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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron and Clegg The New Blair and Brown?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Cameron and Clegg The New Blair and Brown?
I am told that [David Cameron] has recently had a lot of “quite angry” meetings with Nick Clegg. Where once civil servants liked to compare the polite and mutually respectful dealings of the coalition leaders with the storms of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s dysfunctional “coalition”, insiders now say that there are similarities after all.
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Pong.
That's not consistent with polling which supported the posters:
yougov.co.uk/news/2013/07/30/majority-say-immigration-vans-not-racist/
And it seems to have been a LibDem minister who signed it off:
www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/no10-says-go-home-immigration-van-ads-are-working-8736820.html
So I'm unclear where you get your analysis from?
If you get into bed with a dog you catch fleas......if Clegg didn't realize what malodorous bedfellowes he'd chosen then he should have done his homework. 55% of the rest of the population-according to MORI-knew what they were like and wouldn't touch them with a barge poll.
I've no sympathy
They can't both be right.
On-topic: the situation is nothing like Brown/Blair: that relationship was much deeper, with sordid personal deals that lasted years. Towards the end of the Blair premiership, it was obvious that Brown believed he deserved to be PM, regardless of his ability (or lack thereof). There's no chance of Clegg becoming PM, so much of that heat will be absent.
I'd be surprised if a little heat and anger didn't creep into politics at all levels - a little controlled anger sometimes concentrates minds, as long as it is controlled. Any disagreement between Cameron and Clegg is likely to be based more in political beliefs than personal ambition.
A manager of mine once pulled me into a meeting room and gave me an absolute telling-off for a mistake I'd made. Later that evening we were down the pub together. I learnt my lesson, and I never made that mistake again. Even better, there was no lingering resentment - he had made his point well. His controlled anger worked.
But we have no real idea of the situation. It is all rumours and tittle-tattle so far; we will have to wait for a few years for the first books to come out from the coalition leaders.
The Coalition parties remain separate parties. The election is in sight, albeit only just. Cui bono? Pretty much everyone allegedly involved I would say.
"Am I to understand you don't like the Conservative Party? It just seems to be a common thread in your posts... ;-)"
Few things they have done irritated me as much as the vans. Up there with the anti gypsy campaigns of Michael Howard. Just the brutal insensitivity for which Tories are famous.
Having said that it was a massive wasted opportunity by Ed. It could have been an issue which helped to define him. Instead he chose to read Evening Standard polls and take from them the wrong message as people so often do from raw research.
Good point Sir. – I’m sure the nerves are a little frayed in both camps at the mo – After all the shenanigans the yellow team have got up to in the media recently, I’m surprised things are only ‘rumours’ at present and not the fisticuffs I’d have resorted to by now.
Line 2 "obviously a tory".
The level of foaming incoherence is frankly embarrassing and the determination of cyber nats to hear no voice but their own depressing. On the plus side I think it will make a lot of people think twice.
A Scottish Tory Surge, and I missed it...
I was thinking about the miserable. "Are you thinking what we're thinking" campaign. It turns out 33% were but the other 67% thought them a bunch of toxic turds. Cameron then had to waste the next five years trying to detoxify which is why he is where he is now.....
....fighting with Nick
"The level of foaming incoherence is frankly embarrassing and the determination of cyber nats to hear no voice but their own depressing."
It does point to some unpleasant divisions after the vote particularly if it's close
http://www.businessinsider.com/france-is-heading-for-the-biggest-economic-train-wreck-in-europe-2013-8
It drives two thoughts from me:
1. Thank God we never joined the Euro; and
2. We really must do much much more to reduce our deficit and increase our competitiveness. "Rich' developed states CAN fail.
'Ah, I was thinking about the anti-semitic Fagin and pigs campaign"
Anyone who the thinks the expression 'flying pigs' is in anyway anti semitic is frankly a fool
The comparison is plain daft. Cameron and Clegg lead separate parties. That's substantially different to the Brown and Blair situation.
