@Plato @ 12:05 PM 'the Leveson R[oyal] C[harter]' Given that Leveson LJ recommended that Ofcom should be established by statute as the recognition body of the press regulator, decided to avoid entirely the issue of the internet, and never mentioned a Royal Charter, it might be a good idea to do your homework before commenting further.
@Alan, it is a bit crowded in second half of 2014 and better that they went for late summer than late October. Not sure remembering millions of dead will be a huge boost for the NAY sayers but who knows. For sure by that time you will not be getting 5/2 from the bookies on a YES vote.
The coalition's starting point was that in 2015-2016 (a) the structural budget deficit would be in balance and (b) net debt as a percentage of GDP would be falling. It argued in June 2010 that these were 'structural [targets] – to give us flexibility to respond to external shocks'. It has shifted from this starting point further and further as time has passed, because that was the politically expedient option. The politically difficult option, of sticking to the starting point, was never contemplated.
I'd argue that those were targets, not a starting position. Their starting position was the level of cuts and tax rises that were originally proposed in order to meet those targets. Sticking to those targets in the face of worldwide conditions as they unfolded would have been foolhardy, rather than simply politically difficult ("That's a very courageous decision, Minister". "Oh Christ, is it really?").
@Life_ina_market_town Leveson didn't mention the internet much, you're very right (and was thought of as pretty silly at the time). But it seems to have been slid in through the back-door via hacked off and the Clegg/Miliband omnishamble.
@Alan, nothing planned but will be sure to let you know in advance of any visits.
You may be right but I think it needs more open debate , after last election there had been no serious discussion. Hopefully that will be starting now. Labour supporting the Tories and promoting the same policies is a laugh , worst case is it will be very very bad for them regardless of the vote. The unions are starting to squeal.
@MikeSmithson: Vanilla is much better than new-improved (ahem) Disqus. I'm sure many of us would be prepared to stump up something to help cover the costs. I certainly would. This is the only site I look at regularly and it would be a shame to lose it.
@Andy_Cooke @ 12.13 PM 'I'd argue that those were targets, not a starting position.' That interpretation is not supported by a plain reading of the Chancellor's budget statement of 22 June 2010. At column 167, Osborne stated that '[t]his mandate is structural, to give us flexibility to respond to external shocks; current ... and credible'. The clear implication of those words was that the mandate was to be applied independently of the prevailing conditions in the economy. This is supported by the fact he included a fixed target that debt as a % GDP should be falling by no later than 2015-2016.
That this mandate was the starting point, and not the level of tax cuts and spending rises originally proposed, is supported by chronology and common sense. After all, the Comprehensive Spending Review proceeded the mandate chronologically and was an attempt to achieve it. Had the consequent changes in fiscal policy been the starting point, there would have been no need for a mandate at all, least of all a structural one that was flexible to the prevailing economic conditions.
Your argument would imply that Osborne would not have decided to spend more and tax less in the (unlikely) event that the economy had outperformed expectations since 2010. That is nonsensical.
Another revenue idea: Have a monthly contest (prediction competition, say), with a £5 or so entry fee. Half the revenue could be given away in prizes, and half kept by the site.
This is just desperate stuff - I can't stand Emily Thornberry at the best of times, but this takes the biscuit.
RT @eljmayes: Emily Thornberry says that the Coalition are going to starve people out of their homes via the spare room subsidy. Scaremongering. #BBCDP
About $6000 per year, but I think there are a lot of easy ways for Mike to raise the advertising yield for the site. There really just isn't enough, there could be banner adverts on the sides that scroll down with you, AdSense has a mega yield on it and the adverts are generally unintrusive as they are text based.
SKY – reporting on a horrible story – but, the associated pix is by our very own Sunil Prasannan – are royalties due - has Sunil joined the paparazzi ?
£20 for the site? Well I assume as my parasitic wife doesn't work it's at least £30 for me. And I am a higher rate taxpayer so make it £40? Hard working families need to be able to comment after all. And naturally I assume pensioners will not have to pay, like they don't for any other fecking thing like bus passes, TV licences, heating bills, prescriptions, eye tests et f*cking cetera... only fair given they have to struggle along with having paid literally hundreds of pounds for their houses in the 70s and have only 2/3 of their final salary each month to see them through.
/rantoff
How fussy is this vanilla forums thing by the way? My fairly obscure bank password is "too weak" so i have had to concont a string of random characters in cluding % and *, even then the first one of those wasn't good enough. So obviously i have had to write it down...
Emily Thornberry, wearing the same clobber as last night on QT, being annoyingly bad on DP, with a extra sprinkling of scare mongering.
