Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
I think a bill's passage will come down to whether Labour actively fights it, buy in from whipless Tories/DUP and Lib Dem/SNP resolve in the face of populist amendments.
I'm new to the LibDems as you all know. But I do appreciate good politics when I see it, and the Swinson/Blackford accord is genius: 1. Both parties set to make gains in an election 2. Both parties happy to demonstrate the fright and hypocrisy on Labour benches of wanting an election but refusing to vote for an election 3. A pre-Brexit referendum leaves Johnson wide open to attack. Do or die / die in a ditch liar, rehashed 90% of May's deal, magic money tree. Or vote for proper Brexit under Farage. If you're remain your opportunity is a split leave vote and that means an election before Brexit 4. A lot of problems in a snap December Election. But neutralised by all parties facing same, and Labour/Tory still bitterly divided and arguing vs LibDem/SNP/PC/Green etc ready to go 5. "Shell enable Johnson" hardly a concern when Corbyn as bad. Only way to emasculate both big parties is elect as many non Lab/Con MPs as possible.
Fun times...
Well, I'm in a seat which is on the LibDem target list as they came top in the local elections and the Euros. I know a lot of people who voted LibDem tactically, some of them (pssst!) Labour party members. They are nearly all predominantly motivated by stopping Brexit. They are increasingly repelled by Swinson's tactics, which seem to them to be prioritising party success over the Remain cause; they were unhappy with her refusal to countenance a transitional Corbyn PM arrangement, they all disagreed with the commitment to Revoke (as did some LibDem friends), and the three who I've spoken with since she offered to facilitate an early election say they are appalled and absolutely won't vote LibDem again - "she is going to be the midwife of a Tory landslide, just so she can say she won 20 seats", says one.
You might be picking up dissident Tory votes instead? But certainly you're putting off the tactical Labour vote, and I suspect that's why the LibDem score in most polls is off the boil.
Just how long do you think Labour can keep this parliament in suspended animation before an election happens anyway?
Just how do you think Corbyn delivering Tory Brexit (into a nice standstill transition) is less conducive to a "Tory landslide" than LD tactics are?
Just how do you think Labour having a woeful leader with a side dish of terrorist sympathy is not the single most important contributory factor to the sorry mess of a possible Tory landscape, into which the LDs have now thrown this gambit?
the three who I've spoken with since she offered to facilitate an early election say they are appalled and absolutely won't vote LibDem again - "she is going to be the midwife of a Tory landslide, just so she can say she won 20 seats", says one.
That's useful data but out of interest, did these people have an alternative plan? I mean, wasn't agreeing to an election once an extension was settled already Labour's policy? What was the alternative strategy that Swinson just bollocksed up?
On the subject of referendums, latish last night the role of the electoral commission and Parliament was discussed and that it is for Parliament to instruct the electoral commission on the options for consideration and that the electoral commission decides on the format, and not that the electoral commision are able to include no deal etc as it is beyond Parliaments mandate.
The discussion convinced me I was wrong in saying the electoral commission could force no deal onto the ballot and it is a demonstration of PB at it's best when a sensible argument can change an opinion.
I hold my hands up to this one. I was wrong.
Notwithstanding these comments I still believe the pressure in the new HOC to give a three choice option in a referendum, if that were to come about, would be convincing
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
I expect to see some big swings to the Tories but in seats where they are too far back to win, them they lose to a big ld surge in other seats. I remember the locals, and some good early tory results, yet then it ended up even worse than the worse predictions.
Yes, Johnson as a new factor, with a more united party, gives him a chance. But people always underestimate the labour brand.
I'm new to the LibDems as you all know. But I do appreciate good politics when I see it, and the Swinson/Blackford accord is genius: 1. Both parties set to make gains in an election 2. Both parties happy to demonstrate the fright and hypocrisy on Labour benches of wanting an election but refusing to vote for an election 3. A pre-Brexit referendum leaves Johnson wide open to attack. Do or die / die in a ditch liar, rehashed 90% of May's deal, magic money tree. Or vote for proper Brexit under Farage. If you're remain your opportunity is a split leave vote and that means an election before Brexit 4. A lot of problems in a snap December Election. But neutralised by all parties facing same, and Labour/Tory still bitterly divided and arguing vs LibDem/SNP/PC/Green etc ready to go 5. "Shell enable Johnson" hardly a concern when Corbyn as bad. Only way to emasculate both big parties is elect as many non Lab/Con MPs as possible.
Fun times...
I'm afraid the brutal reality is that outside Scotland, within the limits of what is likely to happen, the better the LDs do the larger the Tory majority will be. The same thing that happened in 1983.
On the subject of referendums, latish last night the role of the electoral commission and Parliament was discussed and that it is for Parliament to instruct the electoral commission on the options for consideration and that the electoral commission decides on the format, and not that the electoral commision are able to include no deal etc as it is beyond Parliaments mandate.
The discussion convinced me I was wrong in saying the electoral commission could force no deal onto the ballot and it is a demonstration of PB at it's best when a sensible argument can change an opinion.
I hold my hands up to this one. I was wrong.
Notwithstanding these comments I still believe the pressure in the new HOC to give a three choice option in a referendum, if that were to come about, would be convincing
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Presumably those criticizing Brown all made a fortune buying gold at bottom and then selling at top.
You might be picking up dissident Tory votes instead? But certainly you're putting off the tactical Labour vote, and I suspect that's why the LibDem score in most polls is off the boil.
As AndyJS rightly asks, the question will be if normals are as Brexit focused as we all are. From my experience the one's who aren't who openly identify as Labour leaning largely are no longer Labour leaning because Corbyn. The tribalists - the Labour til I die people (20+%?) will vote for the party no matter what and we have the same for Tories and other parties.
I guess the key operative as you identify is "the remain cause". This is where I believe your analysis falls down because you operate under what I believe to be the misapprehension that Labour are part of the remain cause. They are not. Your party let a shadow minister vote for the WA without comment never mind sanction. If elected you would negotiate a deal to leave the EU - which like the current WA will be 90% the same as thats all thats on offer from within the EU red lines. And that would be put to the people in a referendum - what remainers want - albeit one where Labour don't campaign for remain.
The Tory landslide is there for the taking. Punters back Johnson and don't back Corbyn. Parliament can't just sit doing nothing until 2022, we need some kind of forward momentum. An election will happen even if its the humiliating sight of Corbyn realising he looks like a hypocrite and coward demanding an election he won't vote form whipping his MPs to vote for an election that substantial numbers vote against.
My calculation is that an election BEFORE Brexit offers the best chance of neutering the Tory landslide rather than waiting until AFTER Brexit where the Tory campaign will be a WE DID IT triumphantist money for all party where the Brexit Party are reduced to a moaning UKIP style irrelevance. That is what happens if we wait until Johnson delivers his deal.
