'I believe that the membership has already turned against Corbyn. Fear that he would be replaced was probably a key factor in persuading May to call the election'.
Are you sure. Many will have but many more are acting out a cult that may be very difficult to dislodge.
The labour MP's returned post the 8th June need to refuse the whip, form their own group with a leader and just ignore Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott, Thornberry and the rest of the architects of the destruction of the labour party.
I never liked Kinnock but I remember it as if it was yesterday when he threw out Militant and saved the party paving the way for Blair. Sadly this time the labour MP's bottled it
The Labour MPs did not bottle it - the membership did. Post June 8th he will be challenged again - and ousted in the Autumn if he decides to stand again.
Mr. L, Labour inherited a golden economic legacy and splurged on every area except Defence, then used the armed forces like a joyridden car, hurling them into the ill-planned Iraq invasion without sufficient resources.
You're right that the Conservatives (and Coalition) don't have a good record. Neither does Labour.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
There is no technical difficulty of Brexit. If a deal is not reached in approximately 755 days then we are out, and the EU will be whistling for our "exit bill".
Have you been afflicted by the same illness that has struck down that other sensible Eurosceptic Nicolas Dupont-Aignan? I'm not a doctor but it looks like a case of nationalism.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
If they split they are really finished under FPTP they would split tomorrow with a PR system .As would the conservatives eventually.The new alignment on the right with the UKIP destruction has helped but the left of centre split had historically helped the most successful pragmatic right of centre party namely the conservatives .Under these circumstances they are always hard to beat which makes Blair success electorally a massive achievement compared to any of his predecessors.
But my point is that, yes, if it doesn't work the two warring parties could wipe each other out, but unless the moderates can somehow prize apart the desperate grip that the Far Left now has on Labour, then they have nothing left to lose by rolling the dice.
If there is a Conservative hegemony come June 9th then it won't last. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a viable Opposition will emerge. If nobody outside the Tories is effective enough to create one, then they themselves will become both so strong and so broad as a party that when, at some point, there eventually comes a moment of fundamental disagreement within it, the Conservative Party - unrestrained any longer by a formidable opponent - will split and form both Government and Opposition itself.
There has always been warring parties within Labour from its birth in 1900.From Gaitskell to Bevan Benn to Healey .Kinnock to Hatton .Many conservatives over 100 majorities 1955 ,1959 1983 1987.,,Why this time should Labour give up because of Corbyn and a large defeat.
Exactly. Corbyn is a symptom of the problem and not THE problem. Labour members need to realise that the way back to relevance, if not power, is to get Conservative voters to a switch to them. They need to cherish Tory voters.
Isn't that dangerously close to the old mantra of the wrong kind of electorate? Far be it from me to support the Momentum mob but historically they are just as much a part of the Labour party as the Blairites. As such if they are now in control and want the candidates to reflect their views then the centrists will either have to accept or split. Centrists seem to advocate people changing their principles for electoral advantage. I would have thought that the last couple of years show that is not necessarily the way to get what you want.
Maybe that's the end-point we're approaching: for the Labour 'brand' to be so contaminated that even their tribal loyalist voters can't stomach it - and vote elsewhere.
Once they have voted anything but Labour, they will be much more open to voting for an ex-Labour party under another banner - Co-operative Party or whatever.
Then the Labour party name can be left to wither under the control of the Far Left whilst present-day realists can start rebuilding the Labour values under another banner.
Hopefully, once they've done so, they will be more careful about letting in Far Left influences when the next gate-crash starts.
If a viable centre-left party succeeds in calving itself from Labour, then it shouldn't find it too difficult to learn the hard lessons of the past. They could start by making it clear that the Far Left is not welcome (ban outright activists from a range of hard leftist organisations including SWP, Momentum and possibly even the Greens from joining,) and then devise a leadership system something like that of the Tories, to try to prevent another leader ever being elected who commands negligible confidence amongst the Parliamentary party.
This would also be a good opportunity to ditch the trade union link. The unions helped to rescue Labour from oblivion in the Eighties, but this time around some of them, including the most powerful one, have been enablers of Corbyn. Their support and their money can still be welcomed if offered, but seats on the governing body of the party and other special privileges really ought to go.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
6 arrests at 3 addresses yesterday in connection with one alleged terrorist plot. How do you feel about a substantial bet that what was being plotted involved weapons other than cars and kitchen knives?
Seems the focus groups are picking up lifelong Labour voters who are going to vote Tory just to try and unseat Corbyn. I think that's correct, the fewer seats Labour get this election the better. It's not a natural ebb and flow such as will happen for the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid and the NI parties - Labour needs to be utterly humiliated this election
Humiliated, destroyed, kaboshed for their disastrous decision making.
What do they do if JC resigns after next Thursday ?
Depends who takes over ...
Watson I'd imagine
Keir Starmer possibly might lure me back and Stella Creasy definitely would.
Isn't it automatically Watson?
At this stage I guess it would be.
Would it still be Watto even if he lost his seat (I think he'll hold still)
If you're talking about after the general election, that's an interesting question. The rule book provides that nominees for leader and deputy have to be Commons members of the PLP but I can't find a provision for what happens if either office holder ceases to be a member of the PLP. Logically the nomination provision would imply that it would create a vacancy, but these things aren't always interpreted logically.
But by the middle of next week there will be no Commons members!
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
He was speaking English.
