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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Why Ed Miliband can take some comfort from Tony Abbott’s victory in Australia
One footnote from the last week’s Austrailian general election and the change of government is that the new prime minister trailed Kevin Rudd in the approval and “preferred Prime Minister” ratings.
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Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister
(Off topic, btw).
You're right. Dave is no Maggie, no Abbot.
Above the line voting was introduced in 1984 after an infamous "tablecloth" election (the ballot paper looked like a tablecloth). Compulsory preferencing (a daft idea in itself, must be related to Oz's compulsory voting) requires voters to correctly rank each and every one of 100 candidates. "Spoiled" ballots reached 20%, IIRC.
The main parties spotted an opening for them to "help" voters, with the tradeoff of them being able to finely manipulate the election outcome.
Just ticking one box would signify a first preference for one party and cede control to that party of the entire subsequent preference flow.
In New South Wales, for its own state elections, this abuse was reformed in 2003, so now voters there are offered "partywise above the line voting." They can vote 1,2,3...n between parties, at least having some control over which party their vote ultimately goes to. Each party still retains control over the order in which its candidates get elected....
The left never wins without a highly credible leader because the left is regarded as fundamentally irresponsible by the public.
Of course, that's some consolation to Ed M in that it doesn't provide any ammunition for those in Labour who were toying with the idea of defenestrating him, but that's about it.
Mark Thompson says that damaging and unfair statements were made to PAC by Lord Patten, chairman of BBC Trust. "I want to set that right".
Fairfax-Nielsen also found that Mr Rudd had dramatically improved the Australian Labor Party's edge for the coming election as he brings the party to a 50-50 dead-level lead as preferred party. The recent poll revealed a dramatic shift of support from voters to Labor as its two-party-preferred vote moved up a 7-percentage notch up as Coalition's likeability plummeted interestingly by 7 per cent too.
This would indicate that the higher PM approval ratings of Rudd did have a positive impact on the ALP share of both polls and the outcome vote. As a result, Labor suffered a heavy but not landslide defeat.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At91c3wX1Wu5dERmb2NsbmpUNmlyOHplOTNOTE9iZVE#gid=0
While David Cameron and many other Tory ministers often give the impression of never being happier than when at war with the trade unions, David Skelton, the director of Renewal, the new group seeking to broaden the Conservatives' appeal, advocates a more thoughtful approach.
To coincide with the TUC conference, Skelton has called for the Tories to include a commitment in their manifesto to offer free party membership to all trade unionists. He rightly notes that there almost 7 million union members in the UK (a number which increased by 59,000 last year) and that they hold the balance of power in many of the midlands and northern marginals that the Conservatives need to win to stand any chance of achieving a majority. It's a perspective that contrasts notably with that of many other Tories. In a post on ConservativeHome earlier this year, Harry Phibbs listed a fall in union membership in 2011 as a "coalition achievement".
Skelton said:
There won’t be any Conservative Ministers speaking at the TUC Congress this week and, in the eyes of many, Conservatives and the trade union movement remain poles apart. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Conservatives should look to the example of Margaret Thatcher, who made 'Conservative Trade Unionists' a thriving organisation, with around 250 branches. There’s no reason why such an organisation, with national and regional spokespeople shouldn’t exist today. Likewise it makes sense to offer all trade unionists free membership of the Conservative Party. I can’t see Len McCluskey or Bob Crow signing up. But the fact that union leaders are often out of touch with their members provides an opportunity for Conservatives to appeal to union members over the heads of their leaders.
Conservatives should be careful not to put off instinctively conservative union members through over-zealous anti-union rhetoric. Treating all trade unionists as some kind of ‘red under the bed’ threat is neither credible nor likely to make union members more willing to listen to the Conservative message..."
Does anyone know what the polling hours are for the Norwegian election today?
