So two out of the three polls conducted in the aftermath of the defeat for the Government has shown no discernible change in VI, hopefully we shall see some more polling in the next few days, which will help us determine whether the YouGov was the harbinger of a period of increased Labour leads, or just an outlier.
Comments
Cameron is humiliated by that swing..
Harry Phibbs @harryph 10m
ICM poll for BBC says by 39%/33% voters disapprove of Ed Miliband's handling of Syria. Disapprove of Cameron's handling of Syria by 42%/40%.
Mike Smithson @MSmithsonPB 18m
The Panelbase SNP #indyref poll with YES lead did not ask voting question first. Previous questions likely to have influenced response
http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/news/scotland/gordon-brown-s-positive-case-for-union-1.126132
What was his excuse on Thursday?
Would it have been an easy decision, or a difficult, heart-breaking one?
Hence my incredulity that UKIP were worse.
"Wheres the Gordon?"
We all know where he is of course .. in Govan .. with guess who, Unite.
Long way by plane .. London to Govan.
Heart-breaking, pshaw and tarradiddle. Given the importance of the debate and vote to Stewart's career and lots of brown peoples' lives his sister would be an utter cow not to countenance his absence.
Should
Have
Made
The
Vote.
As should have 75% of the other numpties.
Not to say there wasn't a deal of numptiness at No.10, that said.
Ill discipline trumps treachery.
Ian Austin (Labour)
Robert Blackman-Woods (Labour)
Hazel Blears (Labour)
Paul Blomfield (Labour)
Gordon Brown (Labour)
Richard Burden (Labour)
Sarah Champion (Labour)
Michael Connarty (Labour)
Rosie Cooper (Labour)
David Crausby (Labour)
John Cryer (Labour)
Ian Davidson (Labour )
Yvonne Fovargue (Labour)
Lilian Greenwood (Labour)
Peter Hain (Labour)
David Hanson (Labour)
David Heyes (Labour)
Sharon Hodgson (Labour)
Diana Johnson (Labour)
Barbara Keeley (Labour)
Andrew Love (Labour )
Siobhain McDonagh (Labour)
Austin Mitchell (Labour)
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour)
Emma Reynolds (Labour)
Dame Joan Ruddock (Labour)
Angela Smith (Labour)
John Spellar (Labour)
Karl Turner (Labour)
Shaun Woodward (Labour)
Just 30 then !!
As for your 'utter cow' comment: that says more about you than Stewart or his sister. Families and relationships are complex things at the best of times. People have all sorts of reasons for wanting people there on their wedding day, or even, in some sad cases, to stay away. It is very difficult to judge these from the outside.
As for your 'brown people's lives' : do you want to rephrase that?
(I was once with a French friend in the national gallery and we found ourselves in front of a famous classical piece - can't remember who but a very famous one. Titian? Rembrandt? Can't remember. But there was alot going on - angels, cherubs, naked people in odd poses, sky, clouds, animals, symbolism of god knows what. Jean Francois looked at it for a minute, turned to me and said: 'What a mess.' I suddenly felt better. That's probably the best and most accurate bit of art criticism the piece ever received).
Ooh I'm a goth!
Broadly speaking, if Assad is linked with further chemical weapons attacks, or other atrocities, this will be seen by many as confirming the government position - the stronger the evidence of Assad's guilt, the stronger the confirmation - and the government will get a boost for having been right all along.
If, however, the rebels are linked to chemical weapons, past or future, or to other atrocities, this will be seen as confirming that Syria is a quagmire we should stay well away from - again, the stronger the evidence, the stronger the perceived confirmation - and Labour will benefit for having been proved right.
Thus, for the next few months, both government and opposition are at the mercy of events in Syria, but only for the next few months. Trying to link a Syrian atrocity to a parliamentary vote 15 months earlier would be seen as weak.
There are, of course, a lot more than just two possibilities for the future of Syria, but the two I listed are the only plausible ones that would impact UK parties unequally. If, for instance, Assad drops dead with a stroke, no UK party would get any credit or blame.