This is "the French have no word for entrepreneur" all over again; whatever language he was speaking, he was speaking French when he said cortège, and the word is neutral - it only means funeral procession if you follow it with the word funèbre.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Mr. City, I didn't back Corbyn after he made the shortlist (damn it) but I know plenty here did.
The idiocy of the PLP was commented on at great length at the time.
I would like to know them Morris .Are you saying they backed him in 2015 at 200 to 1 when he first scraped on the ballot .if you are I do not believe it .Further down the line maybe.
There has always been warring parties within Labour from its birth in 1900.From Gaitskell to Bevan Benn to Healey .Kinnock to Hatton .Many conservatives over 100 majorities 1955 ,1959 1983 1987.,,Why this time should Labour give up because of Corbyn and a large defeat.
Because it is badly split and nobody outside of the Far Left thinks that it is capable of getting anywhere near power. Ever.
If the Far Left faction won't release its grip on power, or cannot be made to do so, then what's the point in the rest of them waiting for the ship to finish sinking, rather than taking to the lifeboats?
Mr. City, I can't name them but I do recall it, mostly because I have a distinct memory of being bloody annoyed with myself for not following their advice.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
"Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour"
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
David Davies is not a member of the Government!
Oh yes he is! He is the Secretary of State for Brexit.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
He was speaking English.
This is "the French have no word for entrepreneur" all over again; whatever language he was speaking, he was speaking French when he said cortège, and the word is neutral - it only means funeral procession if you follow it with the word funèbre.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Mate, wind in the abusive language, you are making the place look untidy
There has always been warring parties within Labour from its birth in 1900.From Gaitskell to Bevan Benn to Healey .Kinnock to Hatton .Many conservatives over 100 majorities 1955 ,1959 1983 1987.,,Why this time should Labour give up because of Corbyn and a large defeat.
Because it is badly split and nobody outside of the Far Left thinks that it is capable of getting anywhere near power. Ever.
If the Far Left faction won't release its grip on power, or cannot be made to do so, then what's the point in the rest of them waiting for the ship to finish sinking, rather than taking to the lifeboats?
Hardly a lifeboat under FPTP .Look how the SDP did in ,83 and 87 .
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
David Davies is not a member of the Government!
Oh yes he is! He is the Secretary of State for Brexit.
Indeed. Labour were in a dire state at the time of the Owen Smith challenge, yet the membership returned Corbyn comfortably.
If the anticipated landslide comes and he still refuses to quit then I think that's game over. The surviving members of the sensible faction will have to split off, or resign themselves to gradual extinction.
A Far Left Labour Party could go lumbering on almost indefinitely as a protest movement and job creation scheme for metropolitan Marxists, but it would never come close to leading a Government again. Little or no strength beyond a handful of urban strongholds, and the very poorest communities.
I don't believe they (the MPs) know what to do about it, and I don't see how any loss of existing MPs is going to fire them up. There doesn't seem to be a real gritty leader among them, and that's what is needed. Not as potential party leader (yet) but as leader of the resistance.
So unless one of them has a sudden upsurge of personal courage, it looks as though they're waiting for new blood. The right person might be elected this time, but would long-standing MPs coalesce around a newbie?
The main obstacle to the centre-left MPs isn't necessarily the lack of a leader. It's the pig-headedness of the mass membership.
Dumping Labour and taking the moderate fraction of the membership with you (along with, I dare say, a lot of ex-Labourites prepared to join a new party) is the solution to this problem. You abolish the party membership and elect a new one.
You run the terrible risk of splitting what's left of the Labour vote between the two parties, resulting in mutually assured destruction, but if they can't get Labour back off the Far Left then insofar as I can see they have a huge amount to gain and very little left to lose from electing to fight rather than simply to surrender.
I am beginning to worry that you are somehow reading my thoughts. A number of your posts appear to have been taken directly from my brain. Please tell me I don't have to obtain a tin hat. I
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
cortege is a faux ami. The French word simply means 'procession' in English, not funeral cortege.
It probably does not matter what language he was speaking, he probably meant it in that sense.
The EU 27 are sounding like plantation owners plotting what to do now their slave has reached the safety of the North
Like the analogy. Certainly, the more adamant and dictatorial they become, the more ridiculous they sound and the more they convince me that diamond Brexit is the way to go.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Mate, wind in the abusive language, you are making the place look untidy
I do not use the F or C word - unlike some othe contributors.!
Seems the focus groups are picking up lifelong Labour voters who are going to vote Tory just to try and unseat Corbyn. I think that's correct, the fewer seats Labour get this election the better. It's not a natural ebb and flow such as will happen for the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid and the NI parties - Labour needs to be utterly humiliated this election
Humiliated, destroyed, kaboshed for their disastrous decision making.
What do they do if JC resigns after next Thursday ?
Depends who takes over ...
Watson I'd imagine
Keir Starmer possibly might lure me back and Stella Creasy definitely would.
Isn't it automatically Watson?
At this stage I guess it would be.
Would it still be Watto even if he lost his seat (I think he'll hold still)
If you're talking about after the general election, that's an interesting question. The rule book provides that nominees for leader and deputy have to be Commons members of the PLP but I can't find a provision for what happens if either office holder ceases to be a member of the PLP. Logically the nomination provision would imply that it would create a vacancy, but these things aren't always interpreted logically.
But by the middle of next week there will be no Commons members!
Yes, that was one thing that crossed my mind: does the PLP exist between dissolution and the new Parliament meeting? The PLP standing orders aren't published, perhaps @NickPalmer could clarify?