Country before party remember. Not my fault that your party has rendered itself completely irrelevant to the real needs unelectable. The rest of us have to work really hard to provide a balance against the Tory landslide that #jc4pm chanters would still proclaim as a triumph because look how many Blairites lost their seats and now the proles will suffer the true injustice of capitalism and embrace True Socialism.
Allegations by Panorama that EY as auditors helped to conceal $4bn of gold sales that were laundering drug profits. If true what the hell was going on in such a well run, establishment auditor? Quite bizarre.
The scale is astonishing:
"The auditors discovered that Kaloti had paid out a total of $5.2bn (£4bn) in cash in 2012, but failed to report suspicious activity to the money laundering authorities."
Compare with Gordon Brown's sale of half the UK's gold reserves:
"Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period."
While it's no doubt a big story I think that is a false comparison given that Brown sold our gold at the bottom of the market. What's the $ per ounce now?
How much more would our gold be worth had Brown not done that then?
To put it into context Brown also sold the rights to 3G for £30 billion which dwarfs the money lost on selling gold at the bottom of the market. You win some you lose some. No one except Tommy Doherty has crystal balls.
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
Brown did not lose any money selling the gold reserves; he missed out on the price rise since the sale, which is not quite the same thing. In any case, it looks like about half a week's government spending so he might as well have lost it down the back of the Treasury sofa.
It is extraordinary how everyone will assent to the truth of the claim that the future is unknowable, except when they would like it to be (or have been) knowable. It was exactly as obvious in 1999 where the gold price was going, as it is today. Nothing easier than buying long or short gold etfs, so presumably all the Brown critics have done one or the other.
If the Commons votes for a December general election, which is now likely anyway given the LDs and the SNP are on board, then that would be within the 3 month extension time anyway.
Thus not contradicting my claim Macron would veto further extension if the Withdrawal Agreement was not passed without a general election or EUref2 as we are now likely to have that general election
Can’t see anything but a near wipe out of brexit supporting MPs in Scotland. This is not good for the union if England goes the other way.
Where can students make an impact? It appears that the tories already have very few seats in the university towns. It may however restrict their ability to win target seats
As a long term sceptic of a 2019 GE ( Disclaimer, I have bet as such and decided to go down with the ship on those bets ) I agree the dynamic has now shifted. Not just the Swinson/Blackford gambit but the briefing that EUCO are offering exactly what was asked for - an extension to 31/1 - and not longer. So we have to have a December election else go through another deadline psychodrama in January. All that said.
1. Until we know the Tory rebel and DUP position we still don't know if the Swinson/Blackford gambit gives Boris a majority in the Commons. Passing a ' not withstanding ' Act could still be difficult and it will be a Christmas Tree Bill for opposition and Lords amendments seeking to make Swinson/Blackford look bad for rushing through Tory legislation. The SNP have no peers.
2. Corbyn can counter move by simply signalling he'll let rebel Labour MPs progress the WAIB. Only a few more days of scrutiny closes off a December 12th election.
3. I'm still puzzled at the Chemistry of the Lib Dems and SNP delivering Boris' Christmas present even if the Physics now work. If Boris accepts the Swinson/Blackford offer it could all still get bogged down in detail.
That said Swinson/Blackford + the EUCO decision clearly justifies the price move on volatile Betfair.
1. Just a gut instinct but I suspect the crossbenchers in the Lords May come out quite strongly against a Christmas tree bill. They take a dim view of that sort of stuff
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs oted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The LDs could win 100 seats I think, about 40 from each of the main parties. That's if they have a good campaign.
100 would surely be enough to deprive Johnson of a majority? Job done and we'd have a Remainer government. Albeit an unpredictable one.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
I expect to see some big swings to the Tories but in seats where they are too far back to win, them they lose to a big ld surge in other seats. I remember the locals, and some good early tory results, yet then it ended up even worse than the worse predictions.
Yes, Johnson as a new factor, with a more united party, gives him a chance. But people always underestimate the labour brand.
I'm new to the LibDems as you all know. But I do appreciate good politics when I see it, and the Swinson/Blackford accord is genius: 1. Both parties set to make gains in an election 2. Both parties happy to demonstrate the fright and hypocrisy on Labour benches of wanting an election but refusing to vote for an election 3. A pre-Brexit referendum leaves Johnson wide open to attack. Do or die / die in a ditch liar, rehashed 90% of May's deal, magic money tree. Or vote for proper Brexit under Farage. If you're remain your opportunity is a split leave vote and that means an election before Brexit 4. A lot of problems in a snap December Election. But neutralised by all parties facing same, and Labour/Tory still bitterly divided and arguing vs LibDem/SNP/PC/Green etc ready to go 5. "Shell enable Johnson" hardly a concern when Corbyn as bad. Only way to emasculate both big parties is elect as many non Lab/Con MPs as possible.
Fun times...
I'm afraid the brutal reality is that outside Scotland, within the limits of what is likely to happen, the better the LDs do the larger the Tory majority will be. The same thing that happened in 1983.
The hollowing out of the LDs in 15/17 means, even without a step up in explicit tactical voting, the geographical separation of LD and Labour votes will be far greater than it was in 1983, so the same vote shares will not lead to the same convincing result.
A Tory majority is a quite possible outcome, but I don't believe it will be a landslide, even if recent polling figures do come to pass.
DUP oppose. LibDems want an election (though they might do better calling for an election than actually having one, as they might lose many of their defectors). SNP wants an election to clean up in Scotland.
Conservatives need an election before Brexit, yet need to be seen to be pressing for Brexit against Parliament in order to see off the Brexit Party. The risk is losing a dozen seats to the SNP even before getting to England and Wales.
Labour does what?
Opinium yesterday had the Tories holding most of their Scottish seats and ahead in Wales as well as England
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainty is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
And we all know the Swinson character.. one that will ignore the result of a second referendum unless it is the 'right' decision.
You might be picking up dissident Tory votes instead? But certainly you're putting off the tactical Labour vote, and I suspect that's why the LibDem score in most polls is off the boil.
As AndyJS rightly asks, the question will be if normals are as Brexit focused as we all are. From my experience the one's who aren't who openly identify as Labour leaning largely are no longer Labour leaning because Corbyn. The tribalists - the Labour til I die people (20+%?) will vote for the party no matter what and we have the same for Tories and other parties.
I guess the key operative as you identify is "the remain cause". This is where I believe your analysis falls down because you operate under what I believe to be the misapprehension that Labour are part of the remain cause. They are not. Your party let a shadow minister vote for the WA without comment never mind sanction. If elected you would negotiate a deal to leave the EU - which like the current WA will be 90% the same as thats all thats on offer from within the EU red lines. And that would be put to the people in a referendum - what remainers want - albeit one where Labour don't campaign for remain.
