Interesting. Huffington Post has Three Bits of Bad News lost in the Sex etc Furore
1, Thousands Of Foreign Criminals Are On The Run The Home Office has lost track of tens of thousands of foreign nationals liable to be deported, an independent inspector has found.
2, A National Insurance Tax Hike For The Self-Employed A tax cut trumpeted as a boost for self-employed people has been scrapped, it has emerged.
3 Ministers Have Been Forced To Backtrack On PIP Payments Thousands of disabled people will receive hundreds of pounds more in benefits each month after the Government was forced into an embarrassing about-turn on PIP payments.
Meanwhile Charlie Elphicke still, apparently, doesn’t know what he’s supposed to have done!
The Mail really doing a hatchet job on Andrea today.
Seems to be a case of attacking the victim not the perpetrator to me. I notice Tele reporting that Sir Michael resigned after a sexual assault allegation was made against him and Leadsom was not the deciding factor in his removal.
Either way clearly his position in the Cabinet was untenable.
This is not back to the 1990s by any stretch, this is back to the 1970s.
Like then both parties have been divided by a major referendum on Europe, like then (as we no now) there is plenty of sexual impropriety about, the unions are flexing their muscles, inflation is rising and like then both parties are entrenched on around 40% of the vote.
Indeed there were an astonishing 4 general elections in the 1970s, all of which were reasonably close and 1 of which produced a hung parliament where the largest party even lost the popular vote. The 2010s may be heading for similar.
Yet the Tories are consistently polling 40%, a poll rating IDS, Hague and Howard would have given their eye teeth for. Yet more wishful thinking from the Europhile left.
Dumb to paint me as Europhile left when I've spent most my life on the Eurosceptic right. I even voted Hague in 2001!
I'm sorry, HYUFD - it's over.
Sorry having voted Remain in a country which voted Leave and when you did not votelide.
Every day you churn out your 42% mantras. It seems like the final straw ntly.
Why should he not? Nobody thought Attlee or Thatcher would get anywhere near the levers of power in 1945 or taken place.
I think you're wrong about both 1945 and 1979. In WWII, there was a clear indication from the success of Common Wealth candidates that there was a mood for a much more collective approach from the government. The size of Labour's win might have surprised but not the fact of it. And in 1979, there was plenty of evidence from by-elections and the polls that the Tories were in with a decent shout, not to mention the backdrop of the IMF bailout and the Winter of Discontent.
Churchill clearly expected to win in 1945 and Callaghan treated Thatcher as a joke when she first became Tory leader. The fact like Corbyn she grew into the opposition leader role does not change the fact she was considered unelectable in 1975 as Corbyn was in 2015.
Churchill never had much feel for the electorate and the election was in 1979, not 1975. I'll take your migration on the point in question as evidence you concede it.
So what the election here was in 2017 when Corbyn got his unexpectedly good result not 2015 so the point still stands.
By June 2017 it was also clear from the polls the Tories were not going to beat Corbyn by a landslide even if they still expected a majority.
To add to my previous post probably the greatest of May’s many failings is her complete inability to build a team. She builds factions or narrow cotieries which seek to exclude or disregard most of the party. They are impervious to advice and regard reservations as disloyalty. The fundamental problem is her. She needs to go.
No, the problem is that the massive upheaval of Brexit cannot be reconciled with the Conservatives' long-term USP of economic competence and being, well, conservative...
What cannot both those things be true ?
Of course, they can. And I agree that May has proved underwhelming as a leader.
But I am not convinced any other leading Tory could have done a better job. They just offer a different kind of failure.
To add to my previous post probably the greatest of May’s many failings is her complete inability to build a team. She builds factions or narrow cotieries which seek to exclude or disregard most of the party. They are impervious to advice and regard reservations as disloyalty. The fundamental problem is her. She needs to go.
No, the problem is that the massive upheaval of Brexit cannot be reconciled with the Conservatives' long-term USP of economic competence and being, well, conservative...
Except about 80% of current Tory voters are full on Brexiteers and voted for Brexit even when the Tory leader opposed it.
If the Tories abandon Brexit UKIP are waiting in the wings.
Fine, but that is not really an "except"
You have simply pointed out that the other door to the cage is also locked.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
The Mail really doing a hatchet job on Andrea today.
Seems to be a case of attacking the victim not the perpetrator to me. I notice Tele reporting that Sir Michael resigned after a sexual assault allegation was made against him and Leadsom was not the deciding factor in his removal.
Either way clearly his position in the Cabinet was untenable.
Morning all,
God alone knows what tomorrow's front pages are going to be. More heads to roll I suspect.
"Just because it's the Metropolitan elite who think most Leavers are nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals doesn't make it untrue."
In the same way, that even if many Remainers had perfectly good reasons to vote Remain, it doesn't mean that some aren't nasty and thick hypocrites, and with added arrogance.
You are at least honest, Roger. You don't pretend to believe in democracy, and I respect you for that. It certainly has its faults.
You only think democracy works because the weight of numbers irons out some of the faults. If the only voters were from the bingo club in Preston where Laura Kuenssberg did a vox pop and all of them turned out to be Nazis you too would find the result disturbing.
But, then, you may not like the alternatives. There's no guarantee that your side would be in power, in an undemocratic state.
I agree and for that reason it's least worst alternative. But that doesn't make it the holy grail. Hitler got 43% of the vote in 1933. Would we be hailing democracy in pre war Germany if he'd got 51%?
The EU referendum has changed everything in politics, and not in a good way.
There are many advantages about staying in the EU, but there are disadvantages too. Overall, I'd prefer to be governed by incompetent British politicians than by incompetent European ones, so I voted Leave.
But the response by some to the result has polarised things. The sheer overwhelming arrogance by some of what's been called the Metropolitan elite has been breath-taking. They lost a democratic vote but they refuse to accept it. They know better, they are the wise ones, the leavers were nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals and should never be allowed to make decisions.
This has provoked a mirror reaction by some of the Leavers. Should we stay in the EU now, for whatever reason, it will be blamed on the machinations of these unelected, self-appointed hypocrites who begin their sentences with "I accept the result of the referendum ... but." And who then proceed to show that they don't and never will.
The bitterness will last a long time and I worry for the future of political discussion, and even democracy. My own reaction ... I'll stop voting entirely, and remember that politics isn't all that important anyway - it's not like real life.
The Referendum has coincided with the big political shake out of the past 50 years, in which the working classes have moved rightwards, and the middle classes have moved leftwards.
Its been the working classes who have suffered mostly from the negative effects of globalisation whilst the middle classes have often benefitted.
As the middle classes increasingly suffer negative effects their views may well change.
The irony of course is that the Global Britain free trade paradise envisioned by the likes of Fox and co on the far right will serve those beset by globalisation even more harshly, especially as the safety nets will be ever weakened.
What follows worries me.
I expect to see increasing support for protectionism from the middle classes as their jobs come under threat.
Though it will be referred to as 'maintaining professional standards' or suchlike.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
"Less British"? That's a strange reaction to witnessing something like that.
Might be for you. But that kind of avowed little-Englander racism also makes me ashamed of my country. ------------------------------------------------------- Doesn’t make me ashamed of my country. Ashamed of some of the people in it, though!
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Is Spacey friends with Hilary ?
There seems to be no end to the sleezy blokes she's associated with.
For the record Ive always voted Labour (except once for the Lib Dems) but I wouldn't vote for them this time with Corbyn in charge. That's saying something when you consider the grizzly alternative.
