The overall polling looks very similar to that carried out ahead of the Commons vote on Syria though I doubt whether here public opinion be listened to quite so much. All three main parties have got their thumb prints in some ways on this in one way or another.
Comments
Too many people have had their minds twisted by The BBC, Postman Pat.
Is The Royal Mail still the largest single contributor to the current strike records in GB?
Parcel force should be the first to go to the private sector.
Fitalass said:
Twitter
Faisal Islam @faisalislam 5m
Bob Crow calls for General Strike... murmurings of coordinated strike action elsewhere.... Crow also launching a No to EU party tomorrow
Chris Mason @ChrisMasonBBC 9m
Prentice of Unison: "the focus now should be election, not a special conference contemplating our navel. That is cloud cuckoo land."
Bob Crow eh??
We also have this
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/5122960/Red-Len-McCluskey-strike-plot-to-cripple-Britain.html
"BRITAIN’S biggest union has drawn up a secret masterplan to drag the country to its knees with a wave of strikes.
Unite boss Red Len McCluskey put activists on an industrial war footing, saying: “Prepare for crisis.”
His plot to wreak havoc is revealed in a leaked memo obtained by The Sun."
Same old unions
Apologies to all for not writing FIRST.
The FBU going on strike , I imagine will be blamed on Ed as well.
"Ed Miliband is facing the gravest crisis of his leadership after former Home Secretary David Blunkett warned that he was putting the ‘entire Labour project’ at risk, amid claims that the party was just ‘days away from bankruptcy’.
Mr Miliband was last night said to have been forced into a humiliating climbdown in his battle with the union barons because he feared the loss of their vital funds.
One Labour MP publicly described the situation as a ‘catastrophe’ which had put the party’s ‘very existence’ at risk.
The party was plunged into open warfare this weekend after an internal probe cleared the Unite union over allegations that it had ‘packed’ the Falkirk constituency with its members in an attempt to fix the selection of Karie Murphy, a close friend of Unite leader Len McCluskey.
Senior party sources have claimed that the report reached its conclusion because Mr Miliband feared the union would follow the lead of the GMB, which last week slashed its funding of Labour by more than £1 million. Such a move would lead to the party going bust within days – and in the week in which Mr Miliband is due to give a crunch speech to the TUC conference."
It's been updated this morning and, whilst it's hard to measure the lead precisely, the Lab lead does appear to be smaller now than at any time since the 2012 Budget.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2
Personally I don't think that the PM and LotO need to have a position on everything.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24004687
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-08/minor-parties-to-play-key-role-in-senate-make-up/4944188
They have an STV system for the senate but as the system requires voters to number all the candidates even if there are 100 of them, most voters just tick a box for their main party and allow their main party to distribute their 100 preferences for them.
This means a party like the Sport party can get elected with 225 first choice votes if the other parties like them enough!
How do you read "with humility" (sans Sven's infamous "eat-my-feet" venality). In my mind 'humility' is an emotive rather than an action 'to be under-taken'. I understand that you may be able to "comprehend" with a sense of "humility"; reading with such-like...?
:off-to-actually-read-article: >>>>
Post of the day! But more – the source is a nice example of a simple psycho-social experiment that is pertinent to many of the discussions here. A few pb.com egos might deflate if they read it with humility.
Utterly depressing they could even reach the conclusion they did after using such a simple example.
No wonder we end up with the governments we do.
Just in time to see the final denouement of Yvette replacing Ed and my shed coming in.... ????
The PB Tories led by Cohen, Hodges, Blunkett, Rentoul, Aaronovitch are all putting in the foundations for me in the garden!
Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public sector union Unison, said the party had to "get its act together".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24009526
Like clips of Brown as comedy PM, neither of them are coming back home again and it's a loss that's easier to take with one than the other....
Soldado's best Spurs penalties isn't quite doing it yet. Still plenty of time.
Army with retained firefighters and police escort.
The loto and the Government of the day, always have some difficulty with emergency workers going on strike in a free society.
It is the sound bites, and the response to the FBU strike action, she will condemn.
