It's ironic the man charged with rescuing it is Gove, who accurately characterized the damage BoZo would do...
I don't think the union is doomed, and the pandemic coupled with Johnson and a lack of focus on the practicalities discussed re. Hard border/ currency/ economy are all helping the SNP. I don't disagree that The UK government seems to be doing its best to doom it - if the Tories truly cared, they'd remove Johnson.
Scots actually reject independence once it means a hard border and losing the currency, which it would from next year
Are you still remaining bullish for Trump @HYUFD ?
I think it could be the closest election since 2000, Biden will win the popular vote but while he will pick up Wisconsin and maybe Iowa and Arizona I think Trump could still win Michigan and Pennsylvania where Trafalgar still has him ahead and North Carolina, where the Republicans are closing the voting gap with the CNN poll and Trump will win Ohio.
It would then all come down to Florida, again
But Rasmussen have Trump +4 in Arizona. Surely they are not wrong?
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
So long as Labour has the spectre of Corbyn and Williamson in the shadows it remains unelectable. Starmer was right, that is not to say Len won't try to bring the entire edifice crashing to the ground. Ten more years of Johnson would probably suit him.
Are you still remaining bullish for Trump @HYUFD ?
I think it could be the closest election since 2000, Biden will win the popular vote but while he will pick up Wisconsin and maybe Iowa and Arizona I think Trump could still win Michigan and Pennsylvania where Trafalgar still has him ahead and North Carolina, where the Republicans are closing the voting gap with the CNN poll and Trump will win Ohio.
It would then all come down to Florida, again
But Rasmussen have Trump +4 in Arizona. Surely they are not wrong?
They were more right in the rustbelt, less so in the West so I am being generous to Biden and giving him Arizona
It's ironic the man charged with rescuing it is Gove, who accurately characterized the damage BoZo would do...
I don't think the union is doomed, and the pandemic coupled with Johnson and a lack of focus on the practicalities discussed re. Hard border/ currency/ economy are all helping the SNP. I don't disagree that The UK government seems to be doing its best to doom it - if the Tories truly cared, they'd remove Johnson.
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Rishi Sunak however on an astonishing +30% rating in Scotland
'with Scottish swing voters'
Who decide Scottish elections
I think it's the 58% who say that they'll vote for the SNP that'll decide the next Scottish election, unless you have some Trafalgarian arithmetical formula that is going to change that?
Postal votes from people who identify as Scots but live in England or Wales?
You have to be resident at a Scottish address (& therefore on the roll) to vote at Holyrood. I think only the most temporary absence would be accepted.
It's ironic the man charged with rescuing it is Gove, who accurately characterized the damage BoZo would do...
I don't think the union is doomed, and the pandemic coupled with Johnson and a lack of focus on the practicalities discussed re. Hard border/ currency/ economy are all helping the SNP. I don't disagree that The UK government seems to be doing its best to doom it - if the Tories truly cared, they'd remove Johnson.
It is really hard to believe Johnson wants to stay for long. Hard work is not to his taste ... governing in a pandemic is hard work & a really sh1tty job.
I can believe he'll go as soon as he can say some meaningless nonsense that he delivered Brexit and a vaccine.
"I defeated Europe and the Rona".
Of course, he will leave a Godawful mess for someone else to clean up.
The sooner Len is thrown out of the Labour Party the better and kicked out of unite, drain the swamp now or they will never do it.
Labour would be better off breaking the formal and institutional ties with the unions. Not least because that is decreasingly their core constituency nowadays.
Then who pays for the party? Reliance on a few deep-pocketed donors brings the danger of corrupt and even hostile influence. Cash for honours; cash for planning permission; cash for exemption from tobacco sponsorship rules.
The Conservatives will not approve state funded parties so what is the alternative?
Business can pay for Labour and the LibDems; the Unions can pay for the Tories
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
So long as Labour has the spectre of Corbyn and Williamson in the shadows it remains unelectable. Starmer was right, that is not to say Len won't try to bring the entire edifice crashing to the ground. Ten more years of Johnson would probably suit him.
Although I'm not a Corbynite, or a Blairite, but more of a Milibandite, I personally don't think like figures like Williamson are exactly morally or electrorally equivalent to Corbyn, and think some of that view will be reflected in the country more generally in the polls.
Are you still remaining bullish for Trump @HYUFD ?
I think it could be the closest election since 2000, Biden will win the popular vote but while he will pick up Wisconsin and maybe Iowa and Arizona I think Trump could still win Michigan and Pennsylvania where Trafalgar still has him ahead and North Carolina, where the Republicans are closing the voting gap with the CNN poll and Trump will win Ohio.
It would then all come down to Florida, again
Fair enough, it's not impossible.
Do you dismiss the possibility that the polls are out, but underestimating Trump, and that there could be a Biden landslide?
I note that some dastardly scoundrel has burgled the RCP site and removed vast swathes of polling. Clearly the thief is partial to Biden favoured material and seems to replace them with some French company named Trafalgar. I shall take a Nelsonian view of their intrusion as they get tangled in their rigging.
"Boris Johnson is not the leader I want to have for my country."
That is a sentiment 79 percent of Scottish swing voters agree with, making it the biggest factor driving those on the fence in Scotland towards backing independence. https://t.co/fWHpqCpRCU
Re.this new indy poll - surely the most simple conclusion here is that Johnson needs to go sooner rather than later? Whether that's quite twigged in the Tory party yet..
It is one of the factors why I want to see Boris replaced asap
My wife and I value the union greatly
The Union is doomed. That ship has sailed.
Despite the various incompetencies and scandals the SNP is going to have a romping win next year, and a further referendum is inevitable, the only question is timing.
BoZo is particularly unpopular North of the border, but I don't think that the Scots want to be ruled by English Nationalists any longer.