Two overriding reasons. 1. His disloyalty to all previous leaders 2. He has the weakest shadow cabinet this country has ever seen including some who are literally morons (possibly with an IQ even lower than the SNP Westminster branch)
And the best Manifesto since WW2
Maybe he should hand it over to someone who hasn't been disloyal to every previous leader and one who would use all the talents in the parliamentary party not just ex girlfriends ex cronies and the few who didn't vote against him last year
You mean the disloyal talents.
Methinks you contradict yourself.
A fair point actually!
Also, Corbyn never - literally never, even privately - was disloyal to Blair or Brown personally. He still doesn't say a word against either of them, and readily agrees that they did many good things. He simply disagreed with them on a range of issues and declined to support those. By contrast, many of his critics have attacked him personally and repeatedly. He's declined to respond in kind (except by not going out of his way to promote them), and got on with his job. That, to my mind, is good leadership, and his government, if it happens, will be a refreshing change from the sleazy soap opera that much of the current government presents.
Setting aside the fact that Corbyn was literally the most disloyal Labour MP during that time, Corbyn has now to be judged by the behaviour of too many of his core supporters. He had the power to call off the dogs, and chose not to use it. He cannot avoid taking responsibility for that, and it taints him. It strikes me that he is quite content for this to happen, as it serves his purpose, while he maintains a facade of rising above the fray.
So I see that locally too many of the core activists that saw the party through the last decade have dropped out or even resigned, sickened at the antics that denigrate anyone who choses not to play ball by signing up to the cult of the personality and a far left agenda. It is positively Orwellian. The Labour Party is weakened by that. The party is stuck only a couple of % points ahead in the polls even while the Tories are in effective meltdown.
The Mail really doing a hatchet job on Andrea today.
Seems to be a case of attacking the victim not the perpetrator to me. I notice Tele reporting that Sir Michael resigned after a sexual assault allegation was made against him and Leadsom was not the deciding factor in his removal.
Either way clearly his position in the Cabinet was untenable.
Morning all,
God alone knows what tomorrow's front pages are going to be. More heads to roll I suspect.
Does indeed.
But as we're casting so much sunlight into all these dark and dingy places I'm wondering when the light will be turned on to journalists themselves?
Or are we meant to believe journo's are paragons of virtue who would never dream of drinking vast amounts of alcohol and being highly inappropriate with co-workers?
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
This is not back to the 1990s by any stretch, this is back to the 1970s.
Like then both parties have been divided by a major referendum on Europe, like then (as we no now) there is plenty of sexual impropriety about, the unions are flexing their muscles, inflation is rising and like then both parties are entrenched on around 40% of the vote.
Indeed there were an astonishing 4 general elections in the 1970s, all of which were reasonably close and 1 of which produced a hung parliament where the largest party even lost the popular vote. The 2010s may be heading for similar.
Yet the Tories are consistently polling 40%, a poll rating IDS, Hague and Howard would have given their eye teeth for. Yet more wishful thinking from the Europhile left.
Dumb to paint me as Europhile left when I've spent most my life on the Eurosceptic right. I even voted Hague in 2001!
I'm sorry, HYUFD - it's over.
Sorry having voted Remain in a country which voted Leave and when you did not votelide.
Every day you churn out your 42% mantras. It seems like the final straw ntly.
Why should he not? Nobody thought Attlee or Thatcher would get anywhere near the levers of power in 1945 or taken place.
I think you're wrong about both 1945 and 1979. In WWII, there was a clear indication from the success of Common Wealth candidates that there was a mood for a much more collective approach from the government. The size of Labour's win might have surprised but not the fact of it. And in 1979, there was plenty of evidence from by-elections and the polls that the Tories were in with a decent shout, not to mention the backdrop of the IMF bailout and the Winter of Discontent.
Churchill clearly expected to win in 1945 and Callaghan treated Thatcher as a joke when she first became Tory leader. The fact like Corbyn she grew into the opposition leader role does not change the fact she was considered unelectable in 1975 as Corbyn was in 2015.
Churchill never had much feel for the electorate and the election was in 1979, not 1975. I'll take your migration on the point in question as evidence you concede it.
So what the election here was in 2017 when Corbyn got his unexpectedly good result not 2015 so the point still stands.
Your point was about 1945 and 1979. Not 2015, not 2017, not 1975. Oh look: a squirrel.
I'm afraid every government has bitter personal rivalries and hatreds. It does not necessarily prevent them from winning elections. Callaghan/Castle in the 60s and 70s. Thatcher versus the "wets". Thatcher/ Heseltine in 1986. Blair/Brown.
Then consider the potential in today's Labour Party for bitter civil war if they ever get into government.
And if Corbyn is running down the street to escape questions from tv reporters when he is in opposition, just imagine how he will react in the unlikely event he ever becomes PM -and how that will play out to voters.
To add to my previous post probably the greatest of May’s many failings is her complete inability to build a team. She builds factions or narrow cotieries which seek to exclude or disregard most of the party. They are impervious to advice and regard reservations as disloyalty. The fundamental problem is her. She needs to go.
No, the problem is that the massive upheaval of Brexit cannot be reconciled with the Conservatives' long-term USP of economic competence and being, well, conservative...
Except about 80% of current Tory voters are full on Brexiteers and voted for Brexit even when the Tory leader opposed it.
If the Tories abandon Brexit UKIP are waiting in the wings.
Perhaps if Farage came back - but Henry Bolton's UKIP has effectively disappeared and already splintered with the leadership candidates who came 2nd and 4th already leaving and forming their own parties and the 3rd placed one having a massive falling out and being sidelined. I expect many of those voters will just sit on their hands.
Farage would come back at the drop of a hat if the Tories abandoned Brexit.
Though a dead gerbil could lead UKIP and they would gain lots of Leaver votes if Brexit was abandoned.
If the UK were to countenance a party leader who's gone full on 'blame the Jews', we truly are f**ked.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
The Mail really doing a hatchet job on Andrea today.
Seems to be a case of attacking the victim not the perpetrator to me. I notice Tele reporting that Sir Michael resigned after a sexual assault allegation was made against him and Leadsom was not the deciding factor in his removal.
Either way clearly his position in the Cabinet was untenable.
From The Mail article, this little nugget:;
"Then a speech from 2013 came to light in which Leadsom had said: ‘I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty.’"
The Tory party and its ministers have been playing with the future of the country for their own advancement.
To add to my previous post probably the greatest of May’s many failings is her complete inability to build a team. She builds factions or narrow cotieries which seek to exclude or disregard most of the party. They are impervious to advice and regard reservations as disloyalty. The fundamental problem is her. She needs to go.
No, the problem is that the massive upheaval of Brexit cannot be reconciled with the Conservatives' long-term USP of economic competence and being, well, conservative...
What cannot both those things be true ?
Of course, they can. And I agree that May has proved underwhelming as a leader.
But I am not convinced any other leading Tory could have done a better job. They just offer a different kind of failure.
Further...
ConHome survey. "It’s a thumbs-down from Party members to all the main candidates to succeed May"
The Tories need a spell in opposition, so that their dead wood can be put out to grass and the younger ones can work out how to come to terms with the modern world.
For the record Ive always voted Labour (except once for the Lib Dems) but I wouldn't vote for them this time with Corbyn in charge. That's saying something when you consider the grizzly alternative.
Two overriding reasons. 1. His disloyalty to all previous leaders 2. He has the weakest shadow cabinet this country has ever seen including some who are literally morons (possibly with an IQ even lower than the SNP Westminster branch)
And the best Manifesto since WW2
Maybe he should hand it over to someone who hasn't been disloyal to every previous leader and one who would use all the talents in the parliamentary party not just ex girlfriends ex cronies and the few who didn't vote against him last year
You mean the disloyal talents.