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
David Davies is not a member of the Government!
Oh yes he is! He is the Secretary of State for Brexit.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Mate, wind in the abusive language, you are making the place look untidy
I do not use the F or C word - unlike some othe contributors.!
Maybe not, but the context in which you use words that are less bad in isolation is often more offensive
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
He was speaking English.
This is "the French have no word for entrepreneur" all over again; whatever language he was speaking, he was speaking French when he said cortège, and the word is neutral - it only means funeral procession if you follow it with the word funèbre.
Thank you - you are quite right, I only know the word in its English usage & didn't even know about the accent.
Anyone know what polls we should be looking out for this evening? YouGov certainly? Maybe Opinium?
And others...
34s Matt Singh @MattSingh_ Not sure if we'll get the same "poll rush" as last weekend, but we'll definitely get Opinium in the Observer and YouGov for the Sunday Times
Indeed. Labour were in a dire state at the time of the Owen Smith challenge, yet the membership returned Corbyn comfortably.
If the anticipated landslide comes and he still refuses to quit then I think that's game over. The surviving members of the sensible faction will have to split off, or resign themselves to gradual extinction.
A Far Left Labour Party could go lumbering on almost indefinitely as a protest movement and job creation scheme for metropolitan Marxists, but it would never come close to leading a Government again. Little or no strength beyond a handful of urban strongholds, and the very poorest communities.
I don't believe they (the MPs) know what to do about it, and I don't see how any loss of existing MPs is going to fire them up. There doesn't seem to be a real gritty leader among them, and that's what is needed. Not as potential party leader (yet) but as leader of the resistance.
So unless one of them has a sudden upsurge of personal courage, it looks as though they're waiting for new blood. The right person might be elected this time, but would long-standing MPs coalesce around a newbie?
The main obstacle to the centre-left MPs isn't necessarily the lack of a leader. It's the pig-headedness of the mass membership.
Dumping Labour and taking the moderate fraction of the membership with you (along with, I dare say, a lot of ex-Labourites prepared to join a new party) is the solution to this problem. You abolish the party membership and elect a new one.
You run the terrible risk of splitting what's left of the Labour vote between the two parties, resulting in mutually assured destruction, but if they can't get Labour back off the Far Left then insofar as I can see they have a huge amount to gain and very little left to lose from electing to fight rather than simply to surrender.
I am beginning to worry that you are somehow reading my thoughts. A number of your posts appear to have been taken directly from my brain. Please tell me I don't have to obtain a tin hat. I
Plus the LabourIsMyLIfe factor - leaving will mean rows, personal friendships cut off, even family stuff.
All to possibly create the SDP Mk2 - fail and be reviled for the rest of your political career by old friends.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
"Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour"
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Aircraft carriers ordered -- it was the Tories who scrapped the ones in service, and who sold off our remaining Harriers to the Americans.
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
The New Labour policy was to spend the Defense budget on all kinds of weapons. Ones that didn't work, in many cases. And in fact, they also forgot to provide the money to actually pay for them.
Hence the enormous black hole in the MoD budget that is, only now, beginning to disappear.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
cortege is a faux ami. The French word simply means 'procession' in English, not funeral cortege.
It probably does not matter what language he was speaking, he probably meant it in that sense.
The EU 27 are sounding like plantation owners plotting what to do now their slave has reached the safety of the North
LOL
The "27" number is trotted out a lot more than it needs to be, as though the ratio of the strength of the bargaining positions were 1:27. Most of them are comedy nations with pop. about the size of Manchester and GDP probably lower (if you omit EU funding). The French are all over the place atm so really it is just us up against the Boche, and we know how that usually ends.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
6 arrests at 3 addresses yesterday in connection with one alleged terrorist plot. How do you feel about a substantial bet that what was being plotted involved weapons other than cars and kitchen knives?
The point is not that there is no threat but that the threat is less than that faced by past prime ministers. So far as yesterday's arrests go, let's wait and see -- even on the continent and in the Middle East, as well as here, it has generally been clubbers and holiday-makers who have been the targets.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Forgive me please, but are you unable to criticise the actions of, or disagree with, any woman, without resorting to terms like 'bitch'? It does grate, rather.
Anyone know what polls we should be looking out for this evening? YouGov certainly? Maybe Opinium?
And others...
34s Matt Singh @MattSingh_ Not sure if we'll get the same "poll rush" as last weekend, but we'll definitely get Opinium in the Observer and YouGov for the Sunday Times
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
David Davies is not a member of the Government!
Oh yes he is! He is the Secretary of State for Brexit.
David Davis is a cabinet minister. David Davies isn't. Two different Tory MPs with very similar names.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
With the PIRA, the advantage is that their membership wanted to carry on living - suicidal attacks were not their bag.
The lack of equipment reduces the problem from members of the Spontaneously Self Detonating Community (SSDC)*. Sooner or later the SSDCs from Belgium etc will provide the homegrown SSDCs with the toys they want.....
*It's a complete mystery why they explode, every now and again.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Forgive me please, but are you unable to criticise the actions of, or disagree with, any woman, without resorting to terms like 'bitch'? It does grate, rather.
Alas there is not a ready male equivalent in that 'dog' is not viewed that way. I tend to use 'bastard' instead. I must confess that I have used the phrase 'lying bitch' in public since the announcement- in both pubs and the street - and been surprised at the impact it has had - ie people turning around etc. It is not exactly foul language.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Yes I am sure the squad know their duty and how to protect.They say May forgot she was in Leeds the other day.However who can blame her when meeting members of the party with the same placards in every location .