If you want to preserve the Union, the best chance is a Labour government, which would be slightly less toxic north of the Tweed.
Agreed. Unfortunately, there's unlikely to be one in time to save the Union.
We should start working out the big issues, like what the rUK is going to be called. Surely anything with 'United' in the title is going to look like satire.
The new name that would be consistent with the previous change would be, "The United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland".
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
Not sure about the methodology, though. "Areas with greater take up of the scheme" - are these really possible to identify with precision, is the difference that significant, and even if the answer to both is yes, this is building a lot on a very loose correlation.
"Rainfall at lunchtime and the evening correlates with lower infection rates" - really? An even looser correlation. And surely rainfall would drive diners inside.
I suspect the scheme may well have accelerated the infection rate somewhat - but am not convinced this paper proves the point.
I note that some dastardly scoundrel has burgled the RCP site and removed vast swathes of polling. Clearly the thief is partial to Biden favoured material and seems to replace them with some French company named Trafalgar. I shall take a Nelsonian view of their intrusion as they get tangled in their rigging.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
The law of comparative advantage applies to two party politics. SKS does not need to be good or popular, he needs, however bad, to be better than the Tories. I doubt if there is a left party that can take many votes from him in England, so he needs to shore up his support from the Tory (and a few LD) voters who will give the centre left a hearing. Which many of them won't as long as they think the Jezza party is waiting the next opportunity.
Rishi Sunak however on an astonishing +30% rating in Scotland
'with Scottish swing voters'
Who decide Scottish elections
I think it's the 58% who say that they'll vote for the SNP that'll decide the next Scottish election, unless you have some Trafalgarian arithmetical formula that is going to change that?
Its OK he's moved on to a push poll that says if you ask a series of leading questions first then there's a tiny No majority after the leading questions were asked.
It's ironic the man charged with rescuing it is Gove, who accurately characterized the damage BoZo would do...
I don't think the union is doomed, and the pandemic coupled with Johnson and a lack of focus on the practicalities discussed re. Hard border/ currency/ economy are all helping the SNP. I don't disagree that The UK government seems to be doing its best to doom it - if the Tories truly cared, they'd remove Johnson.
Scots actually reject independence once it means a hard border and losing the currency, which it would from next year
Gosh, I wonder why, when we relaxed restrictions to similar levels as Sweden, we didn't get the levels reducing. Maybe because we have too many wankers trying to sidestep teh rules, while there, they tend more to comply.
Just a thought.
We're going to end up back in lockdown at this rate, aren't we?
F1: I've backed McLaren to win the Constructors' without Mercedes or Red Bull, a 3 (stretched to 3.1 with boost) with Ladbrokes.
Right now, Racing Points are on 126, McLaren 124, and Renault 120. However, I think McLaren has the best matched driver lineup, and tends to make smart decisions in races.
Worth mentioning I've also backed Perez to be winner without the big 3 drivers, at 3.6.
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
Big G was moaning about how it would cost Welsh Labour and it would be unpopular as it would destroy the economy etc.
FUMING fans have slammed Sports Personality of the Year for snubbing Jermain Defoe despite his overwhelming support for Bradley Lowery.
The Bournemouth striker struck up a heartwarming friendship with Bradley and was left devastated by the six-year-old's death in July.
Like I said yesterday, don't count on Rashford making the it to the starting line.
On the debate we had a few days back about women being represented on the shortlist, this article makes a case for the greatest cricketer of all time actually being a woman:
A decent trick question a seasoned cricket fan can ask a more casual fan is to name the greatest cricketer of all time. Most such casual fans will unhesitatingly blurt out "Bradman" as the answer.
For me it's Shane Warne, as irritating as he was/is.
Rishi Sunak however on an astonishing +30% rating in Scotland
'with Scottish swing voters'
Who decide Scottish elections
I think it's the 58% who say that they'll vote for the SNP that'll decide the next Scottish election, unless you have some Trafalgarian arithmetical formula that is going to change that?
That total includes Scottish swing voters, some of them could easily swing back to Unionist parties given the right Unionist leadership
Some of the 58% who say that they'll vote for the SNP are swing voters? What percentage of that percentage?
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
Republican voters vote on average later than Democrat ones, so why are the Rs talking about not counting late postal votes?
Rs are considerably more likely to request a mail ballot and drop it off on in person either early or on election day (state laws permitting), especially this year.
Late-arriving mail is far more likely to be Dem, and the place where voter fraud is most likely to occur, because campaigns know who has voted and how many votes they need.
Ah that makes sense and I can see why they want to ban it now.
I've not seen a plausible reason that the Democrats get so many more votes by post than in person.
Surely you can something when you can prove there's a problem not just think it might exist because of your partisan position?
That said I'm not persuaded counting late arrival is a great idea, and feels like bolting on unnecessary procedures which delay things rather than addressing the issues which cause there to be so many late arrivals.
I can't prove it and I'm not sure it happens on a big enough scale to matter, but it just seems very strange that the Democrats do so much better than the Republicans with postal votes. I read somewhere that they're leading 75% to 25% in some states on postal ballots, that seems crazy and is suspicious IMO.
You can point to the pandemic this time, but it's been a growing pattern for several elections.
Edit: Ah you meant the Republicans, well I agree that they need clearer evidence before taking action.
Postal voting by Dems is the logical reaction to the shameful voter-suppression tactics of the GOP.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
Yes, and I don't see anything absurd about that. In fact, prohibiting BBC news employees from public demonstrations or gatherings on controversial issues is long overdue. They're supposed to be reporting the news impartially - they are compromised in doing that if they demonstrate a personal partial view on it.
It's about public expressions of opinion, be that on social media or physically in person.
