Appears to claim the energy companies are profiteering
You are wasting your time Tim, and so is David Cameron. And John Major. All is rosy in the world of energy, we've never had it so good, overcharging is a myth. The Herd has decreed it to be so, so it is so.
Its an interesting strategy they've come up with, claim a price freeze while restructuring the market is Marxist, while simultaneously claiming energy companies are "robbing" their customers (Greg Barker) or putting up their retail prices more than wholesale price rises justify (Cameron).
I'm sure there's a PB Tory somewhere who can explain it to me.
We had a similar LOL strategy earlier with the train companies which revolved around the idea that the service should incentivise pensioners who can plan their journeys months in advance, rather than working people who need to use it to, erm, make money and thus pay their taxes. To alter the Byzantine ticketing structure would apparently lead to people "who lack forethought" being subsidised by the pensioners. That the forethought-challenged group already pay 4x the BR subsidy to the railway through their taxes was the bit that flummoxed me. But, as you say, I'm sure there's a Herdite ready and willing to share his know how and help me out.
Appears to claim the energy companies are profiteering
David CameRed would seem to be more apt given that so few want to remember his Energy price pledge. An energy price pledge which went the way of so many price promises perpetrated by posturing politicians.
I liked this suggestion as Dave is supposed to be copying the 1992 Major strategy.
Patrick O'Flynn @oflynnexpress 24 Oct Idea for Tory election broadcast: chauffeur driven PM passes his old school & asks aloud "Is it still there?", before adding "It is, it is!"
you have to be of a certain age to get that one Tim
Appears to claim the energy companies are profiteering
David CameRed would seem to be more apt given that so few want to remember his Energy price pledge. An energy price pledge which went the way of so many price promises perpetrated by posturing politicians.
Was that response intended to be so alliterative Mick?
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
& asks aloud "Is it still there?", before adding "It is, it is!"
I fear we must draw a discrete veil over some of the disgracefully ribald and off colour things that were said when everyone awoke to the hilarious news of John Major and Edwina Currie. That particular passage from the PPB was used in a most unfortunate manner as I recall.
There's nothing much leftish about being pro-rail nationalisation - the service already receives a thumping great subsidy that is four times that of BR. Many Tories support rail nationalisation, even some on the Right, such as Peter Hitchens.
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
Appears to claim the energy companies are profiteering
David CameRed would seem to be more apt given that so few want to remember his Energy price pledge. An energy price pledge which went the way of so many price promises perpetrated by posturing politicians.
Was that response intended to be so alliterative Mick?
Tim You made this point before, but Cameron has led Miliband in more polls overall since 2010 and comfortably beat him in that head to head Mail poll. But as I have also repeatedly stated the election will depend on whether Cameron wins back the lost Tory to UKIP vote. Miliband is likely to get at least 35/36%, which is more than the 34% Kinnock got in 1992, so if the UKIP vote holds up, Cameron will lose. If he cuts it back he can eke out a majority, although it will almost certainly be less than Major got in 1992. Both main parties are helped by the fact that the LD vote will be less than Ashdown got.
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
Virginity is certainly cheaper than sex, which is taxed far too heavily by this government.
(P.S. I must have missed the post where Sunil said he was a virgin?!)
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
The chances of Labour not wining a majority are 85% (57 + 28). Or if you like they will have a 15% chance of winning. Then....
Given a 28% chance of NOM the chances that the Tories will be the largest of the two parties is greatest. So this pushes the two-horse race to 88-12. So I Labour are not going to form a majority their vote share will not be sufficient to overcome the advantage that the Conservatives have and so the Tories will be the largest party.
Accepting that the modeling is based on percentages polled (and not how many millions voted, in what constituencies and based upon what regional patterns occurred) the margin between Labour second-party and Labour majority must be very small. Only Stephen can verify....
Edited to add: It almost 100% certain that either Labour or the Tories will be the largest party in seventeen months time. It would be some event for this hypothesis not to be held true.
