@Felix Sometimes not standing for stuff is a good place to start. I am a director of a highly profitable start-up company that over the last 10 years has grown to employ over 20 people, all on a living wage, without taking on a penny of debt. I should be a natural Tory. But I started life in a working class family and made my way thanks to a generous welfare state that looked after my health, gave me a free education until I was 21, supported me (and paid my mortgage) when I was unemployed, and did not force me into the first job available, but instead gave me a bit of time to find the right one. My wife was also born into a working class family and took the same path as me. She's now a teacher. I see the state as an enabler; the Tories seem to see it as the enemy. I believe that the vast majority of people claiming benefits either work or would like nothing more than a job; the Tories have made it clear they see such people as shirkers; i know teachers work hard, often spend their own money to make sure their classes are properly equipped and only want the best for their pupils; the Tories want to confront them.
I don't begin to pretend that Labour has all the answers. I have argued many times on here for a realignment on the centre-left that reflects the realities of 21st century Britain. But the Conservative party seems to despise what I believe in, denigrates the work my wife does and gives every impression of holding millions of Britons in the public sector and on benefits in contempt. That is not a party I could ever support. Sorry.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
Scott is just upset cos the Kippers are sticking Labour in power. Scott liked to think he was changing the election outcome by posting here. Now he is realising he has just wasted a large period of his life.
One of the interesting questions about the Referendum coming up with a No vote is, how long before the SNP implodes afterwards? Their one chance for so many different and radical beliefs to put their own particular version of an independent Scotland into being, gone for at least a generation. The one target of blame being the one person who has led the charge to the equivalent of Flodden.
Already we are hearing the about the nudges and winks in the direction of Sturgeon, Murrell and Pringle as Salmond looks to shift the possible blame and allow himself to return from watching spiders in his cave, safe, to try, try, try again.
Stuart_Dickson Panelbase/Sunday Times Scottish Parliament voting intention Constituency vote SNP 45% (n/c) Lab 32% (n/c) Con 12% (-2) LD 5% (-3)
If unfortunately the referendum is No, the LDs will be trying to save 11 MP seats on this base? Also the SNP may decide to maximise their MPs to have the highest number of Scots MPs. Maybe then the SNP hold the balance of power in a result similar to Feb 1974?
Bah. The treaty-talk is boring. Whilst important, it seems everyone's reached their position and are unlikely to change it.
Miss Fitalass, Adonis is being a daft sod. A so-called rainbow coalition would've been unstable. There was a single option for a sustained, stable government, and that was a Con-Lib coalition.
A Conservative minority *may* have worked but I'm not convinced it would've proven practical. We know Miliband is an opportunistic little shit. With no presence in government, would the Lib Dems really have avoided the temptation to follow suit, and instead backed unpopular but necessary government measures? That's deeply unlikely.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
I see we've got Southam telling us how much he dislikes the Conservative party again.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
Miss Fitalass, Adonis is being a daft sod. A so-called rainbow coalition would've been unstable. There was a single option for a sustained, stable government, and that was a Con-Lib coalition.
Not only that, but
"Clegg made a series of serious misjudgments... First, he closed down his options. By saying that he was obliged to seek agreement with the party that had won the most seats – a mythical constitutional doctrine – he gave legitimacy to the Tories."
It might be a "mythical constitutional doctrine" but it would be nice of m'Lord Adonis, who I believe has never sought nor received election to any political post, to acknowledge the will of the electorate. The Tories might not have won the election, in the sense of having an overall majority, but they got more votes and more seats than anyone else and Labour definitely lost it. In those circumstances, talking to the "winning" party first seems reasonable, if not mandated. And "legitimacy to the Tories"!! They are legitimate and were the largest party in Parliament, put there by the electorate. Legitimacy my arse.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
SO: if you cared about others, then you would not vote for the party (Labour) that always has unemployment higher when they leave power than when they begin.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Polls do show that disliking the Tory party is a majority position though.
Are we talking VI? In which we could claim that a majority dislike Labour as well. Or are you referring to some other measure of "disliking the Tory party"? In which course I am sure you will post a link to your source.
No sector has a monopoly of virtue, or of mendacity, greed and self regard for that matter.
Was I educated for free? Was I treated in state hospitals for free? Was I supported on the welfare state when I was briefly unemployed? Yes I was. I am not just grateful to the state for those things, I am also grateful for the private sector tax payers that funded these things.
I am sceptical of some of the public sector "reforms" sponsored by all three major parties. All too often these combine the greed of the private sector with the poor customer service of the public sector. I am not at all convinced that hybridisation of the two is much use.
I saw what Labour did to the NHS with its top down stalanist targets, and the war mongering in Iraq, so the scales were lifted from my eyes. Just as SO cannot bring himself to vote Tory; it would take a long time for me to vote Labour again. Perhaps when no one is left who held cabinet post under Brown or Blair has gone I may consider it.
Choose your toxicity, choose your poison.
Ashcrofts table 10 shows little difference between the parties in terms of "moving away from", indeed the LDs are the most repulsive in the table, not the Tories.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
This Ed is Crap and the shadow cabinet is crap, reminds me of when people say"I know United won the league but they didn't play well" What does that make those teams below them? If the above mentioned are crap, what does that make Comedy Dave and his cabinet seeing they are behind in the polls, way behind in the marginals and have the benefit of quite a few expensive political strategist experts helping their cause?
