Incidentally, if you want to get rid of Ad's (Mike probably won't think much to me posting this, because no doubt the ad's are paying for PB - Though you can disable it for some sites such as PB, if you like supporting the website, then you can enable it for other website, etc...)
That way you can visit whatever website's you want without Google following your every movement through Cookie's served by their ad's.
You will also find page down load times become much quicker because your not waiting for ad's to appear.
It's also much safter to have something like this if you visit a lot of, er, "dodgy" website's, because it's usually through ad's on dodgy website's that you pick up malware, trojens and other nasty viruses
I installed this for my mother when she got a lap-top last year and she was struggling to navigate her way around web pages - With the ad's gone you get far more "white space" which is good for anybody not computer savvy.
Anyway, I was surprised how much quicker pages downloaded with the ad's gone, so I installed it on my own computer and have never looked back.
As someone who has lurked here regularly since about three months before the last election, but with little time to get involved, could I just say what a delight this site has been in recent days without the presence of the poster known as Tim. The last I saw, he was challenged to come up with a truly meaningful post for his 10,000th post but either it was of such stupendous moment that it got him instantly banned or he finally realised that he never could produce anything of the required quality and probably never had done so. The result is as if the sun has come out from behind the clouds and this site is immeasurably improved by his absence. I had come to think of Tim and his unhealthy obsessions with horses, Osborne, Cameron, etc as being "The One True FOP", FOP, of course, being an acronym for Frantically Obsessive Poster, though I'm sure others may have their own versions as to what at least the first two letters might stand for. Here's praying for more Tim-free days. Keep up the good work!
All the pollsters are asking the same question of the same population, so the variance is only down to random sampling error and the weightings. Across many polls the sampling error narrows but the weightings remain. i.e. we know Populus weights against UKIP, since it always gets low UKIP scores. The quesstion is whether that's an accurate predictor of votes either tomorrow in a hypothetical election or in 2015.
Bruges Group @BrugesGroup @Nigel_Farage "Bill Cash u may well have voted against the Maarstricht treaty 47 times but you voted for it when you voted 4 JM confidence "
FPT: Osborne has laid down a humdinger of a challenge to Balls (and to the LibDems), by pledging to run a budget surplus. Will Balls now match this pledge?
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Fair enough you advising how to avoid having ads on PB.
The site has just gone through a major overhaul and this costs. I will be putting up the donate button this evening. It is expensive to keep PB going but PBers have always been generous in the past whenever an appeal has been made.
"The gap between the rich and the poor is at the lowest level since 1986, despite surging demand for emergency supplies from foodbanks.
The fall in income inequality has been driven by a fall in earnings of higher income households rather than an increase in the prosperity of the less well off.
Overall, disposable incomes have fallen by an average £1,200 since 2007/08 in real terms, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But the richest fifth of households have seen income fall by £4,200 in real terms, whereas the poorest fifth have actually seen their incomes rise by an average £700.
Before taxes and benefits, the richest fifth of households had an average income of £78,300 in 2011/12 - 14 times the £5,400 average income of the poorest fifth. lowest
Note to everyone with an ad-blocker installed. The website has moved to a new server (denoted by the www1 instead of www7 at the start) which may put pb back onto the blacklist because of the way it has been implemented by Robert. Please add pb.com back to the whitelist of your ad-blocker to support Mike. Advertisers and brokers now ask for ad-blocking statistics when they buy advertising space, the more people who block adverts, the less money Mike makes and the future of pb.com becomes less secure. Especially since Vanilla comments are not a free solution like Disqus.
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
Populus will be the laughing stock of the polling industry when the real elections come. The weighting for UKIP shows a bias of unprofessional proportions.
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
But UKIP will get nothing like 26% at the general election, even if we held one tomorrow, and that's the basis that polls work.
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
Populus will be the laughing stock of the polling industry when the real elections come. The weighting for UKIP shows a bias of unprofessional proportions.
I'm not so sure - UKIP are already off their polling highs of earlier in the year - to assume that they'll do as well in the GE as even the lates figures is debatable to put it mildly. I think there's an awful lot of wishful thinking about UKIP - from all who don't wish the Conservatives well. I tend strongly to the view that opinion polls are highly unreliable when elections are not imminent. I also think there is too much rubbishing of the 'poll we don't like' at the moment. The reality is Labour have a lead of around 5% for what it's worth at the moment.
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
But UKIP will get nothing like 26% at the general election, even if we held one tomorrow, and that's the basis that polls work.
@Grandiose You really don't know that, Grandiose. These are game changing times. I fully expect that if UKIP come top of the poll for the EU elections next year, then for the GE, I expect that UKIP will average around 18/21%.
I can't help feeling @Nigel_Farage attacking Bill Cash was massive mistake. Cash was there way before UKIP was a twinkle #cpc13
I think the whole spat is unlikely to move a single vote ....ever - truly sums up that when you probe for Farage's inner shell behind the jovial pint sinker in the pub what you find is just that - an inner shell.
I can't help feeling @Nigel_Farage attacking Bill Cash was massive mistake. Cash was there way before UKIP was a twinkle #cpc13
Cash does seem an odd target to vent your spleen - He is a prominent Eurosceptic in the House of Commons and is famous for leading the Maastricht Rebellion against John Major's government. Cash was the founder of the Maastricht Referendum Campaign in the early 1990s, and is now the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee.
Perhaps Farage was attempting to flatter him into his camp..!
All the pollsters are asking the same question of the same population, so the variance is only down to random sampling error and the weightings. Across many polls the sampling error narrows but the weightings remain
I expect that you also have non-random sampling errors. After all if you didn't you wouldn't need to weight the sample. You probably also have different sampling errors depending on how they recruit the sample for the poll.
Bill Cash is of course passionate about wanting a referendum with the hope of taking the UK out of Europe, so of course he's clashing with Farage, who is working to achieve the opposite by helping Miliband into No 10. I really don't see why anyone is surprised.
I can't help feeling @Nigel_Farage attacking Bill Cash was massive mistake. Cash was there way before UKIP was a twinkle #cpc13
Cash does seem an odd target to vent your spleen - He is a prominent Eurosceptic in the House of Commons and is famous for leading the Maastricht Rebellion against John Major's government. Cash was the founder of the Maastricht Referendum Campaign in the early 1990s, and is now the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee.