And the existing BBC social media guidelines are here (from December 2019) - it's tightening a couple of loopholes on them, and updating them as part of a commitment to impartiality:
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
Big G was moaning about how it would cost Welsh Labour and it would be unpopular as it would destroy the economy etc.
Big G is normally in multiple minds about any issue.
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
Big G was moaning about how it would cost Welsh Labour and it would be unpopular as it would destroy the economy etc.
Big G is normally in multiple minds about any issue.
I've had NM down as a possible Trump gain and got in at 6/1.
One other thing that might help Trump is that the summer saw clashes between Hispanic residents and BLM supporters over the tearing down of statues of colonial figures.
With the early voting its more precise to say registered republicans/democrats as thats all its telling us, how they have voted we have no real idea until Tuesday onwards.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
But it's much more complex than that this time ; the membership is dominated by the left, but the left aren't only the same holdovers from the 1980s, who rejoined, but also a much younger and in some cases more flexible generation of activists. If Starmer loses all of the second group, the party will have very serious electoral and organisational problems.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
What should he do? Starmer makes it clear that those who minimise anti-Semitism as a problem within the party have no place in Labour. Within an hour Corbyn is saying precisely that. What possible alternative did he have apart from taking action? Keep the antisemitism festering within the party whilst looking weak himself?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
They are very likely personalised and/or regionalised. Those who display more interest in France might get the most French news, those who display most interest in cooking the food articles etc.
FUMING fans have slammed Sports Personality of the Year for snubbing Jermain Defoe despite his overwhelming support for Bradley Lowery.
The Bournemouth striker struck up a heartwarming friendship with Bradley and was left devastated by the six-year-old's death in July.
Like I said yesterday, don't count on Rashford making the it to the starting line.
On the debate we had a few days back about women being represented on the shortlist, this article makes a case for the greatest cricketer of all time actually being a woman:
A decent trick question a seasoned cricket fan can ask a more casual fan is to name the greatest cricketer of all time. Most such casual fans will unhesitatingly blurt out "Bradman" as the answer.
For me it's Shane Warne, as irritating as he was/is.
A while back one of the guys behind CricViz said if there was a bowling equivalent of Bradman then they needed to take 150 plus test wickets at an average of under 8.
The nearest is S.F. Barnes with 189 test wickets at 16.43.
OTOH, most of the polls there have shown Biden with a double digit margin, the Senate race equally seems uncompetitive, and the Trump campaign (which is relatively poorly funded anyway) isn't spending there. I'd not describe 1.15 as bad value at all on Biden.
If you're bullish about Trump, far better to go for a state where he won narrowly last time or, if you're really bullish, Wisconsin, where his odds are inflated (4.5 with Paddy Power) by a pretty obvious outlier poll showing Biden with a 17% margin when most indicate mid-to-high single figures lead (but that may be systematic polling error, parts of Wisconsin are in Trump's rust belt target area, it has trended GOP a little, has a GOP Senator etc).
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
There is a disappointingly substantial subsection of people, including it seems our very own @Casino_Royale, who believe that being gay is controversial.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
I agree on sexuality, but whether gender identity is inherent, medical or biological or just a choice is hotly contested - as is what it may mean for the rights of men and women.
Good to see that the Welsh posters on here did accurately reflect public feeling on the ground in Wales regarding the essential goods in supermarkets.
Unsurprisingly, the posters from the English Midlands did not.
Well some of them got it right on the lockdown, unlike those living in Wales.
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
It wasn't the lockdown Welsh voters opposed, it was the fact that we couldn't buy tat from Tesco. On that I was wrong, it would seem we did want to buy tat from Tesco. It was that point that outraged BigG. and that holidaymakers would be stopped at the border.
The Survation question is a trifle spurious by adding the caveat of the non essentials supermarket shopping.
With the early voting its more precise to say registered republicans/democrats as thats all its telling us, how they have voted we have no real idea until Tuesday onwards.
This is not entirely encouraging for the GOP though: "In the last week, voters under 30 have slightly increased their share of Florida's early voting electorate, from 8% to 10%. Other age groups have also seen small increases, further diminishing the dominance of Florida's senior voters 65 or older, who made up 45% of early voters a week ago, but now make up only 39%. Florida's early voting electorate is slightly more diverse than at this time four years ago. Hispanic voters' share of the pre-Election Day vote has increased from 14% four years ago to 16% now, and Black voters' share has ticked slightly up from 12% then to 13% now. The vote from White voters is down three points from this point in 2016."
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
There is a disappointingly substantial subsection of people, including it seems our very own @Casino_Royale, who believe that being gay is controversial.
Lol. Thank you. I always know I've won the argument when my opponent is reduced to trying to strawman me as a bigot because they're embarrassed they were shown to be wrong and have nowhere else to go.
Happy Friday @TOPPING - try not to give yourself a coronary. It's the weekend.
FUMING fans have slammed Sports Personality of the Year for snubbing Jermain Defoe despite his overwhelming support for Bradley Lowery.
The Bournemouth striker struck up a heartwarming friendship with Bradley and was left devastated by the six-year-old's death in July.
Like I said yesterday, don't count on Rashford making the it to the starting line.
On the debate we had a few days back about women being represented on the shortlist, this article makes a case for the greatest cricketer of all time actually being a woman:
A decent trick question a seasoned cricket fan can ask a more casual fan is to name the greatest cricketer of all time. Most such casual fans will unhesitatingly blurt out "Bradman" as the answer.
For me it's Shane Warne, as irritating as he was/is.
Unless anyone has lived for 160 years or so they are unlikely to know. Statistically Bradman > Warne by a long shot, and not having seen him play would be the logical choice as the greatest cricketer of all time.