The Tory landslide is there for the taking. Punters back Johnson and don't back Corbyn. Parliament can't just sit doing nothing until 2022, we need some kind of forward momentum. An election will happen even if its the humiliating sight of Corbyn realising he looks like a hypocrite and coward demanding an election he won't vote form whipping his MPs to vote for an election that substantial numbers vote against.
My calculation is that an election BEFORE Brexit offers the best chance of neutering the Tory landslide rather than waiting until AFTER Brexit where the Tory campaign will be a WE DID IT triumphantist money for all party where the Brexit Party are reduced to a moaning UKIP style irrelevance. That is what happens if we wait until Johnson delivers his deal.
Country before party remember. Not my fault that your party has rendered itself completely irrelevant to the real needs unelectable. The rest of us have to work really hard to provide a balance against the Tory landslide that #jc4pm chanters would still proclaim as a triumph because look how many Blairites lost their seats and now the proles will suffer the true injustice of capitalism and embrace True Socialism.
Screw that.
Labour wont campaign for its own WA. 95% will back remain, most people can tell labour are for remain despite a technically more nuanced position. They aren't going to let in a tory because the party is not quite remain enough - especially when most candidates will be very very for remain.
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Presumably those criticizing Brown all made a fortune buying gold at bottom and then selling at top.
The criticism of Brown isn't that he sold gold, it's that he announced in advance that he would do so, thus causing a drop in the gold price due to the expected supply glut.
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gold was sold right at the bottom of the market, which he manipulated down by his announcement.
Allegations by Panorama that EY as auditors helped to conceal $4bn of gold sales that were laundering drug profits. If true what the hell was going on in such a well run, establishment auditor? Quite bizarre.
The big accountancy firms are really federations of national practices. I don’t know if that is relevant here but, for example, I am very comfortable with EY Norway but would avoid EY Germany like the plague
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
I expect to see some big swings to the Tories but in seats where they are too far back to win, them they lose to a big ld surge in other seats. I remember the locals, and some good early tory results, yet then it ended up even worse than the worse predictions.
Yes, Johnson as a new factor, with a more united party, gives him a chance. But people always underestimate the labour brand.
What predictions were they ?
The actual result of the 2019 local elections was
Con 31% Lab 31% LD 17%
Seats matter more and whether you go forward or backwards . Or are we arguing that they did just fine because they had and still have thousands of seats?
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Presumably those criticizing Brown all made a fortune buying gold at bottom and then selling at top.
The criticism of Brown isn't that he sold gold, it's that he announced in advance that he would do so, thus causing a drop in the gold price due to the expected supply glut.
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Really? Not disagreeing, but what percentage of the global market are we really talking about?
Can’t see anything but a near wipe out of brexit supporting MPs in Scotland. This is not good for the union if England goes the other way.
Where can students make an impact? It appears that the tories already have very few seats in the university towns. It may however restrict their ability to win target seats
LibDems want students voting in the university constituencies so they can gain seats from Labour not the Conservatives.
As a long term sceptic of a 2019 GE ( Disclaimer, I have bet as such and decided to go down with the ship on those bets ) I agree the dynamic has now shifted. Not just the Swinson/Blackford gambit but the briefing that EUCO are offering exactly what was asked for - an extension to 31/1 - and not longer. So we have to have a December election else go through another deadline psychodrama in January. All that said.
1. Until we know the Tory rebel and DUP position we still don't know if the Swinson/Blackford gambit gives Boris a majority in the Commons. Passing a ' not withstanding ' Act could still be difficult and it will be a Christmas Tree Bill for opposition and Lords amendments seeking to make Swinson/Blackford look bad for rushing through Tory legislation. The SNP have no peers.
2. Corbyn can counter move by simply signalling he'll let rebel Labour MPs progress the WAIB. Only a few more days of scrutiny closes off a December 12th election.
3. I'm still puzzled at the Chemistry of the Lib Dems and SNP delivering Boris' Christmas present even if the Physics now work. If Boris accepts the Swinson/Blackford offer it could all still get bogged down in detail.
That said Swinson/Blackford + the EUCO decision clearly justifies the price move on volatile Betfair.
1. Just a gut instinct but I suspect the crossbenchers in the Lords May come out quite strongly against a Christmas tree bill. They take a dim view of that sort of stuff
With the combined vote of conservatives, lib dems, snp and I understand the dup are on board we are looking at it passing with a large majority so no point in the HOC playing games. I also believe there are 100 lib dem peers who will vote in favour
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Couldn't you criticise the decision to sell the gold - to invest more of the reserves in foreign exchange currency instead - to be precisely a call on commodities speculation (that the government got spectacularly wrong)?
I don't know why Brown announced it in his budget rather than leaving it to the Bank of England to decide on. Was it a political thing to throw a bone to the Euro enthusiasts to buy some Euros in lieu of joining the currency?
Allegations by Panorama that EY as auditors helped to conceal $4bn of gold sales that were laundering drug profits. If true what the hell was going on in such a well run, establishment auditor? Quite bizarre.
The scale is astonishing:
"The auditors discovered that Kaloti had paid out a total of $5.2bn (£4bn) in cash in 2012, but failed to report suspicious activity to the money laundering authorities."
Compare with Gordon Brown's sale of half the UK's gold reserves:
"Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period."
While it's no doubt a big story I think that is a false comparison given that Brown sold our gold at the bottom of the market. What's the $ per ounce now?
How much more would our gold be worth had Brown not done that then?
To put it into context Brown also sold the rights to 3G for £30 billion which dwarfs the money lost on selling gold at the bottom of the market. You win some you lose some. No one except Tommy Doherty has crystal balls.
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
Brown did not lose any money selling the gold reserves; he missed out on the price rise since the sale, which is not quite the same thing. In any case, it looks like about half a week's government spending so he might as well have lost it down the back of the Treasury sofa.
It is extraordinary how everyone will assent to the truth of the claim that the future is unknowable, except when they would like it to be (or have been) knowable. It was exactly as obvious in 1999 where the gold price was going, as it is today. Nothing easier than buying long or short gold etfs, so presumably all the Brown critics have done one or the other.
Brown’s Gold is one of those PB Tory shibboleths, like Loathing John Bercow and Hating The Tube Scene In Darkest Hour.
The criticism of Brown isn't that he sold gold, it's that he announced in advance that he would do so, thus causing a drop in the gold price due to the expected supply glut.
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gold was sold right at the bottom of the market, which he manipulated down by his announcement.
Right because nothing reassures a market like an apparently unlimited shedload of something showing up for sale and they have no idea where it's coming from.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs oted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The LDs could win 100 seats I think, about 40 from each of the main parties. That's if they have a good campaign.