In stupid news a thinktank wants to force the young (down to 16) able to vote for the first time to turn out, on pain of a fine, and to have a None Of The Above option: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23832607
a) Clegg will get some sort of post outside Parliament which will mean he can stand down at the May election
b) The LibDems will formally end the coalition.
And if Clegg at al are getting cross with their Tory "partners" then it's no more than they should do!
And fine them if they don't turn out...
Programme is on ABC called Q & A. No mention of Falkirk I imagine, but he will apparently show what Labour plans to do in 2015 and is offering help to Oz Labor in how to fight a negative campaign.
Might be worth watching for anoraks....
However, as well as a 'None of the above', I would like a 'I do not agree with this system' option.
If (say) 33% of people vote for the ISNAWTS option, a debate has to start on the voting process.
The Tories will do the same in a couple of weeks, then the Coalition can hop back into bed together, where most of the LibDem and Tory ministers are quite comfortable.
I expect the Coalition to break up in a controlled manner at about new year 2015. Not least the LibDem ministers need the time to campaign in their own seats.
The spring Budget of 2015 will be interesting, as it will most likely be a Conservative rather than coalition one. Ideal for Tory election plans of tax cuts, but maybe not one that will pass parliament.
She must be taking time off from writing in The Daily Mash.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/26/young-people-compulsory-voting-pay-fine-ippr
There were approx as many LD, Tory and SNP votes cast in GE2010 in Scotland - that can't be pointed out too often.
If people can't be bothered to walk a few hundred yards once every four to five years their opinion can't hold tremendous weight.
There's already an emphasis on turnout at the expense of legitimacy, with the current banana republic method of postal voting.
Its the same tactic revisited , buttonhole people into various groups and then accuse them of being idiots loons etc. Anyone who dislikes this and retaliates is then accused of being a simpleton or a stalker.
There are few situations where wandering down to a polling station is impossible, and provision should be made for those particular cases (armed forces personnel standing out as an example) but that shouldn't become a general approach.
Clegg will take anything including being a teaboy for Cameron and Osborne in his eagerness to make coalitions work.
Sonia Hooper @Twuntman
Things to do: 1) Invade Syria 2) Relocate badgers to Syria 3) Frack for shale gas in Syria 4) Send protesters to Syria 5) Give protesters TB
http://tinyurl.com/k52vutj
Thank you for that link and very useful - shows how many ostriches there are in power. The two Eds and Vince could do with a copy.
It reminds me of when I did economics at Soton in the late 60s. The received wisdom was that if the TUC and the CBI agreed on a 'way forward', it was a 'good thing'. It almost always was not. That was because the proposal often worked in favour of big employers/unions, and operated against the interests of the SMEs. And these small outfits were the organisations which were going to create tomorrow's jobs.
Syria, Gibraltar, the Falklands, Afghanistan. The list is getting longer as the forces become fewer.
If you want to vote by this method, you will have to register individually in advance (according to the government's own website).
If you do not register individually, you will not be allowed a postal or proxy vote. You will have to vote in person.
Vote Yvette!
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10632561.Brighton_and_Hove_Green_Party_brings_in_mediators_to_try_and_heal_rift/
Which made another good one - one of the best - for the Argus headline collectors (a local sport):
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-30-best-headlines-of-the-argus
The status quo is:
1) Registration based on the honesty system, somewhat mitigated by
2) Having to vote in person, so it's hard to make up really large numbers of voters, except that
3) This turns out to be inconvenient for the mobile/housebound/lazy, so (2) is made voluntary.
What I'm advocating instead is:
1) Strict control of registration, made practical by doing it at school.
2) A secret ballot used when voting online, using a secret known only to you and the voting system.
3) No need for weird exceptions, be because the original system is both secure and convenient.
At some point the cost of debt for big hugely indebted OECD countries will have to rise. Also we can't print money forever. This will have a fairly seismic impact on mortgages, bank solvency, markets and trade.
At that point it will become starkly apparent who has a reasonably competitive economy / some future and who doesn't. FWIW I think the UK is broadly on the right trajectory as growth returns, public sector employment falls, and wage rates become more compettive. The deficit needs to come down alot more though.