Methinks you contradict yourself.
A fair point actually!
Also, Corbyn never - literally never, even privately - was disloyal to Blair or Brown personally. He still doesn't say a word against either of them, and readily agrees that they did many good things.
Setting aside the fact that Corbyn was literally the most disloyal Labour MP during that time, Corbyn has now to be judged by the behaviour of too many of his core supporters.
What is the membership of the LP now? 650 K? More, or less, it is a significant increase from even when Blair resigned, or even when he became PM.
As you should be aware, the art of politics is to do the possible, and leave the impossible till later. For too long, too many in the LP grassroots had been looked down upon by the "Intelligentsia of the Centre Right"/Blue(New)Labour. If Corbyn tried to stop the "antics that denigrate" he would be ignored which is definitely not in his game plan, on the other hand, by allowing them to let off steam, he is probably saving the political lives of those who wanted to be PM or in power....
' 126,000 households - including 60,000 pensioners - get help from the current scheme. From April they, and anyone else who can't keep up their mortgage payments, will only be offered a loan. '
Why are my taxes being used to pay the mortgages of 60,000 pensioners ???
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
A coronation of Cable was a major mistake. The LDs need a new generation to reinvent ourselves. Obviously pro-Europeanism will remain important, but at the moment it is the only policy. We will not win much as a single issue party.
We badly needed a leadership debate as a threshing process, and didn't get one. Cable is yesterdays man and tainted too much by tuition fees.
A Cable coronation was pretty much the only option, though. Lamb is too grey and too far removed from the activist base on key issues. Swinson looks like a good idea at first glance, but is arguably too shrill for the electorate, and her role in the Rennard coverup would not play well right now.
If she can retain OxWAB (and boundary changes wouldn't make that easier), Layla Moran is the one to watch.
I am not hugely convinced that the 650 MPs have come out of this any worse than a random collection of 650 lawyers, or professors, or middle managers.
The main problem actually seems to be the lack of a credible Ombudsman in Parliament, or in the political parties, to whom complainants can take their grievances. So, my view is that May seems to be doing the correct thing in focussing on the procedures in Parliament.
Without minimizing the effects of harassment or bullying in Parliament, nothing we have seen or heard from MPs is even remotely comparable to Weinstein, who seems to have operated on an industrial scale for decades. His alleged activities seem so monstrous, and have apparently been going on for so long with the tacit connivance of so many, that there really has to be more of a reckoning for the entertainment insustry.
So, it does seem truly astonishing to me that the UK analogues of Weinstein are being sought in Parliament. They should surely being sought in the media, TV and entertainment industries. They have long treated aspiring pretty young men and women as meat.
The media classes seem to have very successfully turned the powerful spotlight away from them with the help of quarrelling politicians settling old scores.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
I am not hugely convinced that the 650 MPs have come out of this any worse than a random collection of 650 lawyers, or professors, or middle managers.
The main problem actually seems to be the lack of a credible Ombudsman in Parliament, or in the political parties, to whom complainants can take their grievances. So, my view is that May seems to be doing the correct thing in focussing on the procedures in Parliament.
Without minimizing the effects of harassment or bullying in Parliament, nothing we have seen or heard from MPs is even remotely comparable to Weinstein, who seems to have operated on an industrial scale for decades. His alleged activities seem so monstrous, and have apparently been going on for so long with the tacit connivance of so many, that there really has to be more of a reckoning for the entertainment insustry.
So, it does seem truly astonishing to me that the UK analogues of Weinstein are being sought in Parliament. They should surely being sought in the media, TV and entertainment industries. They have long treated aspiring pretty young men and women as meat.
The media classes seem to have very successfully turned the powerful spotlight away from them with the help of quarrelling politicians settling old scores.
That's a persuasive argument but there are also team loyalties and if he felt that he could pleasure himself by voting against his party over 500 times knowing that if everyone had been similarly self indulgent his party would have been destroyed you have to question whether he's a leader or simply a selfish narcissist.
Well, I was largely a loyalist, as you know, though I still voted 35 times against the majority of colleagues. But if more of us had voted against on Iraq, or PFI, it would have forced a change of course, and who is to say that wouldn't have been a better thing?
Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn share what former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong on R4 today called a "somewhat naive" belief that you need to win votes by the power of argument, rather than the exercise of pressure (I wouldn't say that Gordon agreed). (Some of their supporters haven't got the memo, but it's repeated often enough.) Rather more consistently than Tony, Jeremy accepts it if he's unable to persuade the party (Trident, Nato) or it's obvious that the country has no time for it (republicanism). That does mean that a Corbyn government will be less left-wing that he and his team would like and others fear, since lots of MPs have limits how far they'd be willing to go.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, pooof. He's gone."
"Just because it's the Metropolitan elite who think most Leavers are nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals doesn't make it untrue."
In the same way, that even if many Remainers had perfectly good reasons to vote Remain, it doesn't mean that some aren't nasty and thick hypocrites, and with added arrogance.
You are at least honest, Roger. You don't pretend to believe in democracy, and I respect you for that. It certainly has its faults.
You only think democracy works because the weight of numbers irons out some of the faults. If the only voters were from the bingo club in Preston where Laura Kuenssberg did a vox pop and all of them turned out to be Nazis you too would find the result disturbing.
But, then, you may not like the alternatives. There's no guarantee that your side would be in power, in an undemocratic state.
I agree and for that reason it's least worst alternative. But that doesn't make it the holy grail. Hitler got 43% of the vote in 1933. Would we be hailing democracy in pre war Germany if he'd got 51%?
That was with a very high degree of voter intimidation by the Brownshirts, however.
In a fully, free and fair democratic Germany, with a functioning constitution and impartial civil police force, I expect the Nazis would have achieved between 32%-35% of the vote in 1933, gone into coalition, and then won re-election in c.1937 off the back of their economic record, and populist moves on the Rhineland, union with Austria (which would probably have been narrowly carried anyway) and pulling out of the League of Nations.
Obviously, once WWII kicked off, all bets were off (even we didn't have elections) but whilst they might have had strong Reichstag support for moving against Czechoslovakia, Poland would probably have been approached differently and I very much doubt they'd have won a vote to initiate total war with Russia, which was very much a Nazi obsession.
I am not hugely convinced that the 650 MPs have come out of this any worse than a random collection of 650 lawyers, or professors, or middle managers.
The main problem actually seems to be the lack of a credible Ombudsman in Parliament, or in the political parties, to whom complainants can take their grievances. So, my view is that May seems to be doing the correct thing in focussing on the procedures in Parliament.
Without minimizing the effects of harassment or bullying in Parliament, nothing we have seen or heard from MPs is even remotely comparable to Weinstein, who seems to have operated on an industrial scale for decades. His alleged activities seem so monstrous, and have apparently been going on for so long with the tacit connivance of so many, that there really has to be more of a reckoning for the entertainment insustry.
So, it does seem truly astonishing to me that the UK analogues of Weinstein are being sought in Parliament. They should surely being sought in the media, TV and entertainment industries. They have long treated aspiring pretty young men and women as meat.
The media classes seem to have very successfully turned the powerful spotlight away from them with the help of quarrelling politicians settling old scores.
+1
Yes Weinstein is a silly comparison. They should use Trump
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
Hm. Well of course being gay isn't a problem these days but being gay doesn't exempt you from following appropriate behavior and the rule of the law.
We'll just have to wait and see how many more allegations surface and how serious they are...