OK, I think you are saying:
28% Hung Parliament OF WHICH largest party splits 88/12.
........ which means overall breakdown is:
57% Con maj 15% Lab maj 24.6% Hung - Con largest (ie 88% * 28%) 3.6% Hung - Lab largest (ie 12% * 28%)
You have done your best to explain something which is logically wrong.
First of all, there must be an event which is most likely. According to this "expert, it is an outright Tory majority.Therefore, going away from this event will bring us to ever decreasing likelihood events. First, a Tory majority party, then a Labour majority party [ both, of course, hung ] and finally, a Labour outright majority.
To be now told that that has a greater probability, 15% to 3.6% ,is simply bonkers. It is white coat time !
No fault of yours. You did your best to explain something inherently unexplainable.
In Australia Morgan has published results from an online poll conducted on the weekend from a sample of 1169, on the question of preferred prime minister. It gives Tony Abbott a lead of 40-36 over new Labor leader Bill Shorten. Abbott’s lead is entirely down to those aged over 50, with Shorten leading in each of the three younger cohorts. Abbott’s lead is at 43-36 among men and 38-36 among women.
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
I've come to a thread to find. Sunil is still a virgin. And bobajob wants everybody apart from bobajob to pay more tax. Sadly for BAJ. Sunil will get a shag before he gets a tax cut.
Virginity is certainly cheaper than sex, which is taxed far too heavily by this government.
(P.S. I must have missed the post where Sunil said he was a virgin?!)
"Here's the Major PPB that David Cameron should remake"
Interesting in retrospect how effective it is. At the time I found it sick makingly fake which it probably isn't. But I never forgave him being Thatcher's poodle when they refused to give an inch in their opposition to sanctions against south Africa.
I've had a great idea for a benefits scam. Loan out your kids to another family so they can pretend they're theirs and claim benefits for them and vice versa. I wish i'd thought of it before i could of done it with my brothers.
The total benefits would be the same, you'd just be living with different children. Those BNP think tanks must be fearsome
The key word you're missing is "addition."
It's hardly original, though.
If you ask Neil nicely, he'll tell you that the Irish farmers north & south of the border have been doing that for years (easier to hide it when you are double claiming from London & Dublin)
"Here's the Major PPB that David Cameron should remake"
Interesting in retrospect how effective it is. At the time I found it sick makingly fake which it probably isn't. But I never forgave him being Thatcher's poodle when they refused to give an inch in their opposition to sanctions against south Africa.
Opposing sanctions was the right thing to do. I'm glad we played cricket down there too. Such a shame so many of their talented players couldn't play for their nation of birth due to pathetic lefty hand-wringing.
Neil Henderson @hendopolis 32m INDEPENDENT: Gove accused of free school 'fraud' cover up #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/pwNx8adtUd
Surely the Messiah Gove would've thrown the money changers out of the temple as soon as he heard about financial shenanigans Or got David Laws to.
It's interesting that a situation of poor governance at a Free School gets blanket coverage on Newsnight and in the Independent, but a scandal at bog standard school passes with little comment. It's the politics of it innit?
Particularly obnoxious is Gavin Esler on Newsnight who always finds a way to dump on the government. I still remember his solicitous attitude to a bunch of lefties who were pondering Brown's unpopularity.
Tim You made this point before, but Cameron has led Miliband in more polls overall since 2010 and comfortably beat him in that head to head Mail poll. But as I have also repeatedly stated the election will depend on whether Cameron wins back the lost Tory to UKIP vote. Miliband is likely to get at least 35/36%, which is more than the 34% Kinnock got in 1992, so if the UKIP vote holds up, Cameron will lose. If he cuts it back he can eke out a majority, although it will almost certainly be less than Major got in 1992. Both main parties are helped by the fact that the LD vote will be less than Ashdown got.
There are two facts that cannot be ignored:
1. There will be some left leaning LD defection to Labour no matter how much the yellows recover.
2. There will be some increase in the UKIP vote no matter how much their support falls from their current levels.
Both possibilities are bad for the Tories particularly given the current boundaries which will be the same as the 2010 boundaries.
