his best at impersonating Corporal Jones having an attack of the vapours, the Germans demonstrate a bit of stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on Christmas shopping.
Carrying on shopping when 12 people have been brutally murdered seems rather insensitive to me.
Mrs Merkel may have wanted to be a humanitarian to refugees but a price has been paid by those who have lost their lives, the grieving friends and families, the women assaulted and raped.
A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks.
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
If Farage mentions this I make him worse than the killer
Everything about this attack - EVERYTHING - is just horrendous for Merkel and German officialdom in general.
But the Germans are so cuckolded - and misled by a sincerely biassed media - I'm not sure there will be any major response
That may come in France or Holland.
While SeanT does his best at impersonating Corporal Jones having an attack of the vapours, the Germans demonstrate a bit of stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on Christmas shopping.
Carrying on shopping when 12 people have been brutally murdered seems rather insensitive to me.
Mrs Merkel may have wanted to be a humanitarian to refugees but a price has been paid by those who have lost their lives, the grieving friends and families, the women assaulted and raped.
A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks.
Should the Germans cancel Christmas because of a murderous nutter?
Many of our Christmas traditions are of German origin, and continuing with Christmas markets is one of the best ways that Germans can demonstrate their cultural superiority over the Islamists.
A few security checks, then keep calm and carry on. There used to be another country famous for that once, but it seems to have retreated into mawkish sentimentality and histrionics. Our German cousins not only beat us at football, they also beat us at stiff upper lip.
...A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks.
Conversely (and without belittling the situation), a leader who is increasing the population of her country dramatically and now (courtesy of Brexit) holds complete hegemony over all the neighbouring[1] countries, and by extension the wider Eurozone and EU27, is a leader who is succeeding.
Many of the growth predictions to 2030 that so exercised people during the referendum were based on an expanding UK population and a contracting[2] Germany population. Those assumptions now no longer hold.
We run the danger of projecting out own views ("I'd be pretty angry if...") onto our interpretations without considering what they think of the matter
[1] From memory Germany has land borders with eight countries and if you include Sweden and the Baltics via the sea to its north that brings it up to 12 [2] Or not-growing-as-fast, which isn't the same thing: memory fails and it's late...
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
14.
17 with the most recent YouGov
The majority, not the poll lead.
10 now, you can't assume the Shinners won't turn up
Personally, I'd love it if they turned up to abstain in person like another Irish MP did in 1979
Would they have to swear an oath to HMQueen? What would John McDonell say!
Funniest thing in the last Parliament, both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness stood down as MPs and triggered by elections, to do that they had to become Steward of the Manor of Northstead, which is an office of profit under The Crown.
So technically some Sinn Fein MPs already have.
As I recall they refused to request the positions as a silly tradition and legal fiction - which it is, but is quaint - so the speaker merely interpreted letters of resignations as in fact requests to be so appointed to those positions. So I think they both did and did not technically do so.
Do people on here see me as a pb Tory? Out of interest.
Many people turn out to be PM tories without even knowing it, or even voting Tory, it's quite remarkable, so probably.
I know that a few posters here aren't the brightest, and Sean is said occasionally to be inebriated, but 'many' voting Tory, without even knowing it ...? Seems slightly unlikely.
"A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks."
Interestingly the same arguments the Daily Mail made in 1938 for which they still suffer the opprobrium of most thinking people to this day.
Do people on here see me as a pb Tory? Out of interest.
Many people turn out to be PM tories without even knowing it, or even voting Tory, it's quite remarkable, so probably.
I know that a few posters here aren't the brightest, and Sean is said occasionally to be inebriated, but 'many' voting Tory, without even knowing it ...? Seems slightly unlikely.
I was in fact referring to the tendency to regard certain views as characteristic of pb tories, and thus by implication anyone with those views is presumably a pb Tory, even when we know posters sharing those views who are not tories. Thus, they are apparently pb tories without knowing it.
It works the other way too, but labour voters are thinner on the ground, so it's less likely someone of uncertain political leaning would be lumped in with them as happens with the pb Tory tag.
With all due respect, who wants to expand their national population by importing 5m Muslims. Its cultural suicide. You are importing people from an intrinsically backward and inferior culture.
The people are fine (of course), but the religious culture? UGH.
It's not like they're more productive, either. The wives don't work.
Is this where we continually escalate "with all due respect", "with great respect", "with greatest possible respect", until we go nuclear?
Anyhoo...
Your point about the wives not working isn't conclusive: if somebody produces many children, then the labour of the children will outweigh the reduced labour of the mother.
