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According to the press, today we’re going to see the start of a new phase of the Tory campaign targeting Ed Miliband as weak by comparing him unfavourably with Neil Kinnock.
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Ed Moribund is the sixth-former who's lost his text books, in comparison...
However weak EdM might appear it does not appear to have impacted on Labour shares - it is as though this is priced into the voting intention ratings.
Will people be voting for a party or a leader or is it a mix of the two? Add on to that the fact that their actual choice in their own constituencies is for an individual MP and it gets even more complicated.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402354
India's economic problems reflect a global boom-to-bust pattern. Why do policymakers act surprised?"
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/26/india-debt-bubble-boom-bust-pattern
This summer has seen a tirade of panic and criticism over the future of Ed Miliband and the Labour party. Almost daily, past Labour heavyweights, current MPs and commentators have given interviews and written articles on where Ed is going wrong, what Ed must do and how Labour are doomed. But has there really been any truth to the claims that public opinion is failing Mr Miliband and Labour – or has it all been speculation?
YouGov has searched through its daily, weekly and monthly tracking questions to bring you the full guide to Ed Miliband’s summer of discontent.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/26/ed-milibands-summer-discontent/
Won't stop Crosby trying though since apart from dog whistling it's basically all he knows how to do and CCHQ has to have him do something to justify his enormous pay. He'll keep bashing away at variations of 'Red' Ed just like Cammie kept bashing away on "the Big Society" and to as much effect.
The Tories' election strategist is a master of 'dog-whistle' politics, honed in his native Australia, but concerns about his lobbying business are putting the prime minister on the spot":
http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2013/jul/21/lynton-crosby-cameron-lizard-oz
Esther McVey, a former GMTV presenter and junior minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, is likely to be promoted to more prominent Government role by David Cameron, the Daily Telegraph understands.
Miss McVey, who has a seat in her native Merseyside, entered Parliament at the 2010 election.
Nadhim Zahawi, the Tory MP for Stratford-on-Avon, is also believed to be heading for a ministerial post.
Mr Zahawi is seen as a reliable media performer who can both defend the Government and successfully attack Labour.
A number of other female MPs elected in 2010 are also tipped for elevation in the reshuffle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10267035
Thank you.
Some really good names highlighted in that DT piece - Matt Hancock caught my eye a while ago along with Sajid Javid.
Most hospitals claim they are serving five-star food to patients - but a survey reveals many patients disagree.
Three in five hospitals give themselves the highest possible rating for the standard of their food, figures show.
Out of 156 NHS hospital trusts in England 95 trusts rated the quality of the meals they served to patients as five-out-of-five.
But the Campaign for Better Hospital Food (CBHF) said that the figures were a dramatic contrast to an independent Care Quality Commission survey.
That survey showed that half of patients were dissatisfied with hospital food. http://news.sky.com/story/1133521/hospital-food-patients-reject-nhs-boasts
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10266879
I've said on here many times that I've quite a soft spot for Kinnock - he spoke with great passion and conviction - he took on Militant and won. EdM is nowhere in comparison.
http://www.tbfreeengland.co.uk/home/
"In a blistering attack designed to heap further pressure on the Opposition leader, Mr Gove will say: “The sad truth is in this critical test of leadership he has been uncertain, irresolute, weak.
“To the question — who governs Labour? — his answer would appear to be the unions.” Comparing Ed to the 1980s Labour leader — after the Tories created an image of the men merged — Mr Gove will add: “The contrast with Neil Kinnock is striking and not at all flattering.
“While Kinnock moved bravely and remorselessly to eradicate militants’ influence, Miliband has done nothing to stop the takeover of his party.” He will add: “Labour are sinking back into their pre-Blair position of living in the unions’ shadow. That’s because Ed Miliband owes his position as Labour leader to them.”
Actually it would be good for the country if Labour started being clear what they would do. We know what Dave and George would do in future - more of the same and continued rebalancing of public sector vs private sector. Labour's a mystery, and a worrying one because we all assume they would let rip on the borrowing again. The real problem with Labour right now is not that they have indefensible policies but that they seem to have no policies.
I'm being spammed every few mins with outrage/demands/hyperbole. If you'd like to follow them @LabourPress
The comparison with Kinnock is silly too. There is also the small matter that Kinnock left power nearly 20 years ago. It is as daft as Labour going on and on about Maggie. For a significant and growing part of the electorate this is history, not modern studies.
I also think it is unwise for the tories to get overly involved in the criticism of Ed when the blue on blue stuff is going so well. Leave them to it and concentrate on running the country.
Miliband's biggest weaknesses are that he seems to have no clear ideas (at least none that he can translate into English) and when he does suggest something it rarely seems thought through. There is every chance he is going to make the same mistake at conference committing himself to building lots of houses (with whose money?) and taking over railway franchises. That is the time to have a go in a rather dismissive kind of way. Right now the cabinet should just leave him alone.
And just when you thought that Westminster politics could not get any more childish.
If you are going to post a link to a story, for copyright reasons please do not paste more than a couple of paragraphs of the said article.