Such a shame so many of their talented players couldn't play for their nation of birth due to pathetic lefty hand-wringing.
Basil D'Oliveira?
Exactly - that's a perfect example of how we didn't let politics interfere with sport. The Saffers did and the tour was cancelled. The two don't mix and trouble always comes of it.
We've got that nonsense brewing with Russian attitudes to gays not being the same as in more sanctimonious places (and as shouty annoying people). Let sport and politics mix and the only real victims are the sportsmen who have trained for years to compete at the highest level.
1) Was the sample past-vote weighted (the question you always ask)?
2) The question is wrong anyway. Yes, of course people want 'qualified teachers'. That's not the same as asking whether the want 'only teachers with a particular bureaucratically-mandated narrowly-defined qualification which is not compulsory for teachers at Eton or Winchester'.
3) Anyway, who cares what qualifications teachers have at a school they don't have to send their kids to? The salience is minute.
I've thrown some figures into Electoral Calculus to try and get to Fisher's projection. Without going to decimal places the nearest approximation seems to be Con 41%, Lab 33%, LD 15% with the Tories somewhat improbably winning seats like Cambridge.
1) Was the sample past-vote weighted (the question you always ask)?
2) The question is wrong anyway. Yes, of course people want 'qualified teachers'. That's not the same as asking whether the want 'only teachers with a particular bureaucratically-mandated narrowly-defined qualification which is not compulsory for teachers at Eton or Winchester'.
3) Anyway, who cares what qualifications teachers have at a school they don't have to send their kids to? The salience is minute.
----
"Anyway, who cares what qualifications teachers have at a school they don't have to send their kids to?"
I could just as easily write, who cares if a hospital in deepest Hampshire has trained doctors or quacks as I have no intention of going there.
I dont disagree with you too strongly. Sport should be about breaking down barriers not creating them. But lefties are not the problem. Seriously.
The problem depends on situation and motivation, and no bloc uses the sporting weapon exclusively - that's very true.
Only today I was upset today to read this for example. The fact that it's a muslim country being disrespectful towards Israel is depressingly par for the course. But it's the highlight of the lives of some of those swimmers. Why ruin it? *sigh*
I've thrown some figures into Electoral Calculus to try and get to Fisher's projection. Without going to decimal places the nearest approximation seems to be Con 41%, Lab 33%, LD 15% with the Tories somewhat improbably winning seats like Cambridge.
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Major is one of the most underrated politicians in modern times. He quite simply defied political gravity in 1992, and came out fighting - who can forget the sight of this rather mild mannered figure standing on a soapbox in marginal constituencies, taking the fight to Labour? That he got trounced in 1997 was hardly his fault -- after winning a shock majority in 92 the Tories spent the next few years destroying themselves over Europe, while Major was torn to pieces by the nutters on the frothing Tory Right. He's a keen cricket fan too, so that's a big tick in his column.
He' a keen Chelsea fan as well, he's still a treacherous bastard though. He should have been a Lib Dem
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
I've thrown some figures into Electoral Calculus to try and get to Fisher's projection. Without going to decimal places the nearest approximation seems to be Con 41%, Lab 33%, LD 15% with the Tories somewhat improbably winning seats like Cambridge.
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
The more they find out the worse the polling gets for Gove, you can put your fingers in your ears and ignore it if you like, but I suggest you look at which voters bothered by this stuff, it's swing Lib Dem voters in marginals
Saw a quote the other day that said Clegg is more concerned about politics than children's education, just about sums up the Lib Dems.
Another of "not clever enough" IDS' programmes in the slow lane
Ed Balls is a bright chap, just a shame he doesn't know the difference between debt and deficit. I heard he's off to B&Q this weekend to buy some flatlining for his pond.
Has there ever been a man that has been more wrong about everything he says and does?