Indeed. Labour were in a dire state at the time of the Owen Smith challenge, yet the membership returned Corbyn comfortably.
If the anticipated landslide comes and he still refuses to quit then I think that's game over. The surviving members of the sensible faction will have to split off, or resign themselves to gradual extinction.
A Far Left Labour Party could go lumbering on almost indefinitely as a protest movement and job creation scheme for metropolitan Marxists, but it would never come close to leading a Government again. Little or no strength beyond a handful of urban strongholds, and the very poorest communities.
I don't believe they (the MPs) know what to do about it, and I don't see how any loss of existing MPs is going to fire them up. There doesn't seem to be a real gritty leader among them, and that's what is needed. Not as potential party leader (yet) but as leader of the resistance.
So unless one of them has a sudden upsurge of personal courage, it looks as though they're waiting for new blood. The right person might be elected this time, but would long-standing MPs coalesce around a newbie?
The main obstacle to the centre-left MPs isn't necessarily the lack of a leader. It's the pig-headedness of the mass membership.
Dumping Labour and taking the moderate fraction of the membership with you (along with, I dare say, a lot of ex-Labourites prepared to join a new party) is the solution to this problem. You abolish the party membership and elect a new one.
You run the terrible risk of splitting what's left of the Labour vote between the two parties, resulting in mutually assured destruction, but if they can't get Labour back off the Far Left then insofar as I can see they have a huge amount to gain and very little left to lose from electing to fight rather than simply to surrender.
I am beginning to worry that you are somehow reading my thoughts. A number of your posts appear to have been taken directly from my brain. Please tell me I don't have to obtain a tin hat. I
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
On the morning of the 2015 election, NOM was 1/8 on Betfair (1.12). I put £500 on it and had to spend £250 backing Con Maj at 2/1 after midnight (after Nuneaton) to reverse out the bet. Was a very profitable night overall though, thanks to numerous writers and commenters on here.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
Labour merged all our battalions into new 'regiments' to reduce the number of soldiers.
Labour retired all our carrier based aircraft.
Labour were the ones who took us from four trident submarines to three, and cut large numbers of smaller service ships, to pay for the war in Iraq.
To suggest the Tories are not responsible for massive cuts would be wrong. To suggest Labour are not equally culpable is merely fatuous.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Forgive me please, but are you unable to criticise the actions of, or disagree with, any woman, without resorting to terms like 'bitch'? It does grate, rather.
Alas there is not a ready male equivalent in that 'dog' is not viewed that way. I tend to use 'bastard' instead. I must confess that I have used the phrase 'lying bitch' in public - in both pubs and the street - and been surprised at the impact it has had - ie people turning around etc. It is not exactly foul language.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
With the PIRA, the advantage is that their membership wanted to carry on living - suicidal attacks were not their bag.
The lack of equipment reduces the problem from members of the Spontaneously Self Detonating Community (SSDC)*. Sooner or later the SSDCs from Belgium etc will provide the homegrown SSDCs with the toys they want.....
*It's a complete mystery why they explode, every now and again.
I do not think ISIS ring the authorities with a coded warning .
There has always been warring parties within Labour from its birth in 1900.From Gaitskell to Bevan Benn to Healey .Kinnock to Hatton .Many conservatives over 100 majorities 1955 ,1959 1983 1987.,,Why this time should Labour give up because of Corbyn and a large defeat.
Because it is badly split and nobody outside of the Far Left thinks that it is capable of getting anywhere near power. Ever.
If the Far Left faction won't release its grip on power, or cannot be made to do so, then what's the point in the rest of them waiting for the ship to finish sinking, rather than taking to the lifeboats?
Perhaps they prefer the frying pan to the fire. The thing is that Labour is anachronistic. Perhaps a big defeat is what they need. FPTP is all that is holding the coalition that is the Labour party together. The MPs after a big defeat need to take back control of their party and they may be helped by Momentum .. er losing momentum. If that isn't the case they may have to bite the bullet and create SDP Mk2. This time it will have to be bigger than last time and will have to have powerful backers. Either way, as a regained Labour or as SDP Mk2 they need to commit to PR along with the LibDems, Greens, UKIP etc. Then they need to implement it as soon as the Tories are (eventually inevitably) defeated. At that point we could have a set of parties, re-organised from what we have now, and a system that would be fit for purpose.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
"Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour"
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Aircraft carriers ordered -- it was the Tories who scrapped the ones in service, and who sold off our remaining Harriers to the Americans.
Arguing about which party is most to blame is along the lines of the bald man/ comb thing. Defence procurement has been something of a joke under administrations of both colours for decades. (We could learn much from the Swedes in how better to plan procurement.)
Where Labour was most to blame was committing the army to a lengthy conflict without adequate equipment.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
"Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour"
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Aircraft carriers ordered -- it was the Tories who scrapped the ones in service, and who sold off our remaining Harriers to the Americans.
The problem with the Harriers was that they had no modern ECM capability and nowhere to put it.
Against an Argentine airforce with basically no radar guided missiles of any use in 1982, fine. When faced with adversaries who will be driving Mig29s and been trained (by their Russian instructors) to volley 6-8 fire and forget missiles when fighting against NATO adversaries....
