VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
The Electoral Commission’s proposal follows evidence that an increasing number of people are being impersonated at polling stations and their votes being stolen. The change would lead to people who failed to produce ID — including anyone whose passport was being renewed — being denied a vote.
Excellent. Never understood why this hasn't always been the case.
And what a damn stupid argument about "denial" if you don't have one particular thing. The list of acceptable IDs will be long and flexible enough for even local Labour party workers to find a way around.
I was going to say the same about the Tory Party, however, there seems to be a lack of Tory Party workers, so maybe not.
Doesn't matter which way you dress it up, Ed Miliband's personal polling is heading down the toilet after a couple of brief spluttering bounces. There has certainly been some complacency among one or two Labour posters here who have suggested that its almost a given that Ed Miliband's personal ratings will improve come the GE as the electorate get to see more of him.
I suspect that Ed Miliband and the Labour party currently suffers the opposite problem to David Cameron when they were in Opposition. Cameron was a clear asset to his party in Opposition, and even now this remains the case after nearly eight years as party Leader and now PM. The less the public see of Ed Miliband, the better his party does, and that doesn't bode well for him or his party during the GE campaign. If you are still sceptical, just compare the polling in Scotland in the run up to the 2011 Holyrood elections and then remember the performance of the then Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray during the campaign.
While David Cameron's net approval rating is steady at -15%, Ed Miliband's has dropped by 5% to -27%.
This is the point Dan Hodges makes. If 2013 was a good year for Ed, what does a bad year look like?
Dan has just been informed by a Tory insider that they are not worried about the Ashcroft poll because the Tory Party have done their own poll in the marginals showing the Tory Party is 10% ahead of Labour. He also said it was top secret and only the insider, Cameron, Osborne and Dan are allowed to see it.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
The Electoral Commission’s proposal follows evidence that an increasing number of people are being impersonated at polling stations and their votes being stolen. The change would lead to people who failed to produce ID — including anyone whose passport was being renewed — being denied a vote.
Excellent. Never understood why this hasn't always been the case.
And what a damn stupid argument about "denial" if you don't have one particular thing. The list of acceptable IDs will be long and flexible enough for even local Labour party workers to find a way around.
I was going to say the same about the Tory Party, however, there seems to be a lack of Tory Party workers, so maybe not.
There is an easy non-partisan way to referee this one. Look for where the howls of outrage and resistance come from and then ask ourselves why.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
The Electoral Commission’s proposal follows evidence that an increasing number of people are being impersonated at polling stations and their votes being stolen. The change would lead to people who failed to produce ID — including anyone whose passport was being renewed — being denied a vote.
Excellent. Never understood why this hasn't always been the case.
And what a damn stupid argument about "denial" if you don't have one particular thing. The list of acceptable IDs will be long and flexible enough for even local Labour party workers to find a way around.
I was going to say the same about the Tory Party, however, there seems to be a lack of Tory Party workers, so maybe not.
Now we know why the Tories didn`t get a majority in 2010.
All the Labour voters stole their grandad`s votes.
Doesn't matter which way you dress it up, Ed Miliband's personal polling is heading down the toilet after a couple of brief spluttering bounces. There has certainly been some complacency among one or two Labour posters here who have suggested that its almost a given that Ed Miliband's personal ratings will improve come the GE as the electorate get to see more of him.
I suspect that Ed Miliband and the Labour party currently suffers the opposite problem to David Cameron when they were in Opposition. Cameron was a clear asset to his party in Opposition, and even now this remains the case after nearly eight years as party Leader and now PM. The less the public see of Ed Miliband, the better his party does, and that doesn't bode well for him or his party during the GE campaign. If you are still sceptical, just compare the polling in Scotland in the run up to the 2011 Holyrood elections and then remember the performance of the then Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray during the campaign.
While David Cameron's net approval rating is steady at -15%, Ed Miliband's has dropped by 5% to -27%.
This is the point Dan Hodges makes. If 2013 was a good year for Ed, what does a bad year look like?
Dan has just been informed by a Tory insider that they are not worried about the Ashcroft poll because the Tory Party have done their own poll in the marginals showing the Tory Party is 10% ahead of Labour. He also said it was top secret and only the insider, Cameron, Osborne and Dan are allowed to see it.
You just keep hanging on to that and I will keep looking at the party polling figures. Remember eight months ago when an imminent polling crossover was being touted on here......still waiting.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
The Electoral Commission’s proposal follows evidence that an increasing number of people are being impersonated at polling stations and their votes being stolen. The change would lead to people who failed to produce ID — including anyone whose passport was being renewed — being denied a vote.
Excellent. Never understood why this hasn't always been the case.
And what a damn stupid argument about "denial" if you don't have one particular thing. The list of acceptable IDs will be long and flexible enough for even local Labour party workers to find a way around.
I was going to say the same about the Tory Party, however, there seems to be a lack of Tory Party workers, so maybe not.
Now we know why the Tories didn`t get a majority in 2010.
All the Labour voters stole their grandad`s votes.
But UKUP's roots are in libertarianism, and the question it must answer itself is: which is more important?
I think the there is a bigger question libertarians generally must answer which is "whose liberty is more important?". Many of the issues which are often cited as being libertarian actually put different groups of voters at odds with each other (just as the concepts of equality and discrimination and fairness do). As such its a bit of a red herring because in every case compromises in terms of libertarian puritanism have to made. That is unavoidable if a libertarian party has any real aspirations to become a government at any level.
I think that is something of a straw man argument. Or at least it misunderstands the meaning and practice of Libertarianism in Britain.
It is not a case of 'whose Liberty' but of a general basic principle that the government should not be involved in regulating most of people's day to day lives. Everyone should be a liberty to live their lives as they see fit as long as it does not harm others around them.
(Amongst other things such as National Defence and Foreign policy) the Government is there to provide a basic legal framework that allows contracts/deals/interactions of whatever chosen form to be entered into between individuals.
It is not there to dictate what these contracts should say and what agreements or deals are done between private individuals.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
The Electoral Commission’s proposal follows evidence that an increasing number of people are being impersonated at polling stations and their votes being stolen. The change would lead to people who failed to produce ID — including anyone whose passport was being renewed — being denied a vote.
Excellent. Never understood why this hasn't always been the case.
And what a damn stupid argument about "denial" if you don't have one particular thing. The list of acceptable IDs will be long and flexible enough for even local Labour party workers to find a way around.
I was going to say the same about the Tory Party, however, there seems to be a lack of Tory Party workers, so maybe not.
Now we know why the Tories didn`t get a majority in 2010.
All the Labour voters stole their grandad`s votes.
