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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn to quit or not to quit on June 9th, that is the questio
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn to quit or not to quit on June 9th, that is the question
O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England; But I do prophesy the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence. – Hamlet Act V, Scene II
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LOL. Leads she created and which were probably never really there and which, even now they are blown, leaves her in a commanding position such that Cameron could never have dreamed of for himself.
I am reserving judgment on May until we have some real read-out from the Brexit negotiations. But failure she is not - yet, particularly when judged against Cameron and Osborne.
I'll still vote for him on the general principle of Anybody But May and that the prospect of JC PM negotiating Brexit would be comedy gold.
I'll still vote for him on the general principle of Anybody But May and that the prospect of JC PM negotiating Brexit would be comedy gold.
The above works just as well and is much nicer to read.
I was going to use 'doesn't give a care' but thought that would be a step to far for Mr Ace.
Good majority, certainly. But many will feel, was this worth all the disruption ?
More importantly, it will not change the paradigm as far as negotiations with the EU is concerned.
I am convinced, if none of you are, that she called the elections in order to obtain a large majority so that she could do deals during negotiations with the EU.
Britain is a trading nation or it is nothing ! The UK has to come to a trade deal with the EU regardless of how some excitable characters to the right in her party or in the country feel.
If the trade talks begin to show results, then both parties will agree to transitional arrangement for as long as necessary, even 3 years or five ! I know this is in her mind because of the leaks about "freedom of movement" continuing for a few years after Brexit. The ground id being prepared.
But to get to that position, there have to be compromises which she has to make where she will lose the support of a good many Tory MPs. As many as 50, maybe even 70 depending on the profile of the new MPs, many of whom will be coming from Leave areas.
1. Rights of EU citizens and vice versa for Brits in EU: Controversy will be about jurisdiction. If "special arrangements" are to be made, there will be trouble ! However, this one will pass because Labour , Liberals and the SNP will support. So Tory rebels can sulk in the corner.
2. The wrongly titled "divorce bill". This is actually about future liabilities UK have already signed up for. These are fulfilment of contracts. One thing I know having dealt with Germans for over 30 years, is that they are very legalistic as is the EU itself. I am sure compromises can be made but we are talking about €30-40 bn. The rebellion will be bigger. If she does not get that big majority, she will be stuck.
3. The Ireland border: Everyone says it is going to be easy. But this one is the Game of Thorns and not so much about Thrones. No customs union and no border are not compatible. Otherwise, there will have to controls between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland. I cannot begin to think what the Unionist reaction will be on both sides of the Irish Sea. Gibraltar will just be a rock on the continent compared to this. Michael Howard might even launch the armada !
She needs a big majority, or else !
I can't decide if this is tongue in cheek or not. Either way Cameron is keeping himself in the news by buying a garden shed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/30/downing-street-to-garden-retreat-david-cameron-spends-25000-on-luxury-hut
I'll always be grateful to him and Osborne for persuading so many people to vote Leave.
Interesting spot from Craig Murray:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/04/theresa-mays-fake-meetings/comment-page-1/#comments
Which is why the defeat has to be utter and total, Labour need to lose half their MPs to wake up those who bankroll the party and want to be in government
However, if things are so bad Labour lose Islington North, it will really, really not matter who the Labour leader is.
Would be amusing to see what Prime Minister May and Leader of the Opposition Farron said in that situation though.
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 44% (-1)
LAB: 31% (+2)
LDEM: 11% (+1)
UKIP: 6% (-1)
GRN: 2% (-1)
(via YouGov / 27 - 28 Apr)
I strongly doubt she'd have won a majority against Ed in 2015 after 5 years as PM.
Which is why the defeat has to be huge, Corbyn must have no choice but to own it.
Margaret Beckett: I was moron to nominate Jeremy Corbyn
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33625612
The chances of this happening would seem to me to be remote. They are not nearly as remote as they should be.
Has anyone baxtered this yet ?
There are plenty of morons out there who wouldn't have been stupid enough to do what she did.
The Tories rebuilt themselves after 1997, and moderate Labour can do the same after a thrashing in 2017. But not if those who Kinnock worked so hard to get out of the party are allowed to again be in charge.
A week ago we were talking about annihilation!