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
How does bringing back Secondary Moderns improve social mobility?
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
How does bringing back Secondary Moderns improve social mobility?
Bring them back? They still exist. We just call them Comprehensives now.
I've thrown some figures into Electoral Calculus to try and get to Fisher's projection. Without going to decimal places the nearest approximation seems to be Con 41%, Lab 33%, LD 15% with the Tories somewhat improbably winning seats like Cambridge.
This , of course, presupposes that "others" will remain at 10% of which, UKIP, was 3% last time.
UKIP will definitely be higher next time. I would say minimum 6%. The Fisher maths does not say much about that. The combined CON-LD-LAB total will have to be, at least, another 3% lower.
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
Thatcher doesn't disgust you, the queen of grammar school destruction? Norn Irn didn't get rid of grammars, any evidence that social mobility is better because of that?
Any evidence it isn't? I'm no fan of Thatcher either, what she did to the miners (aided by the useful idiot Scargill) was unforgivable, and you are right about her and grammar schools,
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
How does bringing back Secondary Moderns improve social mobility?
Bring them back? They still exist. We just call them Comprehensives now.
Exactly, except the 20% of working class kids that would have gone to grammar school are now part of the race to the bottom
On topic, the thing about polls historically overestimating Labour reminds me of that Smithson Golden Rule we used to hear about before 2010. Each election overestimated Labour by a smaller amount, which Mike read as something like "the poll with the lowest Labour share is the best". Then we got to 2010 where they (IIRC) slightly underestimated them.
If you're following the trend the obvious conclusion is that next time they'll underestimate Labour quite a bit in 2015. But more realistically, the pollsters would rather be right than wrong, so they're probably tweak their samples every time to take account of the way they were out last time, so the correction from last time is already in the numbers and you shouldn't try to adjust for it again.
Either way, what you don't want to do is take the average skew over that period. If you're trying to cross the road, you need to know whether the approaching bus will hit you on its current path, not whether it would hit you if it was at the average distance from you since you first observed it coming over the hill.
And did Messiah Gove really only publish this report when he knew Newsnight had the story?
This stuff has been posted before. The general population doesn't really know much about free schools. They are largely ignorant. When the schools have been running for a bit longer and their achievements are publicised the public will approve - except the lefties who can't abide accountability and competition.
Or anyone breaking up the ideological dogma that has ruined the education of our children for nigh on fifty years. The best way to raise social mobility is to bring back grammar schools, I keep saying it and it is one reason why I vote UKIP. The likes of Shirley Williams and Crosland disgust me.
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
How does bringing back Secondary Moderns improve social mobility?
Bring them back? They still exist. We just call them Comprehensives now.
Exactly, except the 20% of working class kids that would have gone to grammar school are now part of the race to the bottom
That's the Left for you. Fairness. Everyone gets an equal view from the gutter.
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Major is one of the most underrated politicians in modern times. He quite simply defied political gravity in 1992, and came out fighting - who can forget the sight of this rather mild mannered figure standing on a soapbox in marginal constituencies, taking the fight to Labour? That he got trounced in 1997 was hardly his fault -- after winning a shock majority in 92 the Tories spent the next few years destroying themselves over Europe, while Major was torn to pieces by the nutters on the frothing Tory Right. He's a keen cricket fan too, so that's a big tick in his column.
This is just laughable.
He inherited a near 100 seat majority from Thatcher. With that headstart he was always favourite to win the 1992 GE, no matter what anyone says.
He got thrashed in 1997 due almost entirely to the economic damage he wreaked through his utterly disastrous ERM policy.
He was also a stinking hypocrite carrying on an affair with Edwina Currie while proclaiming family values.
The man is an odious, stupid, lying creep who should keep out of public life.
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Major is one of the most underrated politicians in modern times. He quite simply defied political gravity in 1992, and came out fighting - who can forget the sight of this rather mild mannered figure standing on a soapbox in marginal constituencies, taking the fight to Labour? That he got trounced in 1997 was hardly his fault -- after winning a shock majority in 92 the Tories spent the next few years destroying themselves over Europe, while Major was torn to pieces by the nutters on the frothing Tory Right. He's a keen cricket fan too, so that's a big tick in his column.