In breaking news today young political activist Juliet Capulet waived anonymity to make serious allegations against Romeo Montague, MP for Verona West. Fighting back tears she told a packed news conference: " It happened when I was only 13.I was standing on the balcony of my hotel at a family event. Mr Montague kept calling to me. He was staring at me and trying to look up my dress. Just,you know , perving at me. I did not know what to do. I reported the harassment to a senior official but he just laughed and suggested I take poison." Asked to comment. Mr Montague, who has since been promoted said:" I have no recollection of the incident. I don't roll like that. But I admit I was a bit star crossed at the time". The head of the Montague family has promised a full inquiry.
On topic, I think the Tories need to be careful that their intrinsic fear of a repeat of GE1997 all over again doesn't cripple them from taking any risks.
James Forsyth has penned an interesting article in The Sun today on the tension in the cabinet between May and Hammond on whether the solution to the housing crisis is for the State to fund more homebuilding, or to reform planning laws.
As he rightly points out, of course, they should do both. Many Conservative Governments have achieved political success off the back of extending and expanding home ownership.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, pooof. He's gone."
The greatest trick the Austrians have pulled is convincing the world that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler German.
But that's not to say "Labour win the next election". If that's 2022 I have no idea what the country will look like. Its not the mid 90s with a dynamic Labour party offering a bright future. We have no clear future beyong March 19. With mass upheaval comes shifting of tectonic plates. I cannot see how we do not get a new political party of significant size competing in that election. And that being the case analogies of Tories vs Labour feel redundant
Agree with most, but your forgetting that it was not Blair who made Labour electable, it was John Smith. On Smith's unfortunate and premature death, Blair took over as the heir apparent who took the party in a different direction away from the heart, which lead to a weakening of support from the membership. Corbyn has excited the core support who have come back in such numbers to the party.
Smith of course took on the unions with OMOV but while he would have won he would never have won a majority of 179 like Blair.
I think we will have to disagree. Smith was seen as a decent and honest person, respected and listened to by all. Heck, even at the Conservative party conference, there was a sense of shock and sorrow at his passing. If I remember correctly, the Tories cut short their conference in respect. Blair, without the background so carefully laid by Smith, would have been seen as the smarmy snake oil salesman that he actually came to be seen.
I tend to agree with that. John Smith would not have won a majority of 179 - but there was no need for a majority of that size. Had he become PM, I believe we would have avoided the disillusionment already apparent in 2001 - evidenced in the collapse in turnout to a level not seen since 1918.
"Just because it's the Metropolitan elite who think most Leavers are nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals doesn't make it untrue."
In the same way, that even if many Remainers had perfectly good reasons to vote Remain, it doesn't mean that some aren't nasty and thick hypocrites, and with added arrogance.
You are at least honest, Roger. You don't pretend to believe in democracy, and I respect you for that. It certainly has its faults.
You only think democracy works because the weight of numbers irons out some of the faults. If the only voters were from the bingo club in Preston where Laura Kuenssberg did a vox pop and all of them turned out to be Nazis you too would find the result disturbing.
But, then, you may not like the alternatives. There's no guarantee that your side would be in power, in an undemocratic state.
I agree and for that reason it's least worst alternative. But that doesn't make it the holy grail. Hitler got 43% of the vote in 1933. Would we be hailing democracy in pre war Germany if he'd got 51%?
That was with a very high degree of voter intimidation by the Brownshirts, however.
In a fully, free and fair democratic Germany, with a functioning constitution and impartial civil police force, I expect the Nazis would have achieved between 32%-35% of the vote in 1933, gone into coalition, and then won re-election in c.1937 off the back of their economic record, and populist moves on the Rhineland, union with Austria (which would probably have been narrowly carried anyway) and pulling out of the League of Nations.
Obviously, once WWII kicked off, all bets were off (even we didn't have elections) but whilst they might have had strong Reichstag support for moving against Czechoslovakia, Poland would probably have been approached differently and I very much doubt they'd have won a vote to initiate total war with Russia, which was very much a Nazi obsession.
The first two volumes of Victor Klemperer's diaries offer the best insight into pre-war and wartime Germany. Recommended as a hard going but rewarding read for those interested.
That's a persuasive argument but there are also team loyalties and if he felt that he could pleasure himself by voting against his party over 500 times knowing that if everyone had been similarly self indulgent his party would have been destroyed you have to question whether he's a leader or simply a selfish narcissist.
Well, I was largely a loyalist, as you know, though I still voted 35 times against the majority of colleagues. But if more of us had voted against on Iraq, or PFI, it would have forced a change of course, and who is to say that wouldn't have been a better thing?
Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn share what former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong on R4 today called a "somewhat naive" belief that you need to win votes by the power of argument, rather than the exercise of pressure (I wouldn't say that Gordon agreed). (Some of their supporters haven't got the memo, but it's repeated often enough.) Rather more consistently than Tony, Jeremy accepts it if he's unable to persuade the party (Trident, Nato) or it's obvious that the country has no time for it (republicanism). That does mean that a Corbyn government will be less left-wing that he and his team would like and others fear, since lots of MPs have limits how far they'd be willing to go.
I suggest it is blindingly obvious that it would have been a better thing. In the case of Iraq, this was reasonably obvious to any thinking person at the time.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
I think it depends on the depravity of the behaviour that comes out. And from what’s in the non-mainstream media it’s really quite bad.
Mr. Urquhart, I forget the precise year, but that will make it the first time in about 30 years the sport won't have a former team mate of Schumacher driving.
On topic, I think the Tories need to be careful that their intrinsic fear of a repeat of GE1997 all over again doesn't cripple them from taking any risks.
James Forsyth has penned an interesting article in The Sun today on the tension in the cabinet between May and Hammond on whether the solution to the housing crisis is for the State to fund more homebuilding, or to reform planning laws.
As he rightly points out, of course, they should do both. Many Conservative Governments have achieved political success off the back of extending and expanding home ownership.
I think to a large extent, the problem of housing affordability will solve itself in the next decade. Private housebuilding is currently growing rapidly, immigration from the EU will fall, buy to let is unattractive, and an increase in the absolute number of deaths will bring more properties on to the Market.
A coronation of Cable was a major mistake. The LDs need a new generation to reinvent ourselves. Obviously pro-Europeanism will remain important, but at the moment it is the only policy. We will not win much as a single issue party.
We badly needed a leadership debate as a threshing process, and didn't get one. Cable is yesterdays man and tainted too much by tuition fees.
A Cable coronation was pretty much the only option, though. Lamb is too grey and too far removed from the activist base on key issues. Swinson looks like a good idea at first glance, but is arguably too shrill for the electorate, and her role in the Rennard coverup would not play well right now.
If she can retain OxWAB (and boundary changes wouldn't make that easier), Layla Moran is the one to watch.
Or to win a Westminster By-election or two. But it is going to take at least two fixed government sessions of 5 years, with a new leadership team in place to become experienced and "bloodied" before they are going to get anywhere near the popularity they had under Kennedy. Whether the membership will be prepared to wait that long?.......
The EU referendum has changed everything in politics, and not in a good way.
There are many advantages about staying in the EU, but there are disadvantages too. Overall, I'd prefer to be governed by incompetent British politicians than by incompetent European ones, so I voted Leave.
But the response by some to the result has polarised things. The sheer overwhelming arrogance by some of what's been called the Metropolitan elite has been breath-taking. They lost a democratic vote but they refuse to accept it. They know better, they are the wise ones, the leavers were nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals and should never be allowed to make decisions.
This has provoked a mirror reaction by some of the Leavers. Should we stay in the EU now, for whatever reason, it will be blamed on the machinations of these unelected, self-appointed hypocrites who begin their sentences with "I accept the result of the referendum ... but." And who then proceed to show that they don't and never will.