"The lesson from Tony Abbott's victory in Australia: Tories, stop drifting to the soggy centre"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/douglascarswellmp/100234389/the-lesson-from-tony-abbotts-victory-in-australia-tories-stop-drifting-to-the-soggy-centre/
While Carswell is right that voters respond well to authenticity - I fear he may not like where most of them are - the 'soggy centre'......
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/miliband-has-to-win-the-fight-that-hes-started/
BBC on the Unions.
Role reversal.
Unity is strength.
Abbott is 4/10, sadly for Labor Rudd was 3/10.
Had Turnbull led the Liberals on current data he would have almost had a whitewash, and certainly left Labor with only a rump.
Labor people loved him, Liberals loved him as he is so damned cool in his leather jacket. His honesty and integrity helps too.
I think Abbott will be better than many think. Firefighter, lifesaver and supporter of indigenous rights, and tough on economic waste.
Miliband may have lost the first battle, but he may yet win the war. - It will be interesting to see what reception he receives at conference from the Unions.
But times are very different now. H&S would prevent people from having candles lit on their desks to work by, and anyway the computers would be down, in those far-off days it was paper-pushing.
If the power was off for long enough, mobile phones & everything else battery-dependent would go dead.
The FBU would be a totally seperate case, there is always a certain unease, on both sides of the dispute about emergency workers striking. It is very difficult for politicians to set the right tone, and how far to get involved in solving the differences between employer and the union.
What do you think of the staff... wonderful
Do you think you have waited too long in emergency .. Yes.
Do you think the Governments cuts have made it worse..Yes.
Do the staff work hard .. Yes
Says it all really
Is your cell too small..yes
How bad is the food..very bad
Do you think your sentence is too long .. Yes
Do you think you should be let out at weekends ..Yes
Are the wardens horrible...Yes
Says it all really
http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/guide/mcew/
The Global warming scam comes to a crashing halt.
All we need for confirmation is a thickening of Alpine glaciers this winter reversing a few years of decline.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/federal-election/gunloving-liberal-democrats-pull-off-greatest-election-fluke/story-fnho52ip-1226714717569#ixzz2eK0Vi1Q5
Is Leprosy awful..yes
Should the government do something about it before Christmas..yes
Result.. 100% of leper victims blame the government for their awful condition and demand a cure by Christmas.Duh
One of the core functions of nursing is the caring aspect, building a bond with patients and simply providing company. All of these factors help with the healing rates and help with spotting problems early.
By encouraging nurses to act more like doctors, and by encouraging agency staff, they have loosened the bond nurses establish with patients - and in many cases some nurses have lost sight of the importance of the "caring functions". Giving an elderly patient a bed bath, for instance, is a horrible job, but it needs to be done quickly and in such a way as to preserve dignity to the extent possible. The intention was to save money, but the consequences expensive.
Give nurses more independence / authority (I quite like senior nurses having ward responsibility rather than centralised management) and hold them accountable for the results.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/30/liverpool-gravedigger-strikes
If Ed were more decisive and authoritative we simply would not have these kinds of disasters.
Similarly, it is clearly Ed's fault that Unions are talking about general strikes and the other nonsense they talk about every year before the TUC conference in an ever more desperate attempt to get some attention. The tiny and insignificant detail that he has no control over the Unions or England's cricket team is absolutely no excuse. This is all his fault.
Sk*s verdict '' Ioo percent of leper victims blame the government for not doing more .
Talk about a captive audience..
The unionised will be in the public sector.
There's a good factual summary of the status of the privatisation plans here:
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06668.pdf
Passion to recieve your bills by post, and your pension in cash.
About time we moved on.
"In my industry, at least, without QA/QC you don't have a product."
You musn't mistake produce a quality product with producing a QAed product.
In my experience most of the time spent following QA procedures in accordance with the latest British Standard or government regulation is pointless, even counterproductive.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/eddie-barnes-reasons-for-backing-the-union-1-3081868
Apolgies for my error last week in thinking you had joined Avery in suggesting that EdM wanted a second Syria vote.
IIRC you had linked to a newspaper article suggesting so and I had mistakenly assumed that you agreed with it.