On a more serious note. I remember a news article at the Tory conference before the last election talking about how the Tory members viewed what the forthcoming result would be. The reporter said he remembered the Labour conference before 97 and likened winning the election to carrying a vase. Labour were that scared about losing it again, hardly anyone mentioned winning the election, there was caution, though people thought it, no one mentioned it publically, it was as if they were walking around very slowly with the vase, making sure it didn't smash, petrified someone would drop it. Then he said being at the Tory conference in 2010 it was if the party members were playing football with the vase. Members were publically and privately extremely confident of winning, bullish, talking about landslides and three figure majorities. The contrast he said was very striking.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
What about people who dont have either?!
They'll have to apply for a special polling card.
Edit - Which is what they do in Norn Iron
Impersonation was a well-known problem in Northern Ireland so they probably had to do something. Is it really a significant issue in Britain? I've never heard of a complaint in any of the elections I've been involved in for 45 years, though I once met someone who said he'd done it.
The risk is that people who have passports or driving licences are on average demographically quite different from those who don't (older, for instance), and imposing special requirements on the latter (applying for a special polling card) could distort the outcome, in the same way that the old poll tests in the American South did. It would presumably also lower turnout when people can't lay their hands on the relevant document. It's quite common to meet voters who think on the day that they can't vote because they've mislaid their current voluntary card and need to be reassured that they'll be OK.
If it really is happening with any frequency, a better solution might be really drastic penalties - imprisonment AND gigantic fines, lifelong bars on voting and standing for elections, etc.
he said being at the Tory conference in 2010 it was if the party members were playing football with it. Members were publically and privately extremely confident of winning, bullish, talking about landslides and three figure majorities.
They cant have been this confident / bullish though:
he said being at the Tory conference in 2010 it was if the party members were playing football with it. Members were publically and privately extremely confident of winning, bullish, talking about landslides and three figure majorities.
They cant have been this confident / bullish though:
Looking at these graphs, it's amusing to see how the nebulous concept of 'fairness' which politicians love to argue over, really seems to boil down to the selfishness of the individual voter.
" I'm basing my views on those expressed by most of the UKIP supporters on this board. When another_richard talks of stopping "the 1%" from buying at Chinese wage rates, and selling at Western prices and paying Monaco tax rates, he doesn't sound very libertarian. "
A few mistakes:
1) I'm not a UKIP supporter - though I'm likely to vote for them in 2015 on the basis that they're not LibLabCon
2) I didn't say that the 1% should be stopped from buying at Chinese wage rates etc I said that UKIP should use that as a slogan to attract voters disgruntled with the present system
3) Libertarianism should be for everyone not just those with the wealth and power to manipulate the system to their advantage while the rest suffer from ever increasing regulations and restrictions
But surely libertarianism is about allowing individuals to enter into voluntary agreements with each other. The example I used, which was roughly stolen from you, was an example of something a libertarian could only support, but which you opposed. I'm sorry if I mistakenly took you for a UKIP supporter. My point is that UKIP is being pulled in two very different directions - between populism and libertarianism. When it opposes gay marriage, that seems very populist and very un-libertarian. But UKUP's roots are in libertarianism, and the question it must answer itself is: which is more important?
The way the Paultards square the circle on gay marriage is to say the government shouldn't be involved in marriage at all, which is a private contract that may or may not be conducted through a church. UKIP should then campaign against churches being forced to conduct gay marriages, which UKIP-curious voters probably think is a thing.
'Then he said being at the Tory conference in 2010 it was if the party members were playing football with the vase. Members were publically and privately extremely confident of winning, bullish, talking about landslides and three figure majorities. The contrast he said was very striking.'
That would have been difficult,the GE was in May & the conference the following October.
"...Viewcode (previous thread) Of course it is the PM who launches a war, the Queen did not launch the Iraq War did she. Who appoints the PM? The largest party in parliament, unlike a president the PM is not directly elected by the people but by his parliamentary colleagues...The appointment by the monarch is simply a constitutional formality under our unwritten constitution..."
No.
The PM is appointed by the Queen, period. The PM is not directly elected by his parliamentary colleagues.
I'll need three posts to address your points. This is part 1. Let's go through it.
* The leader of a party is appointed by his party in whatever manner they see fit (election, random guess, scissor-paper-stone-lizard-Spock, whatever). * If that party (or coalition) has enough MPs to get legislation through Parliament, then by convention the person best able to direct that group of MPs is invited by the Monarch to become PM. The person best able to direct that group is *usually* the leader of the largest party in that group, but not necessarily. * The primary[2] duty of a PM is to form a government, which he does by appointing Ministers. * The Ministers run their departments and periodically meet as a group (the Cabinet) * The Cabinet is chaired by the PM. * The Cabinet is the Government of the United Kingdom.[1] The Civil Service enacts the instructions of the Cabinet. Parliament is not the Government. It isn't even part of it. * When the PM ceases to be able to dictate, (e.g when the government loses a vote of confidence or the party loses a general election), a new PM is appointed. He then appoints Ministers, and we go around again
That is the Westminster System. That is how it works. This isn't the United States, or France, or Finland. It's Britain. This is how we do stuff in these parts and it works very well.
NOTES * [1] And also the Government of England. It is also the Government of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for non-devolved matters. * [2] Also attending the European Council, issuing Orders-in-Council, (from memory) choosing Archbishops of Canterbury, and other stuff which I can't remember
But surely libertarianism is about allowing individuals to enter into voluntary agreements with each other. The example I used, which was roughly stolen from you, was an example of something a libertarian could only support, but which you opposed. I'm sorry if I mistakenly took you for a UKIP supporter. My point is that UKIP is being pulled in two very different directions - between populism and libertarianism. When it opposes gay marriage, that seems very populist and very un-libertarian. But UKUP's roots are in libertarianism, and the question it must answer itself is: which is more important?
Whatever the "correct" answer is, Nigel Farage gave his answer over the New Year - populism.
He made a big attempt to secure the Christian vote with his offer to Syrian Christians. Very nicely timed if I may say so.
The gay "marriage" announcement by Cameron was the trigger for UKIP's surge and social conservatives are essentially unrepresented by the three major parties. Nigel is giving them that representation and he's jolly well going to hold onto it.
Well get voting Conservative for that EU In/Out Referendum in 2017. But wait, are UKIP BOO voters too frit to vote for a referendum that might deliver the wrong answer, instead preferring to vote the Conservatives out in the hope of changing their Leader instead as a diversion tactic from the real issue they claim is so vitally important?
That survation poll also has an in/out poll, but I can't be arsed to copy and paste it, because if I do, I'll be up all night watching the cricket, and I can't go through another night like last night.