100 would surely be enough to deprive Johnson of a majority? Job done and we'd have a Remainer government. Albeit an unpredictable one.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
LDs 30% Tories 28% Labour 18% gives Tories 264 LDs 174 Labour 148
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Oxofrd, eh? Into the lion's den of the liberal elite... you might have to dial back some of your rhetoric a bit!
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Couldn't you criticise the decision to sell the gold - to invest more of the reserves in foreign exchange currency instead - to be precisely a call on commodities speculation (that the government got spectacularly wrong)?
I don't know why Brown announced it in his budget rather than leaving it to the Bank of England to decide on. Was it a political thing to throw a bone to the Euro enthusiasts to buy some Euros in lieu of joining the currency?
Who could ever have thought pre announcing that you are dumping billions of a reserve into a market could lower the price of what you're selling.
He was an ignorant fool who destroyed our economy. This was just symptomatic.
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Best of luck in your endeavours - I have said before that I reckon you are a very decent man IRL, just that Brexit has sent you a bit batty on here.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs oted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The LDs could win 100 seats I think, about 40 from each of the main parties. That's if they have a good campaign.
100 would surely be enough to deprive Johnson of a majority? Job done and we'd have a Remainer government. Albeit an unpredictable one.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
LDs 30% Tories 28% Labour 18% gives Tories 264 LDs 174 Labour 148
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
I expect to see some big swings to the Tories but in seats where they are too far back to win, them they lose to a big ld surge in other seats. I remember the locals, and some good early tory results, yet then it ended up even worse than the worse predictions.
Yes, Johnson as a new factor, with a more united party, gives him a chance. But people always underestimate the labour brand.
What predictions were they ?
The actual result of the 2019 local elections was
Con 31% Lab 31% LD 17%
Seats matter more and whether you go forward or backwards . Or are we arguing that they did just fine because they had and still have thousands of seats?
Given that the Conservatives were starting at a high point after gains in 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 it was inevitable they went backwards.
But the claims that the Conservatives did badly at the 2019 local elections are wrong - anyone who was predicting the Conservatives to do better is merely exposing how little they know of the local election cycle and what happens in mid term elections.
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Best of luck in your endeavours - I have said before that I reckon you are a very decent man IRL, just that Brexit has sent you a bit batty on here.
Thanks I think Brexit can make us all a bit batty from time to time
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Best of luck in your endeavours - I have said before that I reckon you are a very decent man IRL, just that Brexit has sent you a bit batty on here.
Thanks I think Brexit can make us all a bit batty from time to time
Allegations by Panorama that EY as auditors helped to conceal $4bn of gold sales that were laundering drug profits. If true what the hell was going on in such a well run, establishment auditor? Quite bizarre.
I used to work for EY. If anyone thinks the Big 4 objectively audit their clients rather than try to please them as best they can, to generate repeat business, they are being blissfully naive.
I’ve said for some time the Big 4 are effectively a cosy cartel, and very well-connected ones too, that lock out many far better British SMEs. But, I can’t see it changing any time soon.
Too many vested interests.
Me too, Casino, and I concur.
From my experience I would say that there is no reason to think the other major firms are any different. The Cartel needs to be broken up.
Deloitte, EY, PWC and KPMG - all very similar.
And, although many seem to find this shocking, also know astonishingly little about the businesses and industries they advise or audit as well.
The problem with the current incarnation of Labour is that it has a scorched earth attitude to all privately owned firms, and doesn’t discriminate between poorly structured markets and good ones because, ideologically, it believes all private capital is bad.
Quite aside from which, the current Labour Party would replace one set of vested interests with another one.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs oted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The LDs could win 100 seats I think, about 40 from each of the main parties. That's if they have a good campaign.
100 would surely be enough to deprive Johnson of a majority? Job done and we'd have a Remainer government. Albeit an unpredictable one.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
LDs 30% Tories 28% Labour 18% gives Tories 264 LDs 174 Labour 148
That sort of result would surely make a cast iron case for PR?
(Which the LD-Lab coalition would deliver.)
Would stil be Labour with the balance of power either way between a Tory minority government or a Liberal minority government, we would become more like Canada
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Presumably those criticizing Brown all made a fortune buying gold at bottom and then selling at top.
The criticism of Brown isn't that he sold gold, it's that he announced in advance that he would do so, thus causing a drop in the gold price due to the expected supply glut.
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Really? Not disagreeing, but what percentage of the global market are we really talking about?
Global annual trade was around $100bn at the time, so around 1.5% for three years - although obviously the same gold could be traded a number of times within a year.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs oted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The LDs could win 100 seats I think, about 40 from each of the main parties. That's if they have a good campaign.
100 would surely be enough to deprive Johnson of a majority? Job done and we'd have a Remainer government. Albeit an unpredictable one.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
LDs 30% Tories 28% Labour 18% gives Tories 264 LDs 174 Labour 148
That sort of result would surely make a cast iron case for PR?
(Which the LD-Lab coalition would deliver.)
Would stil be Labour with the balance of power either way between a Tory minority government or a Liberal minority government, we would become more like Canada
Can you really see Labour supporting a Conservative minority government?!
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Oxofrd, eh? Into the lion's den of the liberal elite... you might have to dial back some of your rhetoric a bit!
No Tory candidate has any chance of winning in Oxford regardless anyway, the rural areas surrounding it though maybe, especially towards Leave voting Banbury
It has become clear that Brexit cannot happen with the current HOC. I`m puzzled as to why the Tories would not back the LD/SNP plan for a GE on 9/12. I would have thought that this gets the Tories out of a hole.
I wonder whether the answer lies in the fact that it is a BIll and therefore is amendable?
I think a bill's passage will come down to whether Labour actively fights it, buy in from whipless Tories/DUP and Lib Dem/SNP resolve in the face of populist amendments.
And how the Lords behave. I’d have thought they wouldn’t obstruct it (and the LDs still have lots of peers there too) but it may do if it feels Boris might win a healthy majority by it as there are a lot of die-hard Remainers there too who might disagree with Jo Swinsons tactics.
I'm new to the LibDems as you all know. But I do appreciate good politics when I see it, and the Swinson/Blackford accord is genius: 1. Both parties set to make gains in an election 2. Both parties happy to demonstrate the fright and hypocrisy on Labour benches of wanting an election but refusing to vote for an election 3. A pre-Brexit referendum leaves Johnson wide open to attack. Do or die / die in a ditch liar, rehashed 90% of May's deal, magic money tree. Or vote for proper Brexit under Farage. If you're remain your opportunity is a split leave vote and that means an election before Brexit 4. A lot of problems in a snap December Election. But neutralised by all parties facing same, and Labour/Tory still bitterly divided and arguing vs LibDem/SNP/PC/Green etc ready to go 5. "Shell enable Johnson" hardly a concern when Corbyn as bad. Only way to emasculate both big parties is elect as many non Lab/Con MPs as possible.