I see we've got Southam telling us how much he dislikes the Conservative party again.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
If you had actually read my post properly you would have seen that I am not a dyed in the wool Labour supporter. I have also supported grammar schools on here a number of times, though in practical terms I doubt they are reintroduceable. If you want to dismiss all those who dislike the Tories as middle class metropolitans, then we can only conclude that you believe most people in this country are middle class metropolitans.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
SO: if you cared about others, then you would not vote for the party (Labour) that always has unemployment higher when they leave power than when they begin.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Our company began, grew and prospered under the last Labour government, though that was not enough to persuade me to vote Labour in 2010.
I find the ermine clad "Lords" to be appropriately decorated in the skins of secretive dead vermin. A title is a useful marker of a scoundrel with good connections. The sooner the House of Lords is abolished the better. Why should this unelected has been have the right to make laws for me to follow?
Miss Fitalass, Adonis is being a daft sod. A so-called rainbow coalition would've been unstable. There was a single option for a sustained, stable government, and that was a Con-Lib coalition.
Not only that, but
"Clegg made a series of serious misjudgments... First, he closed down his options. By saying that he was obliged to seek agreement with the party that had won the most seats – a mythical constitutional doctrine – he gave legitimacy to the Tories."
It might be a "mythical constitutional doctrine" but it would be nice of m'Lord Adonis, who I believe has never sought nor received election to any political post, to acknowledge the will of the electorate. The Tories might not have won the election, in the sense of having an overall majority, but they got more votes and more seats than anyone else and Labour definitely lost it. In those circumstances, talking to the "winning" party first seems reasonable, if not mandated. And "legitimacy to the Tories"!! They are legitimate and were the largest party in Parliament, put there by the electorate. Legitimacy my arse.
I see we've got Southam telling us how much he dislikes the Conservative party again.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
Polls do show that disliking the Tory party is a majority position though. A poll of PB Tories absolves the Tory Party itself of all blame for this of course.
I dislike what the Conservative party has become and I dare say there's plenty on the political right who do likewise even among those who grudgingly still vote for it.
The PB Tories do their party no favours but the same can be said for cheerleaders of any party. Likewise there are people in all parties who will blame their failings on anyone but themselves - for example there's been a recent spate of blaming Labour's failings on the 'Tory Press'.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
SO: if you cared about others, then you would not vote for the party (Labour) that always has unemployment higher when they leave power than when they begin.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Our company began, grew and prospered under the last Labour government, though that was not enough to persuade me to vote Labour in 2010.
My point was that without the previous Tory reforms - which Blair did not roll back - it would have been very different. Labour made it harder for small private business, and given longer spells in power it would be a lot worse.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
You wouldn't expect Clarkson to come near to winning this seat, but I doubt that he would lose his deposit. And although it might be hugely entertaining for the rest of us, its also going to be the kind of high profile local distraction that Ed Miliband could do without during the GE campaign.
You do sound rather guilt-ridden and apologetic about your success - your views on the public sector seem overly sentimentalised - public or private the first concern should be good service which puts the customer first. Most employed in both sectors provide this - but some in the public sector think they are under-rewarded and harshly treated compared to those outside. It simply isn't true - and there are bad apples in both - sorting out problems in the public sector is the job of government. Teacher, nurse, doctor are all alike - other countries have comparable systems to the UK. These issues require facing up to rationally and calmly not the misty-eyed 'we love the NHS' response whenever uncomfortable headlines occur. Every S.oS has been booed at public sector Union conferences they don't differentiate between the parties.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
SO: if you cared about others, then you would not vote for the party (Labour) that always has unemployment higher when they leave power than when they begin.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Our company began, grew and prospered under the last Labour government, though that was not enough to persuade me to vote Labour in 2010.
My point was that without the previous Tory reforms - which Blair did not roll back - it would have been very different. Labour made it harder for small private business, and given longer spells in power it would be a lot worse.
To be honest, i'd say both parties have done little but pay lip service to small businesses. But, again, I have said quite a few times on here that I owe a lot to Thatcherist thinking. Labour only became electable again once its leadership understood that much of what she did was necessary.
I see we've got Southam telling us how much he dislikes the Conservative party again.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
If you had actually read my post properly you would have seen that I am not a dyed in the wool Labour supporter. I have also supported grammar schools on here a number of times, though in practical terms I doubt they are reintroduceable. If you want to dismiss all those who dislike the Tories as middle class metropolitans, then we can only conclude that you believe most people in this country are middle class metropolitans.
Predictably enough you miss the point.
Perhaps you could explain how those nasty Tories oppressed you when they gave you a grammar school and free university education.
Or perhaps you might consider whether a working class lad in inner London would have had the same opportunities in life in the 2000s and 2010s as you did a generation earlier.
But you much prefer to wallow in your 'nasty Tories' comfort zone.
And why? Because you're not a Tory and so it makes you feel all nice and self-righteous in comparison to the 'nasty Tories'
You're actually guilty of the very thing you accuse the 'nasty Tories' of being. Namely demonising a group you don't like for your own personal benefit.