Perhaps Farage was attempting to flatter him into his camp..!
I can see many sceptic Tories being really narked here. Its not shifting votes but feeling irked at UKIP by the Tory righties is never a bad thing for circling the wagons.
Fair enough you advising how to avoid having ads on PB.
I've always had the Ad's enabled for PB (and UKPR as well as several other "independent" website's I visit and trust)
I mainly use the blocker software for "big" websites where I find the ad's make my PC run very slowly (Digital Spy can be a nightmare and Entertainment Weekly website once tried to install a virus on my computer. The Guardian website can also be a nightmare for page download times as well, in my experiance)
It's nice to be able to support some websites (the one's that earn your trust like PB) and block the ad's on other websites that don't deserve your trust, IMO.
I can't help feeling @Nigel_Farage attacking Bill Cash was massive mistake. Cash was there way before UKIP was a twinkle #cpc13
Farage clearly thinks he can do better than whoo Tory backbenchers.
Not convinced he can: UKIP's challenge is still electoral credibility.
To think Cash was AF Neil's example of who might be convinced to stand on a Tory/UKIP ticket.
I must admit, I can't work out what Farage is doing here. He seems to veer between brilliance and blundering: Mr Cash was probably the Conservative MP most obviously sympathetic to UKIP and one who could have helped him to bridge the gap. Insulting him does not seem obviously smart.
That said, we may be the idiots rather than Farage. There may be method in the madness. (And there might not.)
All the pollsters are asking the same question of the same population, so the variance is only down to random sampling error and the weightings. Across many polls the sampling error narrows but the weightings remain
I expect that you also have non-random sampling errors. After all if you didn't you wouldn't need to weight the sample. You probably also have different sampling errors depending on how they recruit the sample for the poll.
True, I was rather imprecise. The weightings are, first, to account for a "the people who respond to surveys aren't representative of the population" and second to account for "how people say they are going to vote isn't a perfect indicator of how they will vote". Both are included in the weightings above.
''Farage says Tory leadership must be shocked that 'in the upper reaches of Ukip we have working class people'. Huge round of applause''
I don;t support Farage but I'm very glad he said this. I've posted a number of times there should be far more people from ordinary backgrounds in the upper reaches of the tory party. Far more.
Also re Cash: it's not just on Europe that he's aligned with the 'Kippers. He's also a prominent social conservative, and not obviously part of the "chumocracy".
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
Hmm, I'm hardly what one would describe as anti-UKIP, but I think reality has to set in for UKIP at some point. The party will be lucky to get 5% in the GE in 2015. They will do very well at the European elections next year, possibly even win them (though like Mike, I've got a bit on the Tories coming out on top, with Lynton Crosby on the job the Tories could be a surprise package).
Even going into an election the campaign from Cameron to UKIP people will all be "you want out of the EU, I'm the only one who can give you a vote", "Vote UKIP, get EU Ed". If Ed can make a go of the whole Blue Labour idea and promises an EU vote then Dave's job becomes very tough, but as the only party with a realistic shot at majority government offering an EU referendum picking up UKIP voters will be a very easy task indeed...
The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers. Again, with Lynton Crosby in the tent (his importance is underlined by Labour's desperation to turn him into a story and force him out of the Tory camp) the Tory message will be very honed and they will all stay on point. With the Boy off campaign tactics the Tories have a better chance this time than in 2010 despite all of the same in built biases in the electoral system and a probable higher UKIP vote.
Also, I think there are two sides to UKIP, the first and more traditional UKIP voter/supporter is anti-EU, pro-free market, not to worried about immigration and these people have generally come over from the Conservatives (like Sean Fear and Richard Tyndall), and these are the most likely to hold their noses and vote Conservative. The other side is the anti-Immigration protectionist side most of whom are relatively recent additions to the UKIP fold, and they come from Labour or DNV, which is of little concern for the Tories and I don't think there needs to be a strategy from the blues to win those voters over, they won't vote Tory even if Farrage became the leader tomorrow.
The other issue UKIP will have is that closer to the election UKIP will have to spell out exactly what they stand for, and right now it's fine to be all things to all people (as UKIP are) and I don't see how one squares an anti-immigration message with the pro-free market circle. Once Farrage starts talking up his free market stuff and importing cheap labour from the Commonwealth (Indians, South Africans, Kenyans etc...) it all starts to fall apart. I don't see how a party can be both anti-immigration, pro-free market and more recently protectionist at the same time and draw supporters from all of those camps. It doesn't make very much sense and the current UKIP surge is built on shaky foundations which, closer to the GE, will begin to be problematic. Especially with the blues going into the election with a manifesto pledge of an EU referendum.
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
That said, we may be the idiots rather than Farage. There may be method in the madness. (And there might not.)
Farage is perhaps making the point that all tories are, in the end, tories. Yes they rebel, as do members of all parties, but when push comes to shove they can be counted on.
In a parallel universe, when Cameron announced the commitment to a referendum by the end of 2016, Farage welcomed the announcement as a vindication of everything UKIP had been working for over the years, confirmed that UKIP would not be putting up candidates in the 2015 election but would be urging supporters to vote Conservative, and that in the intervening 4 years before the referendum UKIP would be organising itself into a mass movement preparing the case for leaving the EU and working with people like Bill Cash and Dan Hannan to build momentum for a vote to leave.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
"The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers."
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
Now I see an ad for t shirts with a girl with cleavage.
Must stay away from Daily Mail web before I visit PB.
I so wish we could still "Like" posts.
I have one for BUPA and an old people's home...
I keep getting the BUPA one. It's always a "skyscraper" and I notice it's one of the new versions that moves down the page as you scroll, rather than a static one.
In a parallel universe, when Cameron announced the commitment to a referendum by the end of 2016, Farage welcomed the announcement as a vindication of everything UKIP had been working for over the years, confirmed that UKIP would not be putting up candidates in the 2015 election but would be urging supporters to vote Conservative, and that in the intervening 4 years before the referendum UKIP would be organising itself into a mass movement preparing the case for leaving the EU and working with people like Bill Cash and Dan Hannan to build momentum for a vote to leave.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
In this universe, it's maybe 10% at most.