The bitterness will last a long time and I worry for the future of political discussion, and even democracy. My own reaction ... I'll stop voting entirely, and remember that politics isn't all that important anyway - it's not like real life.
The Referendum has coincided with the big political shake out of the past 50 years, in which the working classes have moved rightwards, and the middle classes have moved leftwards.
Its been the working classes who have suffered mostly from the negative effects of globalisation whilst the middle classes have often benefitted.
As the middle classes increasingly suffer negative effects their views may well change.
The irony of course is that the Global Britain free trade paradise envisioned by the likes of Fox and co on the far right will serve those beset by globalisation even more harshly, especially as the safety nets will be ever weakened.
What follows worries me.
Most likely at the moment we get an end to free movement under the Tories and then a Corbyn minority government which ends austerity and bashes the rich which is what working class Leavers largely voted for.
And then the NHS closes down. Which they didn't vote for.
The EU referendum has changed everything in politics, and not in a good way.
There are many advantages about staying in the EU, but there are disadvantages too. Overall, I'd prefer to be governed by incompetent British politicians than by incompetent European ones, so I voted Leave.
But the response by some to the result has polarised things. The sheer overwhelming arrogance by some of what's been called the Metropolitan elite has been breath-taking. They lost a democratic vote but they refuse to accept it. They know better, they are the wise ones, the leavers were nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals and should never be allowed to make decisions.
This has provoked a mirror reaction by some of the Leavers. Should we stay in the EU now, for whatever reason, it will be blamed on the machinations of these unelected, self-appointed hypocrites who begin their sentences with "I accept the result of the referendum ... but." And who then proceed to show that they don't and never will.
The bitterness will last a long time and I worry for the future of political discussion, and even democracy. My own reaction ... I'll stop voting entirely, and remember that politics isn't all that important anyway - it's not like real life.
The Referendum has coincided with the big political shake out of the past 50 years, in which the working classes have moved rightwards, and the middle classes have moved leftwards.
Its been the working classes who have suffered mostly from the negative effects of globalisation whilst the middle classes have often benefitted.
As the middle classes increasingly suffer negative effects their views may well change.
The irony of course is that the Global Britain free trade paradise envisioned by the likes of Fox and co on the far right will serve those beset by globalisation even more harshly, especially as the safety nets will be ever weakened.
What follows worries me.
Most likely at the moment we get an end to free movement under the Tories and then a Corbyn minority government which ends austerity and bashes the rich which is what working class Leavers largely voted for.
And then the NHS closes down. Which they didn't vote for.
I don't quite see how that closes the NHS down, the economy will slow down with the higher taxes but much of any of the extra revenue raised would go to the NHS.
That's a persuasive argument but there are also team loyalties and if he felt that he could pleasure himself by voting against his party over 500 times knowing that if everyone had been similarly self indulgent his party would have been destroyed you have to question whether he's a leader or simply a selfish narcissist.
Well, I was largely a loyalist, as you know, though I still voted 35 times against the majority of colleagues. But if more of us had voted against on Iraq, or PFI, it would have forced a change of course, and who is to say that wouldn't have been a better thing?
Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn share what former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong on R4 today called a "somewhat naive" belief that you need to win votes by the power of argument, rather than the exercise of pressure (I wouldn't say that Gordon agreed). (Some of their supporters haven't got the memo, but it's repeated often enough.) Rather more consistently than Tony, Jeremy accepts it if he's unable to persuade the party (Trident, Nato) or it's obvious that the country has no time for it (republicanism). That does mean that a Corbyn government will be less left-wing that he and his team would like and others fear, since lots of MPs have limits how far they'd be willing to go.
I suggest it is blindingly obvious that it would have been a better thing. In the case of Iraq, this was reasonably obvious to any thinking person at the time.
Not just thinking people. It was obvious to many others as well. Heck, even Jeremy Corbyn got Iraq right.
(Borrowed with due admiration from David Howell's famous comment that Howe's 'Conflict of Loyalty' speech would have affected 'every thinking Conservative MP and many others as well.')
This is not back to the 1990s by any stretch, this is back to the 1970s.
Like then both parties have been divided by a major referendum on Europe, like then (as we no now) there is plenty of sexual impropriety about, the unions are flexing their muscles, inflation is rising and like then both parties are entrenched on around 40% of the vote.
Indeed there were an astonishing 4 general elections in the 1970s, all of which were reasonably close and 1 of which produced a hung parliament where the largest party even lost the popular vote. The 2010s may be heading for similar.
Yet the Tories are consistently polling 40%, a poll rating IDS, Hague and Howard would have given their eye teeth for. Yet more wishful thinking from the Europhile left.
Dumb to paint me as Europhile left when I've spent most my life on the Eurosceptic right. I even voted Hague in 2001!
I'm sorry, HYUFD - it's over.
Sorry having voted Remain in a country which voted Leave and when you did not votelide.
Every day you churn out your 42% mantras. It seems like the final straw ntly.
Why should he not? Nobody thought Attlee or Thatcher would get anywhere near the levers of power in 1945 or taken place.
I think you're wrong about both 1945 and 1979. In WWII, there was a clear indication from the success of Common Wealth candidates that there was a mood
Churchill clearly expected to win in 1945 and Callaghan treated Thatcher as a joke when she first became Tory leader. The fact like Corbyn she grew into the opposition leader role does not change the fact she was considered unelectable in 1975 as Corbyn was in 2015.
Churchill never had much feel for the electorate and the election was in 1979, not 1975. I'll take your migration on the point in question as evidence you concede it.
So what the election here was in 2017 when Corbyn got his unexpectedly good result not 2015 so the point still stands.
Your point was about 1945 and 1979. Not 2015, not 2017, not 1975. Oh look: a squirrel.
My point was that Churchill expected to win in 1945 and very few expected Thatcher to win in 1975 when she was elected just as very few expected Corbyn to make gains in 2015 when he became Labour leader.
Both points stand absolutely as made and neither have you done anything to refute.
Whether Labour (led by a guy who is 68), Conservative (PM who is 61) or Lib Dem 74, we are stuck with an aging political elite (average age 67 and a bit) - whilst Cameron was young ish, younger politicians seem so out of fashion, all so different from 2015 when they were all relatively young things......(Clegg, Cameron and Miliband)
Those "relatively young things" were rejected by the voters, either through their manifesto or their Referendum stance.
Basically they didn't get it - "it" being that the voters are not up for buying a pup. They've tried that - Blair, Cameron - and didn't like it, thank you very much.
Of course, they aren't liking experience much either, when it is the front and back of a wide-of-the-mark me-me-me election campaign; a retread Red Robbo (RIP) from the seventies; or a retread from the time when the LibDems could still ride two horses going in opposite directions...
Nobody older than 52 (Blair, 2005), has led any party to winning a majority in the last 30 years.
On the other hand I think I am right in saying that prior to that nobody younger than 48 (Wilson, 1964) had won a majority at a general election since 1812 (Lord Liverpool, 42).
Yes, I think so. Derby would have come very close in 1847 if he could have kept the Peelite faction on board (he was 48 at the time but then so was Wilson in 1964 so I'm assuming you're working with '48 and younger').
Yes. But the Peelites never had the slightest intention of working with Derby, and particularly Bentinck and Disraeli. So I think Wilson's crown is safe!