Fun times...
Well, I'm in a seat which is on the LibDem target list as they came top in the local elections and the Euros. I know a lot of people who voted LibDem tactically, some of them (pssst!) Labour party members. They are nearly all predominantly motivated by stopping Brexit. They are increasingly repelled by Swinson's tactics, which seem to them to be prioritising party success over the Remain cause; they were unhappy with her refusal to countenance a transitional Corbyn PM arrangement, they all disagreed with the commitment to Revoke (as did some LibDem friends), and the three who I've spoken with since she offered to facilitate an early election say they are appalled and absolutely won't vote LibDem again - "she is going to be the midwife of a Tory landslide, just so she can say she won 20 seats", says one.
You might be picking up dissident Tory votes instead? But certainly you're putting off the tactical Labour vote, and I suspect that's why the LibDem score in most polls is off the boil.
A quite bizarre post from you Nick. Though partisan your dissemination such as it is is always through omission rather tan anything more overt.
Can you with a straight face say "They are nearly all predominantly motivated by stopping Brexit. They are increasingly repelled by Swinson's tactics, which seem to them to be prioritising party success over the Remain cause".
Are you suggesting that these diehard Remainers repelled by Swinson's tactics are happy with Corbyn's who doesn't even offer Remainers the slightest possibility of Remaining?
Whatever damage the Swinson initiative might do to the People's Vote - and personally I think it'll make a new referendum likelier - it's trivial compared with what People's Vote is doing to itself, and what its Labour supporters have done by backing Remain.
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
LDs 30% Tories 28% Labour 18% gives Tories 264 LDs 174 Labour 148
That sort of result would surely make a cast iron case for PR?
(Which the LD-Lab coalition would deliver.)
Would stil be Labour with the balance of power either way between a Tory minority government or a Liberal minority government, we would become more like Canada
Can you really see Labour supporting a Conservative minority government?!
No but it is not guaranteed they would support a LD Government either but could abstain and vote on a Bill by Bill basis with the Tories as a minority government
The criticism of Brown isn't that he sold gold, it's that he announced in advance that he would do so, thus causing a drop in the gold price due to the expected supply glut.
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gold was sold right at the bottom of the market, which he manipulated down by his announcement.
Right because nothing reassures a market like an apparently unlimited shedload of something showing up for sale and they have no idea where it's coming from.
Which is why, if you want to sell a market-making amount of something divisible and tangible, you do it slowly and over a long period of time - to avoid spooking the markets. Brown did precisely the opposite!
Couldn't you criticise the decision to sell the gold - to invest more of the reserves in foreign exchange currency instead - to be precisely a call on commodities speculation (that the government got spectacularly wrong)?
I don't know why Brown announced it in his budget rather than leaving it to the Bank of England to decide on. Was it a political thing to throw a bone to the Euro enthusiasts to buy some Euros in lieu of joining the currency?
No, he didn't sell it because he thought it was going down, he sold it because he thought it was insanely volatile - which it subsequently was. When something's volatile you don't know if it's going down or up uP UP, but the current market price should reflect both those possibilities.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
It may just be me, but Farage seems strangely absent from the debate over the last couple of weeks. I suspect he’s yesterday’s man
It has become clear that Brexit cannot happen with the current HOC. I`m puzzled as to why the Tories would not back the LD/SNP plan for a GE on 9/12. I would have thought that this gets the Tories out of a hole.
I wonder whether the answer lies in the fact that it is a BIll and therefore is amendable?
If everyone plays a straight bat then yes, it will pass.
But there's that lingering suspicion that there's games being played behind the scenes, and that we'll be seeing amendments on things like lowering the voting age to 16 and allowing EU citizens to vote.
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Oxofrd, eh? Into the lion's den of the liberal elite... you might have to dial back some of your rhetoric a bit!
No Tory candidate has any chance of winning in Oxford regardless anyway, the rural areas surrounding it though maybe, especially towards Leave voting Banbury
We lived just north of Bicester for many years - Larkrise to Candleford country. It's very nice out there, friendly people, commutable to Oxford, good road links, the Costwolds not far away.
Which is why, if you want to sell a market-making amount of something divisible and tangible, you do it slowly and over a long period of time - to avoid spooking the markets. Brown did precisely the opposite!
So they see this constant sell pressure, with no sign of an end, and a bunch of other central banks are doing it too. And since the UK is a democracy, presumably you have to keep reporting how much you've got left, which blows your otherwise brilliant "do the whole thing in secret" plan.
Your strategy only works if the buyers have cornflakes for brains.
I think a bill's passage will come down to whether Labour actively fights it, buy in from whipless Tories/DUP and Lib Dem/SNP resolve in the face of populist amendments.
And how the Lords behave. I’d have thought they wouldn’t obstruct it (and the LDs still have lots of peers there too) but it may do if it feels Boris might win a healthy majority by it as there are a lot of die-hard Remainers there too who might disagree with Jo Swinsons tactics.
The last thing their Lordships need is to get in the mix on preventing the Commons from deciding it needs an election.
Country before party remember. Not my fault that your party has rendered itself completely irrelevant to the real needs unelectable. The rest of us have to work really hard to provide a balance against the Tory landslide that #jc4pm chanters would still proclaim as a triumph because look how many Blairites lost their seats and now the proles will suffer the true injustice of capitalism and embrace True Socialism.
Screw that.
So you rush to call an election when the Tories are miles ahead, and call it "country before party"? That's cobblers, and your new romance is blinding you to it - the LibDems are obviously trying to maximise their seats as their first priority. Most parties do that most of the time, so it's not Original Sin, but it's delusional to pretend otherwise.
We won't agree, but my point is that Swinson is alienating the tacfical vote. You don't need to believe me, obviously, and I'm not a tactical voter, but there have been lots of them round here, and they're being alienated by your tactics. So not only are you putting party before country, but you're doing it in a way that makes it unlikely to even work for your party. It's silly.
On the subject of referendums, latish last night the role of the electoral commission and Parliament was discussed and that it is for Parliament to instruct the electoral commission on the options for consideration and that the electoral commission decides on the format, and not that the electoral commision are able to include no deal etc as it is beyond Parliaments mandate.
The discussion convinced me I was wrong in saying the electoral commission could force no deal onto the ballot and it is a demonstration of PB at it's best when a sensible argument can change an opinion.
I hold my hands up to this one. I was wrong.
