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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If they hadn’t have gone into coalition the LDs would likely have been favourites in Manchester Gorton
Although the arrival of George Galloway in the Manchester Gorton race has caused a tightening of the Lib Dem odds the position is nothing like as strong as it would have been if the party had not gone onto the Coalition with the Conservatives in 2010.
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The new chief executive was elected yesterday: Carrie Lam. She was the Beijing candidate, so it's no surprise she came out on top. The electorate was restricted to an electoral college of just under 1,200 people made up of legislators and individuals representing companies, organisations, industry sectors etc. Madam Lam got 777 votes.
It's not a popular result, to say the least. The results were carried live on the TV and I saw small groups assembling in front of sets that had been set up in restaurants, bars etc. As Madam Lam's vote moved towards the wining point, there were a lot of angry faces and much guttural Cantonese was being spat out.
Seven is a very inauspicious number in Hong Kong, so getting it three times is not a brilliant start. Madam Lam has a hell of a job on her side, not only to win over the ordinary Hong Kong people, but also to persuade investors and institutions that the independence of the judiciary is still a reality.
On the surface, Hong Kong continues to bustle and wheel and deal, but a lot of people are not happy with things. I am not sure Beijing has yet managed to put a lid on how this will manifest itself and would not be surprised if there are further large scale demos in the not too distant future.
https://twitter.com/JenWilliamsMEN/status/846114687435595777
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/846083906143178758
http://rollingout.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Toronto-Mayor-Rob-Ford.jpg
Professor of Political Science, Manchester University. Author, @RevoltonRight Editor, @sexliesvotes In God we trust, all others require data Dr B Fisher
Manchester, England
manchester.academia.edu/RobertFord
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs
Not quite as entertaining - but much more informative......
Significantly, those who voted No to independence in 2014 were more likely to cast their ballot the same way today than those who voted Yes.
Dr Michael Turner, research director and head of polling at BMG Research, said: "Although the headline figure suggests that the vast majority of those Scots aged 65 and over would vote No if another referendum were held today, the figures also suggest that support for the Union has strengthened slightly among older Scots since 2014. "Just 85 per cent of those who voted Yes in 2014 say that they would vote the same way today, compared to 92 per cent of those who voted No. "Interestingly it is Yes-Leavers (those who voted for independence in 2014 and to Leave the EU in 2016) who are most likely to have changed their mind, with just 79 per cent saying they'll vote the same way this time around.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15183097.Poll__Support_for_Union___39_strengthened__39__among_over_65s_since_2014/#comments-anchor
Interesting.
I’m sure Ms Williams of the Manchester Evening News is a jolly fine reporter, however I’d advise caution in reading too much into a few tweets.
The Lib Dems were, in 2010, faced with a very simple and predictable choice if the election produced no clear winner: back Gordon Brown and a Labour Party that had lost seats, or back Cameron and the Tories who had just won seats.
The precise details - coalition vs supply and confidence / which policies to push for and which to drop - were up for grabs but that big call was absolutely obvious. Other options that might have appeared to exist dissolved when put under the spotlight. Backing neither wasn't credible unless neither party offered anything remotely reasonable. Pushing the country into a second election, having given up the opportunity of power would have been an obvious vote-loser, would have been undermined once the other parties published what they had offered, and would have led to the Lib Dems being blamed either for inflicting a single-party government of whichever stripe on the country or for waste and delay if the second election produced another inconclusive result.
Similarly, backing 'Labour without Brown' wasn't possible. Who could they then negotiate with and on what authority? If Labour had a leadership election to go through, it would be Labour members that would determine what was acceptable, not the negotiating team. And of course, a Lab-LD coalition still wouldn't have had a majority, whoever led Labour.
So I don't agree with the premise. If the Lib Dems hadn't gone into coalition with the Tories in 2010, they'd have had to have done something else. What?
However, Brexit aside, I suspect that country’s position would have been much weaker.
https://twitter.com/ibtimesuk/status/846248238776770560
And they did do things, many of them good. And then they screwed themselves by bad mouthing the government that they had been a part of in a desperate and forlorn attempt to recover their NOTA mojo. But if they had not joined the Coalition they would have been exposed for the waste of space that NOTA almost always is. And they would have been hammered anyway. Life's a bitch sometimes.
I found myself pondering where Scotland would be from 2011 if the LDs had not entered a coalition across the UK in 2010.
No SNP majority? No referendum? No 2015 SNP landslide for Westminster?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/may-prepares-hail-union-unstoppable-force-ahead-sturgeon-meeting-1613820
I wonder how many DFID employees would keep their jobs in an Independent Scotland....
https://www.ft.com/content/2476d5c6-107a-11e7-b030-768954394623
'A triumph!' - all PB Brexityoons.
I would have thought middle class Labour supporters would be a bit more likely to change their vote than working class Labour supporters, but rather less likely to abstain. In practice I expect that a high proportion of those longstanding middle class Labour voters will rail at the canvassers and then vote Labour on the day.
Started the whinge shift early.today.
Brough Tories off life support, trashed LD brand, destroyed 30 years of ld gains and made Brexit possible.
http://blogs.wsj.com/expat/2015/08/05/the-hottest-spot-for-french-expats-these-days-is-hong-kong/
Labour still ought to win this, not least because the LDs will have multiple focusses for their resources for a May 4 by-election.