A new survey indicates that 50 per cent of the population would cut the UK’s ties with Brussels, with a record low 33 per cent in favour of staying in. (17% don't know).
"...the PM is not directly elected by the people but by his parliamentary colleagues, once they lose that they lose their office, as Thatcher did in 1990..."
No.
John Major resigned as leader of the Conservative Party on 22 June 1995 and was re-elected to that post on 4 July 1995. He remained as Prime Minister during that period with the full powers thereof (despite what Wiki says, there is no such thing as a "caretaker Prime Minister"). You stay Prime Minister until you resign or the Queen appoints a replacement. I think theoretically even death does not automatically release you (it's harsh that way).
Similarly, (from memory) Gordon Brown offered during the coalition negotiations to resign as leader of the Labour Party but stay on as Prime Minister until a new Labour Party leader could be chosen in ~Sept 2010.
Additionally, both Heath in 1974 and Brown in 2010 stayed on as PM for a while after losing the General Election whilst they attempted to form a coalition with the Liberals. At that point they remained PM despite not having a majority of MPs and did not cease to be PM until they resigned and the Queen appointed their replacements.
"...if any monarch refused to appoint the leader of the election winning party as PM, that would be the end of the monarchy!...
Not necessarily.
If the leader had a stroke, she may well (after consultation with the Party leadership) decide to appoint somebody else whilst the Party worked out what to do with their stricken leader. In a coalition with two evenly balanced parties, a third person may be appointed as PM whilst the leaders of the two parties remain aloof. The constitutional criteria for PM is[3] "whoever the Queen wants". In practice that is "leader of the largest party", but it isn't automatic.
If the Monarch and PM get on so badly they cannot work together, then the nuclear option would be to raise and pass an Abdication Bill and get it signed by the new Monarch, with a frantic bit of cross-fingering about who is Monarch at the moment of signing. The Crown would be unaffected. The Crown and the Monarch are not synonyms.
Oh do get a grip and reread the thread article and details of this Ashcroft poll again! Think back to Gordon Brown's personal ratings as compared to David Cameron's at this stage before the last GE. Now the big question is, would you want to dump Suarez because Spurs are currently languishing in the 6th spot in the Premier League?
It's odd how UKIP are polling so little more in Euro Election polls than they are in Westminster polls. Does this mean they have all their voters saying they'll vote for them in both now, or that they're going to absolutely destroy Labour in May? Or some combination, time will tell.
I think the better performance of UKIP at Euro elections is because their voters are more likely to turn out. Europe is a more important issue for them than for supporters of other parties.
I buy that theory to some extent, but it can't be the entire story. They got 16% of the vote in June 2009 while polling a mere 3% or so at Westminster (to pick a random YG from late May).
EDIT: To clarify, if that multiple were repeated now they'd literally win all the votes available in 2014. Either they are going to overperform current polls in the Euros or some of the people who in May-June 2009 said they would vote UKIP in the Euros but not in a General are now willing to vote for both, at least when they answer polls now.
There would also be some protest voting for UKIP at the Euros - particularly this time from Tories who are closer to UKIP's position on Europe than Cameron's.
Indeed and with the possibility increasing that the Cameron/Wharton referendum legislation is to sink without a trace in the House Of Lords (not least thanks to the ranks of the Tory 'November Criminals') and with it Tory credibility on the EU (at long last), its quite possible that UKIP vote could swell even further.
The Tories are in for a very bad result in the Euros - I expect them to achieve a poor third place with a vote share of not more than 20%. Labour and UKIP will get 25-30% each. This will be by far the worst ever result for the Tories in any national election. And with less than 12 months between the Euros and the General Election I think we can look forward to a Summer panic.
What would a 'summer panic' look like? I can't see them ditching Cameron now.
It's odd how UKIP are polling so little more in Euro Election polls than they are in Westminster polls. Does this mean they have all their voters saying they'll vote for them in both now, or that they're going to absolutely destroy Labour in May? Or some combination, time will tell.
I think the better performance of UKIP at Euro elections is because their voters are more likely to turn out. Europe is a more important issue for them than for supporters of other parties.
I buy that theory to some extent, but it can't be the entire story. They got 16% of the vote in June 2009 while polling a mere 3% or so at Westminster (to pick a random YG from late May).
EDIT: To clarify, if that multiple were repeated now they'd literally win all the votes available in 2014. Either they are going to overperform current polls in the Euros or some of the people who in May-June 2009 said they would vote UKIP in the Euros but not in a General are now willing to vote for both, at least when they answer polls now.
There would also be some protest voting for UKIP at the Euros - particularly this time from Tories who are closer to UKIP's position on Europe than Cameron's.
Indeed and with the possibility increasing that the Cameron/Wharton referendum legislation is to sink without a trace in the House Of Lords (not least thanks to the ranks of the Tory 'November Criminals') and with it Tory credibility on the EU (at long last), its quite possible that UKIP vote could swell even further.
The Tories are in for a very bad result in the Euros - I expect them to achieve a poor third place with a vote share of not more than 20%. Labour and UKIP will get 25-30% each. This will be by far the worst ever result for the Tories in any national election. And with less than 12 months between the Euros and the General Election I think we can look forward to a Summer panic.
What would a 'summer panic' look like? I can't see them ditching Cameron now.
Remember the Tories' procedure for ditching a Prime Minister is insanely simple. You only need 47 MPs to sign a letter, and maybe 22 already bear a grudge, so all it takes is 25 MPs to fear for their jobs, either to UKIP directly or to Lab via a split in the right. Cameron could of course fight the resulting confidence vote, but at that point things tend to take on a life of their own.
It's odd how UKIP are polling so little more in Euro Election polls than they are in Westminster polls. Does this mean they have all their voters saying they'll vote for them in both now, or that they're going to absolutely destroy Labour in May? Or some combination, time will tell.
I think the better performance of UKIP at Euro elections is because their voters are more likely to turn out. Europe is a more important issue for them than for supporters of other parties.
I buy that theory to some extent, but it can't be the entire story. They got 16% of the vote in June 2009 while polling a mere 3% or so at Westminster (to pick a random YG from late May).
EDIT: To clarify, if that multiple were repeated now they'd literally win all the votes available in 2014. Either they are going to overperform current polls in the Euros or some of the people who in May-June 2009 said they would vote UKIP in the Euros but not in a General are now willing to vote for both, at least when they answer polls now.
There would also be some protest voting for UKIP at the Euros - particularly this time from Tories who are closer to UKIP's position on Europe than Cameron's.
Indeed and with the possibility increasing that the Cameron/Wharton referendum legislation is to sink without a trace in the House Of Lords (not least thanks to the ranks of the Tory 'November Criminals') and with it Tory credibility on the EU (at long last), its quite possible that UKIP vote could swell even further.