As for culture: true, but so what? If backward and inferior people can take a pickaxe to a seam, screw bit A to widget B, bake bread, follow an equation, design a chip, program the computer, load the bullet into the gun, and do it as well as the forward and superior people we pride ourselves as being, then their backwardness and inferiority matters not one jot.
Germans, Russians and Islamists have notable cultural differences to the Anglosphere. And because of that we assume that they are inferior and are losing. But there is considerable evidence that Russia is doing rather well, the Islamists seem to defeat the West at every turn, and (thanks to us vacating the field and crawling up our own arse) Germany now owns Europe. I'm not looking at a victory here...
Looks like there is more to the story about the guy who got chucked off the plane 'for being a muslim' than at first sight......one of the passengers "spontaneously" leaping to his defence had appeared in an earlier stunt with the passenger involved......
It's not like they're more productive, either. The wives don't work.
Wives don't work ? Go to countries like Bangladesh. Every woman works. 4m work in the garments industry. Some of your shirts and knitwear are made there.
Comments
The interesting question is what will May do? What is worth more - an extra commons vote or Corbyn secure in post?
Labour will chose a Brexiteer, probably a traditional trade unionist. They'll hold the seat by about 2 to 3k.
What happens this time is strongly correlated with what happened last time, and the time before that and the time before that ... all the way back to 1931.
Yeah, sure .... the LibDems are important.
1) Confirm the Tories aren't 16 points ahead in the polls
2) Definitively end speculation about an early general election (police investigations not withstanding elsewhere)
If the Tories do win, given the rarity of government gains from the opposition, Mrs May might be tempted by an early election, life will a lot easier with a majority a lot more than 10.
My own hunch, the Tories could win this seat by standing still
No harm, kle4, no harm.
But, in most elections, the boring thing happens. Scotland 2015 is very rare.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/811678757652144128
Note: you're not allowed to include the single least unpopular party because they are Far Right, so nobody else will play with them.
Good luck.
Tory 38%
Labour 37%
Ukip 15%
lib dem 5%
Obviously Copeland is a Labour seat, and there are always local factors, but I somehow doubt that it is such an exceptional outlier (unlike Richmond Park, for example) that it can buck the trend enough to return another Labour MP.
Starting with a majority of two-and-a-half thousand from 2015, and then allowing for a substantially lower turnout for the by-election, all Labour has to do is lose 700-800 voters each to the Lib Dems and the Stay at Home Party and its majority is already gone. The actual damage to Labour is likely to be worse, and both common sense and recent polling evidence suggest that the Tory vote ought to hold up well.
No way are the LDs missing out on this one or Leigh. There is not much LD history here, but the same was true in Westmoreland until 2005.
A sensible local candidate advocating Red Brexit should win. I don't see May or the kippers doing well here. I am on Labour for this one.
Any road up, we're sure to best the Libs!
I think the Tories are letting their own prejudices run away with them and vastly overestimating any negative effect Corbyn may be having on the pool of broadly labour-sympathetic voters.
This is all predicated on a sensible choice of candidate of course - local, working-class, not a rabid europhile new labourite...
Not even Tony Blair at his apotheosis achieved a gain from the opposition.
The last Government gain from the opposition was nearly 35 years ago in circumstances that don't apply this time.
Can we predict the effect of that?
The closing of the Grasmere-Keswick road for 5 months after flooding was perceived to have been handled badly.
The power lines for the proposed nuclear power station near Sellafield are a big issue.
The seat will be split between the Labour Workington and Tory Penrith in the boundary review, so this is not a long-term job - and the marginality of it means that the candidates will have to work hard in the campaign. That doesn't sound appealing to any big beasts.
Tories have to be favourites but can also see them splitting votes with UKIP and letting Labour in. Fascinating contest though.
The rather childish obsession with being 'anti Tory' rather than for anything cosigns them to the dunces corner.
They are blinded by the importance of a negative, but it binds them together in an artificial and mutually useless common goal.
Before entering Germany, he served four years for arson in Italy and faced a jail sentence in absentia in Tunisia. The failed asylum seeker is now the subject of a manhunt across Europe.
German judicial sources say the suspect, who reportedly entered Germany last year, was monitored in Berlin between March and September on suspicion of planning a robbery to pay for automatic weapons for use in an attack.
Surveillance was reportedly called off after it turned up nothing more than drug-dealing in a Berlin park and a bar brawl before the suspect disappeared from his regular haunts in Berlin.
The suspect was facing deportation as of June but there was a delay in receiving paperwork from Tunisia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38399561
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-legal-challenge-martin-mcguinness-refuses-to-rule-out-sinn-fein-mps-entering-westminster-to-a7397201.html
Personally, I'd love it if they turned up to abstain in person like another Irish MP did in 1979
I thought since Jahadi Jez and the Maomentum Mob took over the Labour Party we were all Tories now?
