I may have to raid the bathroom cabinet as again, I agree with you. The deficit is a NONE issue as far as the electorate and the election are concerned – the public have no grasp what it is, and care even less. I said this to that waspish contrarian Antifrank the other day and he said I was "dead wrong". No - he is dead wrong and you are dead right. No-one cares about the deficit, it will not be an election battleground.
"Ed Miliband always looks startled because he has ‘got big eyes’ which affects whether voters see him as Prime Minister, Labour heavyweight Tom Watson has claimed.
The former minister - who quit as Mr Miliband’s election strategist this summer - also said the Labour leader got it ‘so wrong’ over the Falkirk vote-rigging scandal and struggled to make headlines because he is too clever.
Recent opinion polls show Labour extending its lead over the Tories, but more voters think David Cameron would make a better leader for Britain.
However Mr Watson makes clear that after a faltering start he now believes Mr Miliband 'will be a good Prime Minister'.
Mr Miliband has repeatedly been likened to plastercine character Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit fame.
In recent weeks he has made headlines with his promise to freeze energy bills and attacking the government over the cost of living.
But a new ICM poll this week showed only 27 per cent of people think he would make the best Prime Minister, including only 64 per cent of people who backed Labour in 2010.
A separate YouGov survey found just four per cent think he is a 'natural leader' - the same as Nick Clegg. ‘Well he has got big eyes. That doesn’t help him' Tom Watson on Ed Miliband
Now Mr Watson has suggested the way Mr Miliband looks means voters might struggle to imagine him running the country."
"Ed Miliband always looks startled because he has ‘got big eyes’ which affects whether voters see him as Prime Minister, Labour heavyweight Tom Watson has claimed.
The former minister - who quit as Mr Miliband’s election strategist this summer - also said the Labour leader got it ‘so wrong’ over the Falkirk vote-rigging scandal and struggled to make headlines because he is too clever.
Recent opinion polls show Labour extending its lead over the Tories, but more voters think David Cameron would make a better leader for Britain.
However Mr Watson makes clear that after a faltering start he now believes Mr Miliband 'will be a good Prime Minister'.
Mr Miliband has repeatedly been likened to plastercine character Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit fame.
In recent weeks he has made headlines with his promise to freeze energy bills and attacking the government over the cost of living.
But a new ICM poll this week showed only 27 per cent of people think he would make the best Prime Minister, including only 64 per cent of people who backed Labour in 2010.
A separate YouGov survey found just four per cent think he is a 'natural leader' - the same as Nick Clegg. ‘Well he has got big eyes. That doesn’t help him' Tom Watson on Ed Miliband
Now Mr Watson has suggested the way Mr Miliband looks means voters might struggle to imagine him running the country."
@Josias – it will have no effect on VI. As a story, I'd rate it as around the Falkirk level – good fun for political anoraks, for members of the public, irrelevant.
But still very, very funny.
I'm afraid you're deluding yourself. Even as it stands, it's a couple of orders of magnitude below Falkirk. After all, a minister's not resigned over it, and the police have not been called in. There's not been an internal inquiry to produce a dodgy dossier, that they refuse to publicly release.
The two are incomparable. I know you want Falkirk to go away. I understand why. But personally I prefer people not to be signed up to a political party without their knowledge, or have a massive company put at risk due to a union's misbehaviour.
However you are right. This will not affect VI.
I am simultaneously deluding myself and right. I'm quite proud of that paradox, even though it shall surely mean both you and I will enter some sort of feedback loop and disappear in a puff of logic.
Deluding yourself and wrong, IMHO. Remember, Watson resigned. That automatically puts it into serious political story category.
Ahead in the leader ratings, highest Labour score for over six months today. It's frightening what's happening in PB Toryworld to Ed, on earth it's fine
Ahead in the leader ratings, highest Labour score for over six months today. It's frightening what's happening in PB Toryworld to Ed, on earth it's fine
No but seriously though - who will quit first Ed Miliband or Balls, I'd have bet on the latter until now but now it's a toss up surely.
Ahead in the leader ratings, highest Labour score for over six months today. It's frightening what's happening in PB Toryworld to Ed, on earth it's fine
Snigger - like shooting fish in a barrel.
You know how difficult it is to spoof the PB Tories, some of them thought a Nazi supporting newspaper group attacking his father was going to help the Tories
Wood for the trees - try getting out more maybe??
