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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Starmer gets the best ratings from both all voters and LAB mem

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited February 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Starmer gets the best ratings from both all voters and LAB members in new large sample Ashcroft poll

There’s a new large sample Lord Ashcroft poll that’s been published overnight that looks back at the general election particularly the reasons for the LAB defeat and looks forward to the coming LAB leadership ballot which starts later this month. The full report is well worth downloading.

Read the full story here


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Comments

  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784
    edited February 2020
    The wind woke me up (Not "Wind" as I first said!). Let's bag a first.

    I think I get the dots. But what is the grey number on the two numbers on the right hand side?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    tl:dr - Yeah, the Deplorables just need to shut up and learn how to think correctly, the bigots.

    Chances of any of the leadership candidates actually listening to what the Evil Tory Ashcroft voters who deserted them had to say??
  • Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    On the question of the change since 2017, I'd suggest three possible causes:
    1) Corbyn seemed to have aged a lot more than two years and now seemed old and grumpy
    2) his new glasses with the funny lens prevented eye contact with audiences
    3) toxic under-the-radar attacks from the Conservatives (only inferred since by their nature we do not know what was said)

    Of course, if the everyone hates Corbyn thesis is wrong then we might also observe that on policy, the incoherent mish-mash spewing forth from Seamus & Co made matters worse since they were at best incoherent and at worst voter-repellent, and that 2017's popular policies had all been pinched by Boris.
  • The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
  • Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    From memory his ratings tanked a while after the election when anti-semitism issues were getting a lot of coverage, and after that they never recovered. This also taints his whole faction, so if RLB was going to try to do the same policies without the toxicity she'd have to work out a way to persuade people she was at least different about *that* part, which she's failed to do.
  • More results in from New Hampshire:

    https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384
  • More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    edited February 2020

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    It is but traditionally some eccentric locations vote immediately after midnight.

    As well as Hart's Location, which went convincingly for Baemy, there's also Dixville Notch, where Bloomberg has apparently swept the primary for both parties.
    https://twitter.com/ActorAaronBooth/status/1227096846742499328
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    Bloomberg is a really good tip. I reckon he's the only one who could ruffle Trump's feathers.
  • OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
  • The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
    It is a question of expectations. IDS exceeded them; Howard did not.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2020

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited February 2020

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
    It is a question of expectations. IDS exceeded them; Howard did not.
    I'm sorry but that's not a quantitative comment but a highly subjective one. I could make a very strong case for saying that Michael Howard laid the foundations for David Cameron's subsequent success. He also, as I'm sure you are aware, championed Cameron.

    Howard was much maligned partly because he could appear irritating in front of the media and significantly because of naked anti-semitism.

    Since standing down Michael Howard has been a rare example of a former leader displaying grace and loyalty.

    So wholly unlike IDS who is a steaming turd. Nicely subjective.
  • ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
  • The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
    It is a question of expectations. IDS exceeded them; Howard did not.
    I'm sorry but that's not a quantitative comment but a highly subjective one. I could make a very strong case for saying that Michael Howard laid the foundations for David Cameron's subsequent success. He also, as I'm sure you are aware, championed Cameron.
    Howard did lead to Cameron but that is an entirely different question from his own, or IDS's, appeal to the electorate. This I think is the problem. We look back at the 2010 and 2015 victories and draw a straight line back to Howard. This is especially tempting for those who'd been involved in defenestrating IDS because it means they were right.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2020

    ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
    It is a question of expectations. IDS exceeded them; Howard did not.
    I'm sorry but that's not a quantitative comment but a highly subjective one. I could make a very strong case for saying that Michael Howard laid the foundations for David Cameron's subsequent success. He also, as I'm sure you are aware, championed Cameron.
    Howard did lead to Cameron but that is an entirely different question from his own, or IDS's, appeal to the electorate. This I think is the problem. We look back at the 2010 and 2015 victories and draw a straight line back to Howard. This is especially tempting for those who'd been involved in defenestrating IDS because it means they were right.
    From what he has demonstated since, I don't think there's many examples to be found of Defenestrators' Remorse.....
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    The Tories are wrong because IDS did better than expected at the ballot box, and his replacement, Michael Howard, did worse. IDS's manifest failings were in parliament where his weekly pastings at PMQs destroyed backbench morale. With voters, not so much.
    Iain Duncan Smith didn't lead the Conservatives in any national election so that's a rather loose remark. It's really not on to extrapolate from local election results from 2002 and 2003 if that's what you are deploying.