You have to remember that in the world of Labour, MPs do not attend their siblings' weddings.
Otherwise the marriage table meats would soon coldly furnish forth the funeral table.
And yes, the evening part of a wedding can be important as well. But we still don't know what time the wedding was - was it morning, afternoon, early evening?
At the end of the day, it doesn't even matter. He chose to support his sister on the most important day of her life. As much as I would have liked to have heard his input on the debate, I find I can't criticise him for that. It's not as if he timed the wedding to avoid the debate or vote.
Still, as you refuse to answer even simple questions about what you would have done, there seems little point in trying to persuade you otherwise.
What are the Labour MP's excuses ?!?
We'll give you a pass on Gordon Brown as he gives the Commons a pass all the time !!
With all the recent stories of attacks on mosques, I view this story with alarm. Very much from my neck o' the woods:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-23047099
Still the Miliband "Red Wedding" would have made Game of Thrones look like Magic Roundabout..
'Still no news of the AWOL Labour MP's ?!?'
More importantly where was Gordon I saved the world.
ordinary people."
https://twitter.com/
M4COnline/status/374508115212763136/photo/1
Communication, Communication, Communication.
Sorry Patrick but both you and Sean T (esp Sean T) are wrong re Seamus Heaney. Try "Mid-Term Break". I've been reading Heaney's poetry since I was at school (and may be biased because I won a drama prize once for my recitation of one of his poems - "Follower") and think he is far from pretentious. If anything he brings to life a very Irish sensibility about families and ordinary lives.
I was in Dublin last week when Heaney died and it was interesting to see how big a story it was - even the taxi driver discussed it and quoted bits of his favourite poetry (by Oliver Goldsmith) and another fine Irish writer - the late John McGahern (who, IMHO, with William Trevor) is one of the best writers of recent years.
Hard to think of any cultural figure here who would command such attention here - our papers write interminable rubbish about the birth of a baby or the death of Michael Jackson - a total waste of trees and ink!
BTW it was also interesting to see how N Irish MPs explained their "no" vote on Syria. One said that he was concerned about the position of Christian communities in Syria and that voting for military action would result in a greater threat to their safety from some of the anti-Assad forces. This is not a negligible threat: politicians agonising over gassed children were remarkably quiet on the public beheading by anti-Assad groups in front of a cheering crowd of a Syrian Catholic priest. The Irish papers have had a number of articles about the increasingly desperate plight of Christian communities in the Middle East since the so-called Arab "spring" and the strange reluctance of Western liberals to be concerned about this.. Worth remembering that Christians have been in the Middle East for far longer than Muslims.
More Osborne Cries At Funeral Look Squirrel.
Average of latest polls from each firm:
CDU/CSU: 40.14%
SPD: 24.50%
Green: 12.07%
Linke: 8.14%
FDP: 5.86%
AfD: 2.71%
Others: 6.57%
CDU/CSU / FDP: 46.00%
SPD/Green / Linke: 44.71%
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm
UK Markit CIPS Manufacturing PMIs published this morning and we have take off.
After the solid increases in output and new orders registered in July, August saw the momentum continue to build, with growth rates for both variables at their highest since 1994.
The seasonally adjusted Markit/CIPS Purchasing Manager’s Index® (PMI®) hit a two-and-a-half year high of 57.2 in August, up from a revised reading of 54.8 in July (previously reported as 54.6). The PMI has signalled expansion for five successive months.
Manufacturing output increased at the fastest pace since July 1994, with marked expansions signalled across the consumer, intermediate and investment goods sectors. ...
New orders rose for the sixth month running and to the greatest degree since August 1994. ...
Companies linked higher order volumes to successful new product launches, promotional activity and improved client confidence. ...
On the export side, there were reports of stronger demand from the USA, China, mainland Europe, India, Scandinavia, Brazil and Ireland.
Not only good news but better than expected. Consensus view was the UK Manufacturing PMI would be 55.0.