Looking back at the "joy of six - how many of these will Trump win?" thread of 20 September (the states being Texas, Ohio, Georgia, N Carolina, Florida, Arizona), I was one of the lowest PB'ers (if not actually the lowest) in plumping for Three, and I did make a modest bet with Ladbrokes accordingly
I see Three is now favourite at 7/2, with both Two and Four at 7/1. Covering my position with a small bet on Two is starting to look sensible?
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
Basically the complete opposite of what @HYUFD is predicting.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
Yes, and I don't see anything absurd about that. In fact, prohibiting BBC news employees from public demonstrations or gatherings on controversial issues is long overdue. They're supposed to be reporting the news impartially - they are compromised in doing that if they demonstrate a personal partial view on it.
It's about public expressions of opinion, be that on social media or physically in person.
And the existing BBC social media guidelines are here (from December 2019) - it's tightening a couple of loopholes on them, and updating them as part of a commitment to impartiality:
Mate you don't like the BBC and put that together with the gays and you get doubly all hot and bothered.
Those guidelines say not to express an opinion. So does attending, say, a Pride march express an opinion? Well let's see what opinions someone attending a Pride march, by their participation, could be expressing:
1) support 2) oppose 3) wholly uninterested
So on the assumption that you think attending a Pride march = 1) then you are forbidding employees from doing so. And what's the difference between forbidding BBC employees from attending Pride marches and British Gas or Marks & Spencer or the Civil Service, or Parliament wrt MPs doing the same thing?
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
Corbyn wanted his moment. Even though Keir didn't disavow Corbyn in his response his self image wouldn't allow him to not seek to undermine the report and the party response. Always been him him him more than the party or movement.
Alaska is like 4 hours behind FL/NC. It has a fair bit of postal/early voting, presumably skewed Dem.
Say it's 8pm on the East Coast and FL and NC are getting called for Biden. Alaskans are 4 hours behind, most of them are still at work.
Why would the remaining GOP electorate go and vote regardless, when they could go for a beer?
The Senate race?
Possibly, although it's of less interest and the Independent/Democrat candidate seems reasonably popular and not easily painted as a dangerous socialist.
Having said that, I personally think a lot of Republicans would be MORE likely to vote if they felt Trump was going down in flames, and it'd be Democrat turnout that was slightly depressed. Rally around the Boss, show him Alaskans still like him even if those nasty Floridians don't, etc.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
There is a disappointingly substantial subsection of people, including it seems our very own @Casino_Royale, who believe that being gay is controversial.
Lol. Thank you. I always know I've won the argument when my opponent is reduced to trying to strawman me as a bigot because they're embarrassed they were shown to be wrong and have nowhere else to go.
Happy Friday @TOPPING - try not to give yourself a coronary. It's the weekend.
You said:
a) they should not take part in controversial events; and b) they should not take part in Pride.
Ergo, sunshine, you think taking part in Pride is controversial.
EOTHO was not a good idea - I have to say I was scratching my head over it at the time and personally I didn't make use of it. Sunak may come to wish he hadn't plastered his name all over it quite so shamelessly.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
What should he do? Starmer makes it clear that those who minimise anti-Semitism as a problem within the party have no place in Labour. Within an hour Corbyn is saying precisely that. What possible alternative did he have apart from taking action? Keep the antisemitism festering within the party whilst looking weak himself?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
I agree that Starmer was faced with a very difficult quandary, and also a challenge to his authority ; but I think, in this case, the cure might have been worse than the disease ; it not's taking carefully enough into account the party's overall picture, or Corbyn's personal views compared to particular others, rather than his symbolic negligence. I think he probably should have issued some sort of sanction or public rebuke, rather than suspension, and I suspect there may be some sort of attempt to conciliate back to this, once the Starmer ascendancy narrative starts to be replaced more fully by one of splits in the press.
Looking back at the "joy of six - how many of these will Trump win?" thread of 20 September (the states being Texas, Ohio, Georgia, N Carolina, Florida, Arizona), I was one of the lowest PB'ers (if not actually the lowest) in plumping for Three, and I did make a modest bet with Ladbrokes accordingly
I see Three is now favourite at 7/2, with both Two and Four at 7/1. Covering my position with a small bet on Two is starting to look sensible?
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
The ERG are the nutters not just on Europe but almost everything else.
A point well made by G.O. I don't know whether anyone heard McCluskey's reference to Peter Mandelson but unlike some of the spurious stuff thrown at Corbyn that struck me as the real thing. In fact apart from a Quentin Letts sneer at Ed Miliband that was maybe the most obvious from someone in the public eye.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
The ERG are the nutters not just on Europe but almost everything else.
The ERG can be nutters but so too were those thrown out. There can be nutters on both sides.
Corbyn wanted his moment. Even though Keir didn't disavow Corbyn in his response his self image wouldn't allow him to not seek to undermine the report and the party response. Always been him him him more than the party or movement.
Always knew he was not very bright, but the stupidity of that response was breath-taking.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
Boris effectively threw out the diehard Remainers like Soubry and Grieve and to a lesser extent Gauke, it was more the equivalent of the Blairites like Ummuna, Gapes, Leslie and Berger leaving Corbyn Labour, Starmer's action last night in suspending Corbyn as a former leader from the party would be like a future Tory leader suspending IDS
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
What should he do? Starmer makes it clear that those who minimise anti-Semitism as a problem within the party have no place in Labour. Within an hour Corbyn is saying precisely that. What possible alternative did he have apart from taking action? Keep the antisemitism festering within the party whilst looking weak himself?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
I agree that Starmer was faced with a very difficult quandary, and also a challenge to his challenge to his authority ; but I think, in this case, the cure might have been worse than the disease, not taking carefully enough taking into account the party's overall picture, or Corbyn's personal views compared to particular others, rather than his symbolic negligence. I think he probably should have issued some sort of sanction or public rebuke rather than suspension, and I suspect there may be some sort of attempt to conciliate back to this, once the Starmer ascendancy narrative starts to be replaced more fully by one of splits in the press.