In a parallel universe in 2009 Cameron said despite Brown's signature he would press on with a referendum and ask the british people if they wished to progress to ever closer union or renegotiate their membership of the EU in the knowledge they would leave if a new arrangement could not be found. Cameron scraped a small majority in the 2010 GE and in the subsequent referendum the british people rejected the idea of ever closer union giving the british PM a strong negotiating mandate with a re-elected and increasingly eurosceptic Angela Merkel.
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
FPT: Osborne has laid down a humdinger of a challenge to Balls (and to the LibDems), by pledging to run a budget surplus. Will Balls now match this pledge?
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Yes indeed, got to be the best (long term) thing from Osborne's speech. Labour ran large deficits during the boom years, without which we would have had the money to eradicate the pain of recession/depression.
In a parallel universe, when Cameron announced the commitment to a referendum by the end of 2016, Farage welcomed the announcement as a vindication of everything UKIP had been working for over the years, confirmed that UKIP would not be putting up candidates in the 2015 election but would be urging supporters to vote Conservative, and that in the intervening 4 years before the referendum UKIP would be organising itself into a mass movement preparing the case for leaving the EU and working with people like Bill Cash and Dan Hannan to build momentum for a vote to leave.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
In this universe, it's maybe 10% at most.
UKIP is not solely about Europe.
UKIP is about the fact the Conservatives have - in the view of a number of people - ceased being a party for the whole country, and have become a front for the interests of a small cadre of rich business people and "banksters@
UKIP is about the fact that there is no-one trumpeting social conservatism, and the rights of the silent majority
UKIP is about the fact that the three main political parties appear very much cut from the same cloth
UKIP is an insurgency - and sometimes insurgencies are successful, and sometimes they are not. There is two-thirds of the modern Conservative Party (and its voters) who would happily assimilate with UKIP. Unfortunately, the remaining third (which includes all the major donors) might seek to find another place for their votes and for their donations.
Now I see an ad for t shirts with a girl with cleavage.
Must stay away from Daily Mail web before I visit PB.
I so wish we could still "Like" posts.
I have one for BUPA and an old people's home...
I keep getting the BUPA one. It's always a "skyscraper" and I notice it's one of the new versions that moves down the page as you scroll, rather than a static one.
Strangely, my Bupa vertical add doesn't move with a page scroll (I'm on the latest Chrome). I've also got one for mobile phone SIMs, and one that includes a twitter feed from the Russian Embassy ...
"The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers."
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
That's why you would get Bill Cash to do it rather than Dave. Dave will stay on message, with the economy, restricting immigration, lowering taxes for the working poor, anti-welfare state moves and such. Let the UKIP-lite wing of the party get the UKIP votes. The problem right now is that a lot of UKIP voters loathe David Cameron because he is everything they are not, modern, metropolitan and he lacks a certain amount of authenticity when he talks about something. Farrage is the opposite, he is a dinosaur and represents Britain from before I was born, something that appeals to a certain type of voter.
As I said previously, UKIP also have to lay out their policies, they can't be all things to all people when it comes to the GE. How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time?
In a parallel universe, when Cameron announced the commitment to a referendum by the end of 2016, Farage welcomed the announcement as a vindication of everything UKIP had been working for over the years, confirmed that UKIP would not be putting up candidates in the 2015 election but would be urging supporters to vote Conservative, and that in the intervening 4 years before the referendum UKIP would be organising itself into a mass movement preparing the case for leaving the EU and working with people like Bill Cash and Dan Hannan to build momentum for a vote to leave.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
In this universe, it's maybe 10% at most.
In a parallel universe in 2009 Cameron said despite Brown's signature he would press on with a referendum and ask the british people if they wished to progress to ever closer union or renegotiate their membership of the EU in the knowledge they would leave if a new arrangement could not be found. Cameron scraped a small majority in the 2010 GE and in the subsequent referendum the british people rejected the idea of ever closer union giving the british PM a strong negotiating mandate with a re-elected and increasingly eurosceptic Angela Merkel.
I'm sorry, but you're misreading German politics. Angela is very much a Europhile, certainly compared to the grass-roots of the CDU/CSU. She is very much of the view (rightly or wrongly) that Germany's multi-decade low rates of unemployment are directly the results of the EU and the Euro (a view that the party's large business donors have emphasised to her).
Where she could find common cause with Cameron is scrapping (or restricting) the CAP, and in getting rid of the ridiculous working time directives. But her view is not that Europe - per se - is the problem, but that Europe is insufficiently capitalistic.
FPT: Osborne has laid down a humdinger of a challenge to Balls (and to the LibDems), by pledging to run a budget surplus. Will Balls now match this pledge?
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Yes indeed, got to be the best (long term) thing from Osborne's speech. Labour ran large deficits during the boom years, without which we would have had the money to eradicate the pain of recession/depression.
I missed her introduction but there was a Labour spokeswoman on Daily Politics who repeatedly dodge the question even when AF Neil watered it down and said "after many years of growth under a Labour government" (implying more than one term, I think).
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
But UKIP will get nothing like 26% at the general election, even if we held one tomorrow, and that's the basis that polls work.
@Grandiose You really don't know that, Grandiose. These are game changing times. I fully expect that if UKIP come top of the poll for the EU elections next year, then for the GE, I expect that UKIP will average around 18/21%.
Out of interest Mike, roughly how many seats do you reckon 20% gets you? I must admit I've not really given much thought to UKIP doing better than 10-15% as a GE max, and half a dozen seats.
Perhaps when the next economic meltdown hits we'll be able to weather the storm like Australia and Canada did in 2008?
If it become's an "accepted" idea for the UK to run surpluses it will also force subsequant Labour governments to act sensibly (hopefully)
The question is whether the populace really cares about this. Maybe they don't.
*Cough*
Australia and Canada were (and remain) massive exporters of raw materials to China and Asia. It was not brilliant macroeconomic positioning, but good fortune to have economies levered to the export of coal, oil, etc. to the growing economies of the Far East.
It's a funny old poll that says there is a 38 point bias toward city-dwellers for the Tories,but also the Tories are thought by 8% to be for more rural parts.The only explanation for this is that city dwellers think the Tories are benefiting the country-dwellers and vice-versa but more so. Very impressive speech by Teresa May.4-1 fav.for next Tory leader looks good value for me and also Michael Crick,who is a journo who reaches the parts other journos cannot reach,reports not too much love and peace at view on the Tory fringe as Farage strolls in after his lunch-time pint. I cannot understand why the Tories are not banging on about Europe more but it's early days yet.Cameron is not trusted to deliver and it is their collective obsession,a sort of collective OCD.
"The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers."
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
That's why you would get Bill Cash to do it rather than Dave. Dave will stay on message, with the economy, restricting immigration, lowering taxes for the working poor, anti-welfare state moves and such. Let the UKIP-lite wing of the party get the UKIP votes. The problem right now is that a lot of UKIP voters loathe David Cameron because he is everything they are not, modern, metropolitan and he lacks a certain amount of authenticity when he talks about something. Farrage is the opposite, he is a dinosaur and represents Britain from before I was born, something that appeals to a certain type of voter.
As I said previously, UKIP also have to lay out their policies, they can't be all things to all people when it comes to the GE. How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time?
" How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time2
see populist politics - neutral nato EU-loving sterling-using monarchist-republican SNP, the bill freezing ha ha no blackouts and everyone will invest billions Ed's Labour etc.
you can't fool all of the people all of the time but some times you can fool enough of them to get elected.
FPT: Osborne has laid down a humdinger of a challenge to Balls (and to the LibDems), by pledging to run a budget surplus. Will Balls now match this pledge?
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Yes indeed, got to be the best (long term) thing from Osborne's speech. Labour ran large deficits during the boom years, without which we would have had the money to eradicate the pain of recession/depression.
Australia and Canada were (and remain) massive exporters of raw materials to China and Asia. It was not brilliant macroeconomic positioning, but good fortune to have economies levered to the export of coal, oil, etc. to the growing economies of the Far East.
Yes, and the UK was a massive beneficiary of the unprecedented bonanza in financial services in the decade up to the crash.
The difference is that we had Gordon Brown, whereas Australia and Canada didn't.
"The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers."
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
That's why you would get Bill Cash to do it rather than Dave. Dave will stay on message, with the economy, restricting immigration, lowering taxes for the working poor, anti-welfare state moves and such. Let the UKIP-lite wing of the party get the UKIP votes. The problem right now is that a lot of UKIP voters loathe David Cameron because he is everything they are not, modern, metropolitan and he lacks a certain amount of authenticity when he talks about something. Farrage is the opposite, he is a dinosaur and represents Britain from before I was born, something that appeals to a certain type of voter.
As I said previously, UKIP also have to lay out their policies, they can't be all things to all people when it comes to the GE. How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time?
Cash on TV talking to UKIPers would be a God send for the LDs and Labour. What the Tories need to find are some authentic, "ordinary" voices at the heart of the party, not on its fringes.
Perhaps when the next economic meltdown hits we'll be able to weather the storm like Australia and Canada did in 2008?
If it become's an "accepted" idea for the UK to run surpluses it will also force subsequant Labour governments to act sensibly (hopefully)
The question is whether the populace really cares about this. Maybe they don't.
*Cough*
Australia and Canada were (and remain) massive exporters of raw materials to China and Asia. It was not brilliant macroeconomic positioning, but good fortune to have economies levered to the export of coal, oil, etc. to the growing economies of the Far East.
I know they have a lot of materials they export, but having nice surpluses must have helped as well.
When Osborne puts Labour and Lib's on the spot about the Surplus idea it will be fun to see whether he use's the oft-quoted Keyne's, as running surpluses in the good times to use for stimulus in the bad times is actually what true Keynesian economics is all about.
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
In a parallel universe, when Cameron announced the commitment to a referendum by the end of 2016, Farage welcomed the announcement as a vindication of everything UKIP had been working for over the years, confirmed that UKIP would not be putting up candidates in the 2015 election but would be urging supporters to vote Conservative, and that in the intervening 4 years before the referendum UKIP would be organising itself into a mass movement preparing the case for leaving the EU and working with people like Bill Cash and Dan Hannan to build momentum for a vote to leave.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
In this universe, it's maybe 10% at most.
In a parallel universe in 2009 Cameron said despite Brown's eurosceptic Angela Merkel.
I'm sorry, but you're misreading German politics. Angela is very much a Europhile, certainly compared to the grass-roots of the CDU/CSU. She is very much of the view (rightly or wrongly) that Germany's multi-decade low rates of unemployment are directly the results of the EU and the Euro (a view that the party's large business donors have emphasised to her).
Where she could find common cause with Cameron is scrapping (or restricting) the CAP, and in getting rid of the ridiculous working time directives. But her view is not that Europe - per se - is the problem, but that Europe is insufficiently capitalistic.
In terms of Europe she's probably less sceptical than her party, but so what ? She currently has her own version of scepticism growing of home soil and it's cost her her traditional partner in government. She's going to have to find more of a Germany first line and that goes with the Zeitgeist as increasingly the war guilt generation dies and younger Germans no longer feel the same need to bail out their neighbours or sacrifice their own interests. Ever closer Union's looking harder to justify.
next door in Austria the right got about 60% of the vote yet the socialist will end up in government to keep the Brussels show on the road. How long do you think voters will keep putting up with that ?
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
FPT: Osborne has laid down a humdinger of a challenge to Balls (and to the LibDems), by pledging to run a budget surplus. Will Balls now match this pledge?
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Australia and Canada were (and remain) massive exporters of raw materials to China and Asia. It was not brilliant macroeconomic positioning, but good fortune to have economies levered to the export of coal, oil, etc. to the growing economies of the Far East.
Yes, and the UK was a massive beneficiary of the unprecedented bonanza in financial services in the decade up to the crash.
The difference is that we had Gordon Brown, whereas Australia and Canada didn't.
Over 50% of Australia's exports were "minerals and fuels" in 2011 (and I assume last year's numbers are not very different). In addition, gold was a further 5% and agriculture ("rural") was another 10%. Or, to put it another way, two-thirds of its exports were of commodities.
That's a completely different level of importance to the Australian economy than financial services was (or is) to the UK.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
Very true, but that is what Farage does. There are more former members of UKIP than even today's high level. Back a few years ago UKIP had a similar level of membership but divisions and fall outs involving Farage drove those people out of UKIP. For the Bruges/Freedom Association people, we are fast approaching the point where the referendum on Europe is threatened by the electoral performance of UKIP in GE 2015 defeating Conservative MPs. Farage has promised that Labour and the Lib Dems will also promise a referendum at GE 2015, but time is running out on them falling in line with Farage's promise. The manifestos are only 17 months away from being announced.
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
But UKIP will get nothing like 26% at the general election, even if we held one tomorrow, and that's the basis that polls work.
@Grandiose You really don't know that, Grandiose. These are game changing times. I fully expect that if UKIP come top of the poll for the EU elections next year, then for the GE, I expect that UKIP will average around 18/21%.
Bet you £10 a point that UKIP will get below 18% (I'll be generous and take the bottom end of your range). Evens. Interested?
Over 50% of Australia's exports were "minerals and fuels" in 2011 (and I assume last year's numbers are not very different). In addition, gold was a further 5% and agriculture ("rural") was another 10%. Or, to put it another way, two-thirds of its exports were of commodities.
That's a completely different level of importance to the Australian economy than financial services was (or is) to the UK.
That's true, but the fact still remains that tax revenues in the UK, boosted particularly by financial services, were booming during Brown's stay in No 11, and he squandered that bonanza.
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
The tories need a line other than 'vote UKIP, get EDM'. They need more than one string to their bow.
For starters, there is the possibility that EdM matches the referendum policy.
They also have to persuade those UKIP voters who might be inclined to vote tory (and that is the only sub-set of UKIP supporters who might to suseptible to their only current attack line) that Cameron is the PM to lead us out of the EU.
There are very few people, within either the tory party or UKIP, who believe that.
I'm coming round to the idea of rebranding the Human Rights Act. Free of the poisonous belief that they are "foreign" rights being "imported" against our wishes into British law, we might actually be able to discuss the merits of them properly. (It can only be a rebranding, because Laws LJ's pre-HRA mission to define common law rights in the same way as their HRA counterparts is functionally complete.)
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
It's almost like one says "British" when one rejects "English".
I commented on this earlier today, before I had to go to seek the ministrations of the local NHS hospital (everyone very pleasant, seen more or less on time, everything carefully explained). I wondered how well those places where "English" is the preferred definition correlate with UKIP successes in the recent County elections!
My former stamping ground of Castle Point elected two Kippers, and, when we moved, lost two people who describe themselves as British!
"The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers."
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
That's why you would get Bill Cash to do it rather than Dave. Dave will stay on message, with the economy, restricting immigration, lowering taxes for the working poor, anti-welfare state moves and such. Let the UKIP-lite wing of the party get the UKIP votes. The problem right now is that a lot of UKIP voters loathe David Cameron because he is everything they are not, modern, metropolitan and he lacks a certain amount of authenticity when he talks about something. Farrage is the opposite, he is a dinosaur and represents Britain from before I was born, something that appeals to a certain type of voter.
As I said previously, UKIP also have to lay out their policies, they can't be all things to all people when it comes to the GE. How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time?
Cash on TV talking to UKIPers would be a God send for the LDs and Labour. What the Tories need to find are some authentic, "ordinary" voices at the heart of the party, not on its fringes.
I'm not sure I would let Cash on TV, campaigning in English town centres on the coast, and places where the current lot find it tough to connect. As for ordinary voices at the top, sadly I don't think they exist. I thought Shapps might be the answer but he has been a huge let-down. He comes across as a bit of a wheeler-dealer/modern day Delboy who wants to sell me something he "found" in an alleyway behind John Lewis.
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
There seems to be quite a strong degree of correlation between support for UKIP and areas of Danish settlement (Kent excepted). I don't kow whether or not that's just a coincidence.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
Very true, but that is what Farage does. There are more former members of UKIP than even today's high level. Back a few years ago UKIP had a similar level of membership but divisions and fall outs involving Farage drove those people out of UKIP. For the Bruges/Freedom Association people, we are fast approaching the point where the referendum on Europe is threatened by the electoral performance of UKIP in GE 2015 defeating Conservative MPs. Farage has promised that Labour and the Lib Dems will also promise a referendum at GE 2015, but time is running out on them falling in line with Farage's promise. The manifestos are only 17 months away from being announced.
I am no fan of Farage but on the point of membership you are completely wrong. UKIP have never been even close to the levels of membership they have today. It is only a few years since they were well below 20,000 members.
Most of those driven out of UKIP have been the more active people who (quite rightly) tried to actually help lead or at least drive UKIP along either at a local or national level. It is they who have fallen foul of Farage's leadership style. For the general rank and file without an immediate interest in taking an active role in the party, Farage has some semi-deity status. Hence the reason he walked the last leadership election.
However, as a fellow member of the Bruges group I do despair of Eurosceptics who think that the return of a Tory government will mean anything other than disaster for the BOO movement.
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
There seems to be quite a strong degree of correlation between support for UKIP and areas of Danish settlement (Kent excepted). I don't kow whether or not that's just a coincidence.
Yes, I have noted that before. UKIP is the party of the Danelaw!
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
In terms of Europe she's probably less sceptical than her party, but so what ? She currently has her own version of scepticism growing of home soil and it's cost her her traditional partner in government. She's going to have to find more of a Germany first line and that goes with the Zeitgeist as increasingly the war guilt generation dies and younger Germans no longer feel the same need to bail out their neighbours or sacrifice their own interests. Ever closer Union's looking harder to justify.
next door in Austria the right got about 60% of the vote yet the socialist will end up in government to keep the Brussels show on the road. How long do you think voters will keep putting up with that ?
I've been saying since long before the election that Angela was keener on a grand coalition with the SPD than the FDP. Let's not forget that while the staunchly anti-Euro gained votes, the moderately Eurosceptic FDP lost them. And Angela specifically targetted the FDP going into the election - the CDU/CSU knifed their traditional coalition partners in the back.
Now, I'm not going to show my ignorance of Austrian politics, however, we could have a situation with the rise of UKIP where more than 50% of the population vote for Eurosceptic parties (Con + UKIP), but because of the vagaries of the election system the pro-EU Labour party could end up in power. This isn't because of Brussels, but because of the electoral system. Is this true of Austria too?
Surely the interesting thing about POPULUS is how narrow the gap is. All polling firms do weighting - why pick on this one?
Because the UKIP change is very high. 274 responses became 103.
It could be because UKIPers try and game polls by signing up on mass to polling firms which paints an unrealistic picture of their true support. It's partly why phone polls are much more valuable for punters.
The above statement by MaxPB shows the true paranoia of the anti- Ukipper. You only have to look at the real election results for September to see that UKIP are polling at around 26% of the vote. Put that in your Populus pipe!
But UKIP will get nothing like 26% at the general election, even if we held one tomorrow, and that's the basis that polls work.
@Grandiose You really don't know that, Grandiose. These are game changing times. I fully expect that if UKIP come top of the poll for the EU elections next year, then for the GE, I expect that UKIP will average around 18/21%.
Bet you £10 a point that UKIP will get below 18% (I'll be generous and take the bottom end of your range). Evens. Interested?
Personally I would be staggered (and delighted) if UKIP got much over 10%.
I would take it more seriously if it were not for the promises on free school meals, married couples tax allowance and the freeze on fuel duty.
To get the debt down in absolute £££s, he would need to run a surplus greater than interests payments.
Anyhow, I pledge to work towards having a body like the guy on the front cover of Men's Health, but not until 2020 mind.
Yes, in absolute terms this is correct, but in GDP terms he only needs a balanced budget or even a tiny surplus for the debt to GDP ratio to go down significantly over a 3-5 year period.
However, in absolute terms you are right. He would need to run a surplus of over £45bn to make a dent in Britain's national debt. It seems unlikely that this will be achieved, at least in my lifetime.
There seems to be quite a strong degree of correlation between support for UKIP and areas of Danish settlement (Kent excepted). I don't kow whether or not that's just a coincidence.
I thought Jutland was part of Denmark? (Isn't that where the Jutes who settled Kent came from?)
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
There seems to be quite a strong degree of correlation between support for UKIP and areas of Danish settlement (Kent excepted). I don't kow whether or not that's just a coincidence.
The correlation is stronger than you think. The Isle of Thanet was the first place the Danes overwintered rather than going home at the end of the fighting season in 850AD.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
Very true, but that is what Farage does. There are more former members of UKIP than even today's high level. Back a few years ago UKIP had a similar level of membership but divisions and fall outs involving Farage drove those people out of UKIP. For the Bruges/Freedom Association people, we are fast approaching the point where the referendum on Europe is threatened by the electoral performance of UKIP in GE 2015 defeating Conservative MPs. Farage has promised that Labour and the Lib Dems will also promise a referendum at GE 2015, but time is running out on them falling in line with Farage's promise. The manifestos are only 17 months away from being announced.
I am no fan of Farage but on the point of membership you are completely wrong. UKIP have never been even close to the levels of membership they have today. It is only a few years since they were well below 20,000 members.
I would take it more seriously if it were not for the promises on free school meals, married couples tax allowance and the freeze on fuel duty.
To get the debt down in absolute £££s, he would need to run a surplus greater than interests payments.
Anyhow, I pledge to work towards having a body like the guy on the front cover of Men's Health, but not until 2020 mind.
Yes, in absolute terms this is correct, but in GDP terms he only needs a balanced budget or even a tiny surplus for the debt to GDP ratio to go down significantly over a 3-5 year period.
However, in absolute terms you are right. He would need to run a surplus of over £45bn to make a dent in Britain's national debt. It seems unlikely that this will be achieved, at least in my lifetime.
He doesn't even need to do that: all he has to do is make sure that the deficit is no bigger than the proportional change in nominal GDP. So, if nominal GDP grows by 5% (3% inflation, 2% economic growth), then the national debt relative to GDP will shrink by 5%. You can run a pretty decent sized deficit in this circumstance and still see debt-to-GDP fall.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
Very true, but that is what Farage does. There are more former members of UKIP than even today's high level. Back a few years ago UKIP had a similar level of membership but divisions and fall outs involving Farage drove those people out of UKIP. For the Bruges/Freedom Association people, we are fast approaching the point where the referendum on Europe is threatened by the electoral performance of UKIP in GE 2015 defeating Conservative MPs. Farage has promised that Labour and the Lib Dems will also promise a referendum at GE 2015, but time is running out on them falling in line with Farage's promise. The manifestos are only 17 months away from being announced.
I am no fan of Farage but on the point of membership you are completely wrong. UKIP have never been even close to the levels of membership they have today. It is only a few years since they were well below 20,000 members.
2005 it was 28,000.
No that was massively disputed and everyone knew they were inflating membership figures. The real figure was generally accepted to be nearer 20,000.
Not sure if this has been linked to, but there is a very interesting article on the BBC website about national identity in the UK. Those from ethnic minorities are most likely to describe themselves as British and there may be a correlation between areas of strong UKIP support and feelings of being English (my conclusion, not the BBCs):
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country. East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity. The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
There seems to be quite a strong degree of correlation between support for UKIP and areas of Danish settlement (Kent excepted). I don't kow whether or not that's just a coincidence.
The correlation is stronger than you think. The Isle of Thanet was the first place the Danes overwintered rather than going home at the end of the fighting season in 850AD.
Unwanted European immigrants lead to UKIP support. Evidence now dates back 1,250 years.
If Farage can't play nicely with Bill Cash of all people (who is effectively UKIP in all but name), then what hope does he have of working with anyone?
Very true, but that is what Farage does. There are more former members of UKIP than even today's high level. Back a few years ago UKIP had a similar level of membership but divisions and fall outs involving Farage drove those people out of UKIP. For the Bruges/Freedom Association people, we are fast approaching the point where the referendum on Europe is threatened by the electoral performance of UKIP in GE 2015 defeating Conservative MPs. Farage has promised that Labour and the Lib Dems will also promise a referendum at GE 2015, but time is running out on them falling in line with Farage's promise. The manifestos are only 17 months away from being announced.
I am no fan of Farage but on the point of membership you are completely wrong. UKIP have never been even close to the levels of membership they have today. It is only a few years since they were well below 20,000 members.
Most of those driven out of UKIP have been the more active people who (quite rightly) tried to actually help lead or at least drive UKIP along either at a local or national level. It is they who have fallen foul of Farage's leadership style. For the general rank and file without an immediate interest in taking an active role in the party, Farage has some semi-deity status. Hence the reason he walked the last leadership election.
However, as a fellow member of the Bruges group I do despair of Eurosceptics who think that the return of a Tory government will mean anything other than disaster for the BOO movement.
I can see the logic in this. If the Tories get a majority and have their in/out referendum and Dave manages to get a decent settlement from the EU (an unlikely prospect IMO) the nation will vote to stay in, effectively ending the BOOers raison d'être. However, there is a massive chance that Dave's negotiating skills will turn out to be as bad as his skills at being a PM and the settlement will be poor and the nation will vote to leave the EU.
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Incidentally, if you want to get rid of Ad's (Mike probably won't think much to me posting this, because no doubt the ad's are paying for PB - Though you can disable it for some sites such as PB, if you like supporting the website, then you can enable it for other website, etc...)
Download this;
https://adblockplus.org/en/firefox
That way you can visit whatever website's you want without Google following your every movement through Cookie's served by their ad's.
You will also find page down load times become much quicker because your not waiting for ad's to appear.
It's also much safter to have something like this if you visit a lot of, er, "dodgy" website's, because it's usually through ad's on dodgy website's that you pick up malware, trojens and other nasty viruses
I installed this for my mother when she got a lap-top last year and she was struggling to navigate her way around web pages - With the ad's gone you get far more "white space" which is good for anybody not computer savvy.
Anyway, I was surprised how much quicker pages downloaded with the ad's gone, so I installed it on my own computer and have never looked back.
And I'm already sober...
Игнорировать Роджером. Он старый дурак.
Но Тим вернется домой. Хорошая вещь.
Bruges Group @BrugesGroup
@Nigel_Farage "Bill Cash u may well have voted against the Maarstricht treaty 47 times but you voted for it when you voted 4 JM confidence "
As political traps go this is quite a goody, but more importantly it is of course absolutely what needs to be done. Once we get through the long slog of actually getting rid of the huge deficit, we're going to need to start getting the absolute level of debt down as well (the alternative strategy, of letting it inflate away, is I think not practical given the peak we'll be starting from, which is unprecedented in peacetime).
Fair enough you advising how to avoid having ads on PB.
The site has just gone through a major overhaul and this costs. I will be putting up the donate button this evening. It is expensive to keep PB going but PBers have always been generous in the past whenever an appeal has been made.
"The gap between the rich and the poor is at the lowest level since 1986, despite surging demand for emergency supplies from foodbanks.
The fall in income inequality has been driven by a fall in earnings of higher income households rather than an increase in the prosperity of the less well off.
Overall, disposable incomes have fallen by an average £1,200 since 2007/08 in real terms, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But the richest fifth of households have seen income fall by £4,200 in real terms, whereas the poorest fifth have actually seen their incomes rise by an average £700.
Before taxes and benefits, the richest fifth of households had an average income of £78,300 in 2011/12 - 14 times the £5,400 average income of the poorest fifth. lowest
http://news.sky.com/story/1147910/thames-duck-boat-fire-30-pulled-from-river
I'm not so sure - UKIP are already off their polling highs of earlier in the year - to assume that they'll do as well in the GE as even the lates figures is debatable to put it mildly. I think there's an awful lot of wishful thinking about UKIP - from all who don't wish the Conservatives
well. I tend strongly to the view that opinion polls are highly unreliable when elections are not imminent. I also think there is too much rubbishing of the 'poll we don't like' at the moment. The reality is Labour have a lead of around 5% for what it's worth at the moment.
It`s kicking off at Tory conference.
You really don't know that, Grandiose. These are game changing times. I fully expect that if UKIP come top of the poll for the EU elections next year, then for the GE, I expect that UKIP will average around 18/21%.
Not convinced he can: UKIP's challenge is still electoral credibility.
To think Cash was AF Neil's example of who might be convinced to stand on a Tory/UKIP ticket.
The message is rammed home though that UKIP aren`t going to lie down and let the Tories walk over them as Cash implied UKIP should.
4 party politics.Can`t see how the 3 party leaders can keep Farage off the debates though quite easy to see why they want to.
Perhaps Farage was attempting to flatter him into his camp..!
Biggest cheer of Tory conference so far but it's not for a Tory. @Nigel_Farage raises the roof at @BrugesGroup fringe.
Gawain Towler @GawainTowler 39m
Rolling applause for @Nigel_Farage at Bruges Group Event. Standing room only pic.twitter.com/vTv9Arq1z0
sammacrory
Farage says Tory leadership must be shocked that 'in the upper reaches of Ukip we have working class people'. Huge round of applause #cpc13
I mainly use the blocker software for "big" websites where I find the ad's make my PC run very slowly (Digital Spy can be a nightmare and Entertainment Weekly website once tried to install a virus on my computer. The Guardian website can also be a nightmare for page download times as well, in my experiance)
It's nice to be able to support some websites (the one's that earn your trust like PB) and block the ad's on other websites that don't deserve your trust, IMO.
That said, we may be the idiots rather than Farage. There may be method in the madness. (And there might not.)
Must stay away from Daily Mail web before I visit PB.
I don;t support Farage but I'm very glad he said this. I've posted a number of times there should be far more people from ordinary backgrounds in the upper reaches of the tory party. Far more.
Perhaps this is the problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
Even going into an election the campaign from Cameron to UKIP people will all be "you want out of the EU, I'm the only one who can give you a vote", "Vote UKIP, get EU Ed". If Ed can make a go of the whole Blue Labour idea and promises an EU vote then Dave's job becomes very tough, but as the only party with a realistic shot at majority government offering an EU referendum picking up UKIP voters will be a very easy task indeed...
1/2
The whole Tory pitch to UKIP will be Bill Cash and other anti EUers out there telling the nation that a Tory vote is the only way to get a referendum, that message will hit home for a lot of UKIPers. Again, with Lynton Crosby in the tent (his importance is underlined by Labour's desperation to turn him into a story and force him out of the Tory camp) the Tory message will be very honed and they will all stay on point. With the Boy off campaign tactics the Tories have a better chance this time than in 2010 despite all of the same in built biases in the electoral system and a probable higher UKIP vote.
Also, I think there are two sides to UKIP, the first and more traditional UKIP voter/supporter is anti-EU, pro-free market, not to worried about immigration and these people have generally come over from the Conservatives (like Sean Fear and Richard Tyndall), and these are the most likely to hold their noses and vote Conservative. The other side is the anti-Immigration protectionist side most of whom are relatively recent additions to the UKIP fold, and they come from Labour or DNV, which is of little concern for the Tories and I don't think there needs to be a strategy from the blues to win those voters over, they won't vote Tory even if Farrage became the leader tomorrow.