"The election of Australia's new PM Tony Abbott is clear evidence that genuine conservative policies can win elections."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2415635/The-election-Australias-new-PM-Tony-Abbott-clear-evidence-genuine-conservative-policies-win-elections.html#ixzz2ePOtAlxr
It is the drinking hours which count. Sale of alcohol on polling day is forbidden in Norway (except to residents in hotels).
I am expecting a sober result.
100% right.
What a nest of vipers!
I strongly encourage the Labour Party to ditch Ed M and replace him with Gordon Brown in Jan 2015.
By 2015, Miliband will have been Labour leader for over four years, Clegg Lib Dem leader for more than eight years and Cameron Tory leader for nearly a decade. I doubt we'll see a similar kind of turnaround - unless perhaps one or more of those three don't fight the next GE as leader of their party.
"Voting will end at 1900 GMT, when several exit polls - which have proved accurate in the past - will be published. Indicative results are expected around 2200 GMT. Coalition negotiations are not expected until next week."
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/09/uk-norway-election-idUKBRE9880CY20130909
This is getting brutal at the #PAC BBC session. It's basically Jerry Springer with £500 suits.
Kroll- I might be a Trustee but its not for Trust to authorise ind payments, hence lack of questions at £1m payoff MPs openly laughing #bbc
UK shale gas exploration would have a "similar" carbon footprint to other fossil fuels, according to a new study.
Even the mild cuts this coalition have gone ahead with have had lefties branding this government "the most right-wing government in the history of mankind ever", and one that kicks tramps in the bollocks with fifty pound notes taped to their derby shoes.
It was an impossible starting point for Osborne given there was "no money left". It hasn't been fab, but he hasn't done bad either. Not by a long stretch.
Now let me see .... Ah yes, let's put the cat amongst the mice .... Hi Tony
They didn't get anyone sensible to run their eye over it.
That said, who would that have been?
http://themonkeycage.org/2009/09/18/2009_norwegian_parliamentary_e_1/
The Tories will never agree on party funding, they are dependent on a few rich people while their membership dies.
It'll be interesting to see what the Lib Dems do though
And Labour has never agreed either - the Tories were always happy to cap (I believe at £10K) which Labour rejected because they thought the union affiliation fees should be counted as multiple donations under the cap.
Now, it may be that the Tories suggested this because they knew that Labour would reject it. And it may be that Labour suggested £5K because they knew the Tories would reject that.
I suspect that none of the parties are wholly innocent on this topic
Lucy manning @lucymanning
This feels bit like The Apprentice BBC/Trust bosses are in the boardroom, as MPs shout at each of them in turn.
All very interesting, but meanwhile there's a civil war raging, chemical weapons being used on a big scale again - something which has happened, thank goodness, only very rarely since 1925 - and on civilians too, and there's a risk of escalation and of the use of chemical weapons spreading - they are cheap, and eminently well suited to genocidal use against helpless civilians. If Kerry and Obama have managed to get Russian support for a way out of that with no Western shots being fired - a big 'if', as I said - then that's great, and a vindication of their approach, but we'll have to see how the situation develops. What surprised me was that some posters seemed to think the reports were a setback for Kerry.
.....which government set it up.....?
......oh yes......
Have any of Labour's regulatory reforms worked?
There's also those that think that Brown's economic miracle far from being an unsustainable debt binge was actually a good economic model only scuppered by the nasty bankers and the Tories not carrying on the good work. Ludicrous of course, but there we go.
I think Ed's real problems will start when he gets in, he's going to be a total and utter disaster Hollande style.
They may as well go the whole hog and try proscription.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24022866
"Give up weapons, Russia urges Syria
Russia has asked Syria to put its chemical weapons stockpile under "international control" in a bid to avoid US military strikes, and then have them destroyed."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24022866
'We need to replace the entire Trust, the chairman and whole executive management of the BBC. Scuzzbuckets to a man'
Just replace the license fee with a voluntary subscription fee and they can waste as much money as they like.