Notwithstanding these comments I still believe the pressure in the new HOC to give a three choice option in a referendum, if that were to come about, would be convincing
Parliament can legislate for whatever it likes
But excluding no deal would undermine the perceived legitimacy of the result
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
This whole talking point is so dumb. Do you think the British government should be doing commodities speculation? Or sitting on volatile assets they don't need producing no return while simultaneously borrowing huge sums of money on the markets?
Once the government finds that it doesn't need an asset it should sell it. Guessing what's going up and what's going down isn't its job, and there's no reason why it should be better at it than the markets.
Presumably those criticizing Brown all made a fortune buying gold at bottom and then selling at top.
Brown just wasn’t smart about it
Pre-announcing the sales just created an overhang and artificially depressed The price
But are you old enough to remember when he was a perfectly reasonable right of centre Conservative with an interesting line in local Party politics in the Epping area?
Sadly he never made it to councillor as his target ward Epping Hemnall is a very Liberal area, although I wish him well for the future, I’m not sure that his hectoring certainly is the right formula for the bosky, leafy surrounds of Epping Forest.
Well I got over 600 votes last time I stood in Epping but am unlikely to be standing anywhere winnable in the near future (If I do stand next year it will likely be in Loughton which is all Residents Association) as my partner lives in Oxford so may be moving up there in a year or two
Oxofrd, eh? Into the lion's den of the liberal elite... you might have to dial back some of your rhetoric a bit!
No Tory candidate has any chance of winning in Oxford regardless anyway, the rural areas surrounding it though maybe, especially towards Leave voting Banbury
We lived just north of Bicester for many years - Larkrise to Candleford country. It's very nice out there, friendly people, commutable to Oxford, good road links, the Costwolds not far away.
Plus, from your PoV it's quite traditional Tory
Epping Hemnall elected two lib dems in position one and two and four conservatives, but I thought he only lost by two votes
“A vote for the LDs is the only way to stop Brexit” sounds like “If you don’t give us what we want, the country gets it”. I’ll be surprised if the LDs score more than 20% or Labour less than 32%, assuming Seumas runs as competent a campaign as he did in 2017. For about a century the main enemy of the LDs has been Labour.
Allegations by Panorama that EY as auditors helped to conceal $4bn of gold sales that were laundering drug profits. If true what the hell was going on in such a well run, establishment auditor? Quite bizarre.
The scale is astonishing:
"The auditors discovered that Kaloti had paid out a total of $5.2bn (£4bn) in cash in 2012, but failed to report suspicious activity to the money laundering authorities."
Compare with Gordon Brown's sale of half the UK's gold reserves:
"Between 1999 and 2002 the Treasury sold 401 tonnes of gold - out of its 715-tonne holding - at an average price of $275 an ounce, generating about $3.5bn during the period."
While it's no doubt a big story I think that is a false comparison given that Brown sold our gold at the bottom of the market. What's the $ per ounce now?
How much more would our gold be worth had Brown not done that then?
To put it into context Brown also sold the rights to 3G for £30 billion which dwarfs the money lost on selling gold at the bottom of the market. You win some you lose some. No one except Tommy Doherty has crystal balls.
Don't you just love it Roger ….just glossing over Brown losing billions of our money in selling our gold reserves. He should have had hard labour for so doing.
Brown did not lose any money selling the gold reserves; he missed out on the price rise since the sale, which is not quite the same thing. In any case, it looks like about half a week's government spending so he might as well have lost it down the back of the Treasury sofa.
He didn't just miss the price rise he caused the price crash!
I do wonder whether the Lords will let the Swinson plan through. If parliament passes duly considered legislation that it thinks elections should require a 2/3rds majority, it's not really clear that it should be able to just pick that lock, or if it does, that it should be able to do so in a hurry and without reasonable discussion. Although I'd rather it passed it feels like the job of the upper house to at least slow this kind of thing down.
Jo Swinson on R4. Her strategy is becoming clearer. She wants to shaft Corbyn. "19 of his MPs voted with the Tories. They can't be relied on"
She's growing on me. She seems honest and I know from my small dealings with her party some years ago that she will have some very smart marketing people on board. The ad industry polled something like 98% Remain.
I'd expect the Johnson character question to be central to her campaign.
The ld strategy last time was to shaft Corbyn too. Explicitly so, it was about replacing labour as the main opposition.
She will do better than farron did, but will be similarly disappointed. Tories are already getting hubristic, and labour will use that to recover position just like last time.not quite as effectively I'd bet, but well enough.
I'm inclined to agree with this, much as I'd love to see a massive LibDem surge. Or, rather, I think we may see a nuanced split which could spell trouble for the tories. I think Labour heartlands will be a lot less flakey than the right hope and at the same time, the south could see huge moves to the LibDems.
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
It may just be me, but Farage seems strangely absent from the debate over the last couple of weeks. I suspect he’s yesterday’s man
He got a kicking from his own people when he said that we should can Boris's Deal. He doesn't know how to play it now.
Plus the scales are falling from the eyes of many who were Brexit Party sympathetic and would have voted for them in the Euros. The suspicion is gaining ground that if Brexit happens, then Farage has no soap-box. So he will talk down ANY Brexit. Most of his supporters just want out. They will not put that at risk.
This looks a gamechanger. I cannot for the life of me see why the Cons would not go for the LibDem/SNP Dec 9 offer. It gives them everything they want for their snap "people versus parliament" election before the shine and novelty wears off PM Johnson. In fact it is arguably better for Johnson than his own Dec 12 proposal. My hunch is still no GE this year but that is all it is now - a hunch. The logic says it's ON.
Country before party remember. Not my fault that your party has rendered itself completely irrelevant to the real needs unelectable. The rest of us have to work really hard to provide a balance against the Tory landslide that #jc4pm chanters would still proclaim as a triumph because look how many Blairites lost their seats and now the proles will suffer the true injustice of capitalism and embrace True Socialism.
Screw that.
So you rush to call an election when the Tories are miles ahead, and call it "country before party"? That's cobblers, and your new romance is blinding you to it - the LibDems are obviously trying to maximise their seats as their first priority. Most parties do that most of the time, so it's not Original Sin, but it's delusional to pretend otherwise.
We won't agree, but my point is that Swinson is alienating the tacfical vote. You don't need to believe me, obviously, and I'm not a tactical voter, but there have been lots of them round here, and they're being alienated by your tactics. So not only are you putting party before country, but you're doing it in a way that makes it unlikely to even work for your party. It's silly.
I was happy to vote tactically up until last week when the Unite Union decided to try to deselect their Labour MP for Edinburgh South. An MP who happened to have the largest majority in Scotland and who is known to be an excellent socialist and an outstanding local MP. The fact he was retained by massive majority in his constituency party shows this.
I wonder how Blair would have been viewed if he had demanded similar loyalty when Corbyn was a backbencher?