I see we've got Southam telling us how much he dislikes the Conservative party again.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
Polls do show that disliking the Tory party is a majority position though. A poll of PB Tories absolves the Tory Party itself of all blame for this of course.
I dislike what the Conservative party has become and I dare say there's plenty on the political right who do likewise even among those who grudgingly still vote for it.
The PB Tories do their party no favours but the same can be said for cheerleaders of any party. Likewise there are people in all parties who will blame their failings on anyone but themselves - for example there's been a recent spate of blaming Labour's failings on the 'Tory Press'.
"The PB Tories don't do themselves any favours"
They rendered this thread unreadable throughout the summer Richard.
You wouldn't expect Clarkson to come near to winning this seat, but I doubt that he would lose his deposit. And although it might be hugely entertaining for the rest of us, its also going to be the kind of high profile local distraction that Ed Miliband could do without during the GE campaign.
Perhaps you could explain how those nasty Tories oppressed you when they gave you a grammar school and free university education.
Or perhaps you might consider whether a working class lad in inner London would have had the same opportunities in life in the 2000s and 2010s as you did a generation earlier.
But you much prefer to wallow in your 'nasty Tories' comfort zone.
And why? Because you're not a Tory and so it makes you feel all nice and self-righteous in comparison to the 'nasty Tories'
You're actually guilty of the very thing you accuse the 'nasty Tories' of being. Namely demonising a group you don't like for your own personal benefit.
Nope - I just don't share the Tories' view of the world and I dislike the political positions they take. I am not sure what personal benefit I get from that.
As to your specific point, I think that working class kid from inner London has less opportunity now than at any time since the end of the war. That's a failing of both parties, but I am certain as I can be that a smaller state will not solve the problem; neither will labelling him a shirker, saying he can't get housing benefit until he's 25, scrapping the London Challenge, reducing his employment rights or making it even harder for him to get on the housing ladder.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
James Leigh-Pemberton certainly has a good blood-line, Mr. Booth.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
Read this elsewhere about the National Minimum Wage. Is it true?
"The British Textile industry is the simple and obvious illustration of NMW destroying jobs. We said that it would so New Labour amended the law to criminalise the sacking of anyone who generated less than NMW value-added, with the result that even more workers lost their jobs when their employers went bust. More than three-quarters of the workers have lost their jobs since 1997."
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
James Leigh-Pemberton certainly has a good blood-line, Mr. Booth.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
You wouldn't expect Clarkson to come near to winning this seat, but I doubt that he would lose his deposit. And although it might be hugely entertaining for the rest of us, its also going to be the kind of high profile local distraction that Ed Miliband could do without during the GE campaign.
Read this elsewhere about the National Minimum Wage. Is it true?
"The British Textile industry is the simple and obvious illustration of NMW destroying jobs. We said that it would so New Labour amended the law to criminalise the sacking of anyone who generated less than NMW value-added, with the result that even more workers lost their jobs when their employers went bust. More than three-quarters of the workers have lost their jobs since 1997."
It's suspicious that they base a claim on a period that long. If you wanted to find job losses caused by the minimum wage you'd be better comparing a shorter span before and after it was introduced. I don't have any numbers but I'm guessing UK textile jobs are in long-term decline, since there are much cheaper places to hire people than Britain even without the minimum wage.
As to your specific point, I think that working class kid from inner London has less opportunity now than at any time since the end of the war. That's a failing of both parties, but I am certain as I can be that a smaller state will not solve the problem;
What 'smaller state' is that ?
As a businessman you should be well aware that the state is interfering more and more.
What we have is a state that increasingly looks upon the people of this country as its servants not its shareholders.
A state which doesn't think its there to help the average people but instead that the average person is there to obey its instructions.
Getting rid of that statist mentality will benefit the young more than older generations.
neither will labelling him a shirker, saying he can't get housing benefit until he's 25, scrapping the London Challenge, reducing his employment rights or making it even harder for him to get on the housing ladder.
You could say pretty much similar things about how Labour treated the young while in government. There was nothing so damaging to the economic and housing prospects of the younger generation than allowing over a million economic migrants for example.
And how often do we hear from the PB leftists that we need immigration because "the locals aren't willing to work".
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS Avery I;m a thatcherite tory and even I'm asking when was the last time a person from a modest background got a powerful job with this government.
There isn't even a token John Prescott type.
Let's face it, ordinary people are neither liked nor trusted.
It looks like something from 'Jeeves and Wooster'.
Except Bertie and his chums never aspired to run the country.
How Oliver Letwin is still fluttering around in government has always astonished me, he has a greater potential for causing disaster than even Oliver Hardy did.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS Avery I;m a thatcherite tory and even I'm asking when was the last time a person from a modest background got a powerful job with this government.
There isn't even a token John Prescott type.
Let's face it, ordinary people are neither liked nor trusted.
That the CEO of Credit Suisse's UK businesses has been appointed to handle the privatisation of the intervened UK banks is hardly surprising, taffys,
It was either that or an N.M. Rothschild or Goldman Sachs bod, although the latter two types would be unlikely to give up their private remuneration packages for the peanuts offered by a government job.