    Michael Howard took the Conservative share of the vote in the 2005 General Election from 31.7% and 166 seats under William Hague in 2001 to 32.4% and 198 seats, a modest but nonetheless significant uptick.
    It is a question of expectations. IDS exceeded them; Howard did not.
    I'm sorry but that's not a quantitative comment but a highly subjective one. I could make a very strong case for saying that Michael Howard laid the foundations for David Cameron's subsequent success. He also, as I'm sure you are aware, championed Cameron.
    Howard did lead to Cameron but that is an entirely different question from his own, or IDS's, appeal to the electorate. This I think is the problem. We look back at the 2010 and 2015 victories and draw a straight line back to Howard. This is especially tempting for those who'd been involved in defenestrating IDS because it means they were right.
    Fine but empirically Howard was more successful than Hague in the national vote which undoes your original claim.

    IDS never faced the electorate so that further undoes it.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Ophelia pain.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Extrapolating from these results, it's going to be Klobuchar (D) vs Bloomberg (R) in November.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2020
    Here we go - EU wish to make the UK trade deal able to be unilaterally frozen if they don't like UK behaviour, on a "cross-sector" basis.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/10/eu-wants-power-freeze-post-brexit-uk-eu-deals-punishment/

    In other words, they want to be able to tell us to r"e-level" our social and employment "playing field" or they will stop the planes landing.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    edited February 2020
    Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    rcs1000 said:

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Extrapolating from these results, it's going to be Klobuchar (D) vs Bloomberg (R) in November.
    What's their track-record like at picking winners?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited February 2020
    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    An interesting thread on that here:

    https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/what-happened-to-the-proposed-hs1-hs2-link.159325/

    Basically, it would have meant either vastly more expense or using congested existing lines (losing the point of HS Rail) so it wasn’t worth it for the sake of a two hundred yard walk.

    The intention seems to be to bring Euston Square in as part of Euston Station so you can just transfer by tube.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    rcs1000 said:

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Extrapolating from these results, it's going to be Klobuchar (D) vs Bloomberg (R) in November.
    What's their track-record like at picking winners?
    Sadly, like certain posters on here, they have negative information content.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    FPT
    Philip, Scotland is a country not a part of a country like Catalonia. We are supposed to be part of a union of Countries but are treated as a colony.

    malcolmg said:

    » show previous quotes
    That is just bollox
    The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a jus cogens rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It states that people, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and fair equality of opportunity, have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no interference.

    The concept was first expressed in the 1860s, and spread rapidly thereafter. During and after World War I, the principle was encouraged by both Vladimir Lenin and United States President Woodrow Wilson. Having announced his Fourteen Points on 8 January 1918, on 11 February 1918 Wilson stated: "National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. 'Self determination' is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action."

    During World War II, the principle was included in the Atlantic Charter, signed on 14 August 1941, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who pledged The Eight Principal points of the Charter. It was recognized as an international legal right after it was explicitly listed as a right in the UN Charter.

    I'm on your side. I want you to determine this and I want you to go independent. I'm of the view its the best outcome for Scotland as it will make Scottish MSPs responsible for Scottish decisions without the excuse of blaming England. Identical logic to Brexit.

    However international law doesn't dictate this. As far as I'm aware (IANAL) this right applies to colonised peoples and not constituent parts of a country. So if Falklands or Gibraltar wanted independence they could get it, but not Scotland or Catalonia.

    Otherwise the Catalans could take their case to the Hague and demand their rights.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    ydoethur said:

    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
    The Democrats have no-one competent aged between 40 and 70?

    (Waits for @edmundintokyo to reply with KLOBUCHAR!)
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
    The Post Office displayed all the instincts of the Chinese Communist Party in refusing to face up to a problem.
  • Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
    The Democrats have no-one competent aged between 40 and 70?

    (Waits for @edmundintokyo to reply with KLOBUCHAR!)
    I wouldn't have thought have that but now you mention KLOBUCHAR
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    ydoethur said:

    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
    Not Amy...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
    The Post Office displayed all the instincts of the Chinese Communist Party in refusing to face up to a problem.
    Indeed. IIRC (I don't keep past copies of PE) at one point they were accusing the judge in the case of being biased because he found against them.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
    The Democrats have no-one competent aged between 40 and 70?

    (Waits for @edmundintokyo to reply with KLOBUCHAR!)
    You were wrong, it was @Foxy.
  • speedy2speedy2 Posts: 981

    rcs1000 said:

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Extrapolating from these results, it's going to be Klobuchar (D) vs Bloomberg (R) in November.
    What's their track-record like at picking winners?
    I'm more interested in the total participation in all 3 midnight towns though.

    Total for the Republicans 38 votes (Trump 31 votes).
    Total for the Democrats 27 votes.