The Tories are in for a very bad result in the Euros - I expect them to achieve a poor third place with a vote share of not more than 20%. Labour and UKIP will get 25-30% each. This will be by far the worst ever result for the Tories in any national election. And with less than 12 months between the Euros and the General Election I think we can look forward to a Summer panic.
What would a 'summer panic' look like? I can't see them ditching Cameron now.
Remember the Tories' procedure for ditching a Prime Minister is insanely simple. You only need 47 MPs to sign a letter, and maybe 22 already bear a grudge, so all it takes is 25 MPs to fear for their jobs, either to UKIP directly or to Lab via a split in the right. Cameron could of course fight the resulting confidence vote, but at that point things tend to take on a life of their own.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Remember the Tories' procedure for ditching a Prime Minister is insanely simple. You only need 47 MPs to sign a letter, and maybe 22 already bear a grudge, so all it takes is 25 MPs to fear for their jobs, either to UKIP directly or to Lab via a split in the right. Cameron could of course fight the resulting confidence vote, but at that point things tend to take on a life of their own.
Not at evens if that's what you're asking, but I think it's a non-trivial possibility.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Just to add, if the Labour procedure for challenging a sitting Prime Minister had been the same as the Tory one is now, you'd almost definitely have won that bet, and some poor sod would still be gasping for breath in their upturned hull.
You think that its a non-trivial possibility that the Conservatives would ditch their Cameron as their Leader and the PM when he leads Ed Miliband on personal ratings and the Tories also have a lead on managing the economy? I would have thought that Nick Clegg's position as Libdem Leader and Deputy PM was hanging by a far more shoogle peg considering his personal polling and that of his party right now, but I don't see you suggesting he is going to be replaced before the next GE? And what about Ed Miliband, should we now start betting on his exit as LotO before the next GE as a result of his personal polling?
Remember the Tories' procedure for ditching a Prime Minister is insanely simple. You only need 47 MPs to sign a letter, and maybe 22 already bear a grudge, so all it takes is 25 MPs to fear for their jobs, either to UKIP directly or to Lab via a split in the right. Cameron could of course fight the resulting confidence vote, but at that point things tend to take on a life of their own.
Not at evens if that's what you're asking, but I think it's a non-trivial possibility.
I am not sure that you are right on this scenario, for that to happen we would have had to have seen a coalition of Labour Ministers and backbenchers who were prepared to coalesce around a clear stand out and uniting candidate who would lead them into the 2010 GE. And that was by far Labour's biggest problem back then with the open wounds of the Blairite/Brownite divisions, there was simple no one candidate that the whole party and their Union funders could accept and get behind. In many ways, that is what kept Gordon Brown in place, and the election of Ed Miliband highlights rather than negates this continuing problem within the Labour party to this day.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Just to add, if the Labour procedure for challenging a sitting Prime Minister had been the same as the Tory one is now, you'd almost definitely have won that bet, and some poor sod would still be gasping for breath in their upturned hull.
You don't think that its a non-trivial possibility that the Conservatives would ditch their Cameron as their Leader and the PM when he leads Ed Miliband on personal ratings and the Tories also have a lead on managing the economy? I would have thought that Nick Clegg's position as Libdem Leader and Deputy PM was hanging by a far more shoogle peg, but I don't see you suggesting he is going to be replaced before the next GE?
Remember the Tories' procedure for ditching a Prime Minister is insanely simple. You only need 47 MPs to sign a letter, and maybe 22 already bear a grudge, so all it takes is 25 MPs to fear for their jobs, either to UKIP directly or to Lab via a split in the right. Cameron could of course fight the resulting confidence vote, but at that point things tend to take on a life of their own.
Not at evens if that's what you're asking, but I think it's a non-trivial possibility.
The case for ditching Clegg is a lot stronger than the case for ditching Cameron, but the probability of his being knifed against his will is lower. Again, it's not enough to look at the best political option for the party, you also have to look at the procedure for doing it.
That said, overall Clegg is more likely to go before the election than Cameron, because he may well step down of his own accord, which it's very hard to see Cameron doing.
I am not sure that you are right on this scenario, for that to happen we would have had to have seen a coalition of Labour Ministers and backbenchers who were prepared to coalesce around a clear stand out and uniting candidate who would lead them into the 2010 GE. And that was by far Labour's biggest problem back then with the open wounds of the Blairite/Brownite divisions, there was simple no one candidate that the whole party and their Union funders could accept and get behind. In many ways, that is what kept Gordon Brown in place, and the election of Ed Miliband highlights rather than negates this continuing problem within the Labour party to this day.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Just to add, if the Labour procedure for challenging a sitting Prime Minister had been the same as the Tory one is now, you'd almost definitely have won that bet, and some poor sod would still be gasping for breath in their upturned hull.
The whole point about the Tory procedure is that you don't need one candidate who the whole party can get behind. You just need 15% of MP to dislike him or think they'd do better with someone else. They don't even need to agree which someone else.
Uh Oh that fall in the odds normally means only 1 thing...
Following the cricket on betfair rather than watching, Pulpstar?
For extra points, use the betfair prices to provide a full play-by-play running commentary like Ronald Reagan used to do based on the telegraph baseball reports.
Edmund, you are one of nearly a hundred NEW Conservative MP's in this Parliament. Would you then allow a minor bunch of the usual suspects to risk ditching your Leader and the PM who navigated a stable Coalition Government if they were leading the LotO in their personal ratings as well as your Treasury team leading the Opposition on the most important issue of the day, the economy? Cameron's clear backing for an EU referendum in the next Parliament also neutered some discontent, even if he would back us staying in the EU. It also helps cement Cameron's position when Ed Miliband pulls stunts that lead his very trustworthiness as LotO and future PM into question such as his behaviour over the Syria vote.
Good rule of thumb, if the Labour alternative is far less palatable then don't expect the Conservatives to ditch their Leader.
I am not sure that you are right on this scenario, for that to happen we would have had to have seen a coalition of Labour Ministers and backbenchers who were prepared to coalesce around a clear stand out and uniting candidate who would lead them into the 2010 GE. And that was by far Labour's biggest problem back then with the open wounds of the Blairite/Brownite divisions, there was simple no one candidate that the whole party and their Union funders could accept and get behind. In many ways, that is what kept Gordon Brown in place, and the election of Ed Miliband highlights rather than negates this continuing problem within the Labour party to this day.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Just to add, if the Labour procedure for challenging a sitting Prime Minister had been the same as the Tory one is now, you'd almost definitely have won that bet, and some poor sod would still be gasping for breath in their upturned hull.