This is just laughable.
He inherited a near 100 seat majority from Thatcher. With that headstart he was always favourite to win the 1992 GE, no matter what anyone says.
He got thrashed in 1997 due almost entirely to the economic damage he wreaked through his utterly disastrous ERM policy.
He was also a stinking hypocrite carrying on an affair with Edwina Currie while proclaiming family values.
The man is an odious, stupid, lying creep who should keep out of public life.
And yet he's the last Tory leader to win a majority!
Major is probably a shade brighter than IDS, he did pass some difficult banking exams first time, although neither have a degree. Major also has more charm. However, IDS can claim the moral high ground having never cheated on his wife being a strict Catholic. Both are rather dull but generally decent types, and both won the leadership as the candidate of the right against the more charismatic but Europhile Heseltine and Clarke (although by '95 Major had become the candidate of the Tory left against Redwood).
Major is one of the most underrated politicians in modern times. He quite simply defied political gravity in 1992, and came out fighting - who can forget the sight of this rather mild mannered figure standing on a soapbox in marginal constituencies, taking the fight to Labour? That he got trounced in 1997 was hardly his fault -- after winning a shock majority in 92 the Tories spent the next few years destroying themselves over Europe, while Major was torn to pieces by the nutters on the frothing Tory Right. He's a keen cricket fan too, so that's a big tick in his column.
This is just laughable.
He inherited a near 100 seat majority from Thatcher. With that headstart he was always favourite to win the 1992 GE, no matter what anyone says.
He got thrashed in 1997 due almost entirely to the economic damage he wreaked through his utterly disastrous ERM policy.
He was also a stinking hypocrite carrying on an affair with Edwina Currie while proclaiming family values.
The man is an odious, stupid, lying creep who should keep out of public life.
And yet he's the last Tory leader to win a majority!
Just read the whole paper. The whole thing seems to be based on constant things happening to polls since 1972. But polling changes all the time. In particular there were big changes after 1992 specifically to reduce the effect that he's correcting for, as any fule kno.
Sorry to go off-topic so soon, but on the subject of "qualified" teachers needing a PGCE, some people are still comparing it to Doctors not being qualified.
That would be terrible and it's true. Potential Doctors are being taught by "unqualified" lecturers at University. Close down these free universities at once. And even worse, the post graduate training is often done on the job by other "unqualified" charlatans. It's a disgrace.
A good teacher is a good teacher. Spending a year brushing off some rough edges may be needed for some but not for all.
Comments
Possibly that's where all the other PB Tories are at.
I fear we must draw a discrete veil over some of the disgracefully ribald and off colour things that were said when everyone awoke to the hilarious news of John Major and Edwina Currie.
That particular passage from the PPB was used in a most unfortunate manner as I recall.
There's nothing much leftish about being pro-rail nationalisation - the service already receives a thumping great subsidy that is four times that of BR. Many Tories support rail nationalisation, even some on the Right, such as Peter Hitchens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Shag
(P.S. I must have missed the post where Sunil said he was a virgin?!)
First of all, there must be an event which is most likely. According to this "expert, it is an outright Tory majority.Therefore, going away from this event will bring us to ever decreasing likelihood events. First, a Tory majority party, then a Labour majority party [ both, of course, hung ] and finally, a Labour outright majority.
To be now told that that has a greater probability, 15% to 3.6% ,is simply bonkers. It is white coat time !
No fault of yours. You did your best to explain something inherently unexplainable.
I sense PB may be veering off at a tangent.
"Here's the Major PPB that David Cameron should remake"
Interesting in retrospect how effective it is. At the time I found it sick makingly fake which it probably isn't. But I never forgave him being Thatcher's poodle when they refused to give an inch in their opposition to sanctions against south Africa.