    9 democrats combined get fewer votes than Trump by himself.
    But in an area where Trump won by a 2-1 margin in 2016.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
  • Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
    On policy deficiencies, I'd probably agree. Even before the election, I'd posted that the programme looked as if it was drawn up by a CCHQ mole.

    But reports and polling since the election are adamant that it was Corbyn's personal toxicity to blame. I'm not convinced, and nor are his critics because if they are right it was not policy-related, they'd be voting for RLB and Corbynbism sans Corbyn.

    Taking these findings seriously means we need to explain the turnaround since 2017. Now I've not read Lord Ashcroft's report; maybe the answer is in there. Until then, I quite like my new glasses, no eye-contact theory which is at least novel, and the inference of under-the-radar character assassination, which might need to wait for the post-election books to tell us more about the content of CCHQ social media messages.

  • Gabs3Gabs3 Posts: 836
    Sandpit said:

    Here we go - EU wish to make the UK trade deal able to be unilaterally frozen if they don't like UK behaviour, on a "cross-sector" basis.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/10/eu-wants-power-freeze-post-brexit-uk-eu-deals-punishment/

    In other words, they want to be able to tell us to r"e-level" our social and employment "playing field" or they will stop the planes landing.

    Clearly utterly unreasonable from the EU. They want the ECJ to be the referee and the EC to be the decider of the punishment.

    The only way a deal is workable is for any dispute mechanism to be equidistant from both sides and for the relevant punishments for rule breaking to be determined by the independent arbiter.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Bloomberg is a really good tip. I reckon he's the only one who could ruffle Trump's feathers.

    Bloomberg has been focusing on massive anti-Trump advertising campaign.

    The Dem base is furious about Trump, the issue last time was lack of Dem base energy. His strategy could well work.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    ydoethur said:

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    The damage is done, however. He has already throttled the potential candidacy of anyone in middle age just by standing.
    The Democrats have no-one competent aged between 40 and 70?

    (Waits for @edmundintokyo to reply with KLOBUCHAR!)
    You were wrong, it was @Foxy.
    KLOBUSURGE

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/amy-klobuchar-is-having-a-mini-surge-in-new-hampshire-weve-gone-up-to-no-3?ref=scroll
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    speedy2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    More results in from New Hampshire:

    twitter.com/jbarro/status/1227103902241296384

    Aren't they a day early? What is being reported here? I thought NH was tonight.
    A couple of publicity-seeking hamlets have a long-establishd tradition of voting at midnight.
    Extrapolating from these results, it's going to be Klobuchar (D) vs Bloomberg (R) in November.
    What's their track-record like at picking winners?
    I'm more interested in the total participation in all 3 midnight towns though.

    Total for the Republicans 38 votes (Trump 31 votes).
    Total for the Democrats 27 votes.

    9 democrats combined get fewer votes than Trump by himself.
    But in an area where Trump won by a 2-1 margin in 2016.
    As has been pointed out elsewhere, US Elections are as much about turnout as vote share.
    And turnout was?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited February 2020
    It'll have to be Bloomberg then, if Trump is to be defeated.
  • Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
    The Post Office displayed all the instincts of the Chinese Communist Party in refusing to face up to a problem.
    Is there a political side here? It seems to have been going on long enough for both parties to be implicated. Or do they escape because now everything is at arms length? Bring back the postmaster general!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
    That’s the Scottish government’s own website, Malc. Are you saying they forge the figures to show that they are incapable of balancing the books?

    Mind you, given who drew them up, it seems eminently possible he was that dumb...
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Those fighting Scottish Independence on economic grounds have learnt nothing from the EU referendum.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Dislike it being so cold.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    Gabs3 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Here we go - EU wish to make the UK trade deal able to be unilaterally frozen if they don't like UK behaviour, on a "cross-sector" basis.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/10/eu-wants-power-freeze-post-brexit-uk-eu-deals-punishment/

    In other words, they want to be able to tell us to r"e-level" our social and employment "playing field" or they will stop the planes landing.

    Clearly utterly unreasonable from the EU. They want the ECJ to be the referee and the EC to be the decider of the punishment.

    The only way a deal is workable is for any dispute mechanism to be equidistant from both sides and for the relevant punishments for rule breaking to be determined by the independent arbiter.
    LOL, lets see how great the Hard Brexit is, the chickens will be coming home to roost and likely be chlorinated as well.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400

    Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
    The Post Office displayed all the instincts of the Chinese Communist Party in refusing to face up to a problem.
    Indeed. IIRC (I don't keep past copies of PE) at one point they were accusing the judge in the case of being biased because he found against them.
    In good company, that's how several people reacted to the Supreme Court prorogation and A50 decisions.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Those fighting Scottish Independence on economic grounds have learnt nothing from the EU referendum.