But there are a few dark clouds. Input prices rose at the fastest rate for two years and at an above survey average pace. The month-on-month upward movement in the Input Prices Index (10.4 points) was the second-steepest in the survey history. Companies reported higher prices paid for commodities, feedstock, oil, paper, polymers and timber. Average selling prices also increased, but to a much lesser degree than registered for costs.
Mark Carney will not have liked that.
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/3376676
Not worth getting heated over this, but in my view this was a career-threatening error and Stewart keeps digging. When he blogs "Thursday’s vote in the House of Commons was both moving and troubling", one supplies the missing "but the Best Man's speech was an absolute corker".
One hundred years ago, Arab Nationalism was dominated by Christian Arabs. They'd have done far better sticking with the Ottomans.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTKTgFwCIAEhiH4.jpg:large
I can't criticise him for attending his sister's wedding. Families are important and since none of us know his family circumstances we're not in a position to judge. It seems to be a better reason for non-attendance than some of the others - and non-attendance at Parliamentary debates does not stop plenty of people here opining relentlessly on the issue du jour......
'After the coalition invasion of Iraq, he was appointed the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-Ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar, two provinces in southern Iraq.'
This is one of those occasions where what has happened is much more important than most people have appreciated (in stark contrast to most Westminster stories, where the general public have a much better sense than the political obsessives of the importance of a story).
The democratisation of foreign policy has minuses as well as plusses, though I'm generally in favour of it. It makes it much harder for the government to set a coherent policy if on the very largest points it is vulnerable to being overruled by the Parliamentary footsoldiers (this, incidentally, why the Government was correct to oppose Ed Miliband's motion - Governments can't be expected to implement a policy set by the Opposition; such votes should be used to set differing philosophies, not an attempt at drafting by committee).
The Government's preferred foreign policy on Syria has been rejected by Parliament. It now has to decide whether to invest more political capital in getting something that Parliament will accept or to decide that the baton passes to others. It seems to have decided on the second course of action, and given the other challenges facing Britain, that seems sensible enough.
Incredible scenes in Govan as someone mentions today's Panelbase poll to Gordon Brown. http://twitpic.com/dbli8i
I am still bemused as to how the growth forecasts for this year are around the 1.3% level. We had 0.3% in Q1, 0.7% in Q2, we look like we are going to have at least 0.7% in Q3 and prehaps 0.6% in Q4. Why does that not amount to 0.3+0.7+0.7 +.0.6 = 2.3% growth? I really don't understand how the annual figure can be a full 1% less than the quarterly figures. Logic seems to indicate that it should in fact be more because the growth is on a slightly higher base each quarter.
"Syria intervention: is there a new constitutional convention?
Does PM's decision to seek approval of MPs for military action signal a shift in power from government to parliament?"
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/sep/02/syria-military-action-constitutional-convention
American Football
Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!
Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.
We did it.
Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.
http://t.co/8kj8uzRoJs
'Chuckles Umanu is now attacking the govt for exporting the components to Syria to make Sarin which it disputes Assad used..confused or what..'
Words of wisdom from 'voters are trash' guru.
The dwarf with his hands on backwards
sat, slumped like a half-filled sack
on tiny twisted legs from which
sawdust might run,
outside the three tiers of churches built
in honour of St Francis, brother
of the poor, talker with birds, over whom
he had the advantage
of not being dead yet.
A priest explained
how clever it was of Giotto
to make his frescoes tell stories
that would reveal to the illiterate the goodness
of God and the suffering
of His Son. I understood
the explanation and
the cleverness.
A rush of tourists, clucking contentedly,
fluttered after him as he scattered
the grain of the Word. It was they who had passed
the ruined temple outside, whose eyes
wept pus, whose back was higher
than his head, whose lopsided mouth
said Grazie in a voice as sweet
as a child's when she speaks to her mother
or a bird's when it spoke
to St Francis.
You could write entire books about the hypocritical myopia of the western "cultural" liberal (with a small l") and the church and say less about their fundamental inhumanity.
So far as Shakespeare is concerned Plato your error (probably induced by school) was to read it. Go to the Globe and see it the way it was supposed to be.