Isn't that what Ed Miliband is trying to do?
As it happens, I was talking to a retained fireman on that very point a couple of days ago. He's a union member, but is most unkeen on the strike proposal. Interestingly enough, he brought up the argument that only a small proportion of members voted in the strike ballot, and that there therefore wasn't a mandate for action. His views on the union leaders were verging on the unprintable.
Broadband speed test:
http://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/
I got download 1.51 Mb/s and upload 0.504 Mb/s.
@JananGanesh
Next licence fee settlement is 2017. By then, you'll have access to more entertainment on your phone than you had on your TV in 2007.
What a shambles!
Mr Ross typo edited, but what a corker. :-)
You say he's a union member, as I am, so he should be aware of the campaigns that his union has fought and won, that gave him the same rights as me to pay, conditions, the chance to join the pension scheme, and a myriad of others.
The FBU isn't perfect, there's a lot not to like, from our point of view, but it's not that far away from most member's ideas of what a union should be like.
On the point about the mandate to strike, everybody gets a ballot, its up to you to make sure that you vote. If you don't vote, then you can't really moan about the result.
"For the record it also asked referendum VI at the end of the survey, not the beginning (though I doubt it made much difference here – a question about leadership approval where Alex Salmond totally outclassed everyone else is probably didn’t shift opinion against independence!)"
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8069
Let's fisk Fraser's fisk. Step by step.
"Our plan for the economy is a plan for living standards" [Osborne]. Really? Living standards have been the bleak spot: growth is up, jobs are at a record high, gilt yields are low. But the cost of living has taken its longer-ever squeeze. QE has inflated the assets of the richest and left the poorest worse-off due to inflation. The below graphic is extrapolated form the Bank of England’s assessment about the distributional effects of QE. The left, or anyone who cares about fairness, should be fuming about this. Luckily for Obsorne that so few people understand QE.
Facts, Fraser, facts.
The gap between GDP growth and Real Households' Disposable Income (RHDI) has been reasonably tight during Osborne's tenure at the Treasury.
With both indexed at 100 in 2010, there is only 1.1% difference between GDP growth and RHDI over the three years between 2010 and 2012, and, with RHDI recovering in 2013, this gap will be getting smaller over this year.
Now let's look at Labour's record, particularly in the early noughties. Gordon's debt fuelled GDP growth bubble did not improve relative living standards at all. Between 2002 and 2007 the index for GDP rose from 92.3 to 104.5, an increase of 13.2%. Over the same period RHDI rose from 91.1 to 97.4, an increase of 6.9%.
So under Gordon and Labour, GDP grew at nearly twice the rate of real disposable income. And when the financial crash came, all the GDP gain over the early noughties evaporated into thin air.
Some reward for the man in the street there, tim. George's record, in a period of real term spending cuts, has been far fairer.
Here is the graph from the ONS Blue Book 2013, where you can see Gordon's impact in all its glory.
http://s14.postimg.org/wf5kynj75/GDPvs_RHDI.png
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893004579055212497106436.html
My father gave me much bad advice, but he did give me one very good piece of advice: 'Never make a threat you're not prepared to carry out'.
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) September 9, 2013
So has Kerry misspoken or is this the way to avoid war?
PRINCE Andrew probably walked out of Buckingham Palace with more than £2m in jewels – after being caught by the police.
Among international jewel thieves he is known as 'The Dick'
Experts believe the Duke of York raided his mother’s bedroom and then waited in the Palace grounds until he was confronted by armed officers who did not recognise him immediately.
The Duke would then have pretended to be furious, asking the officers if they knew who he was, before walking away without being searched.
Tom Logan, a burglar, said: “Andrew has played this one surprisingly well.
“Not only will the officers have been embarrassed by the fact that they tried to arrest a prince, but they will also automatically assume that Andrew is too stupid and useless to have concocted a jewel robbery... http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/prince-andrew-commits-perfect-crime-2013090979269