Labour must select a certifiable losing candidate to avoid the LD machine crushing them. Clearly they're between a rock & a hard place.
Of course we don't always do well ourselves. Take this fellow who has been a bit inflammatory over the 6 years our current PM was in charge of deportations:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3150348/Living-50-000-benefits-hate-preacher-inspired-beach-killer-Cleric-lives-five-bedroom-home-wife-five-children-thwarting-deportation-attempts-15-years.html
So technically some Sinn Fein MPs already have.
Could 250/1 be a Balls Up!
The entrepreneurs of Puntland may well want a business opportunity to replace their shipping business.
http://www.nunuchocolates.com
The bigger issue for Balls would be Sellafield wanting a tame MP but not one who attracted scrutiny. A player but a party leader might be too much.
At times while reading it I had LSD-like out of body experiences/ flashbacks where for a second or two I genuinely thought it was all a bad dream and we hadn't brought this madness on ourselves.
No Tristans dropped into Stoke or Mandelson to Hartlepool for him. So far all of the by elections under his tenure have featured candidates picked by the local party. True of Oldham, and Tooting where they won, as well as Kingston or Sleaford where they were no-hopers. It doesn't even seem to trouble him if they are not Corbynites. Whether he is a genuine believer in CLP selection processes or simply unable to host a piss up in a brewery, I do not know, but in Copeland I would expect a local candidate, possibly a councillor or Union official.
http://www.knowable.com/a/this-lawyer-gives-hilarious-free-legal-advice-based-on-his-craziest-cases
The LibDems will have serious "What next?" questions to answer.
Yes, I can't see this particular poster without thinking Naughty Nunu.....
I shall have to tell him how to use it.
It means todger
Jezza is doing it perhaps by accident rather than design, but is replacing the SPADocracy with local people selected by local parties.
Maybe, just maybe, the swamp is being drained before our very eyes, and in plain sight. I hope he keeps it up with the new boundaries. This potentially is the grass roots renewal that Labour needs, and neither a Blairite nor a Momentum stitch up.
Local candidate in Copeland nailed on.
But that is making the rash assumption that there will be new boundaries!
Mrs Merkel may have wanted to be a humanitarian to refugees but a price has been paid by those who have lost their lives, the grieving friends and families, the women assaulted and raped.
A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks.
http://ew.com/tv/2016/12/21/tomi-lahren-beyonce-mtv/
Many of our Christmas traditions are of German origin, and continuing with Christmas markets is one of the best ways that Germans can demonstrate their cultural superiority over the Islamists.
A few security checks, then keep calm and carry on. There used to be another country famous for that once, but it seems to have retreated into mawkish sentimentality and histrionics. Our German cousins not only beat us at football, they also beat us at stiff upper lip.
Many of the growth predictions to 2030 that so exercised people during the referendum were based on an expanding UK population and a contracting[2] Germany population. Those assumptions now no longer hold.
We run the danger of projecting out own views ("I'd be pretty angry if...") onto our interpretations without considering what they think of the matter
[1] From memory Germany has land borders with eight countries and if you include Sweden and the Baltics via the sea to its north that brings it up to 12
[2] Or not-growing-as-fast, which isn't the same thing: memory fails and it's late...
[edit: "nof" is not a word]
Seems slightly unlikely.
"A leader who does not understand that her first and most basic duty is to protect the citizens of the country she leads from harm is a leader who is failing. I'd be pretty angry if I lost a loved one because my leader thought it more important to emote over strangers without making the most basic of checks."
Interestingly the same arguments the Daily Mail made in 1938 for which they still suffer the opprobrium of most thinking people to this day.
It works the other way too, but labour voters are thinner on the ground, so it's less likely someone of uncertain political leaning would be lumped in with them as happens with the pb Tory tag.
Anyhoo...
Your point about the wives not working isn't conclusive: if somebody produces many children, then the labour of the children will outweigh the reduced labour of the mother.
As for culture: true, but so what? If backward and inferior people can take a pickaxe to a seam, screw bit A to widget B, bake bread, follow an equation, design a chip, program the computer, load the bullet into the gun, and do it as well as the forward and superior people we pride ourselves as being, then their backwardness and inferiority matters not one jot.
Germans, Russians and Islamists have notable cultural differences to the Anglosphere. And because of that we assume that they are inferior and are losing. But there is considerable evidence that Russia is doing rather well, the Islamists seem to defeat the West at every turn, and (thanks to us vacating the field and crawling up our own arse) Germany now owns Europe. I'm not looking at a victory here...