It is interesting to reflect that on raw numbers alone the Conservatives won every election from 1841 to 1860 - they could just never command a majority after 1846 and the other groupings - Whig, Peelite, Radical, Irish - agreed to keep them out of power. I wonder if we might face the same problem again for a few years? It's really hard to see how Labour, particularly the Kafkaesque version Corbyn leads, could win most seats, but as frequently discussed it's easy to see they could lead a government from second place if the Conservatives fall about 30 short.
I have to go and get a haircut. Have a good morning.
It is not difficult to see Labour getting more than 300 seats next time. Very likely to win 20 seats from the SNP plus a further 20 off the Tories. The Tories are likely to drop below 300.
There was not enough evidence to prove in a court of law that the guilty Conservatives in 2015 actually did know what they were doing. So they got away with it. On the other hand, the Electoral Commission whacked them with the heaviest fine it could. So guilty as anything, but not proven.
Their 2017 wrongdoings are, as far as I know, still under investigation.
We are still waiting to hear to what extent the polls and expectation were rigged by the Russians. And the Trump-Americans, of course. So that point is not valid either, Mr Kle.
Good to know that in our justice system, at the top of the tree sits not law lords, but LibDem opinion formers, to decide guilt or otherwise.
They were innocent. Get over it.
Those who wasted police time, on the other hand...
(Oh, and you seem to have forgotten that the LibDems also got handed a fine by the Electoral Commission.)
Oh, and while we're at Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard....... No prosecution because of insufficient evidence. So he's innocent. Or not, by LibDem standards.
' 126,000 households - including 60,000 pensioners - get help from the current scheme. From April they, and anyone else who can't keep up their mortgage payments, will only be offered a loan. '
Why are my taxes being used to pay the mortgages of 60,000 pensioners ???
I think if their income has become so low they qualify for pension credit.
"Just because it's the Metropolitan elite who think most Leavers are nasty, thick, racist knuckle-dragging Neanderthals doesn't make it untrue."
In the same way, that even if many Remainers had perfectly good reasons to vote Remain, it doesn't mean that some aren't nasty and thick hypocrites, and with added arrogance.
You are at least honest, Roger. You don't pretend to believe in democracy, and I respect you for that. It certainly has its faults.
You only think democracy works because the weight of numbers irons out some of the faults. If the only voters were from the bingo club in Preston where Laura Kuenssberg did a vox pop and all of them turned out to be Nazis you too would find the result disturbing.
But, then, you may not like the alternatives. There's no guarantee that your side would be in power, in an undemocratic state.
I agree and for that reason it's least worst alternative. But that doesn't make it the holy grail. Hitler got 43% of the vote in 1933. Would we be hailing democracy in pre war Germany if he'd got 51%?
That was with a very high degree of voter intimidation by the Brownshirts, however.
In a fully, free and fair democratic Germany, with a functioning constitution and impartial civil police force, I expect the Nazis would have achieved between 32%-35% of the vote in 1933, gone into coalition, and then won re-election in c.1937 off the back of their economic record, and populist moves on the Rhineland, union with Austria (which would probably have been narrowly carried anyway) and pulling out of the League of Nations.
Obviously, once WWII kicked off, all bets were off (even we didn't have elections) but whilst they might have had strong Reichstag support for moving against Czechoslovakia, Poland would probably have been approached differently and I very much doubt they'd have won a vote to initiate total war with Russia, which was very much a Nazi obsession.
The first two volumes of Victor Klemperer's diaries offer the best insight into pre-war and wartime Germany. Recommended as a hard going but rewarding read for those interested.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
I'm reading Simon Heffer's latest book at the moment: The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914.
If you're not a fan of his, don't let the author's name put you off.
It's a surprisingly objective read, even if he can go on a bit, and, what struck me, is just how contemporary it feels by really immersing you in the politics of the 1880s and 1890s, particularly on issues like housing, land reform, extending the franchise and home rule in Ireland.
On topic, I think the Tories need to be careful that their intrinsic fear of a repeat of GE1997 all over again doesn't cripple them from taking any risks.
James Forsyth has penned an interesting article in The Sun today on the tension in the cabinet between May and Hammond on whether the solution to the housing crisis is for the State to fund more homebuilding, or to reform planning laws.
As he rightly points out, of course, they should do both. Many Conservative Governments have achieved political success off the back of extending and expanding home ownership.
I think to a large extent, the problem of housing affordability will solve itself in the next decade. Private housebuilding is currently growing rapidly, immigration from the EU will fall, buy to let is unattractive, and an increase in the absolute number of deaths will bring more properties on to the Market.
Perhaps, but this Government only has 4 years to make its impact felt.
It needs demonstrable progress on affordability for the under 40s in London and the South-East as part of its narrative for GE2022, if it can last that long.
Whether Labour (led by a guy who is 68), Conservative (PM who is 61) or Lib Dem 74, we are stuck with an aging political elite (average age 67 and a bit) - whilst Cameron was young ish, younger politicians seem so out of fashion, all so different from 2015 when they were all relatively young things......(Clegg, Cameron and Miliband)
Those "relatively young things" were rejected by the voters, either through their manifesto or their Referendum stance.
Basically they didn't get it - "it" being that the voters are not up for buying a pup. They've tried that - Blair, Cameron - and didn't like it, thank you very much.
Of course, they aren't liking experience much either, when it is the front and back of a wide-of-the-mark me-me-me election campaign; a retread Red Robbo (RIP) from the seventies; or a retread from the time when the LibDems could still ride two horses going in opposite directions...
Nobody older than 52 (Blair, 2005), has led any party to winning a majority in the last 30 years.
On the other hand I think I am right in saying that prior to that nobody younger than 48 (Wilson, 1964) had won a majority at a general election since 1812 (Lord Liverpool, 42).
Yes, I think so. Derby would have come very close in 1847 if he could have kept the Peelite faction on board (he was 48 at the time but then so was Wilson in 1964 so I'm assuming you're working with '48 and younger').
Yes. But the Peelites never had the slightest intention of working with Derby, and particularly Bentinck and Disraeli. So I think Wilson's crown is safe!
It is interesting to reflect that on raw numbers alone the Conservatives won every election from 1841 to 1860 - they could just never command a majority after 1846 and the other groupings - Whig, Peelite, Radical, Irish - agreed to keep them out of power. I wonder if we might face the same problem again for a few years? It's really hard to see how Labour, particularly the Kafkaesque version Corbyn leads, could win most seats, but as frequently discussed it's easy to see they could lead a government from second place if the Conservatives fall about 30 short.
I have to go and get a haircut. Have a good morning.
It is not difficult to see Labour getting more than 300 seats next time. Very likely to win 20 seats from the SNP plus a further 20 off the Tories. The Tories are likely to drop below 300.
Which 20 do you see them taking off the Tories? And are you certain they won't lose any themselves?
Whether Labour (led by a guy who is 68), Conservative (PM who is 61) or Lib Dem 74, we are stuck with an aging political elite (average age 67 and a bit) - whilst Cameron was young ish, younger politicians seem so out of fashion, all so different from 2015 when they were all relatively young things......(Clegg, Cameron and Miliband)
Those "relatively young things" were rejected by the voters, either through their manifesto or their Referendum stance.
Basically they didn't get it - "it" being that the voters are not up for buying a pup. They've tried that - Blair, Cameron - and didn't like it, thank you very much.
Of course, they aren't liking experience much either, when it is the front and back of a wide-of-the-mark me-me-me election campaign; a retread Red Robbo (RIP) from the seventies; or a retread from the time when the LibDems could still ride two horses going in opposite directions...
Nobody older than 52 (Blair, 2005), has led any party to winning a majority in the last 30 years.
On the other hand I think I am right in saying that prior to that nobody younger than 48 (Wilson, 1964) had won a majority at a general election since 1812 (Lord Liverpool, 42).