In the distorted world in which we live, JLP's acceptance of his appointment should be seen as an true act of self-less public service.
The job requires contacts and influence throughout the city and international banking community. A big name with long experience of the industry and impeccable national service credentials in the family is just what's needed. Finding buyers for £50 billion plus of taxpayer debt financed shares in a difficult market for bank shares is going to be a tough task.
In this particular case, James Leigh-Pemberton seems to be an inspired appointment.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS Avery I;m a thatcherite tory and even I'm asking when was the last time a person from a modest background got a powerful job with this government.
There isn't even a token John Prescott type.
Let's face it, ordinary people are neither liked nor trusted.
It looks like something from 'Jeeves and Wooster'.
Except Bertie and his chums never aspired to run the country.
How Oliver Letwin is still fluttering around in government has always astonished me, he has a greater potential for causing disaster than even Oliver Hardy did.
If you knew James Leigh-Pemberton, you wouldn't be saying that, ar.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS Avery I;m a thatcherite tory and even I'm asking when was the last time a person from a modest background got a powerful job with this government.
There isn't even a token John Prescott type.
Let's face it, ordinary people are neither liked nor trusted.
Cameron and Osborne draw from and feel comfortable in a caste system. The occasional untouchable gets through, but it's not often
tim
This is a glorified salesman's job. Except that it is selling product which is arguably worth £50 billion.
Someone good at sums, with the gift of the gab, and with rich friends and contacts is just what is needed.
I am all for improving the life chances of Cheshire farmers but giving them the job of selling equity in British Banks to overseas investors would be a step too far in risk taking.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
Or that he is a very senior investment banker with more than 2 decades of experience in advising clients on how to exit major investments in public companies. For what it's worth, his predecessor Jim O'Neill (who I know well and like a lot) was born and bred in Kentucky and definitely didn't got to Eton. OrSt. Paul's, even, like Osbrone.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
James Leigh-Pemberton certainly has a good blood-line, Mr. Booth.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS enough Etonian.
ONE BEGINS TO PUKE
How can you not see this, you f*cking Tory morons? It's like you WANT to lose. Ugh.
Sean
I don't think James Leigh-Pemberton will be calling on you in Camden with a request to underwrite the first placement of £5 billion of Lloyds Banking Group shares.
That will have to wait until after you have finished your sixth novel and your daughters are firmly ensconced at Cheltenham Ladies College.
"Dr Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, said the veils are “deeply offensive” and are “making women invisible”. She suggested that the niqab should be banned in schools and colleges.
Writing for The Telegraph, she said: “It would be a perverse distortion of freedom if we knowingly allowed the restriction of communication in the very schools and colleges which should be equipping girls with skills for the modern world. We must not abandon our cultural belief that women should fully and equally participate in society.”
Is this Jeremy Browne trying to make up for his silly comments about Romanians the other day?
Jeremy Browne may have been concerned to hear that people thought he had a human heart after his comments about Romanians and has set out to reassure us that he deserves his status as most hated of all the Lib Dem MPs.
I'd assumed that someone linked to the only privately owned Eton Fives court would have already been given a job by Cameron or Osborne. Why the delay for this one, seems cruel when all his school chums have been advanced more quickly
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
James Leigh-Pemberton certainly has a good blood-line, Mr. Booth.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS enough Etonian.
ONE BEGINS TO PUKE
How can you not see this, you f*cking Tory morons? It's like you WANT to lose. Ugh.
The Cameroons aren't bothered about losing in 2015 as long as they are able to control the Conservative party.
They have less to fear or dislike from EdM in government than they would the Conservatives having a working or lower middle class leadership.
So their every move is an attempt to exert control over the Conservatives and to show their hatred for their less privileged rivals.
Richard II's words after the Peasants Revolt sums up the Cameroon mentality:
"rustics you were and rustics you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher".
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
Or that he is a very senior investment banker with more than 2 decades of experience in advising clients on how to exit major investments in public companies. For what it's worth, his predecessor Jim O'Neill (who I know well and like a lot) was born and bred in Kentucky and definitely didn't got to Eton. OrSt. Paul's, even, like Osbrone.
No. More. Etonians.
There should be a sign up in every Whitehall department.
No. More. Etonians.
I know fervent rightwingers who are close to chucking a lung at the posh-boy incestuousness of this ludicrously public school government. Worse than that, these people are thinking of voting non Tory. Look at Sean Fear on this blog - decamped to UKIP, partly because of the Tory Poshness Problem.
A few chinless twits are destroying a great party in a single decade. Well played, old chap.
In this case he deserves the job. But I have a lot of sympathy for your and taffy's position (I'm in the FFS, WTF have they done that for camp). You would expect that there would be a disproportionate percentage of well-educated people in the top jobs (especially of that age) and I am sure there are elements of mischevious media (it's not interesting if they didn't go to Eton) so the overall percentage won't be that out of line.
But facts sometimes don't matter when there is a perception issue.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
James Leigh-Pemberton certainly has a good blood-line, Mr. Booth.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
FFS enough Etonian.
ONE BEGINS TO PUKE
How can you not see this, you f*cking Tory morons? It's like you WANT to lose. Ugh.