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Perhaps but remember many pb punters would have reversed their positions as the early results trickled in, much as was the case with Euref and potus. Any astroturfers stuck at their counts might have lost, I suppose.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Forgive me please, but are you unable to criticise the actions of, or disagree with, any woman, without resorting to terms like 'bitch'? It does grate, rather.
Alas there is not a ready male equivalent in that 'dog' is not viewed that way. I tend to use 'bastard' instead. I must confess that I have used the phrase 'lying bitch' in public since the announcement- in both pubs and the street - and been surprised at the impact it has had - ie people turning around etc. It is not exactly foul language.
If I might presume to offer advice, I think you would perhaps be better off sticking with your male version as a unisex term.
Mr. L, the idea that New Labour didn't screw Defence is perhaps not entirely in accordance with reality.
How's that then? It's Conservative governments before and since who have cut the navy, the army and the air force. Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour. Serious enough if you're being shot at but hardly the same scale. And the dodgy rifles were bought by the Tories in the first place (not sure about the jeeps). Even the last government's commitment to 2% is only achieved by creative accounting.
"Under Labour, the complaints were the rifles didn't work and the jeeps lacked armour"
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Aircraft carriers ordered -- it was the Tories who scrapped the ones in service, and who sold off our remaining Harriers to the Americans.
I suggest you actually look at what happened, and the differences between the different types of Harrier and their respective roles.
I'm far from sure that New Labour deserve any credit for the mess that was Joint Force Harrier or the new carriers. Quite the opposite, in fact.
You've had the history explained to you enough in the past. Perhaps you should have learnt it by now ...
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
With the PIRA, the advantage is that their membership wanted to carry on living - suicidal attacks were not their bag.
The lack of equipment reduces the problem from members of the Spontaneously Self Detonating Community (SSDC)*. Sooner or later the SSDCs from Belgium etc will provide the homegrown SSDCs with the toys they want.....
*It's a complete mystery why they explode, every now and again.
VVIP security in the era of lone suicide bombers and everyday items used as weapons must be a complete nightmare - especially when your VVIP wants to be seen walking around and shaking hands with the 'public'.
There's going to be a reasonable disconnect between what the PM might wish to do, and what the Special Branch around her will allow. Rather them than me.
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Forgive me please, but are you unable to criticise the actions of, or disagree with, any woman, without resorting to terms like 'bitch'? It does grate, rather.
Alas there is not a ready male equivalent in that 'dog' is not viewed that way. I tend to use 'bastard' instead. I must confess that I have used the phrase 'lying bitch' in public since the announcement- in both pubs and the street - and been surprised at the impact it has had - ie people turning around etc. It is not exactly foul language.
why not just leave it out? If people are reacting to it so strongly, does that not suggest that they think it is beyond the acceptable, even if you don't personally intent it to be?
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Elections based on geographical location rather than straight vote share are trappy at short odds, particularly if the candidates are polling broadly similiarly.
Anyone know what polls we should be looking out for this evening? YouGov certainly? Maybe Opinium?
And others...
34s Matt Singh @MattSingh_ Not sure if we'll get the same "poll rush" as last weekend, but we'll definitely get Opinium in the Observer and YouGov for the Sunday Times
Cool.
Would be nice to get a marginals poll from someone as well but given the time it takes to do a marginals poll and the short notice we've had for the election its possible we won't have a marginals poll this this election...
Anyone know what polls we should be looking out for this evening? YouGov certainly? Maybe Opinium?
And others...
34s Matt Singh @MattSingh_ Not sure if we'll get the same "poll rush" as last weekend, but we'll definitely get Opinium in the Observer and YouGov for the Sunday Times
Cool.
Would be nice to get a marginals poll from someone as well but given the time it takes to do a marginals poll and the short notice we've had for the election its possible we won't have a marginals poll this this election...
I am sure pollsters are rushing to Bootle as we speak..
Sadiq Khan and others thought he had no chance ,just thought he was there to make the numbers up and widen the debate.They read it wrong but who on here can honestly say they thought he had a chance of winning when he was scaped onto the ballot.If you did show us your betting slip at 200 to 1.
Absolutely - but Harriet Harman was the stupid bitch who handed him the leadership! I wonder how well she is sleeping at night.
Mate, wind in the abusive language, you are making the place look untidy
I do not use the F or C word - unlike some othe contributors.!
Maybe not, but the context in which you use words that are less bad in isolation is often more offensive
There has always been warring parties within Labour from its birth in 1900.From Gaitskell to Bevan Benn to Healey .Kinnock to Hatton .Many conservatives over 100 majorities 1955 ,1959 1983 1987.,,Why this time should Labour give up because of Corbyn and a large defeat.
Because it is badly split and nobody outside of the Far Left thinks that it is capable of getting anywhere near power. Ever.
If the Far Left faction won't release its grip on power, or cannot be made to do so, then what's the point in the rest of them waiting for the ship to finish sinking, rather than taking to the lifeboats?
Perhaps they prefer the frying pan to the fire. The thing is that Labour is anachronistic. Perhaps a big defeat is what they need. FPTP is all that is holding the coalition that is the Labour party together. The MPs after a big defeat need to take back control of their party and they may be helped by Momentum .. er losing momentum. If that isn't the case they may have to bite the bullet and create SDP Mk2. This time it will have to be bigger than last time and will have to have powerful backers. Either way, as a regained Labour or as SDP Mk2 they need to commit to PR along with the LibDems, Greens, UKIP etc. Then they need to implement it as soon as the Tories are (eventually inevitably) defeated. At that point we could have a set of parties, re-organised from what we have now, and a system that would be fit for purpose.