“A vote for the LDs is the only way to stop Brexit” sounds like “If you don’t give us what we want, the country gets it”. I’ll be surprised if the LDs score more than 20% or Labour less than 32%, assuming Seumas runs as competent a campaign as he did in 2017. For about a century the main enemy of the LDs has been Labour.
Labour has dropped the Brexit ball. Can't blame the LibDems for running with it.
In great swathes of the country, LibDems are now likely to replace Labour as the party challenging the Tories.
On the subject of referendums, latish last night the role of the electoral commission and Parliament was discussed and that it is for Parliament to instruct the electoral commission on the options for consideration and that the electoral commission decides on the format, and not that the electoral commision are able to include no deal etc as it is beyond Parliaments mandate.
The discussion convinced me I was wrong in saying the electoral commission could force no deal onto the ballot and it is a demonstration of PB at it's best when a sensible argument can change an opinion.
I hold my hands up to this one. I was wrong.
Notwithstanding these comments I still believe the pressure in the new HOC to give a three choice option in a referendum, if that were to come about, would be convincing
Parliament can legislate for whatever it likes
But excluding no deal would undermine the perceived legitimacy of the result
And hence it would not be a stable end point
I've got some sympathy for that, but it's the same undefined option as the original leave vote. If the public votes for no deal, then what? There ill ultimately be deals, some kind of FTA, mini deals to keep things moving a bit in the short term. Some people will see those or some of those deals as betrayal.
It would need to be set very specifically in terms of red lines, e.g. - Option 1 - remain (with state before referendum) - Option 2 - Boris deal (for withdrawal, future relationship negotiations will go on) - Option 3 - Immediately on exit day no ongoing payments (beyond already agreed liabilities), no ECJ jurisdiction, no freedom of movement, other deals will be made as government desires, including some ultimate FTA (with explicit warning that this will take years) - Possible other options for May's deal, Norway etc
No Tory candidate has any chance of winning in Oxford regardless anyway, the rural areas surrounding it though maybe, especially towards Leave voting Banbury
LibDem Moran's 2017 majority in Oxford West was 800. A politically competent Tory party would see that as a target seat: LD strategists still see it as a vulnerable seat that needs defending. Over the next six weeks, the seat will be awash with LD posters, while Tories will be ashamed to publish their adherence.
That Tory loyalists should write off a seat they've held for 24 of the past 37 years tells us everything we need to know about the insularity and complacency that infected what was once the world's most successful political party even before the 2016 referendum. Right now: they're destroying it on the altar of narrow-minded nationalist ideology.
Mr. JS, I saw that yesterday. Staggeringly level of bullshit from the Washington Post. The wretch in question led a genocidal organisation that crucified children and burnt prisoners alive.
He wasn't a stern Oxford don.
It was a misjudged headline, which they rapidly took down. However, "At Helm Of Islamic State" is not exactly bullshit, and makes it quite clear what he was..
If you actually read the obituaries, as a young man he was no violent radical, and while in Abu Ghraib was assessed by the Americans as relatively harmless. The point being that some monsters are not born as such. And that is was the detention camps that became the breeding grounds of ISIS.
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
I'm having a hard time keeping up but IIUC at this point they've made it clear that they won't support it, and also made it clear that they might. And even if they'd only said one of those things, they lie all the time so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
Boris wants to get his plan through - which is fair enough. But when his plan fails I'm sure he'll quickly shift to the Swinson plan (or something very similar)
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
Boris wants to get his plan through - which is fair enough. But when his plan fails I'm sure he'll quickly shift to the Swinson plan (or something very similar)
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
Boris wants to get his plan through - which is fair enough. But when his plan fails I'm sure he'll quickly shift to the Swinson plan (or something very similar)
Assuming GE is in short-term ish, the likely result, is Tories winning most seats but with no majority. This time they are unlikely to get DUP support (and if they do at what financial cost?).
However, despite appearances we shall not be exactly in the same place that we are now. This is because CP will not be able to command a majority and cannot therefore form a government.
This leaves two possibilities:
1) no majority can be formed by any party/s (presumably a second GE) 2) Labour form majority either with LD/SNP coalition or S&C arrangement. Corbyn is likely PM.
kinbabalu said: "This looks a gamechanger. I cannot for the life of me see why the Cons would not go for the LibDem/SNP Dec 9 offer."
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
I think Boris needs the "they are blocking my Brexit Deal! line to run its course first.
But just get on with calling an election, Boris. Labour are your primary GE target - and they look like headless chickens. Not sure they are going to superglue their heads back on during a campaign.
No Tory candidate has any chance of winning in Oxford regardless anyway, the rural areas surrounding it though maybe, especially towards Leave voting Banbury
LibDem Moran's 2017 majority in Oxford West was 800. A politically competent Tory party would see that as a target seat: LD strategists still see it as a vulnerable seat that needs defending. Over the next six weeks, the seat will be awash with LD posters, while Tories will be ashamed to publish their adherence.
That Tory loyalists should write off a seat they've held for 24 of the past 37 years tells us everything we need to know about the insularity and complacency that infected what was once the world's most successful political party even before the 2016 referendum. Right now: they're destroying it on the altar of narrow-minded nationalist ideology.
Every councillor in Oxford is Labour, LD or Green.
If the Tories regained Oxford West and Abingdon it would be through Abingdon and the rural villages in the seat, not the part of the constituency in Oxford itself
Comments
I look at some underlying trends which will play out in a proper General Election campaign. The one last night, that by 2:1 the country thinks Brexit was a mistake, could be a massive albatross around Johnson's neck. The other, if true, that the country is about 55:45 remain now.
Throw into the mix the likelihood that Farage will go all-out on Boris and we could see a BXP surge again amongst leavers. I think they will be pushing very hard for a No Deal Brexit, which Johnson has now contrived to distance himself from.
I think we're going to see regional and national variations like never before. And that means, to me, no overall Conservative majority. But I could be wrong. As someone posted below, the 1983 scenario is still possible.
https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/current-state-of-the-parties/
I think a bill's passage will come down to whether Labour actively fights it, buy in from whipless Tories/DUP and Lib Dem/SNP resolve in the face of populist amendments.
Just how do you think Corbyn delivering Tory Brexit (into a nice standstill transition) is less conducive to a "Tory landslide" than LD tactics are?
Just how do you think Labour having a woeful leader with a side dish of terrorist sympathy is not the single most important contributory factor to the sorry mess of a possible Tory landscape, into which the LDs have now thrown this gambit?
The discussion convinced me I was wrong in saying the electoral commission could force no deal onto the ballot and it is a demonstration of PB at it's best when a sensible argument can change an opinion.
I hold my hands up to this one. I was wrong.