The Cameroons aren't bothered about losing in 2015 as long as they are able to control the Conservative party.
They have less to fear or dislike from EdM in government than they would the Conservatives having a working or lower middle class leadership.
So their every move is an attempt to exert control over the Conservatives and to show their hatred for their less privileged rivals.
Richard II's words after the Peasants Revolt sums up the Cameroon mentality:
"rustics you were and rustics you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher".
I was never that fussed about The Veil until a few months ago when my mother was sent flying by a woman in a Burka.
My Mother was convinced this woman couldn't see her (my mother) in her peripheral vision - She literally charged into my mother as though she wasn't there.
She also just carried on storming up the street without aplogogy or seemingly registering that she'd sent someone flying to the ground...
So maybe they should be banned on grounds of health and safety...
Sorry, but my irony meter just blew up at that tirade. You will obviously not be a fan of Nigel Farage or how he runs UKIP then.
You say you have an irony meter ?
Now that's an irony.
Actually I don't think Farage runs UKIP very efficiently although he seems to be running it rather more effectively than the Cameroons are running the Conservative party.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
Or that he is a very senior investment banker with more than 2 decades of experience in advising clients on how to exit major investments in public companies. For what it's worth, his predecessor Jim O'Neill (who I know well and like a lot) was born and bred in Kentucky and definitely didn't got to Eton. OrSt. Paul's, even, like Osbrone.
No. More. Etonians.
There should be a sign up in every Whitehall department.
No. More. Etonians.
I know fervent rightwingers who are close to chucking a lung at the posh-boy incestuousness of this ludicrously public school government. Worse than that, these people are thinking of voting non Tory. Look at Sean Fear on this blog - decamped to UKIP, partly because of the Tory Poshness Problem.
A few chinless twits are destroying a great party in a single decade. Well played, old chap.
In this case he deserves the job. But I have a lot of sympathy for your and taffy's position (I'm in the FFS, WTF have they done that for camp). You would expect that there would be a disproportionate percentage of well-educated people in the top jobs (especially of that age) and I am sure there are elements of mischevious media (it's not interesting if they didn't go to Eton) so the overall percentage won't be that out of line.
But facts sometimes don't matter when there is a perception issue.
Old Etonian James Leigh Pemberton to be new head of UK Financial Investments. Now it's quite possible he got the role because of sheer merit, or perhaps George thought that since he's an old Etonian he's probably one of us.
Or that he is a very senior investment banker with more than 2 decades of experience in advising clients on how to exit major investments in public companies. For what it's worth, his predecessor Jim O'Neill (who I know well and like a lot) was born and bred in Kentucky and definitely didn't got to Eton. OrSt. Paul's, even, like Osbrone.
No. More. Etonians.
There should be a sign up in every Whitehall department.
No. More. Etonians.
I know fervent rightwingers who are close to chucking a lung at the posh-boy incestuousness of this ludicrously public school government. Worse than that, these people are thinking of voting non Tory. Look at Sean Fear on this blog - decamped to UKIP, partly because of the Tory Poshness Problem.
A few chinless twits are destroying a great party in a single decade. Well played, old chap.
In this case he deserves the job. But I have a lot of sympathy for your and taffy's position (I'm in the FFS, WTF have they done that for camp). You would expect that there would be a disproportionate percentage of well-educated people in the top jobs (especially of that age) and I am sure there are elements of mischevious media (it's not interesting if they didn't go to Eton) so the overall percentage won't be that out of line.
But facts sometimes don't matter when there is a perception issue.
This new bloke might deserve the job but as so many chinless wonders clearly don't deserve their jobs you'll understand why people are somewhat cynical about things and why perceptions are so bad.
We need someone like Tony Abbott in British politics. Someone the right can truly love and the left can truly despise.
Whoever comes after The Etonians will surely be similar to Abbott, because eventually the Conservative Party will want go for the Anti-Eton canididate to move on from the Cameron/Osborne era.
Whether this person will actually be any better at winning elections than Cameron/Osborne remains to be seen...
More importantly, Cameron's much loved and even posher wife flatly refuses to invite these proles to supper, causing discord, so it's always so much easier to hire another Old Etonian. They fit right in.
I think I was the first person to point out Cameron's insecurity towards his wife.
His desperate attempts to maintain her approval are remeniscent of his desperate attempts to gain that of Obama. So whatever her latest interest is - windmills, gay marriage, bombing Syria - soon becomes government policy.
Cameron is a lump of arrogance on a ladder feeling insecure whether he looks up or down.
More importantly, Cameron's much loved and even posher wife flatly refuses to invite these proles to supper, causing discord, so it's always so much easier to hire another Old Etonian. They fit right in.
Cameron is a lump of arrogance on a ladder feeling insecure whether he looks up or down.
Aren't we all, ar?
Forcing Sam to weekend at Chequers is like getting a town mayor to retire to a bungalow.
After Normanby Hall, everything is a disappointment. Even Angela's renovated Schloss.
We need someone like Tony Abbott in British politics. Someone the right can truly love and the left can truly despise.