Until about 3 years ago or thereabouts, Mike and his moderators wouldn't allow use of the "F" word ..... how things have changed, we now even have the likes of TSE using such language on a regular basis. Shame really, it must turn quite a number of would-be posters and lurkers away.
Mr. Sandpit, I was somewhat struck by that but also trying to calculate how things will go.
Bottas would let Hamilton by, but Hamilton has most ground to make up. Raikkonen would probably be ordered to let Vettel by, but is more likely to be a rear-gunner anyway.
The odds there are unexpectedly long but trying to pick one is very tricky.
Juncker: "The British underestimate the technical difficulties of Brexit. Even the question of citizens' rights is a cortege of 25 separate issues."
A perfect example of what is so wrong with the EU.
Was he speaking English, or was that an official translation? Cortege is a strange word to pick, with its funereal connotations. Obvious what he means, of course, but still rather strange unless it was an inexpert choice.
cortege is a faux ami. The French word simply means 'procession' in English, not funeral cortege.
It probably does not matter what language he was speaking, he probably meant it in that sense.
The EU 27 are sounding like plantation owners plotting what to do now their slave has reached the safety of the North
LOL
The "27" number is trotted out a lot more than it needs to be, as though the ratio of the strength of the bargaining positions were 1:27. Most of them are comedy nations with pop. about the size of Manchester and GDP probably lower (if you omit EU funding). The French are all over the place atm so really it is just us up against the Boche, and we know how that usually ends.
Just collating all those rapidly placed Scottish bets from a few days ago.
My highlights are Conservative - Dumfries & Galloway @ 2.75 (7/4), it's now 1.16 (1/6) Conservative - Aberdeen South @5, now 2.1 Conservative - East Renfrewshire @2.62, now 1.72 Conservative - Perth & North Perthshire @ 3, now 1.72
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Why would Theresa May be more at risk than any other prime minister, especially those who campaigned while the IRA was active?
Are you for real - I simply cannot see how anyone could not think that the British Prime Minister is under real threat from terrorist attack
Are you for real? The IRA came very close to killing Mrs Thatcher and most of the government at Brighton. Does Theresa May face more risk from a bunch of Islamist-inspired but not coordinated nutters armed with cars and kitchen knives? Really?
With the PIRA, the advantage is that their membership wanted to carry on living - suicidal attacks were not their bag.
The lack of equipment reduces the problem from members of the Spontaneously Self Detonating Community (SSDC)*. Sooner or later the SSDCs from Belgium etc will provide the homegrown SSDCs with the toys they want.....
*It's a complete mystery why they explode, every now and again.
VVIP security in the era of lone suicide bombers and everyday items used as weapons must be a complete nightmare - especially when your VVIP wants to be seen walking around and shaking hands with the 'public'.
There's going to be a reasonable disconnect between what the PM might wish to do, and what the Special Branch around her will allow. Rather them than me.
In this case, it is more likely the Prime Minister who does not want to meet the public, or Jeremy Corbyn in a television studio. The same Prime Minister who just a couple of weeks ago was all over the news at her terrorist-free constituency fun run.
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Perhaps but remember many pb punters would have reversed their positions as the early results trickled in, much as was the case with Euref and potus. Any astroturfers stuck at their counts might have lost, I suppose.
Sure, but by then the odds would have moved so there would have been a cost to that.
In the example quoted below the person had backed one side at 1/8 and was then backing the other side at 2/1.
Until about 3 years ago or thereabouts, Mike and his moderators wouldn't allow use of the "F" word ..... how things have changed, we now even have the likes of TSE using such language on a regular basis. Shame really, it must turn quite a number of would-be posters and lurkers away.
I dislike such crass language being used too, but moderating all instances of them may be a bit heavy-handed?
I see Justin was being as pleasant as usual. He should stick to his analysis of polls, which is actually welcome.
Mr. Calum, as an aside, Boris should be thrown out of the Foreign Office. These are serious times. He is not a serious politician.
I'm not just thinking of the EU (or even mostly), but North Korea, Syria, the persistent terrorist threat.
The country would be better off if he were presenting Top Gear.
On a broader point, given that everybody is now expecting a 70-80 seat Conservative majority at the very minimum, has anybody had any thoughts on the possibility of a post-election reshuffle?
May could soon be not only a PM who is hugely popular by historical standards, but also a landslide election winner with a many (perhaps, a great many) MPs who could plausibly be described as having won their seats only because of her, and a large enough majority to put the noses of one or two factions out of joint if she needs to. Her powers of patronage ought to be vast.
If she's minded to give Boris the chop then there'll never be a better time to do it.
Indeed. She might think all three brexiteers had outlived their usefulness as human shields and were dispensable. Hurray!
Not David Davies - he is the only one who has done a good job.
On Theresa May campaigning with the public there must be a serious concern for her security and so it will have to be very controlled by her protection squad
Yes I am sure the squad know their duty and how to protect.They say May forgot she was in Leeds the other day.However who can blame her when meeting members of the party with the same placards in every location .
Just noticed my error on David Davis - sometimes my age catches me up
At that point we could have a set of parties, re-organised from what we have now, and a system that would be fit for purpose.
FPTP is much-maligned, but to paraphrase Churchill I regard it as the worst electoral system, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.