From a legal point of view, the UK does not have any liabilities after Brexit. There are no 'contracts', there are only the treaties. The UK does not share the assets and liabilities of the EU, it is a member. The only things that it is liable for are things that the treaties state. In fact, it is the Germans (and the EU) who are ignoring the legal position and really trying to claim that it is 'fair' that the UK pay all this stuff because we 'agreed' to it. In fact, the only financial commitments that an EU member has is what is agreed in the budget, and this only while they are a member. At least half the 'bill' consists of contingent liabilities which simply represent non-binding promises of future actions between members.
It will be the UK, not the EU, who are going to argue the legalities on this. The EU is simply resorting to blackmail - pay us money we do not owe or we will not discuss a trade deal.
So, easy, no deal.
Edit - I didn't allow for a larger swing in Wales either - that might be worth another 7-8 seats and take the majority over 50.
Membership has apparently risen and their polling has improved, but I would have expected them to achieve far more given the collapse in Labour support.
However an 11% lead gave a 100 seat majority in 1987, and 13% produced a 179 seat majority in 1997.
One result of this election, with likely startling results from Scotland and Wales, as well as diametrically opposed results in London and the North, could be the final discrediting of UNS as a model.
(Clumsy phrase, sorry!)
It is not impossible for this to all happen before the end of the year.
I think May will be pretty pleased with any majority of over 50 tbh. Plus if it's not a complete rout there's a higher chance of Corbyn hanging on or handing over to somebody even more useless and toxic - McDonnell, Abbott, Thornberry, Long-Bailey, Rayner would all be far far worse than he is.
What it does show is a rout of UKIP going to Tories.
In the next 6 weeks she will have to say something - people (well journalists) are already getting fed up with the 'Vote for me, a strong leader" theme.
Just repeating platitudes isn't going to work. The demand for real policies on Brexit and the economy (stupid!) will increase. Today's announcement on pensions is meaningless - there are almost no defined benefit schemes left except for government employees.
http://royalcentral.co.uk/uk/thequeen/the-queen-sends-message-of-condolence-to-the-widow-of-martin-mcguinness-78798
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/in-these-topsy-turvy-times-a-tory-landslide-is-not-certain-1-7932286
Must confess, would not have thought of looking in the Belfast Telegraph for such astute commentary on U.K- wide affairs.
F1: my pre-race rambling, and a tip, is up here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/russia-pre-race-2017.html
This must be the first time in years I've offered two tips over a race weekend, and both of them were odds on.
Importantly, I also have an exciting new serial (three parts, initially) out next month. Sort of Robin Hood in Ancient China. So, do watch out for Wandering Phoenix and Roaming Tiger.
1) Labour votes staying firm
2) SNP votes staying firm
3) LDs gaining seats back to 2010 levels
Perhaps the way for this to occur is for the Tory vote to become more inefficient, and the UKIP collapse to be biggest in Tory safe seats, and for the centre left to hoover up tactical anti-Tory votes.
Even in this situation Corbyn is probably gone this year. I am not taking this tip from TSE, not least because I have 10/1 on Jezza going this year already.
To be honest if Labour under an inept fool like Corbyn are capable of getting 30 percent its a pretty damning indictment of the Tories and Lib Dems. I doubt he will get 30 fwiw.
Bigging up the events of that era risks an already precarious situation in NI. For May to do that she would be risking the long term of our country for a short term political cheap shot. It would very likely rebound against her. It is a period of our history that should be laid to rest.
Of the last three that has given Labour 30% or more, Yougov only on 19th April put Labour at 24%, Opinium gave Labour 26% on the 20th. Only ORB put Labour on 29% on the 20th. But here too, there has been a clear 2% swing from the Tories to Labour.
Why ? I thought May wanted a "strong and stable" leadership. Is she frightening the people ?
It is of course even possible that what you want - that Labour are only going to do as badly as they have done in the last two elections (and it's fairly damning that that's the realistic height of their ambitions) - will come to pass. It just doesn't happen to fit with any other data we have.
Can't argue with:
"For instance, whoever thought Jeremy Corbyn would win the Labour Party leadership, and then cement his position at a later challenge for the post? Even his foolish sponsors were shocked this happened.
And who really believed the referendum last June would produce a Brexit victory by a reasonably substantial majority? Or that Donald Trump would ever reach the White House?"
or
"Meanwhile Tim Farron, who leads an army of eight other Liberal Democrat MPs, claims the Tories are getting their “betrayals” in early.