Whoever comes after The Etonians will surely be similar to Abbott, because eventually the Conservative Party will want go for the Anti-Eton canididate to move on from the Cameron/Osborne era.
Whether this person will actually be any better at winning elections than Cameron/Osborne remains to be seen...
Quite right, Gin.
The Conservatives tried Heath (son of a builder), Major (son of a trapeze artist) and Thatcher (daughter of a grocer).
Only one worked.
It is not the class. It's the character.
Look what upper middle class, public school and Oxbridge educated, married into showbiz star Tony Blair did for Labour.
David Cameron is like a posh version of Edward Heath. And I think Heath deserves more credit, coming from an ordinary background, however pompous he eventually became.
Regarding Clarkson agree it would likely be a lost deposit unless he became candidate for Con or UKIP. On the other hand though he is from Doncaster and the locals showed a bit of an independent streak with the election of Peter Davies in 2009 (narrowly lost 2013). Also worth noting that Ed Miliband's record in the seat is hardly stellar:
2005 - Lost 7.6% of the vote compared to 2001 2010 - Lost 8.8% of the vote compared to 2005
That said I would expect him to gain share in 2015. However, in the longer term this seat could be vulnerable to UKIP if Labour get back into Government and become unpopular.
Regarding Clarkson agree it would likely be a lost deposit unless he became candidate for Con or UKIP. On the other hand though he is from Doncaster and the locals showed a bit of an independent streak with the election of Peter Davies in 2009 (narrowly lost 2013). Also worth noting that Ed Miliband's record in the seat is hardly stellar:
2005 - Lost 7.6% of the vote compared to 2001 2010 - Lost 8.8% of the vote compared to 2005
That said I would expect him to gain share in 2015. However, in the longer term this seat could be vulnerable to UKIP if Labour get back into Government and become unpopular.
I'm not sure about the vote shares but it looks like the swing beats the national average both times.
The Australian electorate of Indi which is still being decided proves that people clearly vote against a candidate on occasions instead of voting for a candidate. Your dislike of someone winning means you vote for someone else who you may not agree with but may be less bad than the expected winner. I think that mindset is the best hope for the LibDems in the UK, few want to vote for them yet peoples dislike of others may improve their vote above expectations.
A trend on pb lately has been polling micro-focus. It's a trend which probably began Stateside, and which to an extent has been taken up by Michael Ashcroft. Nowhere now does it more regularly (some might say monotonaously) than pb.com. In particular the trend has emerged of focusing on the 2010 LibDem voters, something which perhaps suits Smithson as a LibDem.
I don't have the time to do a proper hatchet job on this theory, and I'll leave it to others to pick up the cudgel, or rather cudgels, for this micro-focus has many flaws. All I will do here is set out a number of reasons why it is a dead-end alley. Some of these are obvious but need re-stating, others may be less so. These apply to General Election polling.
1. Polls are rarely accurate. Election after election they get it wrong. Much has been made of a so-called 'gold standard' pollster, when in reality it generally means this pollster was lucky enough to stick the tail the right place on the donkey's arse three times in a row. What's that? The fourth time it wasn't so good? There's a surprise.
2. To an extent this isn't the pollsters fault. Until the night before the vote, when they rarely poll, they are attempting something artificial, namely: 'how would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?' Well there isn't going to be a General Election tomorrow, and 9/10ths of the population, actually make that 99/100ths of the population, have no interest in the question whatsoever, which leads me to
3. Most people don't care about politics. It's very very boring. It has become even more so over the last twenty years. Actually it's deathly dull to most people. So unless there's a genuine local campaign (viz NIMBY) like HS2 they would much rather be watching / listening to / doing other things. No-one but anoraks go around thinking about how they would vote tomorrow.
4. It's all about floating voters, of which I'm one, unlike almost everyone else on pb.com. I've voted for all three main parties. We are the people who decide the election because we're pliable. Unlike almost all other floating voters I find politics interesting, probably because I studied it. Other floaters don't.
5. People forget and lie. This is the most important so far. As point 4 I am interested in politics yet I, yep me who took politics, cannot remember how I voted last time. I 'think' I voted LibDem but I'm not actually sure. I might have voted Labour. I either can't fully remember or I have selective memory based on the fact that the LibDems have proved bitterly disappointing. But I'm not sure. I know I vote differently in different elections, and that I have voted for all three parties at least once in the last ten years. See, I'm a floater. But am I a 2010 LibDem voter? That might be what I'd tell the pollster, but I'm not sure.
6. Allied to the fact people forget and lie is the way the voting electorate changes. Around 30 million people vote in a General Election, but they're not the same 30 million. In fact it's surprisingly fluid. People die, move away, others become new voters, some voted last time but won't next and vice versa.
7. So what's the lesson to draw from all this? It's as follows:
I. Do not focus on the minutaie. The more you do the more inaccurate you become. No, the election is NOT just about how many 2010 alleged LibDems switch or don't. That is to look at fern seed a mile away and miss the elephant standing right in front of you.
II. What it IS about is trends. This is the only value in mid-term polling. What are the trends happening? Who is losing support, who is gaining? What are the leads and deficits? These are the key questions.