The risk with PR is that it ends up in any one of several unsatisfactory scenarios:
1. Two large parties, neither of which can win a majority, with some small centrist parties floating inbetween them. In that case, the centrist parties pick which of the large parties gets to lead the Government and not, necessarily, the electorate. Depending on the mathematics of the situation, it is possible for one or more of the small parties to remain continuously in office even if the main party of Government is rejected, because the alternative Opposition also can't manage without their votes. 2. Two large parties, neither of which can win a majority, with some smaller extremist parties hemming them in on either side. If the extremist parties get past a critical size then the main parties and their preferred coalition partners put together may no longer be able to command the confidence of Parliament. The risk is then that you end up with a whole succession of Grand Coalitions. The only choice left for the public is then which of the two large parties gets to provide the Head of Government; beyond that, they're immovable. This scenario is a recipe for laziness and nepotism, with the establishment parties potentially growing increasingly unpopular whilst the electorate lacks the means to get rid of either of them, and is worse than the first scenario. 3. Fragmentation, in which votes are split between so many different parties that the electorate never has any idea which combination is going to end up forming the Government after an election, and this is always determined by whatever Coalition of little bits and pieces can be scraped together in negotiations that can take months.
In all of these situations, instead of what has been typical in this country in the past - i.e. that the single most popular party gets to implement its agenda, and therefore its voters get pretty much what they've asked for - a deal has to be struck between two or more parties which means that no manifesto can ever be implemented in full. Voters can only guess at what the final Coalition might look like. Politicians in the governing parties can use "but they made me do it" as an excuse to ditch any and all election pledges which they find inconvenient.
None of this is to say that PR cannot be made to work and work well, but it has its own drawbacks that its advocates are loathe to acknowledge. It's certainly not a panacea for the nation's political ills.
Exactly. Corbyn is a symptom of the problem and not THE problem. Labour members need to realise that the way back to relevance, if not power, is to get Conservative voters to a switch to them. They need to cherish Tory voters.
Isn't that dangerously close to the old mantra of the wrong kind of electorate? Far be it from me to support the Momentum mob but historically they are just as much a part of the Labour party as the Blairites. As such if they are now in control and want the candidates to reflect their views then the centrists will either have to accept or split. Centrists seem to advocate people changing their principles for electoral advantage. I would have thought that the last couple of years show that is not necessarily the way to get what you want.
It's a tension. You need to appeal to voters of the other party while holding onto a core programme your activists are happy to work towards. There's no point pretending to be a clone of the other party, otherwise voters will stick with the real thing and your activists will become disillusioned.You want to present yourself as different and better than the other party in ways that appeal to some voters of that party.
Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Alex Salmond all managed the tension successfully for a while. Theresa May looks like she could do it too.
It's human nature of course but people on here have always been much keener to report their betting winnings rather than their losses.
One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Perhaps but remember many pb punters would have reversed their positions as the early results trickled in, much as was the case with Euref and potus. Any astroturfers stuck at their counts might have lost, I suppose.
Yes, remember well having about a grand coming in on Bush in 2004 and laying it off at a loss after someone posted leaked exit polls of Kerry winning North Carolina..
Comments
Are you sure. Many will have but many more are acting out a cult that may be very difficult to dislodge.
The labour MP's returned post the 8th June need to refuse the whip, form their own group with a leader and just ignore Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott, Thornberry and the rest of the architects of the destruction of the labour party.
I never liked Kinnock but I remember it as if it was yesterday when he threw out Militant and saved the party paving the way for Blair. Sadly this time the labour MP's bottled it
The Labour MPs did not bottle it - the membership did. Post June 8th he will be challenged again - and ousted in the Autumn if he decides to stand again.
You're right that the Conservatives (and Coalition) don't have a good record. Neither does Labour.
(Edit: sorry, meant to reply to @williamglenn)
This would also be a good opportunity to ditch the trade union link. The unions helped to rescue Labour from oblivion in the Eighties, but this time around some of them, including the most powerful one, have been enablers of Corbyn. Their support and their money can still be welcomed if offered, but seats on the governing body of the party and other special privileges really ought to go.
Bit tricky coming up with a race bet. Or 'business as usual' to rephrase
It probably does not matter what language he was speaking, he probably meant it in that sense.
If the Far Left faction won't release its grip on power, or cannot be made to do so, then what's the point in the rest of them waiting for the ship to finish sinking, rather than taking to the lifeboats?
LOL. No. Under New Labour we had the Sea Harrier and Jaguar retired, aircraft carriers not only with no aircraft but no engines, and many more cuts and issues. Those are the first that come to mind amidst my laughing at your comment.
Please tell me I don't have to obtain a tin hat. I
As Angela observes - we will be a third country. I don't think they've thought all of that through.
And others...
Matt Singh @MattSingh_
Not sure if we'll get the same "poll rush" as last weekend, but we'll definitely get Opinium in the Observer and YouGov for the Sunday Times
All to possibly create the SDP Mk2 - fail and be reviled for the rest of your political career by old friends.
swearybitch box for Justin Kill'Em All...One particular thing comes to mind - just before GE 2015 numerous people posted on here repeatedly that No Overall Majority was "completely free money" at very, very short odds - below 1.1 from memory. It seems certain to me that a lot of people must have lost an awful lot of money on that - but funnily very little was ever said about it.
Hence the enormous black hole in the MoD budget that is, only now, beginning to disappear.