Gove was fantastic on QT last night by the way, the best display I have seen from a politician on the show. Credit, in fact, to Thornberry having the nerve to show her face in public so soon afterwards.
Highlight was the way Gove said "I do listen" before Thornberry spoke then "yada yada" when she finished!
Vince Cable has criticised ageism in modern-day politics, pointing out that Churchill and Gladstone served as prime minister in their 70s and 80s.
The Lib Dem business secretary, who is 69, said he would stand for election again in two years time and had "bags of energy and stamina" left.
Questioning politicians' ability to do the job because of their age was "pathetic", he told the House magazine.
He suggested Deng Xiaoping, who ruled China in his 80s, was a role model.
Mr Cable briefly served as Lib Dem leader after Sir Menzies Campbell quit in 2007 and has not ruled out the possibility of standing for the top job in future should a vacancy arise.
During his 18-month stint as leader, Sir Menzies faced questions about his age and ability to cope with the demands of the 24-hour news cycle.
Mr Cable said his colleague had been "very unfairly treated" at the time. "It was as bad as attacking people for their colour, for their gender. Pathetic actually, it demeaned the people who did it."
Mr Cable confirmed that he would stand to be an MP again in the next election, scheduled for 2015, and had no "inhibitions" about doing so. "I take the view that as long as you have got bags of stamina and capacity to do the job and I do have a lot of energy and stamina, I'm perfectly fit and healthy."
Asked about role models, he said Lord Heseltine was still active in politics and business in his late 70s while two of the country's greatest leaders had remained in No 10 long after conventional retirement age.
"Gladstone became prime minister when he was over 80, didn't he? I think Churchill was over 70, wasn't he?"
He added: "Talking of role models, Deng Xiaoping totally transformed China in the last century. I think he was 80 when he took over. And he survived the Long March."
Mr Cable - who was a Labour activist and councillor before joining the SDP in the 1980s, said he had a "sensible working relationship" with Labour but his party would adopt a policy of "equidistance" between them and their Conservative coalition partners at the next election.
I think we should root for Matthew Pennycook in Greenwich & Woolwich. It's one of those Labour names who seem to come out directly from an Harry Potter book.
Imagine Mr Pennybook and Mrs Voxcroft on march to Westminster
Presumably Disqus not worried about losing a small client like PB, but the adverse publicity much surely be bad for them and the plaudits for Vanilla something of a coup.
The Site gets a lot of hits and has an upmarket clientele (Neil and JackW notwithstanding) so maybe they can give Mike a decent discount. Even if they cannot, I am sure there are ways and means of funding the fee.
Apologies to OGH etc. but the LD's really have an air of 'The ladies of the Night' about them. Is there no party they wouldn't collude with to keep on to a sniff of power?
I think after this coalition that if the Tories found themselves in the same position, they'd go for a minority government. Perhaps Lab are the same after seeing how they've behaved.
Mind you, if you thought the last election win was a poisoned chalice, just wait for the next one! Perhaps Labour will electorally throw in the towel to avoid anything that looks like an unpleasant decision.
I think I must watch QT - many are saying it was a Gove tour de force
"Gove proved he not only knows his brief; he knows other Ministers' briefs too. On the economy, Europe and the arts, he was eloquent and pitch-perfect. It helps that at every point he can hark back to his background as a man of the people – an orphan adopted by a Labour-voting Glaswegian couple who ran a fish-processing business.
@Blue_rog If you think minority government is a serious option then check out the wonderful This House production that has been playing to packed audiences since October at the National Theatre.
It's about what happened between 1974 and 1979 and the ludicrous extent to which the crititcally ill were brought in for key votes. It focuses on the Whips Office.
It's a must see for all who are interested in politics.
@Beverley_C It took me 5 attempts to find a password it'd accept - I tried the one I use for online banking and it wasn't good enough, and then had another 4x attempts to work out what Captcha was supposed to be telling me to type in.
I hate it as an anti-spam app as they aren't words and VV looks like W etc. There are a few sites that use it and as soon as I discover its required to leave a comment I click away.
@Plato As I said yesterday it rejected a random alphanumeric string of eight digits. It's a comment system, for heaven's sake, and overprotection is bad for a number of reasons.
Ding dong the Disqus witch is dead! What an improvement and the site is much more readable - well done to everyone involved in switching. Won't miss the 'Like' button, there were too many comments which were little more than partisan like fishing which was dragging the site down.
Happy to chip in if the costs of the new system are large.
Have to agree with Plato that Gove was superb on Question Time last night. We disagree on plenty but sometimes you have to admire an expert persuader and communicator, he is possibly the best at this since Blair. Emily Thornberry on the other hand.....