Having said that, if the betting infers that Fillon is becoming more likely to make it to round 2, one would have to assume that this scenario actually improves Le Pen's chances of winning as she would have a much tougher job if up against Macron.
Have the Lib Dems changed their approach to coalitions in government?
Off-topic: enjoy my delightful post-race analysis here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/australia-post-race-analysis-2017.html
It was a good weekend, with quite a few tips coming off (including a pair from Mr. M). Very unusual for me to start the season green, although the last time it happened I ended up red for the season as a whole, so best not to get too carried away.
I remember being in Statue Square on June 30 1997. A tremendous experience (of course I was an ex-pat).
No one then or now should underestimate the feelings of the PRC towards the former colony. It is an inalienable part of China and people ignore that position at their peril.
Extraordinary isn't it.
It could almost be a grand design
And now we need them they're not there because they soiled themselves at precisely the wrong moment. The moment they could have made a difference
I remember on here how people kept on predicting it would last only a month; a few months; a year: instead the common sense and practicality of the main players meant it lasted an entire term.
Why, if we are Leaving is she ‘bothering' with the rest of the EU? Or is this a recognition that we are, in fact, irresistibly drawn to pan-European solutions?
I'm not tech-savvy, but the fact the Home Secretary (like Cameron, a couple of years ago) can't see a rather glaring problem with making a back door in encryption is alarming.
By that rationale, we should ban knives and cars too.
But surely even Labour can't lose this one. Surely.
1. It didn't bring the Tories off life-support: they'd just made more gains at a general election than any party bar Blair in 1997 since WWII. Had the Tories formed a minority government, the likely outcome is that there'd have been a second election within 18 months, which would have produced a Con majority. Labour wouldn't have been able to disassociate itself from its past (indeed, there'd have been a huge argument as to whether it should or not), and Cameron and Osborne would have run the 2010-11 government on the basis of not scaring the horses: prudence with a purpose, or something alike.
2. Yes, it did destroy 30 years (more, in fact) of LD gains but much of that was inevitable given the LD strategy which was always untenable in a hung parliament where their votes mattered. True, they wouldn't have been reduced to 8 seats but they would still have taken a hammering.
3. The EU itself made Brexit possible. Sentiment within the country and the Tory party was always moving towards Brexit and it's quite possible that the 2015/16 election would have been fought with a Con manifesto pledge of In/Out anyway. If not, one would have come at some point. The EU's continuing push to integrate would have continued to grate in the media and among large parts of the Tory party. But were the EU popular then Brexit would never have been an issue - and it wasn't the coalition that made it unpopular.
I hope you're right. Cameron made similarly idiotic suggestions and then backed down.
'East Kilbride tax offices will face future job losses and leave the town in next decade
HMRC will close most of its existing offices in Scotland, including the Plaza Tower, which has 1000 staff, by 2020-21, with the Centre 1 building closing by 2026.
Uncertainty remains over the number of job losses, but with a 3000-strong workforce in East Kilbride, Bob Farmer, PCS union president for East Kilbride Revenue and Customs branch, said there is "no question" redundancies are ahead.
He told the News: "There is a combination of relief among staff in the short term as there wasn't the nuclear option of the building closing right away, but certainly lots of questions remain for staff.
"Our local concerns are about the long term future of jobs.
"The impact of the town losing 3000 jobs will be huge."'
http://tinyurl.com/mzeqcf4
Don't let it fester. If you could be a bit lighter on your feet you might get away unchided.
Once again, the talk is all about the LDs - where are the Conservatives ? Having won Copeland and polled well in Stoke, why aren't the Conservatives challenging hard in Gorton or haven't they yet "turned up the volume" there ?
In other parts of the country that is not the case.
Ultimately the weakness of Labour, fear of the SNP and the relative popularity/acceptability of Cameron in Lib Dem seats in England would have done for them in 2015 whatever.
http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/Edinburgh-688294.jpg
- or the Saltire with the EU flag:
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/resources/images/5209264.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery
(Though that's gone out of fashion a bit) - there was some commentary at the time that for May's visit Sturgeon didn't have the Union flag.....it all seems a little childish - lets see what today brings.....
1. The junior partner should have whole ministries for itself rather than being subsumed into a larger whole. They then become distinct and accountable in their own areas. And they don't become quite so politically attached to their senior partner.
2. Don't badmouth your own government or seek to be an opposition in power. Maybe 1 above solves this too.
The final restructuring will see around 12 per cent of the HMRC staff total based in Scotland.
Lin Homer, HMRC’s chief executive, said: “The new regional centres in Glasgow and Edinburgh will bring our staff together in more modern and cost-effective buildings in areas with lower rents
And how many jobs would they have in Sindy?
The truth is geographically and perhaps historically, there are more Conservative areas and that has tended to be where the areas of LD activity have been and where therefore the Party, in times of recovery, has started to make progress. There's also the not unreasonable premise that as there are more Conservative voters than Labour ones, there is a potentially larger pool of disillusioned Conservative voters when that party is in Government.
You may find this hard to believe as a Conservative activist but not everybody likes or supports a Conservative Government and some of those who did at the preceding GE come to have doubts about their choice once they see the Government in action. The pool of the disillusioned and discontent may also be larger at local level (where protesting against the Government is seen not to have a wider impact) than at national level.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39403162
In the longer term PR for local government would have allowed the LibDems to build up a stronger base across the country, in time allowing them to get in contention in a greater range of FPTnP parliamentary seats.