The whole point about the Tory procedure is that you don't need one candidate who the whole party can get behind. You just need 15% of MP to dislike him or think they'd do better with someone else. They don't even need to agree which someone else.
Edmund, you are one of nearly a hundred NEW Conservative MP's in this Parliament. Would you then allow a minor bunch of the usual suspects to risk ditching your Leader and the PM who navigated a stable Coalition Government if they were leading the LotO in their personal ratings as well as your Treasury team leading the Opposition on the most important issue of the day, the economy? Cameron's clear backing for an EU referendum in the next Parliament also neutered some discontent, even if he would back us staying in the EU. It also helps cement Cameron's position when Ed Miliband pulls stunts that lead his very trustworthiness as LotO and future PM into question such as his behaviour over the Syria vote.
Good rule of thumb, if the Labour alternative is far less palatable then don't expect the Conservatives to ditch their Leader.
I am not sure that you are right on this scenario, for that to happen we would have had to have seen a coalition of Labour Ministers and backbenchers who were prepared to coalesce around a clear stand out and uniting candidate who would lead them into the 2010 GE. And that was by far Labour's biggest problem back then with the open wounds of the Blairite/Brownite divisions, there was simple no one candidate that the whole party and their Union funders could accept and get behind. In many ways, that is what kept Gordon Brown in place, and the election of Ed Miliband highlights rather than negates this continuing problem within the Labour party to this day.
@edmundintokyo Do you fancy a wee charity bet on whether the Conservative party will ditch its continuing best asset and the current PM before the next GE? I lost a bet with HurstLlama back before the last GE because I thought that the Labour party might finally see sense and ditch the liability that was Gordon Brown, they didn't and the RNLI benefited from a donation from me.
Just to add, if the Labour procedure for challenging a sitting Prime Minister had been the same as the Tory one is now, you'd almost definitely have won that bet, and some poor sod would still be gasping for breath in their upturned hull.
The whole point about the Tory procedure is that you don't need one candidate who the whole party can get behind. You just need 15% of MP to dislike him or think they'd do better with someone else. They don't even need to agree which someone else.
Are you saying they'd stop them sending in the letters by some mysterious method or are you saying the rest of the party would back Cameron in a confidence vote?
The onset of a really nasty chest infection has meant that I have had to follow every painful stage of this England cricket tour on PB through the night when I have popped online as a result. ;(
Uh Oh that fall in the odds normally means only 1 thing...
Following the cricket on betfair rather than watching, Pulpstar?
For extra points, use the betfair prices to provide a full play-by-play running commentary like Ronald Reagan used to do based on the telegraph baseball reports.
I like that idea Perfectly possible for a neurovore to live the highs and lows that way!
(Neurovore *should* be someone who lives on their nerves but it seems Google doesn't like it. I might have just made it up)
The ODI series against the Windies might be a good chance to get some confidence back. I thought 9/2 was a decent price for them against New Zealand but looking back not sure it was the best value fiver I've ever lost
Don't be silly, the economy is booming, Dave is popular, swingback, inflation will fall as wages are rising, the FTSE will smash records, there will be the hottest summer in decades, the price of fuel will fall significantly, Gideon will give plenty away at the next budget, the 2010 switchover Lib Dems to Labour will go back, England will win the World Cup, unemployment will fall below 1.5 million, UKIP will fall to 5% in the polls, UK will win the Eurovision, the feelgood factor will wash over the nation..................and there will be polling crossover.
compouter.
Your post immediately put in mind the Infinite Monkey Theorem. This states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type the complete works of William Shakespeare. Or, in a PB context, that a leftie troll, granted unrestricted posting rights, will, given an infinite amount of time, almost surely type a series of political truths.
I was so excited by this discovery that I leapt from my morning bath shouting "Eureka" and set about the task of proving the theorem on the evidence of your quoted contribution to PB.
My original intention was to take each of your predictions in turn and to prove their accuracy. But I encountered a insurmountable problem. I discovered that the University of Plymouth had already attempted a similar proof in 2003.
Wikipedia tells the story:
In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes Crested Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it.
Phillips [the project leader] said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned "an awful lot" from it. He concluded that monkeys "are not random generators. They're more complex than that. ... They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there."
Having reviewed the conclusion of the Paignton Zoo project, I realised there was little I could add to the proof of the theorem and to the world's recorded understanding of left wing posts on political blogs.
So rather than replicate the good work of the Devonian scientists, I have decided instead to prepare two lightly poached eggs on toast for breakfast.
Imagine my surprise on waking up to discover that, yet again, England's batting line-up had shown itself to be gutless, clueless and crap. This series' litany of humiliations had been coming for quite a while. It will take a long time, a lot of application and a totally new attitude to turn things around. We just do not have enough players capable of toughing it and thinking straight against high quality bowlers - which is why we collapse so regularly. Our own bowlers hid this for quite a while, but this has proved a tour too far for some of them. Cook has to offer his resignation, as does Flower. Whether they should be accepted is another matter, as obvious replacements are hard to identify. The reality is that, once again, English cricket has to take a long, hard look at itself. As this series - and other recent tours have shown - whatever their averages too many of our batsmen are flat track bullies able to make the odd big score against mediocre opposition, but never to be relied upon against class.
Also, there seems to be a new Milibonkers policy: "Stopping the use of "tied housing", which allows agricultural firms to pay less to workers who get accommodation as part of their job" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25607578
Hmm. So... won't the firms just pay more, and then charge for the accommodation? It's adding a bit of bureaucracy and changing nothing substantial (he really did learn at the feet of Brown).
I especially liked this contrast [from the end of the article]: "He added: "This cost of living crisis is the most important context for the debate about immigration. It understandably makes people more fearful of the change that immigration brings.""
[Nearer the start]: "What chance of giving everyone a fair shot when recruitment agencies are allowed to recruit only from overseas, excluding those in the area from even hearing about the jobs?"
On a happier note, I rather enjoyed the first two episodes of The Bridge (second series) last night.
Imagine my surprise on waking up to discover that, yet again, England's batting line-up had shown itself to be gutless, clueless and crap. This series' litany of humiliations had been coming for quite a while. It will take a long time, a lot of application and a totally new attitude to turn things around. We just do not have enough players capable of toughing it and thinking straight against high quality bowlers - which is why we collapse so regularly. Our own bowlers hid this for quite a while, but this has proved a tour too far for some of them. Cook has to offer his resignation, as does Flower. Whether they should be accepted is another matter, as obvious replacements are hard to identify. The reality is that, once again, English cricket has to take a long, hard look at itself. As this series - and other recent tours have shown - whatever their averages too many of our batsmen are flat track bullies able to make the odd big score against mediocre opposition, but never to be relied upon against class.