@Plato - Some captchas are OK, but that one was a nightmare. I take it that Disqus was getting worse?
Thanks for the QT tip. I shall actually watch that episode. I gave up on QT years go when, instead of answering questions, they simply recited boilerplate from the Party Line.
As a businesswoman, I found some of the National Insurance stuff in the Budget interesting but I need to discuss it with our accountant and see what has crawled out in the details....
RT @JohnRentoul: YouGov: 39% thought Budget was fair, 31% unfair. http://t.co/SqkAdgfjqK An achievement by Osborne, in tough times, & better than last year
So much to like about this but the long threads will become quite difficult to navigate without our old ability to see exactly wha a comment relates to. That was the best thing about old Disqus. Swines. The other thing I liked was the ability to just like a joke post t acknowledge you had read it without needing to respond. I would have done so to Jack's little cricket effort below. I'm sure we'll get used to this but it is like finding a new pair of slippers after the old ones are binned. Having said that, this sure beats the nasty poo-filled wellies Disqus tried to impose.
The judgment of the Administrative Court (Lang J) in Core Issues Trust v Transport for London[2013] EWHC 651 (Admin) handed down today makes interesting reading, and is pretty damning of Transport for London. TFL have in practice been allowing political advertising against their own policy where they agree with the political message (see [126] & [135-136]) but prohibiting it where they disagree with the message, and doing the latter in a fashion that was manifestly procedurally unfair.
Sally Bercow rides again. Just weeks after the Labour Party announced that its shortlist for a candidate in Harrow East will be exclusively female, the Londoner hears that the wife of the Speaker wants to put herself up for it.
Former journalist and hapless tweeter Bercow, who is currently being sued by Lord McAlpine for libel, is a long-standing Labour supporter. The Harrow East seat only just slipped into Conservative hands at the last election, going to Bob Blackman with a majority of around 3,000 votes, having been solidly Labour since 1997.
Likes schmikes, taking time to respond to a comment someone has made makes for a better site, otherwise go to facebook. Likes are for sites that entertain comments such as "omg can't believe my little boy is three today!!!!" (20 lemmings unnecessarily liked this)
151 PBers have now successfully signed up with Vanilla.
Based on page views as recorded by Vanilla since 9.30pm last night we will be in the $550 a month price category. That is more than our monthly average display ad revenue over past 12 months.
No, I think it's clear that the targets were, well, targets. The starting point was the Coalition Agreement (well, arguably it was the manifestoes of the three parties as they went into the election). The Tories were aiming to "eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over one parliament" and to do it primarily through reduction in spending. The Coalition Agreement restated that. Labour were aiming to reduce spending slower than the others.
This gave where they started from. The targets were issued to support those stances and, like all targets, to provide a method of monitoring success (which, as has been pointed out, is less than satisfactory; the question is whether an alternate route in general, and Labour's alternate route specifically, would have had a better outcome).
A target is meaningless if it's just issued out of nowhere. The entire point of setting targets is in support of a plan or aspiration in the first place.
@MikeSmithson Mike, is it time to consider setting up some sort of monthly/annual subscription option due to the increased costs of funding the site in this more user friendly format? Maybe try it as a voluntary contribution to see if this would cover the running costs so you are not left out pocket?
Comments
'the Leveson R[oyal] C[harter]'
Given that Leveson LJ recommended that Ofcom should be established by statute as the recognition body of the press regulator, decided to avoid entirely the issue of the internet, and never mentioned a Royal Charter, it might be a good idea to do your homework before commenting further.
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/700/#Comment_700 I'd argue that those were targets, not a starting position. Their starting position was the level of cuts and tax rises that were originally proposed in order to meet those targets.
Sticking to those targets in the face of worldwide conditions as they unfolded would have been foolhardy, rather than simply politically difficult ("That's a very courageous decision, Minister". "Oh Christ, is it really?").
"I just find it so repellent - a grubby deal cooked up by the self-interested at 3am." Your quote, not mine.
Leveson didn't mention the internet much, you're very right (and was thought of as pretty silly at the time). But it seems to have been slid in through the back-door via hacked off and the Clegg/Miliband omnishamble.
I still say his best chance was to go early after the Holyrood victory when he had momentum.
You down this way any time soon ?
It's Friday afternoon, I hope everyone is drinking.
RT @S8mB: Brilliant – less than half of the public thinks that ANY political party is 'led by people of real ability'.
LOL I'm surprised the results are that high.
The site does not generate the ad revenue to pay the monthly Vanilla fee after one month free trial.