    Scotland sends £350 million a week to the UK.

    Let’s put that money into public transport by buying advertising space on a bus instead.
  • OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    As OldKingCole points out Private Eye have been on this for years.
  • Alistair said:

    Bloomberg is a really good tip. I reckon he's the only one who could ruffle Trump's feathers.

    Bloomberg has been focusing on massive anti-Trump advertising campaign.

    The Dem base is furious about Trump, the issue last time was lack of Dem base energy. His strategy could well work.
    Which would be depressing as he’d effectively have bought the nomination.
  • Andy_JS said:

    It'll have to be Bloomberg then, if Trump is to be defeated.
    No.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited February 2020

    Sandpit said:

    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
    On policy deficiencies, I'd probably agree. Even before the election, I'd posted that the programme looked as if it was drawn up by a CCHQ mole.

    But reports and polling since the election are adamant that it was Corbyn's personal toxicity to blame. I'm not convinced, and nor are his critics because if they are right it was not policy-related, they'd be voting for RLB and Corbynbism sans Corbyn.

    Taking these findings seriously means we need to explain the turnaround since 2017. Now I've not read Lord Ashcroft's report; maybe the answer is in there. Until then, I quite like my new glasses, no eye-contact theory which is at least novel, and the inference of under-the-radar character assassination, which might need to wait for the post-election books to tell us more about the content of CCHQ social media messages.
    I read the exec summary, and skimmed the full report this morning. Lord Ashcroft, no matter what people think of him, has been impartial and scientific in his research and reporting - although undoubtedly many will dismiss it as coming from himself, something he mentions in the first few hundred words of the report.

    I think the headlines are that a lot of Labour voters (even those from 2017) thought that the party was moving away from its roots in working class communities, and becoming more the party of middle-class idealists who live in big cities - people concerned more with Palestine than Peterborough or Penistone.

    They also saw the behaviour of MPs in the last Parliament, who were saying one thing and doing another when it came to delivering on the Brexit vote - in 2017 they said they would deliver, but then voted against every form of actually doing so.

    The policy programme as a whole looked like Labour wanted to primarily level down the country, rather than level up - to make the rich poorer rather than the poor richer.

    They also liked Boris more than TM, someone who, despite his clear flaws, is full of optimism in contrast to Labour's constant negativity.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
    On policy deficiencies, I'd probably agree. Even before the election, I'd posted that the programme looked as if it was drawn up by a CCHQ mole.

    But reports and polling since the election are adamant that it was Corbyn's personal toxicity to blame. I'm not convinced, and nor are his critics because if they are right it was not policy-related, they'd be voting for RLB and Corbynbism sans Corbyn.

    Taking these findings seriously means we need to explain the turnaround since 2017. Now I've not read Lord Ashcroft's report; maybe the answer is in there. Until then, I quite like my new glasses, no eye-contact theory which is at least novel, and the inference of under-the-radar character assassination, which might need to wait for the post-election books to tell us more about the content of CCHQ social media messages.

    In part the report suggests a combination including the post 2017 'could now see labour never intended to Brexit' and 'closer look at corbyn over time' effects hit labour hard, plus Boris factor.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
    That’s the Scottish government’s own website, Malc. Are you saying they forge the figures to show that they are incapable of balancing the books?

    Mind you, given who drew them up, it seems eminently possible he was that dumb...
    The real numbers are not available, you know that and are either playing dumb or being obtuse. They have to use the garbage provided by UK and these are just garbage and bear no reflection on reality of Scotland's finances but they have no incentive to show reality preferring to promote the fantasy numbers which are all estimates made by unionists.
  • Mr. Royale, it's ironic that if Wellington (as was common practice at the time) hadn't been able to buy his promotions he wouldn't've risen so quickly and Napoleon might very well have ended up victorious.
  • Those fighting Scottish Independence on economic grounds have learnt nothing from the EU referendum.

    The arguments both for and against are indeed remarkably similar, so it is surprising that many people seem to back one but not the other.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited February 2020
    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
    That’s the Scottish government’s own website, Malc. Are you saying they forge the figures to show that they are incapable of balancing the books?

    Mind you, given who drew them up, it seems eminently possible he was that dumb...
    The real numbers are not available, you know that and are either playing dumb or being obtuse. They have to use the garbage provided by UK and these are just garbage and bear no reflection on reality of Scotland's finances but they have no incentive to show reality preferring to promote the fantasy numbers which are all estimates made by unionists.
    In case you hadn’t noticed, it includes an estimate of what Scotland’s economy would look like if it raised all its own taxes.

    And it still shows a deficit, albeit one 20% smaller.

    Now, there are reasons for this. The geography of Scotland makes it more difficult and expensive to provide public services. Plus, it has much higher social deprivation, on average, than England. That’s expensive too. Not many billionaires in Scotland paying lots of lovely tax, as they do in London even after accountants have managed the figure down. So income would be lower.

    But it’s still a deficit at least comparable to the UK’s as a whole. True, part of that might be debt interest. But it doesn’t account for all of it. And bearing in mind quite a lot of the debt was taken on to rescue a Scottish bank, your logic of ‘no debt’ doesn’t follow.

    That’s not to say an independent Scotland would be economically unviable. Clearly, it could be prosperous based on its native industries (highly profitable tourism and whisky are going nowhere even when the oil runs out). But painful choices would have to be made in the short term to balance the books. University tuition fees would rise steeply, for starters.

    Have a good morning.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
    On policy deficiencies, I'd probably agree. Even before the election, I'd posted that the programme looked as if it was drawn up by a CCHQ mole.

    But reports and polling since the election are adamant that it was Corbyn's personal toxicity to blame. I'm not convinced, and nor are his critics because if they are right it was not policy-related, they'd be voting for RLB and Corbynbism sans Corbyn.

    Taking these findings seriously means we need to explain the turnaround since 2017. Now I've not read Lord Ashcroft's report; maybe the answer is in there. Until then, I quite like my new glasses, no eye-contact theory which is at least novel, and the inference of under-the-radar character assassination, which might need to wait for the post-election books to tell us more about the content of CCHQ social media messages.
    I read the exec summary, and skimmed the full report this morning. Lord Ashcroft, no matter what people think of him, has been impartial and scientific in his research and reporting - although undoubtedly many will dismiss it as coming from himself, something he mentions in the first few hundred words of the report.
    That was pretty amusing. I think that he produced a report on how the tories needed to smell the coffee back in 2005 should help persuade some people that hes not just interested in toeing a line for his party, in defence ir attack, but we shall see. I think the members still being so unwilling to reflect on any point that suggests the party was to blame in a way other than packaging its ideas (with some exceptions) is the key stumbling block.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Alistair said:

    Bloomberg is a really good tip. I reckon he's the only one who could ruffle Trump's feathers.

    Bloomberg has been focusing on massive anti-Trump advertising campaign.

    The Dem base is furious about Trump, the issue last time was lack of Dem base energy. His strategy could well work.
    Which would be depressing as he’d effectively have bought the nomination.
    It will be the ultimate test of the proposition that coverage you don’t buy is far more valuable than that which you do.

    It’s already a demonstration of the insanity of the Republican Supreme Court effectively destroying campaign finance regulation.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400

    Those fighting Scottish Independence on economic grounds have learnt nothing from the EU referendum.

    The arguments both for and against are indeed remarkably similar, so it is surprising that many people seem to back one but not the other.
    It isn't because the reasoning is emotional even when people justify be economics . Dismissing figures and saying reality figures which we cannot see are real is part of that.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    OT this Post Office scandal could blow up.
    For two decades, the Post Office pursued hundreds of its workers over accounting discrepancies with its Horizon IT system, accusing people of theft, fraud or false accounting. Many were fired, made bankrupt or even sent to prison.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51446463

    Yes, that's a massive scandal, really not a good look that they immediately blamed hundreds of small business franchisees rather than look for deficiencies in their own central accounting systems - just after they'd changed the system.

    It's going to cost them a lot more than this judgement over the long term, people who have been on the receiving end deserve exemplary compensation, and the PO needs to be considered a vexatious litigator by the courts in future. I quite like the American concept of double and triple damages in cases like these.
    Private Eye has spent a considerable amount of ink on this over the past few years. It would appear that 'someone', or at group of 'someones' at the top off the Post Office made a decision to go with the accounting software, come hell or high water.
    I suspect that if they are not in some 'charmed circle' this could end up very badly for that someone and/or their immediate 'friends'.
    The judge in the relevant case was very critical indeed of the Post Office.
    The Post Office displayed all the instincts of the Chinese Communist Party in refusing to face up to a problem.
    Is there a political side here? It seems to have been going on long enough for both parties to be implicated. Or do they escape because now everything is at arms length? Bring back the postmaster general!
    There needs to be a genuinely independent enquiry into this, with full investigative powers. If the Private Eye stories stand up then there probably should be prosecutions.
  • IanB2 said:

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
    Thankfully HYUFD is not the Tory Party.
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited February 2020
    IanB2 said:

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
    Yep we've already had that old chestnut traipsed out on here.

    Neatly side-stepping the blatant truth that people used local elections to send a message to Tony Blair's otherwise successful reign. The locals meant didly squat on a national level and it's at best lazy argument to suggest otherwise and at worst deliberate deceit.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Mr. Royale, it's ironic that if Wellington (as was common practice at the time) hadn't been able to buy his promotions he wouldn't've risen so quickly and Napoleon might very well have ended up victorious.

    Had promotions been purely on merit, then he might well not.
    It’s a rather futile speculation, since it would require postulating a somewhat different society than existed at the time.
  • Mr. Royale, it's ironic that if Wellington (as was common practice at the time) hadn't been able to buy his promotions he wouldn't've risen so quickly and Napoleon might very well have ended up victorious.

    Yes, but he was the exception rather than the rule.

    He was good enough to have risen quickly under a meritocratic system.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    IanB2 said:

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
    Thankfully HYUFD is not the Tory Party.
    Though he does seem to be in tune with its dominant faction.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited February 2020

    ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
    Another possibility is that in 2017 Corbyn was relatively untested and non-Tories could paint onto him their own vision of an effective left wing leader (and their own desired outcome from Brexit). By 2019 he had been through two years of intense parliamentary debates on Brexit and his ineffectual dealing with Labour’s own anti-semitism crisis during which his failures, of leadership, vision, performance and ability were all laid bare.

    Or, more bluntly, in 2017 he could at least appeal to people as a man of principle, whereas by 2019 he was cynically trying to hide his own views and manoeuvre his party atop the fence. His supporters wanted to see his inner Trump not his inner Clinton.

    Corbyn, and Labour, also made the mistake of thinking that because people liked the giveaways on offer in 2017, they should double down and offer twice as many in 2019. Yet this turned their campaign into a parody of itself.
  • Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    The policy issue was that, while a number of the policies were popular individually, they didn't fit together as a coherent whole.

    Labour's sums were a long way from adding up in the eyes of the average Deplorable working man, and while the Brexit flip-flopping and Corbyn himself were factors, most people just saw taxes going up to pay for things that mostly went to 'other people' (middle-class students, WASPI women, benefits claimants, train commuters etc).
    On policy deficiencies, I'd probably agree. Even before the election, I'd posted that the programme looked as if it was drawn up by a CCHQ mole.

    But reports and polling since the election are adamant that it was Corbyn's personal toxicity to blame. I'm not convinced, and nor are his critics because if they are right it was not policy-related, they'd be voting for RLB and Corbynbism sans Corbyn.

    Taking these findings seriously means we need to explain the turnaround since 2017. Now I've not read Lord Ashcroft's report; maybe the answer is in there. Until then, I quite like my new glasses, no eye-contact theory which is at least novel, and the inference of under-the-radar character assassination, which might need to wait for the post-election books to tell us more about the content of CCHQ social media messages.
    I read the exec summary, and skimmed the full report this morning. Lord Ashcroft, no matter what people think of him, has been impartial and scientific in his research and reporting - although undoubtedly many will dismiss it as coming from himself, something he mentions in the first few hundred words of the report.

    I think the headlines are that a lot of Labour voters (even those from 2017) thought that the party was moving away from its roots in working class communities, and becoming more the party of middle-class idealists who live in big cities - people concerned more with Palestine than Peterborough or Penistone.

    They also saw the behaviour of MPs in the last Parliament, who were saying one thing and doing another when it came to delivering on the Brexit vote - in 2017 they said they would deliver, but then voted against every form of actually doing so.

    The policy programme as a whole looked like Labour wanted to primarily level down the country, rather than level up - to make the rich poorer rather than the poor richer.

    They also liked Boris more than TM, someone who, despite his clear flaws, is full of optimism in contrast to Labour's constant negativity.
    It’s an excellent report.

    I recommend reading it in full.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Private Eye podcast on the Post Office scandal:
    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer/play-367
  • MysticroseMysticrose Posts: 4,688
    edited February 2020
    Thank you to Mike and Robert by the way for the Bloomberg tip. I'm on him for both the nomination and, more improbably, the Presidency. He's the only one Donald Trump will fear.

    Two business titans going head-to-head would be explosive, although Bloomberg makes Trump look like Poundshop.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Mr. Royale, it's ironic that if Wellington (as was common practice at the time) hadn't been able to buy his promotions he wouldn't've risen so quickly and Napoleon might very well have ended up victorious.

    Yes, but he was the exception rather than the rule.