I should have known better than that you would join Avery in his somewhat erratic behaviour of that day.
The future is online shopping and delivery,mail through the door is 90% junk for the domestic market,emails etc have killed the old letter market. They need to gear up more for the home delivery market.
I have all the usual complaints about RM,I am convinced that some days they cannot be arsed making a delivery round,as I get no mail,and nor do my neighbours,and next day,I get a bumper delivery,parcels are just not delivered,you have to go to the local centre etc.
I sell stuff on ebay,and I always avoid RM,they cannot compete at the moment.
Sorry to our Scottish friends,but if you choose to live in remote places,you have to pay for it.
" We have a number of advantages - language, location etc. Additionally, we have easy access to the global law of business (English), and a relatively predictable and attractive tax and regualtory system.
This means we attract more than our fair share of talented international individuals to London to work in financial services. There's nothing fundamental keeping them there - but there is the classic "cluster" effect where it makes sense for competing companies to group together in the same geographical area. "
Certainly the City has numerous advantages at this time - as once did the British shipbuilding and motorcycle making industries.
But whether it keeps them is another matter as economic and political power shifts to Asia.
And even though being at the top is a nice place to be it still requires continuous improvment to maintain that position.
Is the City capable of that anymore or is it like most things that reached a peak liable to fall prey to complacency, self congratulation and self-indulgance. Six years ago many people would have argued that British retail banks were world leaders, we know what has happened since. How much of the City might go the same way over the next generation or two?
And if the City isn't able to achieve continuous improvement it will still be in a high cost, high tax, high regulation area vulnerable to overseas competitors able to provide a cheaper and/or better product.
Remember that Amsterdam, Lisbon and Venice were once among the great centres of financial services, where are they now?
I suspect more people care about POC - which has a real impact on their day-to-day life - than Royal Mail
But if you don't meet QA standards then the regulators will shut the manufacturing plant. Inspections are at least every 3 years plus on an ad hoc basis in between. And it's an absolute bugger to get them up and running again once they are shut.
the last survivor of the Führerbunker has died aged 96.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochus_Misch
That's a legitimate political choice. Not one I agree with, as it happens, but it's not a rigged market.
So you have shown that you are complacent.
What you should have said was "becoming complacent is a worry and one which we must continually guard against".
RBS etc would have said "There's no complacency, believe me" in 2007 and prior.
Likewise the support that the City has shown for all things EU was itself complacent as it didn't allow for the possibility that the EU would act in an anti-City manner.
Running total of Unite backed candidates
15 won
19 lost
6 to go
"I know that the child died / product was crap but all the procedures were adhered to."
But yes, the important thing is a regulated and competitive market, rather than who owns the participants.
On topic, I was one of the rebels on Mandelson's plan to privatise 49% and got called in for a personal appeal. We talked through the politics of it, which were awful - the party was solidly opposed, and the other parties were just itching to go 100%. I wasn't impressed. Then he said, "And there's also the point that it's right, though. That should still count for something, don't you think? The Mail does need new technology and energy, and the 49-51% split is a reasonable compromise."
I'd so bought into the image of Mandy as a brilliant schemer and nothing but that it impressed me that, 12 years into the government, he was still searching for new policies that would make things better rather than just maneuvering. (I still didn't buy it, mainly because I was sure the Tories and Libdems would then top it up to 100%, which IMO is against the public interest.)
The main snag as far as popular opinion goes is that the Bill doesn't guarantee the Post Office link for long. People probably don't care that much who delivers the post, but they like their POs, especially in the smaller townms and villages.
Mr Abbott's mob sounds like a pretty Good Egg party too:
"Abbott next pledged to deliver: "A government of no surprises and no excuses. A government that understands the limits of power as well as its potential."
Key phrase: "the limits of power." To Australians who are justifiably sick of governments using our money for everything from defining art to changing the weather, Abbott's embrace of limits is a delicious moment."
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/mr-deeds-comes-to-town-with-real-plan/story-fni0cwl5-1226714771096
Believe me there is no complacency - of course we guard against it developing.
I just didn't feel the need to point out the flaming obvious.