Ive not read the report but isnt a key part that the leadership should not issue or be involved in sanctions but suspend people so that they can get an independent hearing?
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
The law of comparative advantage applies to two party politics. SKS does not need to be good or popular, he needs, however bad, to be better than the Tories. I doubt if there is a left party that can take many votes from him in England, so he needs to shore up his support from the Tory (and a few LD) voters who will give the centre left a hearing. Which many of them won't as long as they think the Jezza party is waiting the next opportunity.
Yes, it's a calculated risk based on leftie voters a) having no-one else to vote for, and b) by the time the next election comes, being sufficiently desperate to rid the country of the clown that they'll vote for anyone Labour puts up.
It depends on whether Corbyn is willing to play the sacrificial lamb and how minded his supporters are to tear the party apart over this.
Corbyn could finish the term as an Indy and retire from Parliament in 2024, his membership quietly being restored thereafter.
A point well made by G.O. I don't know whether anyone heard McCluskey's reference to Peter Mandelson but unlike some of the spurious stuff thrown at Corbyn that struck me as the real thing. In fact apart from a Quentin Letts sneer at Ed Miliband that was maybe the most obvious I heard from someone in the public eye.
What he said was disgraceful and he should have been kicked out on the spot.
Can I have an O/t rant please. Due to renew my car insurance policy and got a notice from my current insurer, whom I have been for 5/6 year, with a 20% increase. So looked around on the net, found several cheaper, Rang up current insurer and have ended up renewing for LESS than I paid last year, with same cover. Not a question of no claims, either! Could argue that is was 30 minutes well spent of course, but GRRRRR!
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
Boris effectively threw out the diehard Remainers like Soubry and Grieve and to a lesser extent Gauke, it was more the equivalent of the Blairites like Ummuna, Gapes, Leslie and Berger leaving Corbyn Labour, Starmer's action last night in suspending Corbyn as a former leader from the party would be like a future Tory leader suspending IDS
Looking back at the "joy of six - how many of these will Trump win?" thread of 20 September (the states being Texas, Ohio, Georgia, N Carolina, Florida, Arizona), I was one of the lowest PB'ers (if not actually the lowest) in plumping for Three, and I did make a modest bet with Ladbrokes accordingly
I see Three is now favourite at 7/2, with both Two and Four at 7/1. Covering my position with a small bet on Two is starting to look sensible?
I`ve just had a bet on One. They limited me to £7!
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
Basically the complete opposite of what @HYUFD is predicting.
They only got Canada 2019 and the 2019 UK election and the 2018 midterms right as the polls were right, if the presidential election polls are mainly wrong again in the key swing states as they were wrong in 2016 then leantossup will be wrong too
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
Yes, and I don't see anything absurd about that. In fact, prohibiting BBC news employees from public demonstrations or gatherings on controversial issues is long overdue. They're supposed to be reporting the news impartially - they are compromised in doing that if they demonstrate a personal partial view on it.
It's about public expressions of opinion, be that on social media or physically in person.
And the existing BBC social media guidelines are here (from December 2019) - it's tightening a couple of loopholes on them, and updating them as part of a commitment to impartiality:
Mate you don't like the BBC and put that together with the gays and you get doubly all hot and bothered.
Those guidelines say not to express an opinion. So does attending, say, a Pride march express an opinion? Well let's see what opinions someone attending a Pride march, by their participation, could be expressing:
1) support 2) oppose 3) wholly uninterested
So on the assumption that you think attending a Pride march = 1) then you are forbidding employees from doing so. And what's the difference between forbidding BBC employees from attending Pride marches and British Gas or Marks & Spencer or the Civil Service, or Parliament wrt MPs doing the same thing?
I agree with this. When I worked for a large retail bank there was no ban on expressing personal views within the law so long as you didn't use the bank's email or mention the bank.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
What should he do? Starmer makes it clear that those who minimise anti-Semitism as a problem within the party have no place in Labour. Within an hour Corbyn is saying precisely that. What possible alternative did he have apart from taking action? Keep the antisemitism festering within the party whilst looking weak himself?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
I agree that Starmer was faced with a very difficult quandary, and also a challenge to his challenge to his authority ; but I think, in this case, the cure might have been worse than the disease, not taking carefully enough taking into account the party's overall picture, or Corbyn's personal views compared to particular others, rather than his symbolic negligence. I think he probably should have issued some sort of sanction or public rebuke rather than suspension, and I suspect there may be some sort of attempt to conciliate back to this, once the Starmer ascendancy narrative starts to be replaced more fully by one of splits in the press.
Ive not read the report but isnt a key part that the leadership should not issue or be involved in sanctions but suspend people so that they can get an independent hearing?
But that was for specific allegations of anti-semitism themselves, rather than understating its extent.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
Except Starmer didn't choose this confrontation, Corbyn did. He publicly contradicted and undermined the leaders stance on an issue critical to the party's perception. That demanded a response.
As he hadn't targeted Corbyn in his initial response, far from it reportedly, he didn't seek to make an example, Corbyn made himself an example.
I don't know what else Starmer could have done. Corbyn hasn't been punished for his views of which others are far more expulsion worthy, hes been punished for, in essence, rebellion. And right or wrong of rebelling, the rebel chooses it.
FPT - Tim Davie is quite right to introduce those new BBC guidelines - they are long overdue.
The question is whether management have the appetite to ensure they are enforced.
That's bollocks (if what I read is correct - big if).
BBC employees not allowed to go on Pride marches? Why the fuck not?
