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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A Labour view as the campaign draws to a close
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A Labour view as the campaign draws to a close
I was an eye witness to the last terror attack in London on March 24th. As walked into New Palace Yard at Westminster on that afternoon I heard one of the shots that killed Khalid Masood and saw him and his victim PC Keith Archer laying on the cobbles, before I was ushered indoors by security staff. . The following day in the Commons I was impressed at the way both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn rose to the occasion the following day. Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition captured a mood of national determination not to be cowed by terrorism.
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Some people are overemphasizing TM's Type 1 Diabetes.
Only being diagnosed in 2012, she should expect a couple of decades without serious complications if her self-management is moderate or better.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/attack-during-ramadan-shows-they-respect-neither-life-nor-faith-a3556406.html
What more can one expect them to say? And I expect the Government is pleased, but they can't force broadcasters and newspapers to carry it.
If I'd have known a bit of name dropping-bum lickery was the way to get a thread published I would have... actually no I wouldn't
All in all, good for the country.
Pile on a 100+ Tory majority.
Today Corbyn is visiting 4 Labour seats in North East. The average Lab majority in the seats is 9,084, or 22.9%. Why is Labour so defensive?
"Brave Corbyn's amazing campaign means TM only has an increased majority and 2 more years in power"
Hilarious.
Famous last words from The Don...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8aRD9DNDsI
However, what is all this continual BS about "hard Brexit"? The EU commission want to kick the UK to pieces to discourage the others. Do you really think Corbyn's cups of tea and strongly worded letters or Stammers clever legal speak will have any effect at all?
But then again for Labour another £100bn of spending on a divorce bill is just more not real borrowing.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/mosques-and-muslim-leaders-united-in-disgust-after-london-bridge-terror-attack-a3556676.html
I couldn't find it at all on their website except through google. I want to know what their response is.
It seems more likely that TM will have to bow to the right wing of the party, and implement a hard Brexit, in order to get a secure majority. Today's Conservative Party has many more Essex hard-Brexiteers than Nottinghamshire Euro-enthusiasts.
So the irony may be that a Labour surge leads to a harder Brexit.
OGH will already have posted this alternative approach I'm sure
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/871442684334022658
http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/update/2017-06-05/police-investigating-offer-of-limited-edition-banksy-print-for-anti-tory-votes/
@BilHod: Liam Gallagher once called Chris Martin a "geography teacher who makes music for bedwetters." @ArianaGrande to sort Brexit negotiations next
That is all you need to know re the wisdom of the author. Pathetic.
https://twitter.com/pa/status/871775300622962690
electionforecast.co.uk/tables/LD_seat_losses.html
If anything we haven't reacted enough. Or we have reacted in a very passive way - all those candles and lighting up of buildings. All very lovely but some righteous anger is needed also and some focused action. So concerned have we been not to blame others for the actions of terrorists (a good thing on the whole) that we have (wrongly) shied away from asking the hard questions of Muslims as to whether there is or might be something within Islam or the Islamic world view which has been one of the causes of what is happening. That self-criticism needs to happen. And it needs to be seen to happen. By not asking these tough questions or by muttering the pointless platitude of this having nothing to do with Islam when plainly it has something to do with it, however misguidedly, the ground has been ceded to the extremists who present a seductively persuasive case based on misreadings of the Koran that violent jihad is essential to being a good Muslim. Revolting and doubtless inaccurate. But if not challenged and in detail by those who understand the Koran better than the jihadis why would a young man not believe that?
Bad ideas can only be defeated by presenting better ideas not by refusing to engage in the argument at all. But that, in essence, what has happened for the last decades. The bad ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ut-Tahir and IS and Al Qaeda and others have not been challenged. Rather those Muslims who have tried to do so have been howled down and attacked and sometimes put in fear of their lives.