Meantime the Falkirkgate crisis turns serious.... it's the cover up which gets you......
"It begs the question, when Ed Miliband condemned Unite’s “machine politics” in Falkirk, did he forget his office had signed-off on their tactics? Atul Hatwal is the editor of Uncut"
As I recall on thread, Osborne warned pre-election in his 2009 conference speech that things would be tough and hardly went in promising honey and gold to the electorate, indeed I know people who didn't vote Blue because of his warnings.
It was always going to be tough and as Richard N has pointed out, they've done ok in tough circumstances.
I give them credit for that. It's not great times for many but it was never going to be no matter what party picked up the 2010 tab and to pretend it could have been is mere fantasy and lies.
A technology-literate and more balanced view of the Tory web site "story":
"A story that the Conservatives “made the internet disappear” has ignited news channels today. In fact, the story demonstrates yet again how ignorant most journalists are of the basic workings of the internet - and it demonstrates how the thirst for conspiratorial thinking dominates political news."
Ed Miliband's legacy is complete - crap minister, poodle of the unions but by jove did he win a lot of yougovs.
If Ed is crap, what does that make Cameron?
Prime minister.
Not for long. The tipping point must come soon. The point where the Tory Party but most importantly it's MP's realise they are going to lose the next election and like ferrets in a sack, the soon to be ex-MP's start fighting with the party leadership. No party does headless chicken in-fighting like the Tory Party. Tic Toc Tic Toc.
Only a matter of time before tim claims that the economic recovery is down to Labour to being ahead in the polls.
Your posts when the polls narrowed last month are classics. Always wrong, never learn
This la la la la I can't hear you always wrong la la la is your poker tell.
Have a milky bar - on George.
Who will you blame for the Tory Party losing the election? Cameron, Osborne......I can quite imagine quite a few on here will blame the electorate......it will be an epic night. I forecast that Camerons resignation speech will be fantastic.
Only a matter of time before tim claims that the economic recovery is down to Labour to being ahead in the polls.
Your posts when the polls narrowed last month are classics. Always wrong, never learn
This la la la la I can't hear you always wrong la la la is your poker tell.
Have a milky bar - on George.
Who will you blame for the Tory Party losing the election? Cameron, Osborne......I can quite imagine quite a few on here will blame the electorate......it will be an epic night. I forecast that Camerons resignation speech will be fantastic.
Going back to the spare room subsidy, does any one who argues against this policy still think that there is not enough social housing for those people in under crowded accommodation to trade down to.
I do wonder how labour can get away with their lies on this.
Stoke has 2,300 households hit by the bedroom tax and 110 one bedroom flats for swap within five miles of Trentham which Phibbs selects. The five miles also includes Newcastle under Lyme, so make that around three thousand families and 110 one bedroomed flats. Let's be generous and add in two bed flats on one side of the equation, there's 160 (of course many of those will be people wanting a one bed as they are hit by a two bed bedroom tax)
So on the most optimistic figures for you you have 3,000 households hit and 270 available properties for downsizing
Tim, you really shouldn't comment on housing as you clearly have no idea. Such is the demand for family accommodation that every council in this country will ensure that their allocation policy massively prioritizes those who want to trade down. The majority of them run a tenants incentive scheme where they actually pay tenants thousands of pounds to trade down.
In stoke on trents case they have even set up a special scheme employing a support worker to assist people under occupying to move.
so you have the homeswap scheme, mutual exchange register, allocation policies which massively prioritize those who are trading down, and the tenants incentive scheme where you can be paid 1000s to move. If you live in family accommodation and you want to move to smaller accommodation every council in this country will ensure that you get the move. Its that simple, you will spin otherwise as you always do, but you never let facts stop you doing that.
So on the plus side we have another 2,000 more people in employment in the UK now than we did this morning. We have just over 500 fewer unemployed. We don't have a Labour government (this is not a spurious correlation by the way). There is much to be thankful for.
And George will get up tomorrow and do it all over again. And again.
A technology-literate and more balanced view of the Tory web site "story":
"A story that the Conservatives “made the internet disappear” has ignited news channels today. In fact, the story demonstrates yet again how ignorant most journalists are of the basic workings of the internet - and it demonstrates how the thirst for conspiratorial thinking dominates political news."
