School accountability reforms announced today. Have to say I've lost interest in all the backroom stuff. I'm taking time out next (school) year and may not go back. A few (at least) months travelling then other work lined up if I want it. Love teaching still, but little we do now has anything to do with it.
I'm in favour of the shift from the C/D boundary tbh. And these changes may equal things out a bit for schools with a more challenging intake - from an initial scan, anyway.
The problem is the speed of change and incompetent headless chicken management. I've run out of brick walls to bang my head against.
No meaningful debates happen in Parliament any more; not for years.
Politicians have become the boring, snoring ones on Newsnight, too shackled by party politics to interest anybody in anything. Look today at the culture battles raging. On the one side you’ll find the Daily Mail, fighting the corner of Middle England (they’d have you believe) with all the ferocity of another era’s Chingford polecat. On the other sits The Guardian, sipping a latte, unshakeable in the belief that North London knows best. Where today, in the world of politics, do you find convictions half as clear? I keep reading that regulation is the politicians’ revenge for the expenses scandal, but perhaps it goes much deeper. Maybe it’s an antipathy born out of a sense of being usurped.
The observation in Woods piece that the Tories are only talking to their Tea Party core with their "Marxist" riffing is a point I've been making on here, it doesn't work when the public is way to the left of Miliband on all these issues. Bizarre Michele Bachmann type strategy.
You can't have it both ways, tim.
GDP measures wealth creation and RHDI shows how it is distributed. Both are aggregates and disguise variations in regional, sectoral and social groups, but they are nonetheless an evidential extract of reality.
A couple of weeks ago TSE quoted Mike as saying that one of the joys of editing PB was to confound prejudice with fact.
An article which states that Cameron "relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote" is profoundly based in prejudice. The measured facts state the opposite.
But Wood's article was not rooted in fact. It was partisan pamphleteering. If you are not convinced by the point on GDP-RHDI linkage take this paragraph as an example:
In their silly desperation to paint Labour as a bunch of commies, they find themselves talking to a small section of their core electorate, while Labour speaks for the broad majority of the British public. Lynton Crosby must be choking on his clients' tobacco leaves.
Crosby chewing the baccy: you would have been proud to have said that, tim.
@old_labour Aren't the tin foil hat sites the usual home of those comments?
Not referencing you in particular, but I'm fascinated by the reaction of many to the "ongoingness" of the McCann story. On the face of it, we have the human tragedy of a young couple who are haunted by the loss of their daughter, and being forced to relive their anguish in public after so many years. Yet, we have tim regularly decrying the ongoing police investigation (or maybe that's just an opportunity for a bit of soft Cameron-bashing) and comments implying that somehow these poor people are not entitled to continue to grieve for her loss. As if somehow they should just get over it, move on, stop reminding us all of our mawkish interest at the beginning. Or maybe it reminds us all of the ephemeral nature of the news cycle - yesterday's heart-rending tragedy is yesterday's chip paper. Go on - name the island where so many Somalis died on a capsized boat - but, but, but that was last week. Or maybe we object to the Express selling newspapers on the back of it.
"None of us feel the economy in aggregate statistics. The Tories' chaotic response to Labour's proposal on energy prices has revealed a blindspot about a fundamental problem with our economy: that the connection between growth and family incomes has snapped, and needs to be restored.
Cameron's problem is not just that he doesn't understand how much the cost of living crisis is biting with Britain's families; nor that he doesn't believe in government taking urgent action to do something about it. It is that he is wedded to a political strategy that relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote.
Labour peer pens a " cost of living crisis " piece of garbage.
Mark Senior - The point remains as the lowest they LDs have got since 1979 is the 16% they got in 1992, and anyway the difference between 13% and 13.8% is nothing and on NI and uncontested seats a minor difference in figures can be given as to whether you look at the UK or only the mainland but again the point remains, pre-SDP, post war, and with the exception of Thorpe's 1974 performance the LDs were between 5-15%, post SDP they were between 15-25%, they have now returned to their former figure!
You are being over simplistic , The Liberals polled 11.2% in 1964 but it would have been circa 18% plus with a full slate of candidates as post 1979 and 1966 would similarly have been around 16% .
"None of us feel the economy in aggregate statistics. The Tories' chaotic response to Labour's proposal on energy prices has revealed a blindspot about a fundamental problem with our economy: that the connection between growth and family incomes has snapped, and needs to be restored.
Cameron's problem is not just that he doesn't understand how much the cost of living crisis is biting with Britain's families; nor that he doesn't believe in government taking urgent action to do something about it. It is that he is wedded to a political strategy that relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote.
Labour peer pens a " cost of living crisis " piece of garbage.
Do you disagree with the premise?
Yes, Bobajob.
Woods's premise is that Cameron has presided over an economic recovery which has increased GDP but failed to raise standards of living and that this is a failing of Conservative Party priorities when compared to those of the Labour Party.
As the ONS graph I posted downthread demonstrates, this is an unfair criticism when considered in the context of the performance of the economy during the two Labour governments between 2001 and 2010.
What the graph shows is that Brown raised GDP without there being any correlational increase in Real Households' Disposable Income, whereas under Osborne growth in GDP has been broadly matched by growth in disposable incomes. The gap between wealth creation and standards of living was far more marked under Labour than it ever has been under the Coaltion government.
Of course, the financial crisis in 2007-09 played a significant role in the trends but this does not justify the argument being advanced by Woods.
Not only is Woods's premise flawed. It is simply wrong.
Mark Senior - The point remains as the lowest they LDs have got since 1979 is the 16% they got in 1992, and anyway the difference between 13% and 13.8% is nothing and on NI and uncontested seats a minor difference in figures can be given as to whether you look at the UK or only the mainland but again the point remains, pre-SDP, post war, and with the exception of Thorpe's 1974 performance the LDs were between 5-15%, post SDP they were between 15-25%, they have now returned to their former figure!