That's a straw man. The guidelines say that news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues. That wouldn't include a LGBT BBC employee attending a pride march in a private capacity. That would cover a BBC employee attending a political march for gender self-identification for trans rights and then publicly tweeting or being interviewed about it. Common sense.
Most employers have clauses about bringing their employer into disrepute. The BBC lives or dies on its impartiality rules and the loose social media and offline activities of a small number of BBC employees have tainted the corporation's reputation.
This is some just the faux outrage of some existing BBC employees who want to discredit the guidelines before they come in so they can continue to have their cake and eat it.
I was reading your description to see the "oh yes that makes sense" bit. But there was none.
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
WTF is a controversial issue? And it says (you write): "attend" not "liveblog on behalf of the rebel alliance".
Get a grip man what possible problem would you have with Evan Davis "attending" a gay pride march?
You obviously didn't read my post very well, as I addressed your Evan Davis point in my third sentence. I also gave an example of a demonstration on a controversial issue which would be directly against existing government policy.
This looks to me like issue where you've already made your mind up, and aren't going to change it regardless of the arguments that are put to you.
But your interpretation is just that. Your interpretation. To make you feel better, presumably, otherwise even you would realise how absurd it is.
The sentence you started off with was as follows:
"news employees should not attend any marches or demonstrations on controversial issues".
And here's how it is being reported:
"In addition to strict new social media guidelines, Davie introduced a ban on the broadcaster’s news reporters taking part in “public demonstrations or gatherings about controversial issues” even when not marching under an identifiable BBC banner."
It would probably be less controversial if it exempted LGBT stuff. Politics and religion are choices people make, their sexuality and gender identity are inherent - they have no choice.
I agree on sexuality, but whether gender identity is inherent, medical or biological or just a choice is hotly contested - as is what it may mean for the rights of men and women.
It's why JK Rowling got into such hot water.
I have met and helped enough people suffering with gender identity issues to know it is no choice. Some of them suffered badly enough to kill themselves.
Alaska is like 4 hours behind FL/NC. It has a fair bit of postal/early voting, presumably skewed Dem.
Say it's 8pm on the East Coast and FL and NC are getting called for Biden. Alaskans are 4 hours behind, most of them are still at work.
Why would the remaining GOP electorate go and vote regardless, when they could go for a beer?
The Senate race?
I feel like Trump makes everything all about Trump, if you're a Trump enthusiast and Trump just lost then the need for a beer trumps the need to reelect Dan Sullivan.
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
That feels to me as if they underestimate the possibility of systematic polling error (underweighting a pro-Trump constituency across the board), underestimate reversion to the mean (Trump fairly close to his floor, Biden to his ceiling), and underestimate fundamentals (Texas is a fairly red state with a Senator likely to be re-elected).
I'm not bullish on Trump, and think he's likely to lose, but 2.6% certainly doesn't feel realistic.
Looking back at the "joy of six - how many of these will Trump win?" thread of 20 September (the states being Texas, Ohio, Georgia, N Carolina, Florida, Arizona), I was one of the lowest PB'ers (if not actually the lowest) in plumping for Three, and I did make a modest bet with Ladbrokes accordingly
I see Three is now favourite at 7/2, with both Two and Four at 7/1. Covering my position with a small bet on Two is starting to look sensible?
Three is on the high side for those.
What odds are none or one?
Not what PB'ers thought back on 20 September!
None is currently 5/1 One is currently 7/1
Presumably reflecting that One requires a narrow range of vote share whereas anything like a landslide delivers None
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
Basically the complete opposite of what @HYUFD is predicting.
They only got Canada 2019 and the 2019 UK election and the 2018 midterms right as the polls were right, if the presidential election polls are mainly wrong again in the key swing states as they were wrong in 2016 then leantossup will be wrong too
And you're predicting that they will be wrong, right?
That's odd. I tend to just glance at the front page, and there's nothing about France on it.
Are you on bbc.com or bbc.co.uk? Have you set your nation to be England or the UK (other home nations are available)? This would mean the BBC presents more stories from that nation. Have you further set your location for local news?
Sky History that tries to lever Nazis into just about all of their productions cancels one of them due to an actual Nazi. My IG Farben manufactured irony meter has just exploded.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
The law of comparative advantage applies to two party politics. SKS does not need to be good or popular, he needs, however bad, to be better than the Tories. I doubt if there is a left party that can take many votes from him in England, so he needs to shore up his support from the Tory (and a few LD) voters who will give the centre left a hearing. Which many of them won't as long as they think the Jezza party is waiting the next opportunity.
Yes, it's a calculated risk based on leftie voters a) having no-one else to vote for, and b) by the time the next election comes, being sufficiently desperate to rid the country of the clown that they'll vote for anyone Labour puts up.
It depends on whether Corbyn is willing to play the sacrificial lamb and how minded his supporters are to tear the party apart over this.
Corbyn could finish the term as an Indy and retire from Parliament in 2024, his membership quietly being restored thereafter.
The problem is that a large part of the Labour Party would rather lose elections with corbyn as leader than win them with someone more pragmatic and electable, I don’t understand why this is but it’s rife in the party as far as I can see.
Apologies for some very mild dyslexic errors in my posts below, which after many decades for me, recur very rarely and on days of maximum tiredness, thankfully.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
Labour went through all this in the 80s with Militant and their sidekicks and then again with Clause 4. It survived well enough to get 13 years in government.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
Boris threw the nutters out last year and got rewarded with a landslide as a result.
He kept the nutters and threw out the only intelligent ones who are so needed now!
He threw out the nutters. That some can't see that extremists on their own side of a debate are nutters is part of the problem.