The "27" number is trotted out a lot more than it needs to be, as though the ratio of the strength of the bargaining positions were 1:27. Most of them are comedy nations with pop. about the size of Manchester and GDP probably lower (if you omit EU funding). The French are all over the place atm so really it is just us up against the Boche, and we know how that usually ends.
The lack of equipment reduces the problem from members of the Spontaneously Self Detonating Community (SSDC)*. Sooner or later the SSDCs from Belgium etc will provide the homegrown SSDCs with the toys they want.....
*It's a complete mystery why they explode, every now and again.
I must confess that I have used the phrase 'lying bitch' in public since the announcement- in both pubs and the street - and been surprised at the impact it has had - ie people turning around etc. It is not exactly foul language.
Have a nice day :-))
Labour retired all our carrier based aircraft.
Labour were the ones who took us from four trident submarines to three, and cut large numbers of smaller service ships, to pay for the war in Iraq.
To suggest the Tories are not responsible for massive cuts would be wrong. To suggest Labour are not equally culpable is merely fatuous.
Edit - if you don't believe me, read this.
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121026065214/www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/051AF365-0A97-4550-99C0-4D87D7C95DED/0/cm6041I_whitepaper2003.pdf
The thing is that Labour is anachronistic. Perhaps a big defeat is what they need. FPTP is all that is holding the coalition that is the Labour party together. The MPs after a big defeat need to take back control of their party and they may be helped by Momentum .. er losing momentum. If that isn't the case they may have to bite the bullet and create SDP Mk2. This time it will have to be bigger than last time and will have to have powerful backers.
Either way, as a regained Labour or as SDP Mk2 they need to commit to PR along with the LibDems, Greens, UKIP etc. Then they need to implement it as soon as the Tories are (eventually inevitably) defeated.
At that point we could have a set of parties, re-organised from what we have now, and a system that would be fit for purpose.
Where Labour was most to blame was committing the army to a lengthy conflict without adequate equipment.
Against an Argentine airforce with basically no radar guided missiles of any use in 1982, fine. When faced with adversaries who will be driving Mig29s and been trained (by their Russian instructors) to volley 6-8 fire and forget missiles when fighting against NATO adversaries....
I'm far from sure that New Labour deserve any credit for the mess that was Joint Force Harrier or the new carriers. Quite the opposite, in fact.
You've had the history explained to you enough in the past. Perhaps you should have learnt it by now ...
There's going to be a reasonable disconnect between what the PM might wish to do, and what the Special Branch around her will allow. Rather them than me.
It was crap, hardly any girls and glowering yokels desperate to commit violence in defence of those few.
Would be nice to get a marginals poll from someone as well but given the time it takes to do a marginals poll and the short notice we've had for the election its possible we won't have a marginals poll this this election...
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/motor-sport/event/28197436/market?marketId=1.131073639
Bottas would let Hamilton by, but Hamilton has most ground to make up. Raikkonen would probably be ordered to let Vettel by, but is more likely to be a rear-gunner anyway.
The odds there are unexpectedly long but trying to pick one is very tricky.
My highlights are
Conservative - Dumfries & Galloway @ 2.75 (7/4), it's now 1.16 (1/6)
Conservative - Aberdeen South @5, now 2.1
Conservative - East Renfrewshire @2.62, now 1.72
Conservative - Perth & North Perthshire @ 3, now 1.72
In the example quoted below the person had backed one side at 1/8 and was then backing the other side at 2/1.
I see Justin was being as pleasant as usual. He should stick to his analysis of polls, which is actually welcome.
Edited extra bit: that said, Bottas has been good at this circuit this weekend and in the past.
The risk with PR is that it ends up in any one of several unsatisfactory scenarios:
1. Two large parties, neither of which can win a majority, with some small centrist parties floating inbetween them. In that case, the centrist parties pick which of the large parties gets to lead the Government and not, necessarily, the electorate. Depending on the mathematics of the situation, it is possible for one or more of the small parties to remain continuously in office even if the main party of Government is rejected, because the alternative Opposition also can't manage without their votes.
2. Two large parties, neither of which can win a majority, with some smaller extremist parties hemming them in on either side. If the extremist parties get past a critical size then the main parties and their preferred coalition partners put together may no longer be able to command the confidence of Parliament. The risk is then that you end up with a whole succession of Grand Coalitions. The only choice left for the public is then which of the two large parties gets to provide the Head of Government; beyond that, they're immovable. This scenario is a recipe for laziness and nepotism, with the establishment parties potentially growing increasingly unpopular whilst the electorate lacks the means to get rid of either of them, and is worse than the first scenario.
3. Fragmentation, in which votes are split between so many different parties that the electorate never has any idea which combination is going to end up forming the Government after an election, and this is always determined by whatever Coalition of little bits and pieces can be scraped together in negotiations that can take months.
In all of these situations, instead of what has been typical in this country in the past - i.e. that the single most popular party gets to implement its agenda, and therefore its voters get pretty much what they've asked for - a deal has to be struck between two or more parties which means that no manifesto can ever be implemented in full. Voters can only guess at what the final Coalition might look like. Politicians in the governing parties can use "but they made me do it" as an excuse to ditch any and all election pledges which they find inconvenient.
None of this is to say that PR cannot be made to work and work well, but it has its own drawbacks that its advocates are loathe to acknowledge. It's certainly not a panacea for the nation's political ills.
Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Alex Salmond all managed the tension successfully for a while. Theresa May looks like she could do it too.