I think that's a bit simplistic. They are, by and large, the same players who propelled us to no 1 in the world, gained and retained the ashes, etc. There was the recent blip against Pakistan in the UAE, and the Ashes win last summer was not convincing (the scoreline flattererd us) but we have two batsmen there who have scored over 8000 runs at well over 40, for example, you don't do that if you can only bat on flat tracks. For a time, Swanny was the best spinner in the world, and the quicks weren't bad either.
There is an interesting article on CricInfo http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/706987.html which seems to put it down to groupthink: something about the England team setup is destroying players' confidence and form, they are coming out of the county setup not fully formed (and England has been better at picking new players lately: no one-Test wonders) but having their talent and flair ground out of them.
I do wonder if Cook is the man to turn them round. After the level of destruction they have endured, it will be a big man-management job and I am not sure he was up to it. He is not the best captain in the world - when England was doing well, I thought he was a reasonable choice and would learn on the job with relatively little to do, the players would do it for him, and he had plenty of senior professionals to ask for advice. However now I think we need a Brearley to turn things round.
VOTERS could have to show their passport or driving licence to prove their identity at polling stations, under a recommendation by the government’s elections watchdog.
What about people who dont have either?!
They'll have to apply for a special polling card.
Edit - Which is what they do in Norn Iron
Are post, email, text, smoke signal and all the other ways of voting being espoused by cleverer people than I to be exposed to the same scrutiny?
@JohnLilburne - I largely agree that mindset is the key issue. I don't doubt the personal abilities of Cook, Bell and Pietersen; but over a long period of time as a unit in tough, hostile conditions the English batting line-up has failed to perform. The one real exception I can think of is the last Ashes tour, when collectively they were excellent and all of them (except Collingwood) made important contributions. It's our bowlers that made us Number 1. And maybe too often the batsmen have felt that they could get away with sub-optimal performances because they would be bailed out by the likes of Swann and Andersen.
Imagine my surprise on waking up to discover that, yet again, England's batting line-up had shown itself to be gutless, clueless and crap. This series' litany of humiliations had been coming for quite a while. It will take a long time, a lot of application and a totally new attitude to turn things around. We just do not have enough players capable of toughing it and thinking straight against high quality bowlers - which is why we collapse so regularly. Our own bowlers hid this for quite a while, but this has proved a tour too far for some of them. Cook has to offer his resignation, as does Flower. Whether they should be accepted is another matter, as obvious replacements are hard to identify. The reality is that, once again, English cricket has to take a long, hard look at itself. As this series - and other recent tours have shown - whatever their averages too many of our batsmen are flat track bullies able to make the odd big score against mediocre opposition, but never to be relied upon against class.
I think that's a bit simplistic. They are, by and large, the same players who propelled us to no 1 in the world, gained and retained the ashes, etc. There was the recent blip against Pakistan in the UAE, and the Ashes win last summer was not convincing (the scoreline flattererd us) but we have two batsmen there who have scored over 8000 runs at well over 40, for example, you don't do that if you can only bat on flat tracks. For a time, Swanny was the best spinner in the world, and the quicks weren't bad either.
There is an interesting article on CricInfo http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/706987.html which seems to put it down to groupthink: something about the England team setup is destroying players' confidence and form, they are coming out of the county setup not fully formed (and England has been better at picking new players lately: no one-Test wonders) but having their talent and flair ground out of them.
I do wonder if Cook is the man to turn them round. After the level of destruction they have endured, it will be a big man-management job and I am not sure he was up to it. He is not the best captain in the world - when England was doing well, I thought he was a reasonable choice and would learn on the job with relatively little to do, the players would do it for him, and he had plenty of senior professionals to ask for advice. However now I think we need a Brearley to turn things round.
Servicing and reducing the debt will be part of balancing the budget.
Not quite. Servicing is part of balancing the budget, reducing is not. When you are in surplus, the national debt (in nominal terms) is reduced, and when you are in deficit, it is increased.
None of the countries with meaningful sovereign wealth funds - Norway, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore - has debt-to-GDP above 28.5%.
My point about the sovereign wealth fund is that it would be insane to use proceeds from taxation to start one until the national debt was at a reasonable level. Let's not forget, debt-to-GDP is forecast to be 94% this year, and is likely to only stabilize north of 100%.
My - incredibly generous assumption - was that almost 1% of GDP could be raised through this tax, and that was based on the country taking 10x the tax take per mcf of the US states or Poland.
To have a policy on a sovereign wealth fund, when it is not clear that we even have commercial shale gas deposits (although I am hopeful), and when these are unlikely to make any sensible contribution to government finances before 2020 is ridiculous. And it's taking ridiculous to absurdity for a party with no education policy. It's like me forgetting to take my kids to school, but having plans for how I'd spend a lottery win.
You are right, though, that UKIP is not like other parties, I'll give you that.
Part 1 No, the Queen appoints as PM the person best able to command a majority in Parliament, it is not her personal choice. The PM's power to govern and appoint a Cabinet etc all flows from that Parliamentary appointment and can be removed if he loses Parliament's confidence.
Part 2 Again no contradiction. Major had won the confidence of his party in the 1990 leadership contest, Brown of his in the 2007 Labour leadership contest and Heath of his when he succeeded Home and that put them in office as PM as leader of the largest party in Parliament. They then retained that office until a new leader of their party was elected and appointed or another leader emerged who could command a majority of MPs in Parliament.
Part 3 PMs appointed because of illness or hung parliaments would still need to command a majority in Parliament. The Crown does the appointing of PMs but as we have an unwritten constitution everything is based on convention, but the only absolute is Parliamentary supremacy, if Parliament decided to abolish the monarchy tomorrow without the monarch's consent then it should be able to do so.
No. The situation is as I have explained it to you. My previous posts went through your points and gave examples that contradict them. Since you ignore[1] them and/or repeat[2] what I said back to me there is little point in continuing this conversation. For anybody else interested in the constitutional position that allows us to weather disagreements between monarch and PM, PM and Parliament, etc without disrupting good administration, please see my posts at:
NOTES [1] "Major had won the confidence of his party in the 1990 leadership contest" is ignoring the salient point that Major was briefly PM and not the leader of a party. [2] "if Parliament decided to abolish the monarchy tomorrow without the monarch's consent then it should be able to do so" is simply a restatement of my point that "If the Monarch and PM get on so badly they cannot work together, then the nuclear option would be to raise and pass an Abdication Bill and get it signed by the new Monarch, with a frantic bit of cross-fingering about who is Monarch at the moment of signing. The Crown would be unaffected. The Crown and the Monarch are not synonyms."
Viewcode Yes and the points you made were wrong in their implication where I refuted them.