You are being over simplistic , The Liberals polled 11.2% in 1964 but it would have been circa 18% plus with a full slate of candidates as post 1979 and 1966 would similarly have been around 16% .
"None of us feel the economy in aggregate statistics. The Tories' chaotic response to Labour's proposal on energy prices has revealed a blindspot about a fundamental problem with our economy: that the connection between growth and family incomes has snapped, and needs to be restored.
Cameron's problem is not just that he doesn't understand how much the cost of living crisis is biting with Britain's families; nor that he doesn't believe in government taking urgent action to do something about it. It is that he is wedded to a political strategy that relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote.
Labour peer pens a " cost of living crisis " piece of garbage.
Do you disagree with the premise?
Yes, Bobajob.
Woods's premise is that Cameron has presided over an economic recovery which has increased GDP but failed to raise standards of living and that this is a failing of Conservative Party priorities when compared to those of the Labour Party.
As the ONS graph I posted downthread demonstrates, this is an unfair criticism when considered in the context of the performance of the economy during the two Labour governments between 2001 and 2010.
What the graph shows is that Brown raised GDP without there being any correlational increase in Real Households' Disposable Income, whereas under Osborne growth in GDP has been broadly matched by growth in disposable incomes. The gap between wealth creation and standards of living was far more marked under Labour than it ever has been under the Coaltion government.
Of course, the financial crisis in 2007-09 played a significant role in the trends but this does not justify the argument being advanced by Woods.
Not only is Woods's premise flawed. It is simply wrong.
Real terms disposable income has been falling, minus the odd blip, for about four years.
Mark Senior - The point remains as the lowest they LDs have got since 1979 is the 16% they got in 1992, and anyway the difference between 13% and 13.8% is nothing and on NI and uncontested seats a minor difference in figures can be given as to whether you look at the UK or only the mainland but again the point remains, pre-SDP, post war, and with the exception of Thorpe's 1974 performance the LDs were between 5-15%, post SDP they were between 15-25%, they have now returned to their former figure!
You are being over simplistic , The Liberals polled 11.2% in 1964 but it would have been circa 18% plus with a full slate of candidates as post 1979 and 1966 would similarly have been around 16% .
Over half those voters are brown bread.
True , as of course are the Labour and Conservative boters of those days which makes HYUFD's point even more problematic ,
MarkSenior Even in the 2 elections you quote, 18% and 16% would be around the same level as the lowest level the LDs polled post 1979, 17% in 1992 and 16% in 1997. Of the other post war elections pre-1979, the Liberals polled 9% in 1945 and 1950, 2.5% in 1951 and 2.7% in 1955, 5.9% in 1959, 8.5% in 1966 and 7.5% in 1970, and as the LDs have never polled that low since the SDP Alliance at a general election, but are now frequently polling that low, I think it proves the point!
"whereas under Osborne growth in GDP has been broadly matched by growth in disposable incomes."
Real disposable income has fallen every month bar one since the election, so he's crap at both then?
Real Household Disposable Income is not simply a product of salary/wage/earnings increases. It is affected by changes in applicable tax, mortgage and rental costs etc.
For a useful and reasonably short explanation of the drivers of RHDI see this ONS YouTube video released in 2011.
Just saying that incomes have risen less than inflation in every month bar one since the election does not give a true picture of households' disposable incomes. You need to track RHDI against GDP and CPI to get a truer picture.
SeanT/Tim Earlier thread - You support removing charitable status from public schools, of course that status allows them to provide scholarships and bursaries to those who cannot afford the fees, hence the end result would be to make them even more the producer of Osbornes and Camerons rather than those with talent but less privileged backgrounds!
To be honest I was simply pointing out the rank hypocrisy of people on here who rail against charities for paying high wages at the top and politicisation when the biggest payers are private health organisations who are heavily politicised, I've never once heard a PB Tory mention that when they are ranting about the RSPCA or Macmillan Cancer homes.
When did you last see a private healthcare provider employing chuggers?
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
What percentage comprises people who believe in liberty?
Maarsh/Mark Senior True, but they came from the same ideological poll as the Liberals that remain today, ie economically centrist, socially liberal and internationalist, and concentrated in the south-west and the celtic fringe
"None of us feel the economy in aggregate statistics. The Tories' chaotic response to Labour's proposal on energy prices has revealed a blindspot about a fundamental problem with our economy: that the connection between growth and family incomes has snapped, and needs to be restored.
Cameron's problem is not just that he doesn't understand how much the cost of living crisis is biting with Britain's families; nor that he doesn't believe in government taking urgent action to do something about it. It is that he is wedded to a political strategy that relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote.
I don't know what Lord Wood was doing during the noughties but he may well have been chasing Bambi in the deer park, over-indulging in the college port or knocked senseless by the beauty of the choristers singing from the top of Magdalen bell-tower.
Cameron has spent far more attention to the link between GDP and Real Households' Disposable Income than his predecessors Brown or Blair. This ONS graph demonstrates this fact without admitting any possiblity of dispute.
Thank you Mr ALP. You are a reason why I bother to read this site. You have the ability to cut through the crap on here and present facts .
Andrew Neil @afneil 1h New York Times: "An astonishing £83 billion worth of London properties were purchased in 2012 with no financing — all cash purchases."
Andrew Neil @afneil 59m Central London property has become both a global reserve currency and a massive money-laundering machine.
Not quite sure if Brillo thinks this is a bad thing or a good thing.
This sounds a very big number but it is not counter-intuitive.