Yes, I think so. Derby would have come very close in 1847 if he could have kept the Peelite faction on board (he was 48 at the time but then so was Wilson in 1964 so I'm assuming you're working with '48 and younger').
Yes. But the Peelites never had the slightest intention of working with Derby, and particularly Bentinck and Disraeli. So I think Wilson's crown is safe!
It is interesting to reflect that on raw numbers alone the Conservatives won every election from 1841good morning.
It is not difficult to see Labour getting more than 300 seats next time. Very likely to win 20 seats from the SNP plus a further 20 off the Tories. The Tories are likely to drop below 300.
On present polling Scotland would be largely unchanged from June but there would be a roughly 2% swing from the Tories to Labour which would probably see the Tories as largest party but a Labour minority government propped up by the SNP and LDs.
I don't quite see how that closes the NHS down, the economy will slow down with the higher taxes but much of any of the extra revenue raised would go to the NHS.
When the Labour Party is already admitting they need to make preparations for a flight of capital if they get elected - which preparations will be in place only after the horse has long bolted if they look like winning - then those who pay for the NHS will have departed the UK tax regime. If Labour gets elected under Corbyn,
' 126,000 households - including 60,000 pensioners - get help from the current scheme. From April they, and anyone else who can't keep up their mortgage payments, will only be offered a loan. '
Why are my taxes being used to pay the mortgages of 60,000 pensioners ???
I think if their income has become so low they qualify for pension credit.
Given they are pensioners their mortgages should have been taken out in the 1990s when house prices were much lower with consequently lower mortgage payments.
Unless since then they've MEWed themselves an unearned lifestyle.
I don't quite see how that closes the NHS down, the economy will slow down with the higher taxes but much of any of the extra revenue raised would go to the NHS.
When the Labour Party is already admitting they need to make preparations for a flight of capital if they get elected - which preparations will be in place only after the horse has long bolted if they look like winning - then those who pay for the NHS will have departed the UK tax regime. If Labour gets elected under Corbyn,
"– I warn you not to be ordinary
– I warn you not to be young
– I warn you not to fall ill
– I warn you not to get old.”
The economy may crash, the City may weaken, strikes may increase and many of the rich may move abroad (though if Melenchon and Sanders get in left wing populism may not be unique to the UK) but the NHS will be about the least of our problems given most of any extra tax revenue will go to it and the middle classes are likely ultimately to be hit by higher taxes to pay for it and not just the rich.
Whether Labour (led by a guy who is 68), Conservative (PM who is 61) or Lib Dem 74, we are stuck with an aging political elite (average age 67 and a bit) - whilst Cameron was young ish, younger politicians seem so out of fashion, all so different from 2015 when they were all relatively young things......(Clegg, Cameron and Miliband)
Those "relatively young things" were rejected by the voters, either through their manifesto or their Referendum stance.
Basically they didn't get it - "it" being that the voters are not up for buying a pup. They've tried that - Blair, Cameron - and didn't like it, thank you very much.
Of course, they aren't liking experience much either, when it is the front and back of a wide-of-the-mark me-me-me election campaign; a retread Red Robbo (RIP) from the seventies; or a retread from the time when the LibDems could still ride two horses going in opposite directions...
Nobody older than 52 (Blair, 2005), has led any party to winning a majority in the last 30 years.
On the other hand I think I am right in saying that prior to that nobody younger than 48 (Wilson, 1964) had won a majority at a general election since 1812 (Lord Liverpool, 42).
Yes, I think so. Derby would have come very close in 1847 if he could have kept the Peelite faction on board (he was 48 at the time but then so was Wilson in 1964 so I'm assuming you're working with '48 and younger').
Yes. But the Peelites never had the slightest intention of working with Derby, and particularly Bentinck and Disraeli. So I think Wilson's crown is safe!
It is interesting to reflect that on raw numbers alone the Conservatives won every election from 1841 to 1860 - they could just never command a majority after 1846 and the other groupings - Whig, Peelite, Radical, Irish - agreed to keep them out of power. I wonder if we might face the same problem again for a few years? It's really hard to see how Labour, particularly the Kafkaesque version Corbyn leads, could win most seats, but as frequently discussed it's easy to see they could lead a government from second place if the Conservatives fall about 30 short.
I have to go and get a haircut. Have a good morning.
It is not difficult to see Labour getting more than 300 seats next time. Very likely to win 20 seats from the SNP plus a further 20 off the Tories. The Tories are likely to drop below 300.
20 from SNP -- not on recent polling + tactical support will unwind.
' 126,000 households - including 60,000 pensioners - get help from the current scheme. From April they, and anyone else who can't keep up their mortgage payments, will only be offered a loan. '
Why are my taxes being used to pay the mortgages of 60,000 pensioners ???
I think if their income has become so low they qualify for pension credit.
Given they are pensioners their mortgages should have been taken out in the 1990s when house prices were much lower.
Unless since then they've MEWed themselves an unearned lifestyle.
I'm assuming there's some significance to that phrase beyond the fact cats always miaow when they demand feeding - and they are always demanding feeding - but I can't see it. Could you enlighten me please?
I don't quite see how that closes the NHS down, the economy will slow down with the higher taxes but much of any of the extra revenue raised would go to the NHS.
When the Labour Party is already admitting they need to make preparations for a flight of capital if they get elected - which preparations will be in place only after the horse has long bolted if they look like winning - then those who pay for the NHS will have departed the UK tax regime. If Labour gets elected under Corbyn,
"– I warn you not to be ordinary
– I warn you not to be young
– I warn you not to fall ill
– I warn you not to get old.”
The economy may crash, the City may weaken, strikes may increase and many of the rich may move abroad (though if Melenchon and Sanders get in left wing populism may not be unique to the UK) but the NHS will be about the least of our problems given most of any extra tax revenue will go to it and the middle classes are likely ultimately to be hit by higher taxes to pay for it and not just the rich.
The people who always hurt the most when Labour Governments fail the economy - as they inevitably do, because their business model is fundamentally broken - are the poorest in society. Those with least lose most - their future.
Entertainment company Netflix has severed ties with Kevin Spacey, star of its House of Cards show, amid a number of sex assault allegations against him.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
Kev is a Democrat supporting friend of the Clintons. He's obviously the innocent victim of a witch hunt.
Kev did star in The Usual Suspects and Se7en so he will always have that going for him as well...
Keyser Soze!
....And American Beauty thoght I'm not sure he'll be talking too much about that one at the moment!
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
I don't think in the long run it'll damage him at all or even his future work. For better or worse people don't see gay bad behaviour in the same way they do straight. It's complicated but when the dust settles I think you'll see this is true.
Netflix have said they will have nothing to do with a House of Cards that has Spacey in it and are discussing the remaining episodes with the production company. They also will not air his film about Gore Vidal which has been shot and is in post production.
Comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5048409/Andrew-Pierce-writes-Andrea-Leadsom.html
1, Thousands Of Foreign Criminals Are On The Run
The Home Office has lost track of tens of thousands of foreign nationals liable to be deported, an independent inspector has found.
2, A National Insurance Tax Hike For The Self-Employed
A tax cut trumpeted as a boost for self-employed people has been scrapped, it has emerged.
3 Ministers Have Been Forced To Backtrack On PIP Payments
Thousands of disabled people will receive hundreds of pounds more in benefits each month after the Government was forced into an embarrassing about-turn on PIP payments.
Meanwhile Charlie Elphicke still, apparently, doesn’t know what he’s supposed to have done!
Ho Hum.
Edited. Omitted a word which changed whole sense!