III. Second to point II are the key associated questions about trust and popularity. Who do you most trust to run the economy and which leader is most liked / disliked. This last question is incredibly important. The General Election IS a like/dislike contest, something that only becomes apparent in the last 4-6 weeks of the campaign when most floaters firm up. Again, look for trends. It's not about levels, it's about trends.
The rest is froth and bubble. In a way, I don't care. In another way I do because this has been a great site and it's deteriorating by too much micro-focus and not enough trend focus, which when driven by an undeniable bias towards LibDems is skewing objective analysis. So in summary:
1. Polls are rarely accurate. Election after election they get it wrong. Much has been made of a so-called 'gold standard' pollster, when in reality it generally means this pollster was lucky enough to stick the tail the right place on the donkey's arse three times in a row. What's that? The fourth time it wasn't so good? There's a surprise.
2. To an extent this isn't the pollsters fault. Until the night before the vote, when they rarely poll, they are attempting something artificial, namely: 'how would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?' Well there isn't going to be a General Election tomorrow, and 9/10ths of the population, actually make that 99/100ths of the population, have no interest in the question whatsoever, which leads me to
3. Most people don't care about politics. It's very very boring. It has become even more so over the last twenty years. Actually it's deathly dull to most people. So unless there's a genuine local campaign (viz NIMBY) like HS2 they would much rather be watching / listening to / doing other things. No-one but anoraks go around thinking about how they would vote tomorrow.
4. It's all about floating voters, of which I'm one, unlike almost everyone else on pb.com. I've voted for all three main parties. We are the people who decide the election because we're pliable. Unlike almost all other floating voters I find politics interesting, probably because I studied it. Other floaters don't.
Do you believe in exit polls? If you don't believe the story the polls are telling about 2010 LibDems breaking for Labour, or you don't believe it will hold up in 2015, we might be able to frame a bet about it that I think will have a lot of takers.
Did Lord Ashcroft interview at least 1,000 people in each constituency that he was polling? That's what you need to do to get an accurate sample AFAIK.
Did Lord Ashcroft interview at least 1,000 people in each constituency that he was polling? That's what you need to do to get an accurate sample AFAIK.
I think it was more like 600 per constituency, which obviously gives you a bigger MoE on that constituency than a typical UK sample of 1000, but it's still fairly respectable. I think it's something like 4% compared to 3%. It's quite common in the US to use sample sizes like this.
After that he's aggregating the constituencies to give you a number for all marginals, and some grouping like "marginals in London", which gives you much bigger sample sizes for those aggregated groups than a typical poll.
A bigger issue here is probably actually finding the voters in the right constituencies in the first place. This isn't necessarily trivial, and pollsters have a lot less experience in doing it than they would in a regular national poll, so there could well be some systematic error there.
I doubt if Ashcroft really got a balanced sample for every constituency - or if he did that explains why it took so long - so aggregation may have been necessary.
Ricardho's comments are an interesting challenge, though he strikes me as a floating voter only in the sense of plato - he's quite partisan now, but has voted for different parties in the past. So have I, but I'm pretty partisan. Anyway, leaving aside the personal - he's right that we get too obsessed by daily polls, and that's partly because we need something to chat about. But Mike is right that the long-term trend of LibDem voter movements is very very clear and very very sustained in scores of polls one after another. It would be eccentric on a betting site to dismiss them as merely the result of polling errors and voter inattention.
Having said which, I'm off to Glasgow for the LD conference. Maybe see some of you there.
Comments
Scott is just upset cos the Kippers are sticking Labour in power. Scott liked to think he was changing the election outcome by posting here. Now he is realising he has just wasted a large period of his life.
Already we are hearing the about the nudges and winks in the direction of Sturgeon, Murrell and Pringle as Salmond looks to shift the possible blame and allow himself to return from watching spiders in his cave, safe, to try, try, try again.
Bah. The treaty-talk is boring. Whilst important, it seems everyone's reached their position and are unlikely to change it.
Miss Fitalass, Adonis is being a daft sod. A so-called rainbow coalition would've been unstable. There was a single option for a sustained, stable government, and that was a Con-Lib coalition.
A Conservative minority *may* have worked but I'm not convinced it would've proven practical. We know Miliband is an opportunistic little shit. With no presence in government, would the Lib Dems really have avoided the temptation to follow suit, and instead backed unpopular but necessary government measures? That's deeply unlikely.
So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
I do suspect that a certain sort of middle class leftist has to keep justifying their Labour support by constantly saying how horrible the Conservative party is.
Otherwise they have no justification for ever voting Labour with Labour's record of constant failure in government.
The moral self satisfaction that hating the Conservative party gives them assuages their guilt of being affluent middle class and having benefited from, for example, grammar school and free university education that Labour ended when in government.
I used to have some time for Adonis, but no more.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Was I educated for free? Was I treated in state hospitals for free? Was I supported on the welfare state when I was briefly unemployed? Yes I was. I am not just grateful to the state for those things, I am also grateful for the private sector tax payers that funded these things.
I am sceptical of some of the public sector "reforms" sponsored by all three major parties. All too often these combine the greed of the private sector with the poor customer service of the public sector. I am not at all convinced that hybridisation of the two is much use.