Say the properties bought averaged £2.5 million each then this would suggest around 33,000 properties were sold out of a total of 3.8 million private dwellings in the London Boroughs. If the average was £1.5 million we are talking around 55,300 properties.
Many of the purchases would have been the two prime boroughs of RBKC and Westminister, but a substantial proportion will have been in Camden, Richmond, Kingston, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham.
The big two have 65,000 and 92,000 private dwellingss respectively and the second tier average around 60,000 apiece.
So the feeling on the ground will be that around one in ten properties in the prime boroughs were sold to foreigners last year with about one in twenty in the second tier boroughs. This level of demand is consistent with a 10% increase in property prices over the period.
As for property being a suitable destination for "laundered money", this stretches credulity a little. The prime property market is not very liquid, ownership is registered by a range of authorities, legal action can relatively easily taken to frustrate sales and property wealth is highly visible.
Money-laundering is often through cash businesses.
LOL! Cash purchases of houses don't actually involve suitcases of used twenties, you know ;-)
Twitter David Meikle @cllrdmeikle 17m Really hope the Jacobite candidate is on #scotnight. Judging by his interview in @dunfermlinep he's an 'interesting' candidate! #Dunfermline
Hopefully Osborne will be slightly more mature than he was last year inventing Libor conspiracies when under pressure.
Oh yes, immature conspiracy theories, like someone trying to make out that the privatisation of the Royal Mail was arranged to benefit friends of the Chancellor?!
"None of us feel the economy in aggregate statistics. The Tories' chaotic response to Labour's proposal on energy prices has revealed a blindspot about a fundamental problem with our economy: that the connection between growth and family incomes has snapped, and needs to be restored.
Cameron's problem is not just that he doesn't understand how much the cost of living crisis is biting with Britain's families; nor that he doesn't believe in government taking urgent action to do something about it. It is that he is wedded to a political strategy that relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote.
I don't know what Lord Wood was doing during the noughties but he may well have been chasing Bambi in the deer park, over-indulging in the college port or knocked senseless by the beauty of the choristers singing from the top of Magdalen bell-tower.
Cameron has spent far more attention to the link between GDP and Real Households' Disposable Income than his predecessors Brown or Blair. This ONS graph demonstrates this fact without admitting any possiblity of dispute.
Thank you Mr ALP. You are a reason why I bother to read this site. You have the ability to cut through the crap on here and present facts .
Spot the credit bubble
(and hence one of many reasons why raw GDP is so meaningless as a metric)
This sounds a very big number but it is not counter-intuitive.
Say the properties bought averaged £2.5 million each then this would suggest around 33,000 properties were sold out of a total of 3.8 million private dwellings in the London Boroughs. If the average was £1.5 million we are talking around 55,300 properties.
Many of the purchases would have been the two prime boroughs of RBKC and Westminister, but a substantial proportion will have been in Camden, Richmond, Kingston, Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham.
The big two have 65,000 and 92,000 private dwellingss respectively and the second tier average around 60,000 apiece.
So the feeling on the ground will be that around one in ten properties in the prime boroughs were sold to foreigners last year with about one in twenty in the second tier boroughs. This level of demand is consistent with a 10% increase in property prices over the period.
As for property being a suitable destination for "laundered money", this stretches credulity a little. The prime property market is not very liquid, ownership is registered by a range of authorities, legal action can relatively easily taken to frustrate sales and property wealth is highly visible.
Money-laundering is often through cash businesses.
LOL! Cash purchases of houses don't actually involve suitcases of used twenties, you know ;-)
When we were buying our house last year, our estate agent told us that a man turned up to exchange with suitcases filled with notes of differing used denominations. The man got angry when she refused to accept it, and only calmed down when she threatened to call the police. The deal didn't go through because he refused to do it through a British bank, despite having already proved he had funds in a relevant account.
Weird. But it was Peterborough ...
Not sure if that's just one of the estate-agent stories that does the rounds, but it sounds plausible.
SeanT/Tim Earlier thread - You support removing charitable status from public schools, of course that status allows them to provide scholarships and bursaries to those who cannot afford the fees, hence the end result would be to make them even more the producer of Osbornes and Camerons rather than those with talent but less privileged backgrounds!
To be honest I was simply pointing out the rank hypocrisy of people on here who rail against charities for paying high wages at the top and politicisation when the biggest payers are private health organisations who are heavily politicised, I've never once heard a PB Tory mention that when they are ranting about the RSPCA or Macmillan Cancer homes.
When did you last see a private healthcare provider employing chuggers?
Too busy putting in dodgy breast implants and leaving the NHS to pick up the tab, and all those liposuction clinics are registered charities with CEOs on up to a million a year. So moan about Shelter and Cancer charities all you like.
Are you trying to fit a record number of non sequiturs into one post?
Private schools and private healthcare providers are businesses which relieve the public sector of a significant proportion of work. For this it makes sense to allow them charitable status. That their CEOs are paid so highly does confuse this issue somewhat, but they're not appealing to the public for charitable donations.
The fact that charities which appeal to the public for donations are paying their CEOs so highly is far more controversial. I'm sure you're not too stupid to understand this. So you must, as usual, be doing it to make partisan party political point.
As pointed out earlier by some sensible poster (apologies I can't remember who), private schools offer very generous bursaries to poorer kids. Would you prefer this to end with the end of charitable status?
ONS Series NRJR Real Households' Disposable Income at Chained Volume Prices (i.e. in real terms) £ million
2010 Q3 250,941 2013 Q2 251,349
Note: RHDI is published as part of the ONS Series UK Economic Accounts. Data from latest release of 2013 Q2 (except 2010 Q3 - 4 figures which were not included in this release but come from an earlier release (2012 Q3).