If you ask Neil nicely, he'll tell you that the Irish farmers north & south of the border have been doing that for years (easier to hide it when you are double claiming from London & Dublin)
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/24/as-senate-scandal-grows-stephen-harpers-conservatives-falling-far-behind-justin-trudeaus-liberals-poll/
Are you drunk too??
Particularly obnoxious is Gavin Esler on Newsnight who always finds a way to dump on the government. I still remember his solicitous attitude to a bunch of lefties who were pondering Brown's unpopularity.
1. There will be some left leaning LD defection to Labour no matter how much the yellows recover.
2. There will be some increase in the UKIP vote no matter how much their support falls from their current levels.
Both possibilities are bad for the Tories particularly given the current boundaries which will be the same as the 2010 boundaries.
But if it were it should be the Roma, they throw the most cats amongst the most pigeons.
We've got that nonsense brewing with Russian attitudes to gays not being the same as in more sanctimonious places (and as shouty annoying people). Let sport and politics mix and the only real victims are the sportsmen who have trained for years to compete at the highest level.
I dont disagree with you too strongly. Sport should be about breaking down barriers not creating them. But lefties are not the problem. Seriously.
2) The question is wrong anyway. Yes, of course people want 'qualified teachers'. That's not the same as asking whether the want 'only teachers with a particular bureaucratically-mandated narrowly-defined qualification which is not compulsory for teachers at Eton or Winchester'.
3) Anyway, who cares what qualifications teachers have at a school they don't have to send their kids to? The salience is minute.
"Anyway, who cares what qualifications teachers have at a school they don't have to send their kids to?"
I could just as easily write, who cares if a hospital in deepest Hampshire has trained doctors or quacks as I have no intention of going there.
What kind of logic is that ?
Only today I was upset today to read this for example. The fact that it's a muslim country being disrespectful towards Israel is depressingly par for the course. But it's the highlight of the lives of some of those swimmers. Why ruin it? *sigh*
Heard all the arguments against grammar schools and quite frankly it is self serving bollocks
Has there ever been a man that has been more wrong about everything he says and does?
UKIP will definitely be higher next time. I would say minimum 6%. The Fisher maths does not say much about that. The combined CON-LD-LAB total will have to be, at least, another 3% lower.
If you're following the trend the obvious conclusion is that next time they'll underestimate Labour quite a bit in 2015. But more realistically, the pollsters would rather be right than wrong, so they're probably tweak their samples every time to take account of the way they were out last time, so the correction from last time is already in the numbers and you shouldn't try to adjust for it again.
Either way, what you don't want to do is take the average skew over that period. If you're trying to cross the road, you need to know whether the approaching bus will hit you on its current path, not whether it would hit you if it was at the average distance from you since you first observed it coming over the hill.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10226304/Conservatives-must-have-the-confidence-to-bring-back-grammar-schools.html
He inherited a near 100 seat majority from Thatcher. With that headstart he was always favourite to win the 1992 GE, no matter what anyone says.
He got thrashed in 1997 due almost entirely to the economic damage he wreaked through his utterly disastrous ERM policy.
He was also a stinking hypocrite carrying on an affair with Edwina Currie while proclaiming family values.
The man is an odious, stupid, lying creep who should keep out of public life.
[waves to GeoffM]
Sorry to go off-topic so soon, but on the subject of "qualified" teachers needing a PGCE, some people are still comparing it to Doctors not being qualified.
That would be terrible and it's true. Potential Doctors are being taught by "unqualified" lecturers at University. Close down these free universities at once. And even worse, the post graduate training is often done on the job by other "unqualified" charlatans. It's a disgrace.
A good teacher is a good teacher. Spending a year brushing off some rough edges may be needed for some but not for all.
No tips, but my pre-qualifying piece for India is here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/india-pre-qualifying.html
As for the party breaking apart, well, Major saw to that!
It was the disloyalty to the leader of people like Ian Duncan Smith who caused the Tory split, not John Major.