What he means is, the Conservatives have already declined to issue magnanimous promises about taxation levels and pensions, for example, very early in the campaign, in the hope that by the time polling day arrives, they will be forgotten about. Farron is probably right in that assumption.
So, it is up to the opposition parties to keep banging on about these issues throughout the campaign to frustrate the Tories’ hope that people will not remember them."
Also hadn't realised that Dan Hodges was Glenda Jackson's son.
http://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/areas/114483/prime-minister-launches-maidenhead-election-campaign-in-the-high-street.html#.WQR51ahvzjk.twitter
There is one 'stony faced' guy - but I reckon that's her security.
https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/858567619363958784
FWIW I think that Labour's problem in Wales, Midlands and North will be more due to a shift to DNV, and as many kippers will do the same as shift to the Tories, particularly in WWC heartlands.
The people know that we had to talk to these people to finally achieve peace. Corbyn met them earlier.
The older generation may take it more seriously. They are not voting Labour anyway.
1983 shows what happens when the left is flailing.
Corbyn is indeed a lucky boy. He has got May as an opponent. The most wooden, anti-charismatic leader you can find. You can easily give her the Gordon Brown trophy for charisma.
Sturgeon Net 'doing well' (ex-DK)
Pre GE 2015: +60
Pre GE 2017: +2
An absolute positive is still very good compared to most of her peers - but it's been quite a drop.
Lets see how she goes down with truly open meetings in Stoke, Hartlepool and Swansea.
All these will be dredged up too. You want to talk about the past ? We can talk about the recent past.
So this 'May is only good because Corbyn is uniquely rubbish' is at variance with the facts.
Given Labour's inability to get rid of him, I think he'll go at a time of his own choosing.
Having said that, he is not a leader. In fact, he is the antithesis of a leader - he's not taking his team (i.e. the broader Labour party) along with him. I can't see him relishing the role he's in.
He's a man on a mission to change the party, and he'll leave the moment that's done.
When it became clear their campaign wasn't going to get them what they wanted, then the British government offered American-brokered peace talks through the Irish government. This didn't get them what they wanted, but it got them a reasonable compromise which while imperfect is as @foxinsoxuk notes a hell of a lot better for everybody than what there was before.
There is no possible justification for Corbyn talking to a group of terrorists days after they had murdered one of his fellow MPs when their only demand was for the British to hand over Northern Ireland to them. None. It may even have delayed the peace process by conning the IRA into thinking they had a chance of winning.
That being said, I think May will probably soft pedal that one given the tensions in Northern Ireland. She can go after his links to Hamas and Paul Eisen who are not yet willing to talk. Or she can ask awkward questions about why he did nothing when Liz Davies told him that several senior members of Islington Labour Party were paedophiles. Or she can point out that he talks about standing up for the vulnerable while pushing people who annoy him. Or paint him as soft on national security for saying he wouldn't order the police to kill a rampaging terrorist.
Any one of those can be justified on theoretical intellectual bases. However, all of them together form an extremely bad pattern.
Jeremy Corbyn worked for Iranian state television and spoke at Khomeinist rallies in London. Everywhere he went, he looked a willing collaborator with a regime that flogs and executes gay men, treats women as second-class citizens and imprisons trade unionists.
If Corbyn was questioned on this, which he never is, he might say he does not approve of every aspect of Shia theocracy. But he worked for it, and was paid by it, and never found the courage to speak out on Iranian television for the victims of its oppression.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/29/tim-farron-defending-true-liberal-even-if-it-makes-us-queasy
They all laughed at Corbyn. Laughed. Private sector workers clearly think he is a danger to the nation.
Yet, conversely, my girlfriend's FB feed is full of lefties talking about BBC bias and that everyone where they work (NHS) is voting Labour.
If this Labour campaign isn't a 30% strategy in the trendy cities, but a 15% strategy elsewhere, I don't know what is.
They are fishing in the same pond for under 50% of the vote along with Plaid, the SNP and the Greens.
There is absolutely no incentive for the Tories to kill off Labour whilst Corbyn (and whoever his successor might be) are still incoherent on the economy.
Edited extra bit: https://twitter.com/HondaRacingF1/status/858578321159987200