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
Indeed wasn't there a suggestion that UKIP had the highest percentage of its voters being working class people of any party? The working classes tend not to go hunting much!
The Tories need to follow the Avery line and tell voters that they are wrong to believe they are enjoying lower living standards. It would be a real winner.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
Indeed wasn't there a suggestion that UKIP had the highest percentage of its voters being working class people of any party? The working classes tend not to go hunting much!
What percentage of the people who work in hunting do you think aren't working class?
Just watching 40 years on the Moon on BBC Four. It really is amazing, watching the old footage. James Burke and Patrick Moore. Technology that wouldn't even power today's Smart phones. Mission control that is full of cigarette smoke. The huge crowds watching black and white telly. Just the huge scale of the Saturn V.
I only hope we get to experience that thrill again.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
Indeed wasn't there a suggestion that UKIP had the highest percentage of its voters being working class people of any party? The working classes tend not to go hunting much!
I think it was UKIP had the largest chunk of C2s, Tories C1s and Labour DEs with AB split more evenly (from memory though so prob wrong).
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
Indeed wasn't there a suggestion that UKIP had the highest percentage of its voters being working class people of any party? The working classes tend not to go hunting much!
Not sure that's true. I used to ferry my father-in-law round the back roads of Warwickshire to follow the Warwickshire hunt. He was as working class as they come; and there were plenty of hunt followers like him. They didn't ride, but they loved it all the same. It was a real passion and when you saw the horses and hounds stretched across a field in full flight you could see why. He stopped voting Labour the day the ban came in.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
No so, SO.
I have never suggested that voters are primarily influenced by economic metrics. What economic metrics tell us (with a fair margin of error) is what the actual position was for a particular past period.
There is then a time delay between reality and perceptions, quite significant in the case of standards of living measurements which are lagging indicators of economic recovery.
For example, in the table of RHDI increases/decreases set out in my post to Bobajob, the 2012 increases in standards of living were probably lagging effects of late 2009-2011 growth.
But there are indices of consumer and household confidence in the economy and family's own household finances. Once such index, commented on by a polling company (ComRes?), was linked on the last thread.
A useful tracker of changes in confidence and expectations in the area of personal living standards and household finances is Markit's regular UK Household Finance Index. The last issue is well worth a read as it demonstrates growth in confidence in almost all measures, differences between different social groups and future trends. Overall most indices remain negative (below 50) but the trend is very clear: if the economy continues to grow at or near the current rate, perceptions will turn positive during mid 2014.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Yep, definitely an outlier
Anyone (other than Sunil) offering odds that he'll be back to supporting the Tories by May 2015?
jonnyjimmy given that it would have to presumably be based on the most needy that may be difficult to judge, and of course NHS hospitals are actually probably better at emergency surgery than private hospitals. Many hospitals were originally founded as charitable bodies though
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
jonnyjimmy given that it would have to presumably be based on the most needy that may be difficult to judge, and of course NHS hospitals are actually probably better at emergency surgery than private hospitals. Many hospitals were originally founded as charitable bodies though
But an awful lot of A&E "customers" are neither accident nor emergency. Some of them, at certain times, could surely be diverted at a fairly low cost to nurses at private hospitals?
Just watching 40 years on the Moon on BBC Four. It really is amazing, watching the old footage. James Burke and Patrick Moore. Technology that wouldn't even power today's Smart phones. Mission control that is full of cigarette smoke. The huge crowds watching black and white telly. Just the huge scale of the Saturn V.
I only hope we get to experience that thrill again.
Based on a fall which has since been revised down from -1.7% to -0.4%.
And the real term figures quoted in the article are now superceded with those state in the table downthread and show a very small increase in RHDI since Q3 2010.
Perhaps you could quote some vintage Telegraph articles on the gap between GDP and RHDI from the early noughties under Brown. That would be almost as fun as a link to the latest Matt cartoon.
The Tories need to follow the Avery line and tell voters that they are wrong to believe they are enjoying lower living standards. It would be a real winner.
Why not? Keep telling a person something over an over again and in the end they will believe it is true.
See the claims that a "Bedroom Tax" exists, or that the Community Charge was somehow 'unfair' as examples.
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
You're right. In the main a lot of charities were less critical of the government before May 2010.
Charities shouldn't be getting involved in politics. Full stop.
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
More interesting that it seems to have been driven by a Tory shift upwards, with Labour still stuck in the 38-40 range
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
What percentage comprises people who believe in liberty?
Depressingly few if PB is a representative sample.
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
You're right. In the main a lot of charities were less critical of the government before May 2010.
Charities shouldn't be getting involved in politics. Full stop.
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
You're right. In the main a lot of charities were less critical of the government before May 2010.
Charities shouldn't be getting involved in politics. Full stop.
Probably more a case of you not noticing it. Charities like Oxfam, Save the Children, The Taxpayers Alliance (!!) were frequently very critical of the last government.
Miliband has had a very good couple of weeks so no surprise that Lab share is holding up very well.
However what is encouraging for Con is that they are holding up well and Lab is not widening the gap DESPITE Miliband's very popular energy announcement.
Miliband won't be able to make such popular announcements every two weeks all the way to the GE so Con holding up so well during this period is very encouraging.
Con share has also "withstood" the unpopular Royal Mail privatisation.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
More interesting that it seems to have been driven by a Tory shift upwards, with Labour still stuck in the 38-40 range
Possibly I've missed a poll, but the Tories haven't had a 37% or above poll figure since March 2012
Based on a fall which has since been revised down from -1.7% to -0.4%.
And the real term figures quoted in the article are now superceded with those state in the table downthread and show a very small increase in RHDI since Q3 2010.