You can call Ken Clark, Nicholas Soames, Rory Stewart, Phil Hammond and the others many things. Unhelpful and disloyal for a start. But nutters? Putting them in the same category as Corbyn is exactly what Jez and his acolytes would want.
Nutty as Chris Williamson is, I don't share the common view held by many here that this was a good move by Starmer. If anything, I think it's been his first big mis-step since becoming leader.
Antisemitism under Corbyn was a cancer within the Labour Party.
You don't try to find a middle way of keeping a cancer within the party, you excise it. That the antisemitic Williamson wants nothing to do with Labour is progress for Starmer.
He's a real threat to win the next election.
Williamson is a loon ; but Starmer stands to lose a lot more by this action than to gain. Rather than coaxing a party with a still heavily leftwing membership in his direction, he now faces the prospect of multiple kinds of acrimony. For the sake of party unity, and also to a certain extent I think in terms of strict accuracy, he would have done better to make an example of people with objectionable views still in the party, rather than Corbyn himself, who has been largely negligent and irresponsible on this particular issue rather than a hate-monger.
After six months of Starmer ascendency, the press story is now going to shift for a while from Tory incompetence to Labour splits, and Starmer is going to lose more supporters than he gains. I would expect to see Labour dip a little in the polls and see some slippage to the Greens and others, and if I was at in the higher reaches of Labour, personally, I would be thinking of some way to steady the ship.
What should he do? Starmer makes it clear that those who minimise anti-Semitism as a problem within the party have no place in Labour. Within an hour Corbyn is saying precisely that. What possible alternative did he have apart from taking action? Keep the antisemitism festering within the party whilst looking weak himself?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
I agree that Starmer was faced with a very difficult quandary, and also a challenge to his challenge to his authority ; but I think, in this case, the cure might have been worse than the disease, not taking carefully enough taking into account the party's overall picture, or Corbyn's personal views compared to particular others, rather than his symbolic negligence. I think he probably should have issued some sort of sanction or public rebuke rather than suspension, and I suspect there may be some sort of attempt to conciliate back to this, once the Starmer ascendancy narrative starts to be replaced more fully by one of splits in the press.
Ive not read the report but isnt a key part that the leadership should not issue or be involved in sanctions but suspend people so that they can get an independent hearing?
But that was for specific allegations of anti-semitism themselves, rather than understating its extent.
What difference does that make? Again not read the details but its clear from Starmer that understating its extent will count as anti-semitism in his Labour party. The fair process to deal with it is suspension, inquiry, independent decision - not the leadership working out a politically expedient answer - that is precisely the wrong path that got Corbyn to where he is today.
Can I have an O/t rant please. Due to renew my car insurance policy and got a notice from my current insurer, whom I have been for 5/6 year, with a 20% increase. So looked around on the net, found several cheaper, Rang up current insurer and have ended up renewing for LESS than I paid last year, with same cover. Not a question of no claims, either! Could argue that is was 30 minutes well spent of course, but GRRRRR!
Very typical. I just expect to have to switch every year. Sometimes the existing insurer will match or undercut the new cheapest quote... if they only match, all else being equal, I still switch out of principle.
My car insurance has come down year on year for the past 5 years doing this.
Can I have an O/t rant please. Due to renew my car insurance policy and got a notice from my current insurer, whom I have been for 5/6 year, with a 20% increase. So looked around on the net, found several cheaper, Rang up current insurer and have ended up renewing for LESS than I paid last year, with same cover. Not a question of no claims, either! Could argue that is was 30 minutes well spent of course, but GRRRRR!
This is common practice. Car insurers rely on the inertia of automatic renewals.
Comments
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/poll-most-scots-would-reject-independence-after-considering-issues-2976093
The Welsh lockdown has the strong support of the Welsh public, with 63% to 23% backing the closure of all non-essential retail, leisure, hospitality and tourism businesses including restaurants and pubs.
https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1322102610636214272
I can believe he'll go as soon as he can say some meaningless nonsense that he delivered Brexit and a vaccine.
"I defeated Europe and the Rona".
Of course, he will leave a Godawful mess for someone else to clean up.
Sorted
If the Trump sympathisers and apologists want a state to back him in, New Mexico looks good at the odds.
https://twitter.com/Pulpstar/status/1322112914887725058
Do you dismiss the possibility that the polls are out, but underestimating Trump, and that there could be a Biden landslide?
Cast away shipmates ....
Which Welsh posters opposed a lockdown? Err. None.
(I don't think a lockdown will work in the sense of achieving the zero COVID goal that Drakeford has -- but you would have to be Trump-ian in your insanity to think there should be no restrictions).
"Rainfall at lunchtime and the evening correlates with lower infection rates" - really? An even looser correlation. And surely rainfall would drive diners inside.
I suspect the scheme may well have accelerated the infection rate somewhat - but am not convinced this paper proves the point.
So predictable. 🤦🏻♂️
There is a reason why rational people don't use push polls with leading questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1J2bFwlCa0
Maybe because we have too many wankers trying to sidestep teh rules, while there, they tend more to comply.
Just a thought.
We're going to end up back in lockdown at this rate, aren't we?
Betting PostF1: I've backed McLaren to win the Constructors' without Mercedes or Red Bull, a 3 (stretched to 3.1 with boost) with Ladbrokes.
Right now, Racing Points are on 126, McLaren 124, and Renault 120. However, I think McLaren has the best matched driver lineup, and tends to make smart decisions in races.
Worth mentioning I've also backed Perez to be winner without the big 3 drivers, at 3.6.
For me it's Shane Warne, as irritating as he was/is.
Perplexed.
As The Independent Group and various Farage / Brexit parties show, splitting off and setting up a separate party is a road to hell.
Labour will be fine, but it needs to throw the nutters out. So do the Tories.
https://youtu.be/Bew7yCinZ3A
It's about public expressions of opinion, be that on social media or physically in person.