It's the older guard who are stirring the pot, and most likely to recall Kinnock. Personally, I'd let them get on with it - but Gove clearly feels its time to add his toe caps along with the lengthening cast list from Labour greybeards and MPs.
"However weak EdM might appear it does not appear to have impacted on Labour shares - it is as though this is priced into the voting intention ratings."
The Ed is crap but Labour vote share is better might seem perplexing :
For those of a sound mind and not attracted to the passing flicker of Ukip then Labour remain the only viable alternative to the Coalition. Previously the LibDems have been joint beneficiary of the anti Conservative vote. Accordingly the Labour vote share should be considerably inflated, although a poll lead of 3-6 points indicates not.
Thus the big question is when Ed is so piss poor what is a sufficient mid term Labour lead to insulate them from the coming storm through to the May 2015 GE. Certainly 3-6 points is not enough. 12-15 points would seem appropriate and consequently Ed and Labour are falling short by some distance.
"...There are three political implications. First, the argument that fiscal austerity would lead to deep recession or permanent stagnation has proved false. In part, this is because the austerity is back-loaded, with the heaviest cuts starting now. But the economy has also refused to behave as the doomiest predicted. People have clung to jobs, even at the cost of tolerating zero-hours contracts, wage cuts, pension raids and unpaid overtime..."
The facing down of Militant, Scargill and Heffer is so vastly different to the stage managed confrrences today, with their anodyne messages and corporate trade stands. Now that was real politics!
Kinnock was not a bad leader at all, and in 1992 I would have been happy for him to have been PM. He had a large Tory majority to overcome, and made a big dent in it. Winning in 1992 was not good for the Tories, who did really need a period in opposition to develop a post Thatcher philiosophy and direction. It would have likely had them back well before 2010.
It was also the failure of Kinnock to win that led to the New Labour stage management and spin, in the short term a success, but in the longer term highly destructive of real political debate. It is just court politics now.
The first is to remind some voters in some parts of the country why they stopped voting Conservative. This is easiest to demonstrate in Scotland because its figures are reported separately. Before Thatcher, the country would return 20-odd Conservative MPs. For the last three elections, only one. In 1997, none at all. She is the reason David Cameron embarked on his detoxification strategy.
The second reason is squarely aimed at Conservative supporters and, indeed, members. It is to remind them that many of the changes they detest, particularly but not only on Europe and education, and for which they blame Labour, were actually made by Mrs Thatcher.
But in general you are right to remind us that anyone with an adult memory of Mrs Thatcher's time in office is at least in their 40s, while even fewer can recall Mr Kinnock's premiership.
I put down several of my beloved cats when they contracted FLV from a supposedly healthy pedigree cat - a disease that can't be cured or virus shedding stopped. In kittens it causes eye ulcers and blindness. If I had the same mentality as the badger huggers - there could be hundreds of cases of the vile disease in our local cat population.
Silly university political games played by people who have very little idea of the real world.
The trouble with Ed is that he is seen as a figure of fun.
What's more they're so undamaging to Ed that he can afford to lead the ridicule himself without fear of giving legs to anything other than the ineptness of the poster's creator
(Think 'Ferrero Ambassador'.....)
The real point here is how juvenile political debate has become. I blame Tweets, the 24 hour news cycle and our current clique of political leaders who cut their teeth at university and have never operated in the real world
OK, I don't vote Conservative and I've always had a soft spot for Kinnock, because despite his faults, he seemed sincere.
But this is very strange tactics from the Conservatives. Yes, Ed is a dud but he can't get much worse in the eyes of most voters anyway. The Tories' best tactic was to let him work for them, not remind voters of Kinnock's finest hour.
Labour will now be tempted to stage manage, probably at Conference, a scenario where Ed sticks it to the Union bosses and they back down. And to mass plaudits from the assembled MPs and press.
www.bovinetb.info/newzealand.php
"Aren't you mixing up Crosby with Messina?"
I don't think so. One's in Sicily the other Liverpool.
1200 staff at #Sheffield Council have been on long term sick in the last year. Thats over 20% of total staff. @BBCSheffield
Do they all have Bovine TB?!
JCR = Junior Common Room (Undergraduates)
MCR= Middle Common Room (Postgraduates)
SCR = Senior Common Room (Academics)
Mainly came out of/used by Collegiate Universities and those with Halls of Residence and can get offices like President of JCR etc. Places where 'like people' can meet informally.
British Universities that have them include: Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Bristol, Nottingham, Kent, Exeter, Lancaster, Leicester, Reading, Southampton, York & St. Andrews.
N America includes: Harvard and McGill and quite a few in Australia.
Er, I’m no great fan of Ed, but to equate him to the ridiculous Mr Opik is a little harsh imho.
I was discussing this with one of our admin clerks at the hospital last week. Her union was completely spineless and unhelpful when she was threatened with redundancy or reduced conditions last year, so she quit the union. Unions are dying, even in the public sector. Their membership is dropping like the membership of all political parties.