Perhaps you could quote some vintage Telegraph articles on the gap between GDP and RHDI from the early noughties under Brown. That would be almost as fun as a link to the latest Matt cartoon.
Mr Jones, Indeed, according to a yougov poll I have just looked up the LDs got 11% of their support from ABC1s and only 6% from C2DEs, the Tories had a higher percentage amongst ABC1s but both were in the thirties, UKIP and Labour both had more support amongst C2DEs than ABC1s
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Yep, definitely an outlier
Comrade Sunil, the panzer tanks are at Khimki.
My history's a little hazy, Comrade Avery, but aren't the Barbarians supposed to lose the Battle of Carthage Stalingrad?
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Reckon so. Think about it. Do you, Southam, HONESTLY want Balls and Miliband running the economy, after the f*ck up they made of it last time? Be honest, Southam, do you? Really?
Are you saying that without any qualms you'd just hand the house-keys back to Labour and say "TRY not to blow up the kitchen and kill all the pets this time"?
I think you WOULD have qualms because you are not stupid. And you are naturally a lefty. Ergo...
Of course he does SeanT. SO often talks about right wingers being slaves to their philosophy no matter what. SO is the exactly that in reverse, a left wing fanatic (Labour type) come hell or high water.
Would have been useful if the Gov approval rating had been included in those YouGov figures tonight. I noticed that its been bouncing around a wee bit recently, but it does seem to be on a downward trend towards low 20's just as the Labour lead has declined to the mid single figures recently.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Intriguing. Remember that YouGov were showing the parties equal just before the Conferences - and crossover seemed imminent.
Miliband staved this off with his rather cunning energy price cap, however insane in the long term -
I did say with the perceived perception (if not the actualite) of Ed Miliband veering left during the conference season, it could boost both Lab and Con, and see the Lib Dems and UKIP getting squeezed like a Chippendale's arse on a hen night in Blackpool.
Off topic, just saw a advance screening of Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks great as usual
Note to Peter Kellner: Much appreciated, but my bet with Paddy Power only pays out if YouGov report a Conservative lead by the end of the year. Just one will do, which given the daily polling shouldn't be too hard. I'll be happy to certify that I think it's an outlier.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
What percentage comprises people who believe in liberty?
A cynic might say that it less the salaries some charity bosses are earning and more that at times they are critical of the government. Funnily enough this seems to have been less of an issue before May 2010.
You're right. In the main a lot of charities were less critical of the government before May 2010.
Charities shouldn't be getting involved in politics. Full stop.
Probably more a case of you not noticing it. Charities like Oxfam, Save the Children, The Taxpayers Alliance (!!) were frequently very critical of the last government.
To be honest, I don't pay any attention to Oxfam or Save the Children precisely because they are so political. So I may have missed something.
I would put Taxpayers' Alliance into a different category. I suppose that they, and other institutes, provide a useful function (we host both the Institute of Philanthropy and the Institute for Statecraft) and there may be an argument for tax benefits, but they aren't "charities" in the common use of the word
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Reckon so. Think about it. Do you, Southam, HONESTLY want Balls and Miliband running the economy, after the f*ck up they made of it last time? Be honest, Southam, do you? Really?
Are you saying that without any qualms you'd just hand the house-keys back to Labour and say "TRY not to blow up the kitchen and kill all the pets this time"?
I think you WOULD have qualms because you are not stupid. And you are naturally a lefty. Ergo...
I'd be surprised if I voted Labour in 2015. They've done nothing to earn my vote except not be the Tories. EdM says a few interesting things, but is not exactly convincing. Ed Balls is just a mirror image of George Osborne - someone totally insulated from the real world playing JCR politics. After my 2010 experience I really want to make a positive choice in 2015. I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, but right now I am a vaguely left-wing person in search of a party. The thing I would like most to see is a new voting system. That would lead to many new things. But I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
Twitter Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Yep, definitely an outlier
Comrade Sunil, the panzer tanks are at Khimki.
My history's a little hazy, Comrade Avery, but aren't the Barbarians supposed to lose the Battle of Carthage Stalingrad?
A little bit of irony to go with the ironware, Tovarich Sunil.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
What percentage comprises people who believe in liberty?
100%
So a policy of reaffirming some of the ancient liberties of the people of the UK won't have any appeal?
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Reckon so. Think about it. Do you, Southam, HONESTLY want Balls and Miliband running the economy, after the f*ck up they made of it last time? Be honest, Southam, do you? Really?
Are you saying that without any qualms you'd just hand the house-keys back to Labour and say "TRY not to blow up the kitchen and kill all the pets this time"?
I think you WOULD have qualms because you are not stupid. And you are naturally a lefty. Ergo...
I'd be surprised if I voted Labour in 2015. They've done nothing to earn my vote except not be the Tories. EdM says a few interesting things, but is not exactly convincing. Ed Balls is just a mirror image of George Osborne - someone totally insulated from the real world playing JCR politics. After my 2010 experience I really want to make a positive choice in 2015. I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, but right now I am a vaguely left-wing person in search of a party. The thing I would like most to see is a new voting system. That would lead to many new things. But I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
"I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, "
What? Even if the Tories had clearly better policies for the nation and the people?
This, as I say, is why you are a twat.
I do not share the Tory world view. Therefore, I do not believe they are capable of having the best policies for people or the nation.
Cameron on hunting is a dog whistle tailored to a certain ukip demographic. Expect more ofths same
You must be joking! If more than 1% of UKIP support is from the hunting fraternaty I'd be very surprised. Cameron needs a lot more than that to draw even weak UKIPers back to the failing Tories, .
What percentage comprises people who believe in liberty?
100%
So a policy of reaffirming some of the ancient liberties of the people of the UK won't have any appeal?