You may be right but I think it needs more open debate , after last election there had been no serious discussion. Hopefully that will be starting now. Labour supporting the Tories and promoting the same policies is a laugh , worst case is it will be very very bad for them regardless of the vote. The unions are starting to squeal.
RT @eljmayes: Only 47% of Labour supporters polled by YouGov believe that their party is led by people of real ability.
'I'd argue that those were targets, not a starting position.'
That interpretation is not supported by a plain reading of the Chancellor's budget statement of 22 June 2010. At column 167, Osborne stated that '[t]his mandate is structural, to give us flexibility to respond to external shocks; current ... and credible'. The clear implication of those words was that the mandate was to be applied independently of the prevailing conditions in the economy. This is supported by the fact he included a fixed target that debt as a % GDP should be falling by no later than 2015-2016.
That this mandate was the starting point, and not the level of tax cuts and spending rises originally proposed, is supported by chronology and common sense. After all, the Comprehensive Spending Review proceeded the mandate chronologically and was an attempt to achieve it. Had the consequent changes in fiscal policy been the starting point, there would have been no need for a mandate at all, least of all a structural one that was flexible to the prevailing economic conditions.
Your argument would imply that Osborne would not have decided to spend more and tax less in the (unlikely) event that the economy had outperformed expectations since 2010. That is nonsensical.
Have a monthly contest (prediction competition, say), with a £5 or so entry fee. Half the revenue could be given away in prizes, and half kept by the site.
Indeed, Osborne had targets and plans. When it became clear that they couldnt both be met be kept to his plans and dropped his targets.
RT @eljmayes: Emily Thornberry says that the Coalition are going to starve people out of their homes via the spare room subsidy. Scaremongering. #BBCDP
"BBC website has a story 'Finn says England bowled well'."
Test Match Special reaching Helsinki now ?
RT @Chrisitv: SELLAFIELD has been shut down due to the adverse weather as a precaution.
About $6000 per year, but I think there are a lot of easy ways for Mike to raise the advertising yield for the site. There really just isn't enough, there could be banner adverts on the sides that scroll down with you, AdSense has a mega yield on it and the adverts are generally unintrusive as they are text based.
http://order-order.com/2013/03/22/breaking-amendment-to-protect-bloggers-put-down/
http://news.sky.com/story/1068374/woman-and-child-killed-by-train-at-station
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/21885280
Interesting piece regarding the steering wheel, and playing tennis rather than going to the gym for fitness.
/rantoff
How fussy is this vanilla forums thing by the way? My fairly obscure bank password is "too weak" so i have had to concont a string of random characters in cluding % and *, even then the first one of those wasn't good enough. So obviously i have had to write it down...
Gove was fantastic on QT last night by the way, the best display I have seen from a politician on the show. Credit, in fact, to Thornberry having the nerve to show her face in public so soon afterwards.
Highlight was the way Gove said "I do listen" before Thornberry spoke then "yada yada" when she finished!
"Emily Thornberry, wearing the same clobber as last night on QT"
Wonder who she pulled?!
The Lib Dem business secretary, who is 69, said he would stand for election again in two years time and had "bags of energy and stamina" left.
Questioning politicians' ability to do the job because of their age was "pathetic", he told the House magazine.
He suggested Deng Xiaoping, who ruled China in his 80s, was a role model.
Mr Cable briefly served as Lib Dem leader after Sir Menzies Campbell quit in 2007 and has not ruled out the possibility of standing for the top job in future should a vacancy arise.
During his 18-month stint as leader, Sir Menzies faced questions about his age and ability to cope with the demands of the 24-hour news cycle.
Mr Cable said his colleague had been "very unfairly treated" at the time. "It was as bad as attacking people for their colour, for their gender. Pathetic actually, it demeaned the people who did it."
Mr Cable confirmed that he would stand to be an MP again in the next election, scheduled for 2015, and had no "inhibitions" about doing so. "I take the view that as long as you have got bags of stamina and capacity to do the job and I do have a lot of energy and stamina, I'm perfectly fit and healthy."
Asked about role models, he said Lord Heseltine was still active in politics and business in his late 70s while two of the country's greatest leaders had remained in No 10 long after conventional retirement age.
"Gladstone became prime minister when he was over 80, didn't he? I think Churchill was over 70, wasn't he?"
He added: "Talking of role models, Deng Xiaoping totally transformed China in the last century. I think he was 80 when he took over. And he survived the Long March."
Mr Cable - who was a Labour activist and councillor before joining the SDP in the 1980s, said he had a "sensible working relationship" with Labour but his party would adopt a policy of "equidistance" between them and their Conservative coalition partners at the next election.
bbc.co.uk
I think we should root for Matthew Pennycook in Greenwich & Woolwich. It's one of those Labour names who seem to come out directly from an Harry Potter book.