1 Yes but WHY was he PM, because he won the majority of his party, the largest in parliament, to lead it. The fact he remained PM while a leadership contest was called was simply a reflection of the fact he was the incumbent, had John Redwood beaten him he would have become PM in 1995.
2 The monarchy and the Crown could in theory be abolished by Parliament, although it would certainly in practice not happen without a referendum, as we have an unwritten constitution with one but certainty that Parliament is sovereign.
Comments
I suspect that Ed Miliband and the Labour party currently suffers the opposite problem to David Cameron when they were in Opposition. Cameron was a clear asset to his party in Opposition, and even now this remains the case after nearly eight years as party Leader and now PM. The less the public see of Ed Miliband, the better his party does, and that doesn't bode well for him or his party during the GE campaign. If you are still sceptical, just compare the polling in Scotland in the run up to the 2011 Holyrood elections and then remember the performance of the then Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray during the campaign.
All the Labour voters stole their grandad`s votes.
It is not a case of 'whose Liberty' but of a general basic principle that the government should not be involved in regulating most of people's day to day lives. Everyone should be a liberty to live their lives as they see fit as long as it does not harm others around them.
(Amongst other things such as National Defence and Foreign policy) the Government is there to provide a basic legal framework that allows contracts/deals/interactions of whatever chosen form to be entered into between individuals.
It is not there to dictate what these contracts should say and what agreements or deals are done between private individuals.
Something tells me it wont be like that again.
The risk is that people who have passports or driving licences are on average demographically quite different from those who don't (older, for instance), and imposing special requirements on the latter (applying for a special polling card) could distort the outcome, in the same way that the old poll tests in the American South did. It would presumably also lower turnout when people can't lay their hands on the relevant document. It's quite common to meet voters who think on the day that they can't vote because they've mislaid their current voluntary card and need to be reassured that they'll be OK.
If it really is happening with any frequency, a better solution might be really drastic penalties - imprisonment AND gigantic fines, lifelong bars on voting and standing for elections, etc.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'
Fair is when I get mine.
'Then he said being at the Tory conference in 2010 it was if the party members were playing football with the vase. Members were publically and privately extremely confident of winning, bullish, talking about landslides and three figure majorities. The contrast he said was very striking.'
That would have been difficult,the GE was in May & the conference the following October.
"...Viewcode (previous thread) Of course it is the PM who launches a war, the Queen did not launch the Iraq War did she. Who appoints the PM? The largest party in parliament, unlike a president the PM is not directly elected by the people but by his parliamentary colleagues...The appointment by the monarch is simply a constitutional formality under our unwritten constitution..."
No.
The PM is appointed by the Queen, period. The PM is not directly elected by his parliamentary colleagues.
I'll need three posts to address your points. This is part 1. Let's go through it.
* The leader of a party is appointed by his party in whatever manner they see fit (election, random guess, scissor-paper-stone-lizard-Spock, whatever).
* If that party (or coalition) has enough MPs to get legislation through Parliament, then by convention the person best able to direct that group of MPs is invited by the Monarch to become PM. The person best able to direct that group is *usually* the leader of the largest party in that group, but not necessarily.
* The primary[2] duty of a PM is to form a government, which he does by appointing Ministers.
* The Ministers run their departments and periodically meet as a group (the Cabinet)
* The Cabinet is chaired by the PM.
* The Cabinet is the Government of the United Kingdom.[1] The Civil Service enacts the instructions of the Cabinet. Parliament is not the Government. It isn't even part of it.
* When the PM ceases to be able to dictate, (e.g when the government loses a vote of confidence or the party loses a general election), a new PM is appointed. He then appoints Ministers, and we go around again
That is the Westminster System. That is how it works. This isn't the United States, or France, or Finland. It's Britain. This is how we do stuff in these parts and it works very well.
NOTES
* [1] And also the Government of England. It is also the Government of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for non-devolved matters.
* [2] Also attending the European Council, issuing Orders-in-Council, (from memory) choosing Archbishops of Canterbury, and other stuff which I can't remember
He made a big attempt to secure the Christian vote with his offer to Syrian Christians. Very nicely timed if I may say so.
The gay "marriage" announcement by Cameron was the trigger for UKIP's surge and social conservatives are essentially unrepresented by the three major parties. Nigel is giving them that representation and he's jolly well going to hold onto it.
"...the PM is not directly elected by the people but by his parliamentary colleagues, once they lose that they lose their office, as Thatcher did in 1990..."
No.
John Major resigned as leader of the Conservative Party on 22 June 1995 and was re-elected to that post on 4 July 1995. He remained as Prime Minister during that period with the full powers thereof (despite what Wiki says, there is no such thing as a "caretaker Prime Minister"). You stay Prime Minister until you resign or the Queen appoints a replacement. I think theoretically even death does not automatically release you (it's harsh that way).
Similarly, (from memory) Gordon Brown offered during the coalition negotiations to resign as leader of the Labour Party but stay on as Prime Minister until a new Labour Party leader could be chosen in ~Sept 2010.
Additionally, both Heath in 1974 and Brown in 2010 stayed on as PM for a while after losing the General Election whilst they attempted to form a coalition with the Liberals. At that point they remained PM despite not having a majority of MPs and did not cease to be PM until they resigned and the Queen appointed their replacements.
"...if any monarch refused to appoint the leader of the election winning party as PM, that would be the end of the monarchy!...
Not necessarily.
If the leader had a stroke, she may well (after consultation with the Party leadership) decide to appoint somebody else whilst the Party worked out what to do with their stricken leader. In a coalition with two evenly balanced parties, a third person may be appointed as PM whilst the leaders of the two parties remain aloof. The constitutional criteria for PM is[3] "whoever the Queen wants". In practice that is "leader of the largest party", but it isn't automatic.
If the Monarch and PM get on so badly they cannot work together, then the nuclear option would be to raise and pass an Abdication Bill and get it signed by the new Monarch, with a frantic bit of cross-fingering about who is Monarch at the moment of signing. The Crown would be unaffected. The Crown and the Monarch are not synonyms.
[3] 1963 notwithstanding
That said, overall Clegg is more likely to go before the election than Cameron, because he may well step down of his own accord, which it's very hard to see Cameron doing.
Betfair updates 1st, then cricinfo and finally the stream.
Hopefully England can see out the day, that'll mean a couple of extra pennies.
Good rule of thumb, if the Labour alternative is far less palatable then don't expect the Conservatives to ditch their Leader.
Apart from that I'm playing a tiny bit on betfair for fun and to justify being awake.
(Neurovore *should* be someone who lives on their nerves but it seems Google doesn't like it. I might have just made it up)
I expect the match will be over before I finish it.