Just the media desperate for something, anything to keep the spotlight away from the good economic news.
How depressing, is some of the left's horror at the thought that there are more people are in employment simply because it isn't politically expedient for them. They would rather see tens of thousands of families suffering the misery of unemployment because it may improve the chances of their team winning at the general election.
Well, you'll have to put the champagne back on ice for now but don't worry, maybe we'll have a harsh winter, maybe there will actually be a crisis in the NHS, and maybe lots of elderly and vulnerable people may die. You might get to pop those corks and get out the party hats yet.
The last place I'd like to try and find the truth about something Miliband said would be on the Labour Party website.
The BBC is fantastic for budget speeches and forecasts. Every year from 2001 Brown promised to bring the budget under control....and Darling's 2008 budget (hahahaha!)
• The British economy will continue to grow. "This Budget is about equipping Britain for the times ahead...about building a fairer society," Mr Darling said.
• Britain is more resilient and more prepared to deal with global shocks.
• The UK's GDP per head has gone from the lowest in the G7 in the 1990s to second highest now.
• The British economy will this year grow from between 1.75% and 2.25%, down from 3% last year.
• "There will be no return to the inflation rates of the early 1990s," Mr Darling said.
• To provide certainty, the chancellor said he is writing to the governor of the Bank of England to keep a 2% target on inflation.
• Borrowing next year will rise to £43bn, some 2.9% of national income. It will fall to 1.3% by 2012/13.
• By 2011, investment will have increased by 500%, trebling as a share of national income.
• Public spending in the coming three years will grow by 2.2% a year.
Falkirk has the potential to be a big story, and could get serious for Milliband, if anything comes out that ties him into it. Trouble is, Milliband appears to be a lucky politician, and I have the feeling that, for all the hyped up bad blood between the Labour and Unite leaderships, there's no real appetite to press the self destruct button. Cameron used to be lucky once.........
A technology-literate and more balanced view of the Tory web site "story":
"A story that the Conservatives “made the internet disappear” has ignited news channels today. In fact, the story demonstrates yet again how ignorant most journalists are of the basic workings of the internet - and it demonstrates how the thirst for conspiratorial thinking dominates political news."
Except it would only be fair to note that the Labour Party has "erased the internet" too. Labour’s housecleaning has removed almost everything prior to the start of the current leadership, and the Wayback Machine (sorry, "the internet") is pretty empty of Labour's past as well as that of the Tories
Expect multiple posts from our friends on the left condemning this "censorship".
Comments
I may have to raid the bathroom cabinet as again, I agree with you. The deficit is a NONE issue as far as the electorate and the election are concerned – the public have no grasp what it is, and care even less. I said this to that waspish contrarian Antifrank the other day and he said I was "dead wrong". No - he is dead wrong and you are dead right. No-one cares about the deficit, it will not be an election battleground.
"Ed Miliband always looks startled because he has ‘got big eyes’ which affects whether voters see him as Prime Minister, Labour heavyweight Tom Watson has claimed.
The former minister - who quit as Mr Miliband’s election strategist this summer - also said the Labour leader got it ‘so wrong’ over the Falkirk vote-rigging scandal and struggled to make headlines because he is too clever.
Recent opinion polls show Labour extending its lead over the Tories, but more voters think David Cameron would make a better leader for Britain.
However Mr Watson makes clear that after a faltering start he now believes Mr Miliband 'will be a good Prime Minister'.
Mr Miliband has repeatedly been likened to plastercine character Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit fame.
In recent weeks he has made headlines with his promise to freeze energy bills and attacking the government over the cost of living.
But a new ICM poll this week showed only 27 per cent of people think he would make the best Prime Minister, including only 64 per cent of people who backed Labour in 2010.
A separate YouGov survey found just four per cent think he is a 'natural leader' - the same as Nick Clegg.
‘Well he has got big eyes. That doesn’t help him'
Tom Watson on Ed Miliband
Now Mr Watson has suggested the way Mr Miliband looks means voters might struggle to imagine him running the country."
I did say that he should apologise and release the report. That is a very different matter.
You're back to inventing stuff now.
But still, lol for the post. ;-)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-24925296
Back in the days when only title winners qualified, The Liverpool Resurgent statue sported a red and white scarf, after a European Cup win.
soon after Saint Dan strikes...