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Reckon so. Think about it. Do you, Southam, HONESTLY want Balls and Miliband running the economy, after the f*ck up they made of it last time? Be honest, Southam, do you? Really?
Are you saying that without any qualms you'd just hand the house-keys back to Labour and say "TRY not to blow up the kitchen and kill all the pets this time"?
I think you WOULD have qualms because you are not stupid. And you are naturally a lefty. Ergo...
I'd be surprised if I voted Labour in 2015. They've done nothing to earn my vote except not be the Tories. EdM says a few interesting things, but is not exactly convincing. Ed Balls is just a mirror image of George Osborne - someone totally insulated from the real world playing JCR politics. After my 2010 experience I really want to make a positive choice in 2015. I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, but right now I am a vaguely left-wing person in search of a party. The thing I would like most to see is a new voting system. That would lead to many new things. But I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
"I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, "
What? Even if the Tories had clearly better policies for the nation and the people?
This, as I say, is why you are a twat.
I do not share the Tory world view. Therefore, I do not believe they are capable of having the best policies for people or the nation.
I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
Charles True, but we should set an example and treat them in a civilised manner, which is why I generally prefer shooting them unless the hounds are really trained enough to kill straight at the neck. For the same reason I prefer organic to factory farming
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Reckon so. Think about it. Do you, Southam, HONESTLY want Balls and Miliband running the economy, after the f*ck up they made of it last time? Be honest, Southam, do you? Really?
Are you saying that without any qualms you'd just hand the house-keys back to Labour and say "TRY not to blow up the kitchen and kill all the pets this time"?
I think you WOULD have qualms because you are not stupid. And you are naturally a lefty. Ergo...
I'd be surprised if I voted Labour in 2015. They've done nothing to earn my vote except not be the Tories. EdM says a few interesting things, but is not exactly convincing. Ed Balls is just a mirror image of George Osborne - someone totally insulated from the real world playing JCR politics. After my 2010 experience I really want to make a positive choice in 2015. I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, but right now I am a vaguely left-wing person in search of a party. The thing I would like most to see is a new voting system. That would lead to many new things. But I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
"I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, "
What? Even if the Tories had clearly better policies for the nation and the people?
This, as I say, is why you are a twat.
I do not share the Tory world view. Therefore, I do not believe they are capable of having the best policies for people or the nation.
What, precisely, is the "Tory worldview"?
A small state, trickle down economics, weak employee rights, the market is king.
GeoffM I do not equate the cockroach or the tapeworm with the same level of consciousness as the fox or rabbit, although even so I would still not treat them in a barbaric manner
SeanT Actually the Tories can still win even if Labour loses not one voter from now until polling day, if they squeeze UKIP down to at least 5% with those voters switching directly to them they can get to about 40%. Today some polls have the Tories on 34% while UKIP is at least at 10% in most polls
Big Tory YG leap without any decline in Labour vote share. Must be a UKIP thing. No doubt someone will tell me I'm wrong, but the Labour vote share does seem to have been consistently higher this last fortnight than it was before the conference season.
As Labour lurch wildly to the Left, you'd expect Tories to recoup UKIP voters. But that's not enuff. The Tories need Labour to shed 7% of their present support at the ballot box, as sane people quail at the idea they are about to elect ED MILIBAND and ED BALLS as LEADERS OF THE COUNTRY.
Is this feasible?
Re
I'd be surprised if I voted Labour in 2015. They've done nothing to earn my vote except not be the Tories. EdM says a few interesting things, but is not exactly convincing. Ed Balls is just a mirror image of George Osborne - someone totally insulated from the real world playing JCR politics. After my 2010 experience I really want to make a positive choice in 2015. I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, but right now I am a vaguely left-wing person in search of a party. The thing I would like most to see is a new voting system. That would lead to many new things. But I doubt it'll happen in my lifetime.
"I'll always be sympathetic to Labour and I will never vote Tory, "
What? Even if the Tories had clearly better policies for the nation and the people?
This, as I say, is why you are a twat.
I do not share the Tory world view. Therefore, I do not believe they are capable of having the best policies for people or the nation.
What, precisely, is the "Tory worldview"?
A small state, trickle down economics, weak employee rights, the market is king.
We enact policies that increase the size of the pie. We ensure that everyone gets more pie, but we aint too fussed about the proportions.
I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
Right here's the YouGov polling averages before and after conferences.
In the eleven YouGov polls before conference season began.
Con 32.73, Lab 38.64, LD 9.09, UKIP 12.45, Lab lead 5.91
In the eleven YouGov polls post the end of conference season, it is
Con33.64, Lab 39.00, LD 9.73, UKIP 11.18, Lab Lead 5.36
Changes from the two periods
Con plus 0.91, Lab plus 0.36, LD plus 0.64, UKIP minus 1.27, Lab lead minus 0.55
It would be interesting to hear from Sir Roderick whether these trends are matching his swingback theory or, his newer passion, the Lebo and Norpeth model.
To be honest, I don't pay any attention to Oxfam or Save the Children precisely because they are so political. So I may have missed something.
You certainly did. NGOs are by their nature critical of sitting governments, because they want policy focused on their particular issue, and governments always spread their atteniton and love. The NSPCC think governments don't do enough for children, Christian Aid thinks foreign aid too low, and so on. Throughout my time as MP it was quite exceptional for an NGO to say anything that wasn't basically critical - the range was normally from "A step forward but we want much more" to "A disgraceful dereliction of duty". Oxfam in particular was always critical (Christian Aid and Save the Children were a bit milder), though War on Want and Greenpeace probably topped the vehemence league.