Seems to be a case of attacking the victim not the perpetrator to me. I notice Tele reporting that Sir Michael resigned after a sexual assault allegation was made against him and Leadsom was not the deciding factor in his removal.
Either way clearly his position in the Cabinet was untenable.
But I am not convinced any other leading Tory could have done a better job. They just offer a different kind of failure.
You have simply pointed out that the other door to the cage is also locked.
Might be for you. But that kind of avowed little-Englander racism also makes me ashamed of my country.
How many of your showbiz/actor/luvvie mates are in a panic-stricken state waiting for the Sunday papers?
Ahh, I see what you did there.
But I am sure Rog told us that Kevin had handled this brilliantly and done nothing wrong....
God alone knows what tomorrow's front pages are going to be. More heads to roll I suspect.
Express what I feel?
Though it will be referred to as 'maintaining professional standards' or suchlike.
Didn't the British win? Get over it etc.
Why Sir Michael Fallon had to resign: Search for HMS Vigiliant. Sometimes I wonder about your collective intelligence (Yokel excepted)....
-------------------------------------------------------
Doesn’t make me ashamed of my country. Ashamed of some of the people in it, though!
There seems to be no end to the sleezy blokes she's associated with.
Wankers acting like wankers doesn't ever make me feel ashamed of my country. It makes me think they are wankers.
So I see that locally too many of the core activists that saw the party through the last decade have dropped out or even resigned, sickened at the antics that denigrate anyone who choses not to play ball by signing up to the cult of the personality and a far left agenda. It is positively Orwellian. The Labour Party is weakened by that. The party is stuck only a couple of % points ahead in the polls even while the Tories are in effective meltdown.
Sexual-abuse is different. Why the police was not informed/interested may explain a lot.
But as we're casting so much sunlight into all these dark and dingy places I'm wondering when the light will be turned on to journalists themselves?
Or are we meant to believe journo's are paragons of virtue who would never dream of drinking vast amounts of alcohol and being highly inappropriate with co-workers?
Or is stuff on Bojo to be redacted?
Then consider the potential in today's Labour Party for bitter civil war if they ever get into government.
And if Corbyn is running down the street to escape questions from tv reporters when he is in opposition, just imagine how he will react in the unlikely event he ever becomes PM -and how that will play out to voters.
*Spoiler Alert* *Spoiler Alert* *Spoiler Alert*
Nonetheless one of Hollywood's finest actors
"Then a speech from 2013 came to light in which Leadsom had said: ‘I don’t think the UK should leave the EU. I think it would be a disaster for our economy and it would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty.’"
The Tory party and its ministers have been playing with the future of the country for their own advancement.
ConHome survey. "It’s a thumbs-down from Party members to all the main candidates to succeed May"
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/11/our-survey-its-a-thumbs-down-from-party-members-to-all-the-main-leadership-candidates.html
The Tories need a spell in opposition, so that their dead wood can be put out to grass and the younger ones can work out how to come to terms with the modern world.
Just like Kevin Spacey's career...
As you should be aware, the art of politics is to do the possible, and leave the impossible till later. For too long, too many in the LP grassroots had been looked down upon by the "Intelligentsia of the Centre Right"/Blue(New)Labour. If Corbyn tried to stop the "antics that denigrate" he would be ignored which is definitely not in his game plan, on the other hand, by allowing them to let off steam, he is probably saving the political lives of those who wanted to be PM or in power....
Why are my taxes being used to pay the mortgages of 60,000 pensioners ???
People will look at American Beauty in a new light from now on I suspect.
He was/is a great actor. Portillo made the point on This Week that you have to differentiate the artist from the art.
However bad the Spacey revelations get (and at this point it looks like they are going to get pretty bad) I hope it won't damage the credibility of his past work...
If she can retain OxWAB (and boundary changes wouldn't make that easier), Layla Moran is the one to watch.
The main problem actually seems to be the lack of a credible Ombudsman in Parliament, or in the political parties, to whom complainants can take their grievances. So, my view is that May seems to be doing the correct thing in focussing on the procedures in Parliament.
Without minimizing the effects of harassment or bullying in Parliament, nothing we have seen or heard from MPs is even remotely comparable to Weinstein, who seems to have operated on an industrial scale for decades. His alleged activities seem so monstrous, and have apparently been going on for so long with the tacit connivance of so many, that there really has to be more of a reckoning for the entertainment insustry.
So, it does seem truly astonishing to me that the UK analogues of Weinstein are being sought in Parliament. They should surely being sought in the media, TV and entertainment industries. They have long treated aspiring pretty young men and women as meat.
The media classes seem to have very successfully turned the powerful spotlight away from them with the help of quarrelling politicians settling old scores.
Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn share what former Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong on R4 today called a "somewhat naive" belief that you need to win votes by the power of argument, rather than the exercise of pressure (I wouldn't say that Gordon agreed). (Some of their supporters haven't got the memo, but it's repeated often enough.) Rather more consistently than Tony, Jeremy accepts it if he's unable to persuade the party (Trident, Nato) or it's obvious that the country has no time for it (republicanism). That does mean that a Corbyn government will be less left-wing that he and his team would like and others fear, since lots of MPs have limits how far they'd be willing to go.
In a fully, free and fair democratic Germany, with a functioning constitution and impartial civil police force, I expect the Nazis would have achieved between 32%-35% of the vote in 1933, gone into coalition, and then won re-election in c.1937 off the back of their economic record, and populist moves on the Rhineland, union with Austria (which would probably have been narrowly carried anyway) and pulling out of the League of Nations.
Obviously, once WWII kicked off, all bets were off (even we didn't have elections) but whilst they might have had strong Reichstag support for moving against Czechoslovakia, Poland would probably have been approached differently and I very much doubt they'd have won a vote to initiate total war with Russia, which was very much a Nazi obsession.
We'll just have to wait and see how many more allegations surface and how serious they are...
James Forsyth has penned an interesting article in The Sun today on the tension in the cabinet between May and Hammond on whether the solution to the housing crisis is for the State to fund more homebuilding, or to reform planning laws.
As he rightly points out, of course, they should do both. Many Conservative Governments have achieved political success off the back of extending and expanding home ownership.
Might it be the same way the world's largest producer of grain ran out of food?
Good luck to Paul di Resta on getting the gig.
(Borrowed with due admiration from David Howell's famous comment that Howe's 'Conflict of Loyalty' speech would have affected 'every thinking Conservative MP and many others as well.')
Both points stand absolutely as made and neither have you done anything to refute.
They were innocent. Get over it.
Those who wasted police time, on the other hand...
(Oh, and you seem to have forgotten that the LibDems also got handed a fine by the Electoral Commission.)
Oh, and while we're at Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard.
Lord Rennard....... No prosecution because of insufficient evidence. So he's innocent. Or not, by LibDem standards.
I'm reading Simon Heffer's latest book at the moment: The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914.
If you're not a fan of his, don't let the author's name put you off.
It's a surprisingly objective read, even if he can go on a bit, and, what struck me, is just how contemporary it feels by really immersing you in the politics of the 1880s and 1890s, particularly on issues like housing, land reform, extending the franchise and home rule in Ireland.
It needs demonstrable progress on affordability for the under 40s in London and the South-East as part of its narrative for GE2022, if it can last that long.
"– I warn you not to be ordinary
– I warn you not to be young
– I warn you not to fall ill
– I warn you not to get old.”
Unless since then they've MEWed themselves an unearned lifestyle.
So the assasin would be aged 50+. He would also be a cold, calculating person (and a Turk). Do a thesis....
:tumbleweed: