Ok, I'm beginning to panic now. I assumed Bloomberg as a vanity candidate whose approach was fatally flawed. But his opinion polls are climbing. Given the events to date, can he take the nomination? I'll be really miffed if he does. Trump ignored scrutiny and bullied his way in, Boris ignore scrutiny and plowed on, now Bloomberg might pull off the same trick?
Having just returned from Philadelphia, everyone I spoke with about the Dems nomination told me Bloomberg is the only hope they have to defeat Trump. The expectation is Bloomberg will get the nomination.
The former statement I agree with, and the latter is now gaining some traction.
Bloomberg is the answer if one thinks that the way to fight Trump is to be moderate, civilised (cf. Buttigieg) and extremely rich. The case for Sanders is that it's better to be radical, shouty and have extremely rich friends plus a big supporter base. I like Sanders but I do worry about the Corbyn parallel (not least as I also like Corbyn). At the same time, I have doubts about the civilised approach to Trump too.
See also Jess Vs Boris. Labour is on the verge of picking a nice, reasonable polite fellow who argues forensically. You need a big gobby girl who will rip his head off and shit down his neck.
The errr... negative statement about minorities, being a registered Republican for a while, stop and search in NY while Mayor, billionaire buying the nomination... It all adds up to a candidate who might not get the whole base out. Shades of Clinton.
Some years ago, when I was at a gathering of my American relatives (NY Democrats since FDR and before), I was told that a big fear was that a *competent* billionaire (the Silicon Valley types were heavily mentioned) would buy the presidency - and Congress and the Senate. It would be easy, they thought, for such a person to run candidates in the various races who would only take his money. So they could avoid the entire Washington System - and be solely and utterly controlled by their benefactor.
Members of Congress are perpetually raising funds, for example, due to their very short terms. $10 million a pop, say. So you spend $4 billlion to buy a majority. Senators are a bit more pricey, but you only need to buy 60....
To such people Bloomberg *is* the nightmare....
I'm less convinced. It depends whether the prevailing mood is to defeat Trump or elect Bloomberg. What's better - living in a nightmare or waking up in hell? As we saw just a few weeks ago, despite having the choice of two terrible options, most people readily chose one or the other.
As an aside, £650k buys you a candidate in every UK seat but it doesn't buy you representation in a debate. That's the difference - money can't buy you the political record required to be a serious player from scratch.
If your new party won 150 seats in its first election it would be represented in the next election but to go from zero to 326 would require an insurgency level beyond anything credible in this country. As you say, in the US system, an outsider can buy his or her way to the WH though it hasn't yet happened.
Think about buying hopefuls in say, all the Democratic primaries/selections. Clinton tried taking over the party via the machine - but didn't have enough money to buy candidates as well.
Bloomberg has too many negatives to get the whole base out, I think.
I'd feel kind of bad for her if she gets super close without managing it, but on the other hand 33 CLPs is not that hard a target. I mean, Burgon made it. And people shouldn't nominate someone they don't actually support just to widen a field.
Well, surely we'd trust them to build the railway more than 5G?
There's a graphic online about how fast the Chinese have expanded their rail network. It's amazing what you can get done if you can execute protestors...
They are seen as buttresses against civil servants. They can liaise with, cajole and bully the civil service and provide feedback as to what is and is not good from a career POV. Plus MPs are congenitally insecure and occasionally need their hand held.
This is a subject that a very good history writer could produce some volumes on. There have been changes of the years in the nature of the civil service - the idea that the one of it's jobs is to prevent government enacting policy (Yes Minister is only slightly satirical in this respect) is actually quite new. The Spad system grew out of that concept of The Thing.
For example, the Naval Defence Act of 1889 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Defence_Act_1889) was not greeted with "well, minister....." but with an effective cooperation between the Treasury and Admiralty. The rapidly devised measures to stabilise the funding over the multi year life of the project were innovative and effective.
I think you're right. I'm raiding my memories of "The Blunders of our Governments" and "Britain Since 1918: the strange career of British Democracy" and there is an argument that the change of role in the Civil Service from partner and decelerator to obeyer of instructions has messed things up. Dom's plans to emasculate it further might just blow up in our faces...
(I recommend both books by the way: both about ten years out of date, but good reads nonetheless)
It mirrors the transfer of power from the Monarch (which civil servants work in his/her name) to elected politicians.
It's basically a Who Governs question.
Indeed
I would argue it has gone the other way - the Civil Service has gone from facilitators of government policy to a Xth "estate" of the government.
I recall, on one occasion, a Civil Servant telling me that he would prevent policy X happening. I pointed out that X was the policy of the elected government, in their manifesto etc. X was a policy where it was truly political - no right answer, just views across the political spectrum. The CS chap told me that since it was against the "proper policy" of the CS he would prevent it happening.
One wonders what would have happened in '45 if such an attitude prevailed - no NHS on the grounds that it wasn't CS policy?
Well, surely we'd trust them to build the railway more than 5G?
As long as the building and land use regulations are the same as China's, yes they can build it in that time and cost, provided they have the workforce and supplies.
Well, surely we'd trust them to build the railway more than 5G?
As long as the building and land use regulations are the same as China's, yes they can build it in that time and cost, provided they have the workforce and supplies.
I wasn't commenting on whether they could actually do it in this country as suggested, just that at least it would lack one of the concerns people had with the other matter
I'd feel kind of bad for her if she gets super close without managing it, but on the other hand 33 CLPs is not that hard a target. I mean, Burgon made it. And people shouldn't nominate someone they don't actually support just to widen a field.
What do you mean? last time they opted to widen the field, they ended up losing two elections, one to the worst result since 1935.
They are seen as buttresses against civil servants. They can liaise with, cajole and bully the civil service and provide feedback as to what is and is not good from a career POV. Plus MPs are congenitally insecure and occasionally need their hand held.
This is a subject that a very good history writer could produce some volumes on. There have been changes of the years in the nature of the civil service - the idea that the one of it's jobs is to prevent government enacting policy (Yes Minister is only slightly satirical in this respect) is actually quite new. The Spad system grew out of that concept of The Thing.
For example, the Naval Defence Act of 1889 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Defence_Act_1889) was not greeted with "well, minister....." but with an effective cooperation between the Treasury and Admiralty. The rapidly devised measures to stabilise the funding over the multi year life of the project were innovative and effective.
I think you're right. I'm raiding my memories of "The Blunders of our Governments" and "Britain Since 1918: the strange career of British Democracy" and there is an argument that the change of role in the Civil Service from partner and decelerator to obeyer of instructions has messed things up. Dom's plans to emasculate it further might just blow up in our faces...
(I recommend both books by the way: both about ten years out of date, but good reads nonetheless)
It mirrors the transfer of power from the Monarch (which civil servants work in his/her name) to elected politicians.
It's basically a Who Governs question.
Indeed
I would argue it has gone the other way - the Civil Service has gone from facilitators of government policy to a Xth "estate" of the government.
I recall, on one occasion, a Civil Servant telling me that he would prevent policy X happening. I pointed out that X was the policy of the elected government, in their manifesto etc. X was a policy where it was truly political - no right answer, just views across the political spectrum. The CS chap told me that since it was against the "proper policy" of the CS he would prevent it happening.
I'd actively campaign for Trump ahead of Bloomberg, even if I didn't have any bets on this.
Who do you want to be president? One rich old dude vs some other rich old dude.
South Park was right.
In order of the current contenders
1) Buttigieg - Would carry on the Stock market strengths, he's not in any danger of death from old age 2) Klob - She has spirit 3) Biden - He's not great but it would be a change to normality 4) Warren 5) Sanders 6) Steyer - He's a billionaire but not so rich he can buy the entire system 7) Trump 8) Bloomberg - Sweet Jesus
The political upheaval of the last few days has focussed so much on the position of SPADs in our system of government.What is often lost sight of is that until relatively recent years, these positions did not exist. Who provided such advice to the likes of RA Butler, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell, Selwyn Lloyd, Hugh Dalton etc?These people were all able to function as Chancellors without them. Why are they so necessary now?
The first SPADs were appointed over 50 years ago by Harold Wilson when the likes of Hugh Gaitskell said they needed more advisers to help them formulate policy from outside the civil service.
Gaitskell was,of course, already dead, but my point really is that earlier Chancellors - and indeed other Ministers - were very capable of doing their jobs without the support of SPADs. That rather suggests that they are really an optional extra - rather than being strictly essential - albeit one which Ministers have long come to expect.
The political upheaval of the last few days has focussed so much on the position of SPADs in our system of government.What is often lost sight of is that until relatively recent years, these positions did not exist. Who provided such advice to the likes of RA Butler, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell, Selwyn Lloyd, Hugh Dalton etc?These people were all able to function as Chancellors without them. Why are they so necessary now?
The first SPADs were appointed over 50 years ago by Harold Wilson when the likes of Hugh Gaitskell said they needed more advisers to help them formulate policy from outside the civil service.
Gaitskell was,of course, already dead, but my point really is that earlier Chancellors - and indeed other Ministers - were very capable of doing their jobs without the support of SPADs. That rather suggests that they are really an optional extra - rather than being strictly essential - albeit one which Ministers have long come to expect.
You might be right, but it might just be that times have changed and the job now has a much better case for having them than would have existed back then. They do seem to have an awful lot though, and given how many want to be stepping stones to MPs it makes one suspicious.
Still not as predictable as Whitteringsdale being put in charge of wrecking the BBC.
Fantastic! I was just happy we managed to keep Corbyn out, but this government may actually succeed in some genuinely radical reforms with these kinds of personnel. Exciting times for conservatives.
(There were 17 left as of this morning, and only 10 plus a number of affiliates have nominated today afaict)
Second question: is Cardiff running a joint meeting? Could mean a bloc Thornberry vote - think Blackpool or local went that path - OK, obviously not quite that now I've read it again.
You can be offside from a corner apparently. 40 years playing football and i never knew
He wasn't offside from a corner, he was offside from the pass after the corner. And Macca is an embarrassment to his profession.
The forensic nature of VAR is ridiculous when it comes to offside, though. The rule was only introduced to stop blatant goal hanging, now we have the technology they might as well make it that you have to be 5 yards past the last defender to be off
For example, the Naval Defence Act of 1889 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Defence_Act_1889) was not greeted with "well, minister....." but with an effective cooperation between the Treasury and Admiralty. The rapidly devised measures to stabilise the funding over the multi year life of the project were innovative and effective.
I think you're right. I'm raiding my memories of "The Blunders of our Governments" and "Britain Since 1918: the strange career of British Democracy" and there is an argument that the change of role in the Civil Service from partner and decelerator to obeyer of instructions has messed things up. Dom's plans to emasculate it further might just blow up in our faces...
(I recommend both books by the way: both about ten years out of date, but good reads nonetheless)
It mirrors the transfer of power from the Monarch (which civil servants work in his/her name) to elected politicians.
It's basically a Who Governs question.
Indeed
I would argue it has gone the other way - the Civil Service has gone from facilitators of government policy to a Xth "estate" of the government.
I recall, on one occasion, a Civil Servant telling me that he would prevent policy X happening. I pointed out that X was the policy of the elected government, in their manifesto etc. X was a policy where it was truly political - no right answer, just views across the political spectrum. The CS chap told me that since it was against the "proper policy" of the CS he would prevent it happening.
They used to say that before, too...
I will always treasure my encounter with the chap who stuffed up ammunition procurement for the British Army.
When I pointed out to him that his mistakes were obvious and would not have been made by someone who purchased ammunition for their hobby, his response was - "Do you want ammunition purchase for the Army to be done by gun nuts?"
To which I replied - "Yes". In fact, previously it had been done by office full of weird gun nuts. The kind of people who spent half their time inventing their own caliber/ammunition. One of them has recreated the .280 round for the Janson, in his retirement, I believe....
He was utterly convinced that he was right - he had followed best practice etc. The fact that the guns jammed on the 3rd shot... that wasn't his problem.
I am genuinely discomfited by his success. I thought he was a vanity candidate. My faith in my ability to predict things has been shaken. Aaargh!
My wife just found out about my Bloomberg bet.
She isn't happy.
Is it you who's in for 2.5k? Somebody mentioned that number recently but I forget whom.
3.5k
Yikes! Shit dude, I hope you win!
Thanks. So do I! 😰
Sanders doing well in NV and Biden in SC is what we want. Florida is probably tailor made for Bloomberg right now in terms of polling, noone else is bothering there as it's not ST state.
You can be offside from a corner apparently. 40 years playing football and i never knew
He wasn't offside from a corner, he was offside from the pass after the corner. And Macca is an embarrassment to his profession.
The forensic nature of VAR is ridiculous when it comes to offside, though. The rule was only introduced to stop blatant goal hanging, now we have the technology they might as well make it that you have to be 5 yards past the last defender to be off
Whilst I agree that VAR is applying an unrealistic level of precision to offside decisions, I think the basic law is fine. I don't like the new phase part where a defender sticks out a leg, deflects the ball and plays onside a striker who was a long way offside from the original pass.
(There were 17 left as of this morning, and only 10 plus a number of affiliates have nominated today afaict)
Second question: is Cardiff running a joint meeting? Could mean a bloc Thornberry vote - think Blackpool or local went that path - OK, obviously not quite that now I've read it again.
The political upheaval of the last few days has focussed so much on the position of SPADs in our system of government.What is often lost sight of is that until relatively recent years, these positions did not exist. Who provided such advice to the likes of RA Butler, Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell, Selwyn Lloyd, Hugh Dalton etc?These people were all able to function as Chancellors without them. Why are they so necessary now?
The first SPADs were appointed over 50 years ago by Harold Wilson when the likes of Hugh Gaitskell said they needed more advisers to help them formulate policy from outside the civil service.
Gaitskell was,of course, already dead, but my point really is that earlier Chancellors - and indeed other Ministers - were very capable of doing their jobs without the support of SPADs. That rather suggests that they are really an optional extra - rather than being strictly essential - albeit one which Ministers have long come to expect.
You might be right, but it might just be that times have changed and the job now has a much better case for having them than would have existed back then. They do seem to have an awful lot though, and given how many want to be stepping stones to MPs it makes one suspicious.
A major difference is the avalanche of paper - usually pointless crap - that is shovelled around. Not having a 300 page report on how to paint the toilets is seen as a failing. The fact that the toilets (a) don't get painted properly and (b) the cost exceeds the estimates by 300% is a detail.
Well, surely we'd trust them to build the railway more than 5G?
That is the kind of thing that needs to be done - humiliate the usual suspects.
If the Chinese can build the railway quicker, cheaper and to the spec.... then strangely, the usual suspects may come back with cheaper bids next time.
My 25 year old daughter, despite having all the vaccinations, has just caught mumps.
How can that be?
Back to mothering duties again......
Oh no! Best of luck to her.
Its the selfish bastards who don't immunise their kids fault. Immunisation doesn't have a 100% success rate, but so long as enough people do it then it creates a "herd immunity" as it irradicates it from the community so the ones it failed on [and the ones medically unable to take the immunisation themselves] are protected.
Because of the selfish ignorant dipshits who think they know better than the medical community and all scientists on the matter and deliberately don't immunise their child . . . as a result of that herd immunity has broken down greatly increasing the risk for those who are vulnerable for no fault of their own.
The Netflix series Pandemic is interesting both in terms of prescience and in exposing a certain section of West Coast US wingnuttery.
(There were 17 left as of this morning, and only 10 plus a number of affiliates have nominated today afaict)
Second question: is Cardiff running a joint meeting? Could mean a bloc Thornberry vote - think Blackpool or local went that path - OK, obviously not quite that now I've read it again.
It might be a bit stomach churning for Thornberry to have come so close to the 33 CLP threshold rather than missing it by a mile. On the other hand, the end result of the contest now looks in little doubt- so she hasn't lost anything beyond a bit of pride.
My 25 year old daughter, despite having all the vaccinations, has just caught mumps.
How can that be?
Back to mothering duties again......
Oh no! Best of luck to her.
Its the selfish bastards who don't immunise their kids fault. Immunisation doesn't have a 100% success rate, but so long as enough people do it then it creates a "herd immunity" as it irradicates it from the community so the ones it failed on [and the ones medically unable to take the immunisation themselves] are protected.
Because of the selfish ignorant dipshits who think they know better than the medical community and all scientists on the matter and deliberately don't immunise their child . . . as a result of that herd immunity has broken down greatly increasing the risk for those who are vulnerable for no fault of their own.
The Netflix series Pandemic is interesting both in terms of prescience and in exposing a certain section of West Coast US wingnuttery.
We have a selection of such wingnuts here. When doing the school run, there are several I must avoid, on the basis that I can only suffer such fools to a certain point.
The common points seem to be 1) Vocal about global warming, 2) any scare story they've read on Twitter 3) complex conspiracy theories.
Javid, a former banker, is politically cautious and has warned there are risks if the Tory Party, which likes to contrast its prudence with Labour profligacy, abandons the fiscal rules designed to keep a grip on budgets.
Exactly how loose would our fiscal rules have to be before we reached the epic slackness promised in the Labour manifesto?
I'd imagine the blue team will pinch lock, stock and barrel Labour's proposals for including assets in the accounts, along with most of the rest of its platform. #WonTheArgument #LostTheElection.
Quite what this means for the next few years, I am not sure, but it will be amusing to watch pb Tories cheering on Boris as he shakes the magic money tree to nationalise jam factories, allotments and manhole covers, while pb Lefties condemn him for declaring war on public school and Oxbridge SpAds. If SajRishi Dom does it right then economic growth will accelerate. If not then Brexit-imposed losses will dominate.
It will be great to watch supposedly non Partisan observers attack people they obsessively attack for pursuing policies that they themselves consider best for the country
Indeed the whingewfest has continued apace today with the whiners not remotely embarrassed by their double standards. They aslo show a staggering lack of understanding of the prime purpose of the Conservative party.
As a left-wing remainer I am finding the constant whining, whingeing, moaning, sniping, snide, spot-knocking, tittle-tattling MOAN fucking MOAN incredibly wearisome.
Boris Johnson won.
Fucking get over it.
Your constant moaning 'as a left-wing remainer' about the moaning is also getting wearisome, if a tad unconvincing.
Incredible underperformance from her. She must be pretty unpopular. From the outside looking in she seemed the best by a mile
That's a shame. She missed Surrey SW's nomination by the smallest poosible margin - tied on the final ballot, won by Starmer because he had ONE more 1st preference vote. I voted Starmer but if I'd known it was that close I'd have given Thornberry a shot.
Comments
Bloomberg has too many negatives to get the whole base out, I think.
Cummings slips out that Whittingdale is now responsible for Netflic-Beeb subscription channel. Hmmm. Does Johnson even know?
Still not as predictable as Whitteringsdale being put in charge of wrecking the BBC.
I recall, on one occasion, a Civil Servant telling me that he would prevent policy X happening. I pointed out that X was the policy of the elected government, in their manifesto etc. X was a policy where it was truly political - no right answer, just views across the political spectrum. The CS chap told me that since it was against the "proper policy" of the CS he would prevent it happening.
One wonders what would have happened in '45 if such an attitude prevailed - no NHS on the grounds that it wasn't CS policy?
1) Buttigieg - Would carry on the Stock market strengths, he's not in any danger of death from old age
2) Klob - She has spirit
3) Biden - He's not great but it would be a change to normality
4) Warren
5) Sanders
6) Steyer - He's a billionaire but not so rich he can buy the entire system
7) Trump
8) Bloomberg - Sweet Jesus
https://twitter.com/clpnominations/status/1228422773577519104?s=21
(There were 17 left as of this morning, and only 10 plus a number of affiliates have nominated today afaict)
Second question: is Cardiff running a joint meeting? Could mean a bloc Thornberry vote - think Blackpool or local went that path - OK, obviously not quite that now I've read it again.
When I pointed out to him that his mistakes were obvious and would not have been made by someone who purchased ammunition for their hobby, his response was - "Do you want ammunition purchase for the Army to be done by gun nuts?"
To which I replied - "Yes". In fact, previously it had been done by office full of weird gun nuts. The kind of people who spent half their time inventing their own caliber/ammunition. One of them has recreated the .280 round for the Janson, in his retirement, I believe....
He was utterly convinced that he was right - he had followed best practice etc. The fact that the guns jammed on the 3rd shot... that wasn't his problem.
https://twitter.com/clpnominations/status/1228425423194927107?s=21
She will be very cross.
Any other flag related puns out there?
If the Chinese can build the railway quicker, cheaper and to the spec.... then strangely, the usual suspects may come back with cheaper bids next time.
Shades of ULA and SpaceX...
The common points seem to be 1) Vocal about global warming, 2) any scare story they've read on Twitter 3) complex conspiracy theories.