It used to annoy me - but, on reflection, isn't it a fairly natural function of campaigns? Whether campaigns should count as charities is a separate issue, but presumably supporters of NSPCC do want them to harry the government ceaselessly to do more for children, etc., and it's perhaps an important part of the democratic process that different interest groups should have coherent lobbies to pitch their case.
To be honest, I don't pay any attention to Oxfam or Save the Children precisely because they are so political. So I may have missed something.
You certainly did. NGOs are by their nature critical of sitting governments, because they want policy focused on their particular issue, and governments always spread their atteniton and love. The NSPCC think governments don't do enough for children, Christian Aid thinks foreign aid too low, and so on. Throughout my time as MP it was quite exceptional for an NGO to say anything that wasn't basically critical - the range was normally from "A step forward but we want much more" to "A disgraceful dereliction of duty". Oxfam in particular was always critical (Christian Aid and Save the Children were a bit milder), though War on Want and Greenpeace probably topped the vehemence league.
It used to annoy me - but, on reflection, isn't it a fairly natural function of campaigns? Whether campaigns should count as charities is a separate issue, but presumably supporters of NSPCC do want them to harry the government ceaselessly to do more for children, etc., and it's perhaps an important part of the democratic process that different interest groups should have coherent lobbies to pitch their case.
Not content with launching a naval attack in Russian waters, Greenpeace is now planning to litigate against fracking on the grounds that parallel drilling hundreds of metres under private property is a trespass in common law.
And Greenpeace continues to enjoy the tax privileges of charitable status.
I'd much rather we taxed them to the full and spent the savings on trying to find Maddie.
These are pretty terrible ICM figures for the Lib Dems. As OGH has always gone to such lengths to explain, ICM tend to be best for the yellows. Doesn't surprise me though. Clegg's pitiful strategy unveiled at conference is just asking to have the life squeezed out of it by the other parties, which duly appears to be happening.
Comments
I'm in favour of the shift from the C/D boundary tbh. And these changes may equal things out a bit for schools with a more challenging intake - from an initial scan, anyway.
The problem is the speed of change and incompetent headless chicken management. I've run out of brick walls to bang my head against.
GDP measures wealth creation and RHDI shows how it is distributed. Both are aggregates and disguise variations in regional, sectoral and social groups, but they are nonetheless an evidential extract of reality.
A couple of weeks ago TSE quoted Mike as saying that one of the joys of editing PB was to confound prejudice with fact.
An article which states that Cameron "relies on pointing people towards GDP graphs produced by the Treasury, and telling voters that their life experience shouldn't affect how they vote" is profoundly based in prejudice. The measured facts state the opposite.
But Wood's article was not rooted in fact. It was partisan pamphleteering. If you are not convinced by the point on GDP-RHDI linkage take this paragraph as an example:
In their silly desperation to paint Labour as a bunch of commies, they find themselves talking to a small section of their core electorate, while Labour speaks for the broad majority of the British public. Lynton Crosby must be choking on his clients' tobacco leaves.
Crosby chewing the baccy: you would have been proud to have said that, tim.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/greece-to-be-renamed-olympikenstaat-201107224110
Yet, we have tim regularly decrying the ongoing police investigation (or maybe that's just an opportunity for a bit of soft Cameron-bashing) and comments implying that somehow these poor people are not entitled to continue to grieve for her loss. As if somehow they should just get over it, move on, stop reminding us all of our mawkish interest at the beginning.
Or maybe it reminds us all of the ephemeral nature of the news cycle - yesterday's heart-rending tragedy is yesterday's chip paper. Go on - name the island where so many Somalis died on a capsized boat - but, but, but that was last week.
Or maybe we object to the Express selling newspapers on the back of it.
So sad.
Woods's premise is that Cameron has presided over an economic recovery which has increased GDP but failed to raise standards of living and that this is a failing of Conservative Party priorities when compared to those of the Labour Party.
As the ONS graph I posted downthread demonstrates, this is an unfair criticism when considered in the context of the performance of the economy during the two Labour governments between 2001 and 2010.
What the graph shows is that Brown raised GDP without there being any correlational increase in Real Households' Disposable Income, whereas under Osborne growth in GDP has been broadly matched by growth in disposable incomes. The gap between wealth creation and standards of living was far more marked under Labour than it ever has been under the Coaltion government.
Of course, the financial crisis in 2007-09 played a significant role in the trends but this does not justify the argument being advanced by Woods.
Not only is Woods's premise flawed. It is simply wrong.
For a useful and reasonably short explanation of the drivers of RHDI see this ONS YouTube video released in 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2eQPzTyApY
Just saying that incomes have risen less than inflation in every month bar one since the election does not give a true picture of households' disposable incomes. You need to track RHDI against GDP and CPI to get a truer picture.
A train spotter station quiz from the Ordnance Survey
http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2013/10/its-the-train-station-spotter-quiz-part-two/
Twitter
David Meikle @cllrdmeikle 17m
Really hope the Jacobite candidate is on #scotnight. Judging by his interview in @dunfermlinep he's an 'interesting' candidate! #Dunfermline
If only everyone maintained your standards, tim.
(and hence one of many reasons why raw GDP is so meaningless as a metric)
Weird. But it was Peterborough ...
Not sure if that's just one of the estate-agent stories that does the rounds, but it sounds plausible.
Private schools and private healthcare providers are businesses which relieve the public sector of a significant proportion of work. For this it makes sense to allow them charitable status. That their CEOs are paid so highly does confuse this issue somewhat, but they're not appealing to the public for charitable donations.
The fact that charities which appeal to the public for donations are paying their CEOs so highly is far more controversial. I'm sure you're not too stupid to understand this. So you must, as usual, be doing it to make partisan party political point.
As pointed out earlier by some sensible poster (apologies I can't remember who), private schools offer very generous bursaries to poorer kids. Would you prefer this to end with the end of charitable status?