First time ever a team will lose all 100 wickets in an Ashes series.
Aus's approach to try and push along at 3.5-4 was the correct one.
Man of the series I reckon for Aus is Mitch. Though Harris and Haddin are good shouts too.
Don't be silly, the economy is booming, Dave is popular, swingback, inflation will fall as wages are rising, the FTSE will smash records, there will be the hottest summer in decades, the price of fuel will fall significantly, Gideon will give plenty away at the next budget, the 2010 switchover Lib Dems to Labour will go back, England will win the World Cup, unemployment will fall below 1.5 million, UKIP will fall to 5% in the polls, UK will win the Eurovision, the feelgood factor will wash over the nation..................and there will be polling crossover.
compouter.
Your post immediately put in mind the Infinite Monkey Theorem. This states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type the complete works of William Shakespeare. Or, in a PB context, that a leftie troll, granted unrestricted posting rights, will, given an infinite amount of time, almost surely type a series of political truths.
I was so excited by this discovery that I leapt from my morning bath shouting "Eureka" and set about the task of proving the theorem on the evidence of your quoted contribution to PB.
My original intention was to take each of your predictions in turn and to prove their accuracy. But I encountered a insurmountable problem. I discovered that the University of Plymouth had already attempted a similar proof in 2003.
Wikipedia tells the story:
In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes Crested Macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it.
Phillips [the project leader] said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned "an awful lot" from it. He concluded that monkeys "are not random generators. They're more complex than that. ... They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there."
Having reviewed the conclusion of the Paignton Zoo project, I realised there was little I could add to the proof of the theorem and to the world's recorded understanding of left wing posts on political blogs.
So rather than replicate the good work of the Devonian scientists, I have decided instead to prepare two lightly poached eggs on toast for breakfast.
*sigh*
Geoffrey Boycott.
About a month until the Six Nations, and a month and a half after that F1's back. So worry not about this silly cricket nonsense.
Meanwhile it seems Fallujah has fallen:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25605459
Also, there seems to be a new Milibonkers policy:
"Stopping the use of "tied housing", which allows agricultural firms to pay less to workers who get accommodation as part of their job"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25607578
Hmm. So... won't the firms just pay more, and then charge for the accommodation? It's adding a bit of bureaucracy and changing nothing substantial (he really did learn at the feet of Brown).
I especially liked this contrast [from the end of the article]:
"He added: "This cost of living crisis is the most important context for the debate about immigration. It understandably makes people more fearful of the change that immigration brings.""
[Nearer the start]:
"What chance of giving everyone a fair shot when recruitment agencies are allowed to recruit only from overseas, excluding those in the area from even hearing about the jobs?"
On a happier note, I rather enjoyed the first two episodes of The Bridge (second series) last night.
At least they reached triple figures.
There is an interesting article on CricInfo http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/706987.html which seems to put it down to groupthink: something about the England team setup is destroying players' confidence and form, they are coming out of the county setup not fully formed (and England has been better at picking new players lately: no one-Test wonders) but having their talent and flair ground out of them.
I do wonder if Cook is the man to turn them round. After the level of destruction they have endured, it will be a big man-management job and I am not sure he was up to it. He is not the best captain in the world - when England was doing well, I thought he was a reasonable choice and would learn on the job with relatively little to do, the players would do it for him, and he had plenty of senior professionals to ask for advice. However now I think we need a Brearley to turn things round.
Also true of other organisations!
None of the countries with meaningful sovereign wealth funds - Norway, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore - has debt-to-GDP above 28.5%.
My point about the sovereign wealth fund is that it would be insane to use proceeds from taxation to start one until the national debt was at a reasonable level. Let's not forget, debt-to-GDP is forecast to be 94% this year, and is likely to only stabilize north of 100%.
My - incredibly generous assumption - was that almost 1% of GDP could be raised through this tax, and that was based on the country taking 10x the tax take per mcf of the US states or Poland.
To have a policy on a sovereign wealth fund, when it is not clear that we even have commercial shale gas deposits (although I am hopeful), and when these are unlikely to make any sensible contribution to government finances before 2020 is ridiculous. And it's taking ridiculous to absurdity for a party with no education policy. It's like me forgetting to take my kids to school, but having plans for how I'd spend a lottery win.
You are right, though, that UKIP is not like other parties, I'll give you that.
Part 1 No, the Queen appoints as PM the person best able to command a majority in Parliament, it is not her personal choice. The PM's power to govern and appoint a Cabinet etc all flows from that Parliamentary appointment and can be removed if he loses Parliament's confidence.
Part 2 Again no contradiction. Major had won the confidence of his party in the 1990 leadership contest, Brown of his in the 2007 Labour leadership contest and Heath of his when he succeeded Home and that put them in office as PM as leader of the largest party in Parliament. They then retained that office until a new leader of their party was elected and appointed or another leader emerged who could command a majority of MPs in Parliament.
Part 3 PMs appointed because of illness or hung parliaments would still need to command a majority in Parliament. The Crown does the appointing of PMs but as we have an unwritten constitution everything is based on convention, but the only absolute is Parliamentary supremacy, if Parliament decided to abolish the monarchy tomorrow without the monarch's consent then it should be able to do so.
No. The situation is as I have explained it to you. My previous posts went through your points and gave examples that contradict them. Since you ignore[1] them and/or repeat[2] what I said back to me there is little point in continuing this conversation. For anybody else interested in the constitutional position that allows us to weather disagreements between monarch and PM, PM and Parliament, etc without disrupting good administration, please see my posts at:
* http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/193448/#Comment_193448
* http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/193447/#Comment_193447
* http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/193444/#Comment_193444
NOTES
[1] "Major had won the confidence of his party in the 1990 leadership contest" is ignoring the salient point that Major was briefly PM and not the leader of a party.
[2] "if Parliament decided to abolish the monarchy tomorrow without the monarch's consent then it should be able to do so" is simply a restatement of my point that "If the Monarch and PM get on so badly they cannot work together, then the nuclear option would be to raise and pass an Abdication Bill and get it signed by the new Monarch, with a frantic bit of cross-fingering about who is Monarch at the moment of signing. The Crown would be unaffected. The Crown and the Monarch are not synonyms."
1 Yes but WHY was he PM, because he won the majority of his party, the largest in parliament, to lead it. The fact he remained PM while a leadership contest was called was simply a reflection of the fact he was the incumbent, had John Redwood beaten him he would have become PM in 1995.
2 The monarchy and the Crown could in theory be abolished by Parliament, although it would certainly in practice not happen without a referendum, as we have an unwritten constitution with one but certainty that Parliament is sovereign.
You didn't refute my points. I refer you to my previous posts.