GDP growth forecasts
Over the weekend, when PB was up and down faster than Luciana Berger's bloomers, I had an exchange of posts with JohnO on just this question. Here goes:
The British Chambers of Commerce upward revision to 1.3% of its UK GDP growth forecast for 2013 is broadly in line with other forecast revisions.
This I believe reflects a couple of factors:
1. Natural caution in a climate of volatile performance. It should be noted that less than six months ago media and expert discussion was all about whether the UK would avoid a 'triple dip' recession. And we still have a quarter showing contraction within the previous twelve months. The official OBR forecast of 0.6% also remains, even though this has now been exceeded by some measure in the first half. In this climate, forecasters seem only willing to count growh they can clearly see when making short term predictions. And this caution is not just in the UK. The German Economics Ministry, for example, is still holding to its 0.3% growth forecast for the whole of 2013, when their Q1 growth was 0% and Q2 0.7%. Similarly, the EU forecast for Eurozone growth in the second half of 2013 is still for 0.0% growth.
2. The high risks of external shock. BRICS growth is falling albeit from high levels; the Eurozone has only just emerged tentatively from a recession which has lasted from 2011; the outcome of Japan's Abenomics experiment remains uncertain; and, the US economy is having to absord backloaded tax increases and spending cuts due to Obama's delayed fiscal consolidation measures. The political situation in the Middle East won't be helping either.
In spite of the above, it does seem that early indicators from the first two months of Q3 are showing that the UK economy is continuing to grow and at an accelerated rate. Markit PMIs for all sectors have risen in both months and interim monthly ONS outcomes have also shown growth.
SWIFT, which bases its predictions of growth on aggregrated B2B transactions and whose forecasts have been very reliable since it started its index last year, is showing a 'nowcast' of 0.5% for UK 2013 Q3 and a 'forecast' of 0.4% for Q4.
If SWIFT are right then UK growth for the calendar year is likely to be around 2.0% which matches both your and my gut feel. I am confident it probably matches the same gut feel of external forecasters but then they are held up to ridicule in the event of their predictions being wrong!
How's your movie ambitions coming along?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100232930/why-do-labour-want-to-give-a-tax-break-to-bankers/
"Stephen Twigg wrote last week that Labour would lower the cap on tuition fees to £6,000, as the £9,000 cap is "unnecessarily punitive for students." Which all sounds very noble, until you realise what this actually entails: tax relief for bankers and lawyers.
Tuition fees are not really a debt at all, but a contribution that successful grads pay: what they otherwise call progressive taxation. That's why 40 per cent of graduates won't pay off all their loans. And while those on low incomes won't get any benefit from Labour's tuition fee cut, millionaires will."
Maybe that's why Twigg's speech was canned ....
I seem to remember as a teenager that the poetry of Attila the Stockbroker was a hoot too. Maybe I'm subconsciously expecting poetry to amuse me and get narked when it's just tiresome dirge.
Song lyrics probably count and there's endless good song lyrics I'll happily sing along to in a discordant lusty voice in my car.
Maybe I'm only half Goth after all.
So much better than percentage increases over the previous year would be for the absolute GDP index to be quoted and the trend shown on a graph. That would eliminate the undue influence of the GDP last year on the percentage change figure published by the media for this year.
[on war generally] "Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: 'War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'"
[on the selective enforcement of international law by parties acting individually] "Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world."
[on our current party leaders - take your pick which]: "If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on."
[and, tenuously, on badgers]: "He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."
It doesn't get more romantic than that.
Love's Philosophy by P.B.Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?
See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained it's brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?
It's not one of those jokes that gets any funnier with the re-telling.
I think I'm down to 1/3 Goth now.
'"Stephen Twigg wrote last week that Labour would lower the cap on tuition fees to £6,000, as the £9,000 cap is "unnecessarily punitive for students." Which all sounds very noble, until you realise what this actually entails: tax relief for bankers and lawyers.'
Has Twiggy given any hint on how this will be paid for?
The proposed Labour tax on banker's bonuses has already been spent at least five times.
Guess I just find poetry rather arty farty.