Dan Hodges@DPJHodges11m
Labour Uncut's take on today's Falkirk revelations http://tinyurl.com/lyjdvlq
Meantime the Falkirkgate crisis turns serious.... it's the cover up which gets you......
"It begs the question, when Ed Miliband condemned Unite’s “machine politics” in Falkirk, did he forget his office had signed-off on their tactics?
Atul Hatwal is the editor of Uncut"
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/13/hornby-model-railway-sales-profit-fall?CMP=twt_gu
The 8F was a good model for its time, c. 1958.
It was always going to be tough and as Richard N has pointed out, they've done ok in tough circumstances.
I give them credit for that. It's not great times for many but it was never going to be no matter what party picked up the 2010 tab and to pretend it could have been is mere fantasy and lies.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9605607/George-Osbornes-honesty-on-cuts-cost-Conservatives-a-majority-say-advisers.html
"A story that the Conservatives “made the internet disappear” has ignited news channels today. In fact, the story demonstrates yet again how ignorant most journalists are of the basic workings of the internet - and it demonstrates how the thirst for conspiratorial thinking dominates political news."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/13/sorry_the_tories_didnt_make_the_internet_disappear/
Have a milky bar - on George.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/
Falkirk still rumbling on.
There are no more revelations to come..
In stoke on trents case they have even set up a special scheme employing a support worker to assist people under occupying to move.
so you have the homeswap scheme, mutual exchange register, allocation policies which massively prioritize those who are trading down, and the tenants incentive scheme where you can be paid 1000s to move. If you live in family accommodation and you want to move to smaller accommodation every council in this country will ensure that you get the move. Its that simple, you will spin otherwise as you always do, but you never let facts stop you doing that.
Below is an example of a tenants incentive scheme
http://www.medway.gov.uk/pdf/tennant incentive scheme a5.pdf
And George will get up tomorrow and do it all over again. And again.
The 10 celebrities from the world of sport, soap, TV and music taking part in this year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! have been unveiled. Miss Great Britain Amy Willerton will no doubt provide plenty of sexy shower scenes in her bikini collection, while Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington will be proving a dab hand at the water tasks when the show kicks off on ITV on November 17. Joining the pair will be (L-R) TOWIE's Joey Essex, EastEnders Laila Morse, snooker player Steve Davis, Fresh Prince star Alfronso Ribeiro, TV presenter Matthew Wright, Emmerdale actress Lucy Pargeter, Westlife star Kian Egan and dressmaker David Emanuel.
How depressing, is some of the left's horror at the thought that there are more people are in employment simply because it isn't politically expedient for them. They would rather see tens of thousands of families suffering the misery of unemployment because it may improve the chances of their team winning at the general election.
Well, you'll have to put the champagne back on ice for now but don't worry, maybe we'll have a harsh winter, maybe there will actually be a crisis in the NHS, and maybe lots of elderly and vulnerable people may die. You might get to pop those corks and get out the party hats yet.
http://www.gcrailway.co.uk/the-railway/locomotives/8624-2/
;-)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10446890/Immigration-Britains-doors-are-wide-open-and-we-cant-even-talk-about-it.html
The BBC is fantastic for budget speeches and forecasts. Every year from 2001 Brown promised to bring the budget under control....and Darling's 2008 budget (hahahaha!)
• The British economy will continue to grow. "This Budget is about equipping Britain for the times ahead...about building a fairer society," Mr Darling said.
• Britain is more resilient and more prepared to deal with global shocks.
• The UK's GDP per head has gone from the lowest in the G7 in the 1990s to second highest now.
• The British economy will this year grow from between 1.75% and 2.25%, down from 3% last year.
• "There will be no return to the inflation rates of the early 1990s," Mr Darling said.
• To provide certainty, the chancellor said he is writing to the governor of the Bank of England to keep a 2% target on inflation.
• Borrowing next year will rise to £43bn, some 2.9% of national income. It will fall to 1.3% by 2012/13.
• By 2011, investment will have increased by 500%, trebling as a share of national income.
• Public spending in the coming three years will grow by 2.2% a year.
Trouble is, Milliband appears to be a lucky politician, and I have the feeling that, for all the hyped up bad blood between the Labour and Unite leaderships, there's no real appetite to press the self destruct button.
Cameron used to be lucky once.........
Expect multiple posts from our friends on the left condemning this "censorship".
Or not.