    He was good enough to have risen quickly under a meritocratic system.
    It’s not often that you see late eighteenth/early nineteenth aristocratic Britain described as a meritocracy!

    It was the French, after their revolution opened up prospects for soldiers with ability to rise more freely into the officer ranks, that had the dividend from better officers.

  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    My only gripe about HS2 is that it would have been better for it to start/terminate at St Pancras rather than Euston.

    Indeed, they should have made it possible to run trains from Edinburgh to Amsterdam - and it should definitely have stopped at Heathrow on the way North.

    Separating the train terminals between Paddington, Euston and St.Pancras was obviously a decision made by the A501 Chamber of Commerce and the Black Cab Union.
    As ever it is all done to benefit London. We will pay 8% of the cost for NO benefit whatsoever and then these morons come out and try to pretend Scotland runs a deficit.
    It does.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-gers/
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
    That’s the Scottish government’s own website, Malc. Are you saying they forge the figures to show that they are incapable of balancing the books?

    Mind you, given who drew them up, it seems eminently possible he was that dumb...
    Scotland runs a balanced budget.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Sanders 2.54
    Bloomberg 3.9
    Buttigieg 8.4
    Biden 15.5
    Warren 25

    https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.128161111
  • Mr. Teacher, both votes have already been held, though.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    IanB2 said:

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
    Thankfully HYUFD is not the Tory Party.

    Only in that the rest of them mostly believed in Brexit from the beginning.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    SNIP

    SNIP
    SNIP
    It does.

    SNIP
    Bollox, faked up numbers given most of it is us paying for UK and interest on their debt
    SNIP
    SNIP
    In case you hadn’t noticed, it includes an estimate of what Scotland’s economy would look like if it raised all its own taxes.

    And it still shows a deficit, albeit one 20% smaller.

    Now, there are reasons for this. The geography of Scotland makes it more difficult and expensive to provide public services. Plus, it has much higher social deprivation, on average, than England. That’s expensive too. Not many billionaires in Scotland paying lots of lovely tax, as they do in London even after accountants have managed the figure down. So income would be lower.

    But it’s still a deficit at least comparable to the UK’s as a whole. True, part of that might be debt interest. But it doesn’t account for all of it. And bearing in mind quite a lot of the debt was taken on to rescue a Scottish bank, your logic of ‘no debt’ doesn’t follow.

    That’s not to say an independent Scotland would be economically unviable. Clearly, it could be prosperous based on its native industries (highly profitable tourism and whisky are going nowhere even when the oil runs out). But painful choices would have to be made in the short term to balance the books. University tuition fees would rise steeply, for starters.

    Have a good morning.
    Ydoethur, You cannot conflate how Scotland would run its economy with the UK budgets, many of the fripperies would be dropped for sure. Like most normal countries we would likely have a deficit but the government could make real decisions that could improve Scotland rather than us having to follow policies that suit the much bigger English economy that do not suit us. All the evidence from the world is that small countries can be successful and given Scotland's natural resources it would tend to point to us being among the most likely to be successful given decent governance.
    Trying to pretend that based on UK policies we are a basket case is just wrong, unionists trying to pretend Scotland is 80% of the UK deficit is just stupid. On your last point, we have lots of painful choices forced on us now with no input on what is best for us.
    You have to be blind to think Scotland is being run successfully from London.
  • Andy_JS said:

    It'll have to be Bloomberg then, if Trump is to be defeated.
    Or Buttigieg.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Mr. Royale, it's ironic that if Wellington (as was common practice at the time) hadn't been able to buy his promotions he wouldn't've risen so quickly and Napoleon might very well have ended up victorious.

    Another interesting hypothetical is what if George Washington's mother hadn't talked him out of taking up his commission in the Royal Navy at the last minute...
  • malcolmg said:

    Ydoethur, You cannot conflate how Scotland would run its economy with the UK budgets, many of the fripperies would be dropped for sure. Like most normal countries we would likely have a deficit but the government could make real decisions that could improve Scotland rather than us having to follow policies that suit the much bigger English economy that do not suit us. All the evidence from the world is that small countries can be successful and given Scotland's natural resources it would tend to point to us being among the most likely to be successful given decent governance.
    Trying to pretend that based on UK policies we are a basket case is just wrong, unionists trying to pretend Scotland is 80% of the UK deficit is just stupid. On your last point, we have lots of painful choices forced on us now with no input on what is best for us.
    You have to be blind to think Scotland is being run successfully from London.

    The Scottish government has an opportunity to run its economy currently and if it was serious on independence they could run a healthy budget rather than fripperies like free tuition and free prescriptions.