You could also try reading more widely on this:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/bbc-chief-tim-davie-orders-staff-to-stop-virtue-signalling-on-social-media-3mbn0fkx8
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54723282
And the existing BBC social media guidelines are here (from December 2019) - it's tightening a couple of loopholes on them, and updating them as part of a commitment to impartiality:
https://www.bbc.com/editorialguidelines/guidance/social-media
Like if you have an account/logged in/your location enabled/the size of your screen.
One other thing that might help Trump is that the summer saw clashes between Hispanic residents and BLM supporters over the tearing down of statues of colonial figures.
I predicted Thursday would be in the ball park of 93,000 and Friday 100,000 up from Wednesday's 81,500
Thursday turned out to be 91,500 so pretty much on trend and a new significant record by 10,000
If it hits 100,000 today I think that could be significant regarding the election. I suspect it might be a little short of that total.
Alaska is like 4 hours behind FL/NC. It has a fair bit of postal/early voting, presumably skewed Dem.
Say it's 8pm on the East Coast and FL and NC are getting called for Biden. Alaskans are still at work.
Why would the remaining GOP electorate go and vote regardless, when they could go for a beer?
I agree Corbyn is probably not anti-Semitic himself but its irrelevant to the point that he and his ongoing actions are a big part of the problem of Labour antisemitism. If he wants to stay in party all he would have to do is apologise and promise never to repeat his minimisation - but chances are he simply can't bring himself to do that.
On the banded ranges, 40-45% has moved up to favourite at 5/4. 45-50% is 7/4
The nearest is S.F. Barnes with 189 test wickets at 16.43.
That's how good Bradman is.
If you're bullish about Trump, far better to go for a state where he won narrowly last time or, if you're really bullish, Wisconsin, where his odds are inflated (4.5 with Paddy Power) by a pretty obvious outlier poll showing Biden with a 17% margin when most indicate mid-to-high single figures lead (but that may be systematic polling error, parts of Wisconsin are in Trump's rust belt target area, it has trended GOP a little, has a GOP Senator etc).
I have a lot of respect for leantossup.ca - they got the last Canada election and the 2018 midterms virtually spot on. They were also very good with the 2019 UK General Election, they were closer to the result than the domestic prediction sites.
Their current prediction for the US Presidency is very close to my own gut feel. I put it as narrowing to 'snake eyes' (1/36) for Trump to win - they're currently rating it as Biden 97.1%, Trump 2.6%, Tie 0.3%
Average ECV prediction is Biden 385.1, Trump 152.9
Interestingly they've got Texas as "lean Biden".
It's why JK Rowling got into such hot water.
The Survation question is a trifle spurious by adding the caveat of the non essentials supermarket shopping.
"In the last week, voters under 30 have slightly increased their share of Florida's early voting electorate, from 8% to 10%. Other age groups have also seen small increases, further diminishing the dominance of Florida's senior voters 65 or older, who made up 45% of early voters a week ago, but now make up only 39%.
Florida's early voting electorate is slightly more diverse than at this time four years ago. Hispanic voters' share of the pre-Election Day vote has increased from 14% four years ago to 16% now, and Black voters' share has ticked slightly up from 12% then to 13% now. The vote from White voters is down three points from this point in 2016."
Happy Friday @TOPPING - try not to give yourself a coronary. It's the weekend.
I see Three is now favourite at 7/2, with both Two and Four at 7/1. Covering my position with a small bet on Two is starting to look sensible?
Those guidelines say not to express an opinion. So does attending, say, a Pride march express an opinion? Well let's see what opinions someone attending a Pride march, by their participation, could be expressing:
1) support
2) oppose
3) wholly uninterested
So on the assumption that you think attending a Pride march = 1) then you are forbidding employees from doing so. And what's the difference between forbidding BBC employees from attending Pride marches and British Gas or Marks & Spencer or the Civil Service, or Parliament wrt MPs doing the same thing?
Having said that, I personally think a lot of Republicans would be MORE likely to vote if they felt Trump was going down in flames, and it'd be Democrat turnout that was slightly depressed. Rally around the Boss, show him Alaskans still like him even if those nasty Floridians don't, etc.
a) they should not take part in controversial events; and
b) they should not take part in Pride.
Ergo, sunshine, you think taking part in Pride is controversial.
You do know what Pride is, don't you?
What odds are none or one?
It depends on whether Corbyn is willing to play the sacrificial lamb and how minded his supporters are to tear the party apart over this.
Corbyn could finish the term as an Indy and retire from Parliament in 2024, his membership quietly being restored thereafter.
So looked around on the net, found several cheaper,
Rang up current insurer and have ended up renewing for LESS than I paid last year, with same cover. Not a question of no claims, either!
Could argue that is was 30 minutes well spent of course, but GRRRRR!
Hiding upstairs is so limp.
Seemed reasonable to me.
As he hadn't targeted Corbyn in his initial response, far from it reportedly, he didn't seek to make an example, Corbyn made himself an example.
I don't know what else Starmer could have done. Corbyn hasn't been punished for his views of which others are far more expulsion worthy, hes been punished for, in essence, rebellion. And right or wrong of rebelling, the rebel chooses it.
I'm not bullish on Trump, and think he's likely to lose, but 2.6% certainly doesn't feel realistic.
None is currently 5/1
One is currently 7/1
Presumably reflecting that One requires a narrow range of vote share whereas anything like a landslide delivers None
https://twitter.com/leomiklasz/status/1322117690924900352?s=20
Unhelpful and disloyal for a start.
But nutters? Putting them in the same category as Corbyn is exactly what Jez and his acolytes would want.
My car insurance has come down year on year for the past 5 years doing this.