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ed miliband I
ed mi Ii band these strikes are wrong
ed miliband bastard
ed mib band repeats himself
ed miliband vs david cameron
ed mi Ii band funny
ed miliband speech
ed miliband interview
ed miliband vs david cameron 2013
ed miliband egged
ed miliband owned
Miss Plato, surely you're not suggesting a cull?
Mr. Foxinsox, I largely agree. However, unions do seem to focus on the public sector, and the divide in public/private pensions may play into this. If Miliband's going on the cost of living then he may well have to offer above inflation pay rises for the public sector, which would not sit well with those who are not employed by the state.
With that scenario and the efficient way we know the Labour votes are distributed make it very tough for the Tories who are also going to struggle to take LD seats where the incumbent is standing again.
Lembit's fatal mistake was to ditch Sian Lloyd (the Welsh weather presenter) and doing that in a (small c) conservative part of Wales was fatal. For her it must have been a blessed escape.
The head of the NFU gave an impassioned defence of the cull on Any Questions last Friday. With the absence of the usual suspects it was an interesting change.
Presently voters, even Labour voters, don't rate Ed - simply not up to the job. However if Ed becomes a bigger figure of fun then Labour will be looking over the cliff !!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10266879/No-one-is-pulling-Nicola-Benedettis-strings.html
" Researchers believe that hedgehog numbers are falling because the booming badger population is eating them when food becomes scarce.
The decline is also being explained by the fact that badgers, whose numbers have increased in recent years since farmers were banned from culling them in the 1990s, compete for the same kind of food as hedgehogs. The findings come in a study which shows a close geographical link between the decline of hedgehogs and the presence of badgers.
Researcher Dr Anouschka Hof, of Royal Holloway University of London, estimates there are about a million hedgehogs in Britain. However, hedgehog numbers are falling rapidly, especially in the south and south west of England, and in urban areas. Dr Hof told the Daily Mail: "They have been declining over the last decade, especially in areas where there are a lot of badgers.
"In urban areas like Greater London the declines have been really bad. Hedgehogs could be found in the Royal Parks 20 years ago. Now there are none. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/6216749/Hedgehogs-in-decline-because-badgers-are-eating-them.html
We used to have hundreds of hedgehogs here and few roadkill badgers - now its the complete opposite - roadkill badgers are every few miles and I haven't seen a squashed hedgehog in months.
Unless Ed financed salary increases by reducing pension liabilities (which I do not think he will do), then this could force more of the public sector with limited budgets to contract out more of their work.
IMO they will. Labour's advantage with FPTP will be considerably negated and Ed's chance of moving into No 10 will evaporate just as Kinnock's melted away in 1992.
Ed Kinnock is not so odd as it may look.
The tories have done as destructive a job as they can on UKIP, and UKIP are still far from being dead in the water.
It should be possible to do an effective 'knocking job' on EM---even his friends admit that he hasn't been very impressive. However, it looks daft to start by comparing him to Kinnock. I don't know what Kinnock got right or wrong; for sure, the man-in-the-street doesn't either. A silly 'shorthand'.
Right strategy, wrong tactics?
Agree, at present this is the number one conundrum. However, it is highly possible that Labour voters are prepared to swallow EdM's deficiencies just to be back in power - what they (and the Unions) would do then is more speculative.
I presume that they want Labour back in power in order to protect their preferential (compared to private sector) incomes and pensions or benefits.
However, Ed could surprise them and still continue to drive down the deficit and try to reduce the debt - pressure from the global economy may not give him much choice.
It is noticeable in America how much some candidates -- Mrs Clinton, for instance -- improve through the primaries.
I agree that unions are not the big beasts of thirty years ago, but they can still serve as suitable bogeymen if labour set it up right.
It's not exactly George slaying the dragon, but the fact that Ed has a chance to show leadership will help his cause.
Yeah - right. Squirrels...
On the badger cull: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23845851
I found this interesting.
"Whether domestic or wild, they have a right to live as much as we do," she [an activist] said.
I can appreciate that sentiment. However, haven't we extirpated every natural predator of the badger (wolves spring to mind, perhaps bears likewise)? It isn't natural to drive a species to extinction, but if we annihilate another species with which it has a close relationship (whether a hunter-prey or symbiotic one) then we've already substantially affected how that species lives. I don't accept that it's legitimate to intervene to give a species an unfair advantage, anymore than it's ok to exterminate a whole species on a whim.
If badgers are protected and have no natural predators then they'll simply see a population explosion. As Miss Plato pointed out below, this will be bad for competitor species, and may see some population crashes once they start eating more food than can be sustained by the environment.
This reminds me a bit of the deer story from a few months ago. Reintroducing wolves would seem like the low maintenance, 'natural' option. However, I doubt anyone will do it. If a single person gets injured or killed by a wolf then the politician responsible will be lynched.
BTW Remember our little spat at GE2010 over Watford. You said LD - I said CON. Now I'm backing the yellows to do it at GE2015. I got on at 6/1 which has come in a fair bit since.
BAMBI!!!!!