Challenge Saudi Arabia. But challenge the Deobandi mosques in this country too. They are pretty hard line too. Challenge the mosques which talk about tolerance on the one hand (tolerance for themselves) but host hate preachers preaching intolerance towards others on the other. Above all, challenge the endless bloody victim mentality that too many Muslim community leaders (or so-called leaders) adopt almost as an automatic reflex as a way of deflecting any responsibility at all for why their young men and women turn to the most violent possible interpretation or misinterpretation of their religion or any responsibility for ensuring that this does not happen. We should surely expect more than just simple condemnation of appalling crimes, welcome as that is. Terrorist fish need a sea to swim in. On the whole they don't just come from nowhere.
I'm sure on Friday we'll be back to normal, and there'll be yet another bloody leadership election in September.
In crude terms we can split that age group into two different groups, roughly equal. One half is slightly more intelligent, more engaged with politics, willing to take part in polls and likes the freebies on offer. The other group is the opposite and maybe if labour had offered a free I phone upgrade each year or an x box they might have been motivated to vote. Yes there is great enthusiasm withinin the first group for Corbyn and they may well vote but it will not have an impact or alter the other group. Why does that change over time? Well with age comes responsibility and a need to increasingly engage in politics for self interest. I don't know if the pollsters look at other demographics in each age group in their VI predicitions but I expect the 18 -30 age group will register a slightly higher turnout but not enough to change the outcome. If it gets above 55-60% I would be surprised.
https://twitter.com/JamesTapsfield/status/871780779881353217
Acoustic part from LA https://youtu.be/mak_Cu9Wl6w
Enjoy all!
Have absolutely no model or basis for this. Only that when someone surprises on the upside, does not fall over or make any appalling gaffes and appears reasonable (however unjustifiable in reality this may be), their opponent does the opposite and the mood is for change, then strange (and to me unwelcome) things can happen.
Need drones - No you can't have those
We need continue shoot to kill - Sorry nope
We need more manpower at MI5 / MI6 - Sorry we are disbanding that
More SAS in big cities - No they are killers of my friends.
...
I am going spend all the money saved on a massive fleet of subs, but they will be totally unarmed.
I can't see the government wanting to delay the Brexit talks by a leadership election (which I guess they'd have to, to wait and see what the new PM's priorities were?), and I doubt the Tories would want a repeat of their last 'election' that saddled them with an intested May so it wouldn't be over quickly I shouldn't think.
I never rule anything out, but that would be so strange.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/871761488347893760
Kasabian are the best stadium band by a mile.
Too many unexpected and strange things have been happening in politics in recent years to be entirely comfortable.
And even if the Tories win, even if they win big, really, has anyone been impressed by how May - and the rest of the Cabinet - have conducted themselves? Anyone?
Corbyn has lied, Abbott has behaved like a very slow dim 4 year old, McDonnell - yuk - but they've all been remarkably focused on making some sort of case for voting Labour, however away with the fairies that case might be.
Whereas as far as Brexit is concerned, we're no wiser now than 7 weeks ago at what May will do or ask for or say when she sits down in 9 days time with EU negotiators. So what will it all have been for, then? What mandate will anyone have given her?
The Tories won't want Mrs May gone until after Brexit. My own take on this is that they'll want her to own it, act as a lightning rod for all the discontents that it may create, and then chuck her overboard and install a fresh new face in time for 2022. The Tories are very efficient at regicide.
As for the Con vote share lead, if it's anywhere at all in double figures then Labour should be reduced to sub-200 seats for the first time since the War, and everyone will probably conclude that the polls taken in the run-up to the election were overstating likely Conservative support. That is, the narrowing in the campaign period was a simple result of the main Opposition getting more media exposure, and of people actually having to take sides in choosing a Government (except in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the motivating factors are altogether different,) rather than making theoretical choices about their ideal preferred party.
Under such circumstances, it could be plausibly argued that the details of the campaigns themselves made little difference to the final outcome, which was determined by predictable longer-term factors.