Imagine Mr Pennybook and Mrs Voxcroft on march to Westminster
RT @OliverCooper: YouGov Scotland sample (change on a year ago): Labour 32% (-1), Conservatives 29% (+11), SNP 20% (-21), Lib Dems 14% (+12), UKIP 2% (nc).
The Site gets a lot of hits and has an upmarket clientele (Neil and JackW notwithstanding) so maybe they can give Mike a decent discount. Even if they cannot, I am sure there are ways and means of funding the fee.
Vanilla really is a very big improvement.
Sounds like a leadership punt to me - shaping up for a LD/Lab coalition?
I think after this coalition that if the Tories found themselves in the same position, they'd go for a minority government. Perhaps Lab are the same after seeing how they've behaved.
"Gove proved he not only knows his brief; he knows other Ministers' briefs too. On the economy, Europe and the arts, he was eloquent and pitch-perfect. It helps that at every point he can hark back to his background as a man of the people – an orphan adopted by a Labour-voting Glaswegian couple who ran a fish-processing business.
In fact, his Labour credentials sounded more genuine than those of the polished, snooty Thornberry who came across like a caricature of Islington New Labour." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100208542/yadda-yadda-michael-gove-brings-down-the-house-as-he-slaps-down-emily-thornberry-on-question-time/
It's about what happened between 1974 and 1979 and the ludicrous extent to which the crititcally ill were brought in for key votes. It focuses on the Whips Office.
It's a must see for all who are interested in politics.
Bev.
I hate it as an anti-spam app as they aren't words and VV looks like W etc. There are a few sites that use it and as soon as I discover its required to leave a comment I click away.
Happy to chip in if the costs of the new system are large.
Have to agree with Plato that Gove was superb on Question Time last night. We disagree on plenty but sometimes you have to admire an expert persuader and communicator, he is possibly the best at this since Blair. Emily Thornberry on the other hand.....
Thanks for the QT tip. I shall actually watch that episode. I gave up on QT years go when, instead of answering questions, they simply recited boilerplate from the Party Line.
As a businesswoman, I found some of the National Insurance stuff in the Budget interesting but I need to discuss it with our accountant and see what has crawled out in the details....
I hope you and the cats are well
Bev.
I ended up with something like **************** - ridiculous.
Excellent likeness, PfP!
"The Site gets a lot of hits and has an upmarket clientele (Neil and JackW notwithstanding)...."
PtP gets hit on a lot and has an upmarket clientele notwithstanding his cross-dressing activities.
Presumably we will lose all our comment history with Disqus which is a shame unless OGH is able to archive it somehow.
Sally Bercow rides again. Just weeks after the Labour Party announced that its shortlist for a candidate in Harrow East will be exclusively female, the Londoner hears that the wife of the Speaker wants to put herself up for it.
Former journalist and hapless tweeter Bercow, who is currently being sued by Lord McAlpine for libel, is a long-standing Labour supporter. The Harrow East seat only just slipped into Conservative hands at the last election, going to Bob Blackman with a majority of around 3,000 votes, having been solidly Labour since 1997.
Open up your Ladbrokes accounts so you can get on straight away. The 33/1 price won't last long.
I'm publishing in about 2 minutes.
Couldn't agree with you more. Let the lemmings drown
Based on page views as recorded by Vanilla since 9.30pm last night we will be in the $550 a month price category. That is more than our monthly average display ad revenue over past 12 months.
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/766/#Comment_766
No, I think it's clear that the targets were, well, targets.
The starting point was the Coalition Agreement (well, arguably it was the manifestoes of the three parties as they went into the election). The Tories were aiming to "eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over one parliament" and to do it primarily through reduction in spending. The Coalition Agreement restated that. Labour were aiming to reduce spending slower than the others.
This gave where they started from. The targets were issued to support those stances and, like all targets, to provide a method of monitoring success (which, as has been pointed out, is less than satisfactory; the question is whether an alternate route in general, and Labour's alternate route specifically, would have had a better outcome).
A target is meaningless if it's just issued out of nowhere. The entire point of setting targets is in support of a plan or aspiration in the first place.
Mike, is it time to consider setting up some sort of monthly/annual subscription option due to the increased costs of funding the site in this more user friendly format? Maybe try it as a voluntary contribution to see if this would cover the running costs so you are not left out pocket?
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/792/#Comment_792
I have a ticket for the 5th of May and am look forward to it.
Mike, how about a fiver a month contribution, you keep the advertising revenue as I presume you did before, any surplus run a competition?