It hasn't been rising like a rocket, more flatlining, but it has definitely risen overall with most of the growth coming in 2012. Note: RHDI is published as part of the ONS Series UK Economic Accounts. Data from latest release of 2013 Q2 (except 2010 Q3 - 4 figures which were not included in this release but come from an earlier release (2012 Q3).
Wow, not all non-white people are racially blind after all. What a shock.
I'd expect that would effect the average figure and in the process partially disguise the underlying reality.
Just the huge scale of the Saturn V.
I only hope we get to experience that thrill again.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/spending-review/10146720/Recovery-far-off-for-families-as-disposable-income-sees-biggest-drop-for-25-years.html
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn 41s
YouGov/Sun poll tonight: Labour lead down to 1% again. LAB 38%, CON 37% LD 10%, UKIP 10%. An outlier, but suggests contraction under way.
Is there any feasible way they could help out with the A&E problems at the moment?
I have never suggested that voters are primarily influenced by economic metrics. What economic metrics tell us (with a fair margin of error) is what the actual position was for a particular past period.
There is then a time delay between reality and perceptions, quite significant in the case of standards of living measurements which are lagging indicators of economic recovery.
For example, in the table of RHDI increases/decreases set out in my post to Bobajob, the 2012 increases in standards of living were probably lagging effects of late 2009-2011 growth.
But there are indices of consumer and household confidence in the economy and family's own household finances. Once such index, commented on by a polling company (ComRes?), was linked on the last thread.
A useful tracker of changes in confidence and expectations in the area of personal living standards and household finances is Markit's regular UK Household Finance Index. The last issue is well worth a read as it demonstrates growth in confidence in almost all measures, differences between different social groups and future trends. Overall most indices remain negative (below 50) but the trend is very clear: if the economy continues to grow at or near the current rate, perceptions will turn positive during mid 2014.
Well worth a read. See here:
http://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/ad7d49f87902424bae6024efd6bbddb8
A measly single unitary solo lonely one per cent.
ROFLWMTITA
And the real term figures quoted in the article are now superceded with those state in the table downthread and show a very small increase in RHDI since Q3 2010.
Perhaps you could quote some vintage Telegraph articles on the gap between GDP and RHDI from the early noughties under Brown. That would be almost as fun as a link to the latest Matt cartoon.
See the claims that a "Bedroom Tax" exists, or that the Community Charge was somehow 'unfair' as examples.
Charities shouldn't be getting involved in politics. Full stop.
Set the traps.
http://m8.i.pbase.com/o3/94/913594/1/145968158.moR7CN0C.KhimkiTankTrapMemorial.jpg
However what is encouraging for Con is that they are holding up well and Lab is not widening the gap DESPITE Miliband's very popular energy announcement.
Miliband won't be able to make such popular announcements every two weeks all the way to the GE so Con holding up so well during this period is very encouraging.
Con share has also "withstood" the unpopular Royal Mail privatisation.
Possibly I've missed a poll, but the Tories haven't had a 37% or above poll figure since March 2012
That has to be the Tory slogan for 2015.
Go for it Dave.
Off topic, just saw a advance screening of Captain Phillips, Tom Hanks great as usual
miss bracey @missbracy 2h
@2cvdolly1 @Xlibris1 @UKIP @MSmithsonPB Is this the same Mike that's married to Baroness Aston?
Either that, or Mike's involved in a scandal that he's not telling us about.
Equal Rights For The Ebola Virus!
I would put Taxpayers' Alliance into a different category. I suppose that they, and other institutes, provide a useful function (we host both the Institute of Philanthropy and the Institute for Statecraft) and there may be an argument for tax benefits, but they aren't "charities" in the common use of the word
As Farage Warned: "In Two Months Of EU Membership, Croatian Exports Fall 11%"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-14/nigel-farage-warned-two-months-eu-membership-croatian-exports-fall-11 …
Farage right again, sadly for Croatia.
Telegraph - Fathers-to-be to be paid to go to antenatal classes, under Labour plans
I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
He also said this, prophetically, of Ed Miliband:
He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet.
In the eleven YouGov polls before conference season began.
Con 32.73, Lab 38.64, LD 9.09, UKIP 12.45, Lab lead 5.91
In the eleven YouGov polls post the end of conference season, it is
Con33.64, Lab 39.00, LD 9.73, UKIP 11.18, Lab Lead 5.36
Changes from the two periods
Con plus 0.91, Lab plus 0.36, LD plus 0.64, UKIP minus 1.27, Lab lead minus 0.55
It used to annoy me - but, on reflection, isn't it a fairly natural function of campaigns? Whether campaigns should count as charities is a separate issue, but presumably supporters of NSPCC do want them to harry the government ceaselessly to do more for children, etc., and it's perhaps an important part of the democratic process that different interest groups should have coherent lobbies to pitch their case.
And Greenpeace continues to enjoy the tax privileges of charitable status.
I'd much rather we taxed them to the full and spent the savings on trying to find Maddie.
The Con conference only ended on Wed 2 Oct.
Ignoring the YouGov which came out on the morning of Thurs 3 Oct there have only been 8 YouGovs:
Fri, Sun, a full week of 5, Tues.
I would ignore the first two and start with Tues 8 Oct.
The revised polling for the 8 day average before and after conference
8 Day average before conference season
Con 32.88, Lab 38.38, LD 9.13, UKIP 12.38, Lab Lead 5.50
8 Day average after conference season
Con 34.00, Lab 38.63, LD 9.88, UKIP, 11.00, Lab Lead 4.63
Changes
Con plus 1.13, Lab plus 0.25, LD plus 0.75, UKIP minus 1.38, Lab Lead minus 0.88