The other issue UKIP will have is that closer to the election UKIP will have to spell out exactly what they stand for, and right now it's fine to be all things to all people (as UKIP are) and I don't see how one squares an anti-immigration message with the pro-free market circle. Once Farrage starts talking up his free market stuff and importing cheap labour from the Commonwealth (Indians, South Africans, Kenyans etc...) it all starts to fall apart. I don't see how a party can be both anti-immigration, pro-free market and more recently protectionist at the same time and draw supporters from all of those camps. It doesn't make very much sense and the current UKIP surge is built on shaky foundations which, closer to the GE, will begin to be problematic. Especially with the blues going into the election with a manifesto pledge of an EU referendum.
In England, the local authorities in which higher proportions of people simply ticked English as their national identity tend to be on the coasts, particularly on the eastern side of the country.
East Anglia and the Fens, parts of the Midlands and up the north-east coast show some of the highest figures for English identity.
The place that tops the table for English identity is Castle Point - the local authority that includes Canvey Island on the Thames estuary. Home to an older and predominantly white, working-class population, eight out of 10 people here ticked the English box in the census.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24302914
Farage is perhaps making the point that all tories are, in the end, tories. Yes they rebel, as do members of all parties, but when push comes to shove they can be counted on.
In that parallel universe, there would be a very good chance, perhaps as high as 40%, that Brtiain would be out of the EU within a few years.
In this universe, it's maybe 10% at most.
I don't think the Tories would be well advised to spend a lot of the 2015 referendum getting Bill Cash and co to pitch to UKIP supporters. If elections really are won from the centre, that is a sure fire way to lose one. The Tories would be better off ignoring UKIP. The problem is that for many Tories UKIP is what they want their party to be.
UKIP is about the fact the Conservatives have - in the view of a number of people - ceased being a party for the whole country, and have become a front for the interests of a small cadre of rich business people and "banksters@
UKIP is about the fact that there is no-one trumpeting social conservatism, and the rights of the silent majority
UKIP is about the fact that the three main political parties appear very much cut from the same cloth
UKIP is an insurgency - and sometimes insurgencies are successful, and sometimes they are not. There is two-thirds of the modern Conservative Party (and its voters) who would happily assimilate with UKIP. Unfortunately, the remaining third (which includes all the major donors) might seek to find another place for their votes and for their donations.
It's easy to see why that last one appears.
As I said previously, UKIP also have to lay out their policies, they can't be all things to all people when it comes to the GE. How can you be anti-immigration, pro-free trade and protectionist all at the same time?
Where she could find common cause with Cameron is scrapping (or restricting) the CAP, and in getting rid of the ridiculous working time directives. But her view is not that Europe - per se - is the problem, but that Europe is insufficiently capitalistic.
Perhaps when the next economic meltdown hits we'll be able to weather the storm like Australia and Canada did in 2008?
If it become's an "accepted" idea for the UK to run surpluses it will also force subsequant Labour governments to act sensibly (hopefully)
The question is whether the populace really cares about this. Maybe they don't.
Australia and Canada were (and remain) massive exporters of raw materials to China and Asia. It was not brilliant macroeconomic positioning, but good fortune to have economies levered to the export of coal, oil, etc. to the growing economies of the Far East.
Very impressive speech by Teresa May.4-1 fav.for next Tory leader looks good value for me and also Michael Crick,who is a journo who reaches the parts other journos cannot reach,reports not too much love and peace at view on the Tory fringe as Farage strolls in after his lunch-time pint.
I cannot understand why the Tories are not banging on about Europe more but it's early days yet.Cameron is not trusted to deliver and it is their collective obsession,a sort of collective OCD.
see populist politics - neutral nato EU-loving sterling-using monarchist-republican SNP, the bill freezing ha ha no blackouts and everyone will invest billions Ed's Labour etc.
you can't fool all of the people all of the time but some times you can fool enough of them to get elected.
The difference is that we had Gordon Brown, whereas Australia and Canada didn't.
When Osborne puts Labour and Lib's on the spot about the Surplus idea it will be fun to see whether he use's the oft-quoted Keyne's, as running surpluses in the good times to use for stimulus in the bad times is actually what true Keynesian economics is all about.
Ken Clarke, Minister Without Portfolio and staunchly pro-European Tory, has compared David Cameron's standing in America to that of a "statesman from Arkansas", reports Peter Dominiczak....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10342872/Conservative-Party-Conference-2013-day-two-live.html
next door in Austria the right got about 60% of the vote yet the socialist will end up in government to keep the Brussels show on the road. How long do you think voters will keep putting up with that ?
To get the debt down in absolute £££s, he would need to run a surplus greater than interests payments.
Anyhow, I pledge to work towards having a body like the guy on the front cover of Men's Health, but not until 2020 mind.
That's a completely different level of importance to the Australian economy than financial services was (or is) to the UK.
Outside, now!
For starters, there is the possibility that EdM matches the referendum policy.
They also have to persuade those UKIP voters who might be inclined to vote tory (and that is the only sub-set of UKIP supporters who might to suseptible to their only current attack line) that Cameron is the PM to lead us out of the EU.
There are very few people, within either the tory party or UKIP, who believe that.
I wondered how well those places where "English" is the preferred definition correlate with UKIP successes in the recent County elections!
My former stamping ground of Castle Point elected two Kippers, and, when we moved, lost two people who describe themselves as British!
Most of those driven out of UKIP have been the more active people who (quite rightly) tried to actually help lead or at least drive UKIP along either at a local or national level. It is they who have fallen foul of Farage's leadership style. For the general rank and file without an immediate interest in taking an active role in the party, Farage has some semi-deity status. Hence the reason he walked the last leadership election.
However, as a fellow member of the Bruges group I do despair of Eurosceptics who think that the return of a Tory government will mean anything other than disaster for the BOO movement.
Now, I'm not going to show my ignorance of Austrian politics, however, we could have a situation with the rise of UKIP where more than 50% of the population vote for Eurosceptic parties (Con + UKIP), but because of the vagaries of the election system the pro-EU Labour party could end up in power. This isn't because of Brussels, but because of the electoral system. Is this true of Austria too?
who thought his wife was a...
She (mis)quoted St. Francis of Assisi.
He is models himself on St. Augustine of Hippo: "God grant me chastity and continence, but not yet."
However, in absolute terms you are right. He would need to run a surplus of over £45bn to make a dent in Britain's national debt. It seems unlikely that this will be achieved, at least in my lifetime.