Notwithstanding these comments I still believe the pressure in the new HOC to give a three choice option in a referendum, if that were to come about, would be convincing
Yes, Johnson as a new factor, with a more united party, gives him a chance. But people always underestimate the labour brand.
I guess the key operative as you identify is "the remain cause". This is where I believe your analysis falls down because you operate under what I believe to be the misapprehension that Labour are part of the remain cause. They are not. Your party let a shadow minister vote for the WA without comment never mind sanction. If elected you would negotiate a deal to leave the EU - which like the current WA will be 90% the same as thats all thats on offer from within the EU red lines. And that would be put to the people in a referendum - what remainers want - albeit one where Labour don't campaign for remain.
The Tory landslide is there for the taking. Punters back Johnson and don't back Corbyn. Parliament can't just sit doing nothing until 2022, we need some kind of forward momentum. An election will happen even if its the humiliating sight of Corbyn realising he looks like a hypocrite and coward demanding an election he won't vote form whipping his MPs to vote for an election that substantial numbers vote against.
My calculation is that an election BEFORE Brexit offers the best chance of neutering the Tory landslide rather than waiting until AFTER Brexit where the Tory campaign will be a WE DID IT triumphantist money for all party where the Brexit Party are reduced to a moaning UKIP style irrelevance. That is what happens if we wait until Johnson delivers his deal.
Country before party remember. Not my fault that your party has rendered itself completely irrelevant to the real needs unelectable. The rest of us have to work really hard to provide a balance against the Tory landslide that #jc4pm chanters would still proclaim as a triumph because look how many Blairites lost their seats and now the proles will suffer the true injustice of capitalism and embrace True Socialism.
Screw that.
Thus not contradicting my claim Macron would veto further extension if the Withdrawal Agreement was not passed without a general election or EUref2 as we are now likely to have that general election
Where can students make an impact? It appears that the tories already have very few seats in the university towns. It may however restrict their ability to win target seats
If the Brexit Party take more of the Tory Leave vote it becomes easier as then the Liberal Democrats don't need to take so much of the Labour Remain vote to end up close enough to the Tories to win 100 seats, and the Labour deficit in respect of the Tories is reduced.
I think it would be exceptionally dangerous to try to boost the far right for such short-term electoral advantage, though.
The actual result of the 2019 local elections was
Con 31%
Lab 31%
LD 17%
A Tory majority is a quite possible outcome, but I don't believe it will be a landslide, even if recent polling figures do come to pass.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-50203727
I’m sure you can find a way around the betting restrictions
He failed to understand economics 101, which was not a good look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The gold was sold right at the bottom of the market, which he manipulated down by his announcement.
I don't know why Brown announced it in his budget rather than leaving it to the Bank of England to decide on. Was it a political thing to throw a bone to the Euro enthusiasts to buy some Euros in lieu of joining the currency?
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/cgi-bin/usercode.py?CON=28&LAB=18&LIB=30&Brexit=12&Green=3&UKIP=2&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVBrexit=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTBrexit=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2017base
He was an ignorant fool who destroyed our economy. This was just symptomatic.
(Which the LD-Lab coalition would deliver.)
But the claims that the Conservatives did badly at the 2019 local elections are wrong - anyone who was predicting the Conservatives to do better is merely exposing how little they know of the local election cycle and what happens in mid term elections.
Quite aside from which, the current Labour Party would replace one set of vested interests with another one.
Some background: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48177767
I wonder whether the answer lies in the fact that it is a BIll and therefore is amendable?
Can you with a straight face say "They are nearly all predominantly motivated by stopping Brexit. They are increasingly repelled by Swinson's tactics, which seem to them to be prioritising party success over the Remain cause".
Are you suggesting that these diehard Remainers repelled by Swinson's tactics are happy with Corbyn's who doesn't even offer Remainers the slightest possibility of Remaining?
Vote Corbyn & McDonnell: you get Johnson.
But there's that lingering suspicion that there's games being played behind the scenes, and that we'll be seeing amendments on things like lowering the voting age to 16 and allowing EU citizens to vote.
Plus, from your PoV it's quite traditional Tory
Your strategy only works if the buyers have cornflakes for brains.
We won't agree, but my point is that Swinson is alienating the tacfical vote. You don't need to believe me, obviously, and I'm not a tactical voter, but there have been lots of them round here, and they're being alienated by your tactics. So not only are you putting party before country, but you're doing it in a way that makes it unlikely to even work for your party. It's silly.
But excluding no deal would undermine the perceived legitimacy of the result
And hence it would not be a stable end point
Pre-announcing the sales just created an overhang and artificially depressed The price
Plus the scales are falling from the eyes of many who were Brexit Party sympathetic and would have voted for them in the Euros. The suspicion is gaining ground that if Brexit happens, then Farage has no soap-box. So he will talk down ANY Brexit. Most of his supporters just want out. They will not put that at risk.
I wonder how Blair would have been viewed if he had demanded similar loyalty when Corbyn was a backbencher?
In great swathes of the country, LibDems are now likely to replace Labour as the party challenging the Tories.
It would need to be set very specifically in terms of red lines, e.g.
- Option 1 - remain (with state before referendum)
- Option 2 - Boris deal (for withdrawal, future relationship negotiations will go on)
- Option 3 - Immediately on exit day no ongoing payments (beyond already agreed liabilities), no ECJ jurisdiction, no freedom of movement, other deals will be made as government desires, including some ultimate FTA (with explicit warning that this will take years)
- Possible other options for May's deal, Norway etc
Nor me. Must be a reason that we are not seeing because I think Tories have already made it clear that they will not support it.
If you actually read the obituaries, as a young man he was no violent radical, and while in Abu Ghraib was assessed by the Americans as relatively harmless.
The point being that some monsters are not born as such. And that is was the detention camps that became the breeding grounds of ISIS.
https://twitter.com/ConUnit_UCL/status/1188745121837338624
[Edit: quoted the wrong tweet in the storm]
https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1188748108764721152
The law says you also have to abide by the FTPA.
Why can both laws not be amended? Who needs five weeks? Why not four?
However, despite appearances we shall not be exactly in the same place that we are now. This is because CP will not be able to command a majority and cannot therefore form a government.
This leaves two possibilities:
1) no majority can be formed by any party/s (presumably a second GE)
2) Labour form majority either with LD/SNP coalition or S&C arrangement. Corbyn is likely PM.
God, I wish this nightmare would end.
But just get on with calling an election, Boris. Labour are your primary GE target - and they look like headless chickens. Not sure they are going to superglue their heads back on during a campaign.
Oh, that`s interesting. What gives you such confidence?
SKY still showing 3 days...
https://news.sky.com/
The flex in flextension is for Brexit with a Deal only aiui.
Let's hope he can track down the counterparty.
https://twitter.com/xinwenxiaojie/status/1188597187766312960