    I agree small countries can be successful and I think Scotland can be, once it drops its fripperies I completely agree. Just a shame the SNP insist on maintaining those fripperies today and not leading by example.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited February 2020
    IanB2 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Troubles with the everyone hates Corbyn thesis are that, if true:
    1) why the turnaround since the 2017 election?
    2) if it is personal then it is not policy so RLB should be the new leader: same policies but without the personally toxic Corbyn.

    Could the explanation be that people hated him partly because of his policies?
    That is not what is being reported, though there may be an element of this. A similar possibility is that voters use hatred of Corbyn as shorthand for dislike of policies. A related but different possibility is that because Boris had pinched Corbyn's most popular policies from 2017, the Corbyn-haters saw no reason to listen to Corbyn, which might have led to their minds being changed; there was no halo effect from these popular policies.
    Another possibility is that in 2017 Corbyn was relatively untested and non-Tories could paint onto him their own vision of an effective left wing leader (and their own desired outcome from Brexit). By 2019 he had been through two years of intense parliamentary debates on Brexit and his ineffectual dealing with Labour’s own anti-semitism crisis during which his failures, of leadership, vision, performance and ability were all laid bare.

    Or, more bluntly, in 2017 he could at least appeal to people as a man of principle, whereas by 2019 he was cynically trying to hide his own views and manoeuvre his party atop the fence. His supporters wanted to see his inner Trump not his inner Clinton.

    Corbyn, and Labour, also made the mistake of thinking that because people liked the giveaways on offer in 2017, they should double down and offer twice as many in 2019. Yet this turned their campaign into a parody of itself.
    Boris (or CCHQ) drew the right policy lessons from 2017; Labour the wrong ones. There is a lot to be said for that view, as Boris was almost 180 degrees from Theresa May, even to the point of promising 20,000 more police which was, not accidentally, precisely the number May was blamed for cutting.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited February 2020

    Thank you to Mike and Robert by the way for the Bloomberg tip. I'm on him for both the nomination and, more improbably, the Presidency. He's the only one Donald Trump will fear.

    Two business titans going head-to-head would be explosive, although Bloomberg makes Trump look like Poundshop.

    Yes, having been quite red on Bloomberg I have now cut my losses and got back to par as nominee, and backed him for Pres. When you look at the field of established Dem politicians, the flaws of each of them has been on display for some time and none of them look like credibly succeeding against Trump. The US’s money-driven system stops some charismatic newbie coming from left field, and when the desperation to beat Trump becomes acute, Bloomberg is the only other play they have.
  • Nigelb said:

    IanB2 said:

    The Tories could see IDS's manifest failings with the public - and did what was required to prevent that being tested at a general election.

    Labour say they can't see Corbyn's manifest failings with the public - despite their being pointed out by losing two general elections.

    Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.

    lol. HY will be along presently to tell you about his stunning local election results.
    Thankfully HYUFD is not the Tory Party.
    Though he does seem to be in tune with its dominant faction.
    I don't see any evidence of that.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    Sandpit said:

    Private Eye podcast on the Post Office scandal:
    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer/play-367

    Thanks for this.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    So the government is shaking the magic money tree for Boris’ train set and putting costly checks at ports. Something isn’t going to add up.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    Sandpit said:

    Private Eye podcast on the Post Office scandal:
    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer/play-367

    Horizon was a shambles from the very beginning. I worked for the PO (but not in the counters business) at the time it was introduced, and it came in late, over budget, and they struggled to get it to work. It doesn’t surprise me that there were deep errors that have finally been acknowledged; what is shocking , although sadly predicable, is the extent of denial and closing ranks amongst senior management, who preferred to believe their system rather than accept even the possibility that they might be sitting atop a disaster.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Andy_JS said:

    It'll have to be Bloomberg then, if Trump is to be defeated.
    Or Buttigieg.
    Only a B can beat Trump?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    Andy_JS said:

    Sandpit said:

    Private Eye podcast on the Post Office scandal:
    https://www.private-eye.co.uk/eyeplayer/play-367

    Thanks for this.
    You’re a quick listener!
  • If Labour want to make a fresh start, I suggest that they sit down with voters of all stripes and all backgrounds and ask them what are their day-to-day problems. I expect you'd hear a lot about crime, daily costs of living, transport, quality of rented housing and quality of education. I'd place heavy wagers that neither Brexit nor Palestine would feature.

    Labour needs to be talking more about the day-to-day stuff and identifying solutions that match 2020 rather than 1970. That doesn't mean abandoning socialism (the pledge on broadband, for example, was fine). It means looking at the world as it operates today.
This discussion has been closed.