IMHO the UK needs Osborne in No.11 after 2015. For all his weknesses he is very clear that we must get more competitive and cut public spending. If Balls is in charge of the money we'll end up like France or Greece or Portugal.
It's a reminder how people can get used to a completely crazy system, just because it's always been done that way. Imagine you were suggesting a new system for some kind of governmental function, and it started with, "First, we shut down all the primary schools"...
I think there's also a "security" requirement to fill in a National Insurance number, which they hope will be yours, and not belong to somebody you just got off Google.
However, if the polls are right and there will be a No vote next year, what is your current forecast of the Scottish seat split at GE2015?
But this is NOT the problem IMO. Politics is too complex, frequently actively off-putting and possibly under resourced*.
*If company X spends $10millions selling sugar water, what chance do political parties have explaining difficult choices with $1million or less?
A-level student who gained six A* grades pens furious letter to Michael Gove over 'offensive' exam reforms
Editorial by proxy.
Do you think my 5A*s and 2As would get my letter supportive of the reforms published? I doubt it somehow - even if I had my brother's 8A* grades.
What is a problem is if there are people who would have an opinion, but they're being prevented from expressing it by some kind of logistical problem, like the system being a PITA if you move around a lot. In that case it's worth fixing the system so that it isn't a PITA.
I'm not sure about anyone else, but speaking as an overseas voter, the system is a PITA.
Where's Avery today?
Is he on his way to liberate Syria with SamCam or on his way to Cleethorpes with GloucesterOldSpot?
I'm no expert but I'd have thought it will be more difficult to perpetrate multiple voter fraud by the new method.
If you're intent on inventing ten 'voters' you'll have to find ten pseudo identities complete with national insurance numbers. Wouldn;t that involve a good deal more work, and more risk, than the old system?
Labour thinks it'll make a difference...... 'disenfranchising millions' apparently...
Indeed. The crunch point will most likely come in the form of a bank run / collapse in a peripheral country where the rates start to creep up and the viability of the banking system comes into question. Brown trousers time for the ECB and Eurozone countries not too far away I think. The absolute political will to keep the show on the road is there. But markets determine sovereign debt interest rates and these will rise and rise as the debt/GDP numbers head into the MickeyMouseosphere.
The endless 'we don't need a bailout - whoops oh yes we do' is a farce. The Eurozone needs a united banking and bond market. The end of nation states as we know them. This is what the architects wanted all along. I'm not sure the citizens of Europe want it though.
"I believe you repeatedly voted for Margaret Thatcher ........"
"Good try Monica, usual mince from you"
Is that a denial a non denial denial or an obfuscation?
I don't know if you've seen this, you probably have, but as I'm late to the blog I'll print it anyway.
Nick Cohen says that the Lib/Dems are dead: I believe him. Vote UKIP:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/24/lib-dems-no-longer-radical
For that matter which side are we on in Afghanistan?
The wife stoning, opium trading, sheep shagging side or the wife burning, opium selling, goat shagging side?
It might improve your mood ..but I doubt it..heheh
Our leaders, of whatever hue, seem to lose their minds when it comes to foreign affairs. It's all that hobnobbing and telephone calls of the highest and most important nature with the President. They just cream their pants.
They can't resist it. It's what they are in it for.
MalcomG. Personally I hope the Yes vote wins, sadly I will not get a vote.
However, if the polls are right and there will be a No vote next year, what is your current forecast of the Scottish seat split at GE2015?
TC , I am no expert on politics , however it will be a very unusual election and will depend on how the campaign and vote goes on the referendum. Unfortunately lots of people have yet to get away from voting Labour to stop the TORIES AT Westminster votes. I think a lot would depend on what was on offer re Devomax.
If the vote is NO and they do not come up with real changes quick then we will be back to another referendum very soon. Hopefully it will not come to that but neither Tory or Labour will want to give away real powers so I believe it is only a matter of time and so hope it is YES first time.