I saw what Labour did to the NHS with its top down stalanist targets, and the war mongering in Iraq, so the scales were lifted from my eyes. Just as SO cannot bring himself to vote Tory; it would take a long time for me to vote Labour again. Perhaps when no one is left who held cabinet post under Brown or Blair has gone I may consider it.
Choose your toxicity, choose your poison.
Ashcrofts table 10 shows little difference between the parties in terms of "moving away from", indeed the LDs are the most repulsive in the table, not the Tories. So I'm guilt-ridden, apologetic, sentimental and misty-eyed. If only I could be as calm and rational as you, eh? Great stuff.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
Thank-you for making my point for me.
SO: if you cared about others, then you would not vote for the party (Labour) that always has unemployment higher when they leave power than when they begin.
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Our company began, grew and prospered under the last Labour government, though that was not enough to persuade me to vote Labour in 2010.
I find the ermine clad "Lords" to be appropriately decorated in the skins of secretive dead vermin. A title is a useful marker of a scoundrel with good connections. The sooner the House of Lords is abolished the better. Why should this unelected has been have the right to make laws for me to follow? It might be a "mythical constitutional doctrine" but it would be nice of m'Lord Adonis, who I believe has never sought nor received election to any political post, to acknowledge the will of the electorate. The Tories might not have won the election, in the sense of having an overall majority, but they got more votes and more seats than anyone else and Labour definitely lost it. In those circumstances, talking to the "winning" party first seems reasonable, if not mandated. And "legitimacy to the Tories"!! They are legitimate and were the largest party in Parliament, put there by the electorate. Legitimacy my arse.
I used to have some time for Adonis, but no more.
The PB Tories do their party no favours but the same can be said for cheerleaders of any party. Likewise there are people in all parties who will blame their failings on anyone but themselves - for example there's been a recent spate of blaming Labour's failings on the 'Tory Press'.
DailyMail - Labour's election strategy left in chaos by recovering economy
And I doubt very much your entrepreneurial business would have even had the chance to launch had their staunch socialist policies not been interrupted by Conservative governments.
Our company began, grew and prospered under the last Labour government, though that was not enough to persuade me to vote Labour in 2010.
My point was that without the previous Tory reforms - which Blair did not roll back - it would have been very different. Labour made it harder for small private business, and given longer spells in power it would be a lot worse.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 1m
Poll Finding of the Day: 70% tell YouGov they think it is "unlikely" that "EdM will ever become PM" http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/5gddupegm8/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-130913.pdf …
My point was that without the previous Tory reforms - which Blair did not roll back - it would have been very different. Labour made it harder for small private business, and given longer spells in power it would be a lot worse.
To be honest, i'd say both parties have done little but pay lip service to small businesses. But, again, I have said quite a few times on here that I owe a lot to Thatcherist thinking. Labour only became electable again once its leadership understood that much of what she did was necessary.
Perhaps you could explain how those nasty Tories oppressed you when they gave you a grammar school and free university education.
Or perhaps you might consider whether a working class lad in inner London would have had the same opportunities in life in the 2000s and 2010s as you did a generation earlier.
But you much prefer to wallow in your 'nasty Tories' comfort zone.
And why? Because you're not a Tory and so it makes you feel all nice and self-righteous in comparison to the 'nasty Tories'
You're actually guilty of the very thing you accuse the 'nasty Tories' of being. Namely demonising a group you don't like for your own personal benefit.
They rendered this thread unreadable throughout the summer Richard.
Perhaps you could explain how those nasty Tories oppressed you when they gave you a grammar school and free university education.
Or perhaps you might consider whether a working class lad in inner London would have had the same opportunities in life in the 2000s and 2010s as you did a generation earlier.
But you much prefer to wallow in your 'nasty Tories' comfort zone.
And why? Because you're not a Tory and so it makes you feel all nice and self-righteous in comparison to the 'nasty Tories'
You're actually guilty of the very thing you accuse the 'nasty Tories' of being. Namely demonising a group you don't like for your own personal benefit.
Nope - I just don't share the Tories' view of the world and I dislike the political positions they take. I am not sure what personal benefit I get from that.
As to your specific point, I think that working class kid from inner London has less opportunity now than at any time since the end of the war. That's a failing of both parties, but I am certain as I can be that a smaller state will not solve the problem; neither will labelling him a shirker, saying he can't get housing benefit until he's 25, scrapping the London Challenge, reducing his employment rights or making it even harder for him to get on the housing ladder.
He is son of Robin Leigh-Pemberton, the Chairman of NatWest who was chosen, surprisingly at the time, by Maggie Thatcher to be her Governor of the Bank of England. He served a double term at Threadneedle Street before retiring to his Kent estate, Torry Hill, which has one of the few country houses built in the twentieth century. TSE will approve of the fact that Torry Hill has its own private cricket ground, the home ground of the Band of Brothers cricket team founded in 1858. Sunil should similarly approve of its miniature railway which runs through Torry Hill Park. And Charles will appreciate that the estate also possesses the only private Eton Fives court in the country.
James may not yet have risen to his father's lofty heights, but his career has not been without distinction. A career banker with S.G. Warburg he became CEO of Credit Suisse UK in the late noughties.
Both father and son have served as Receiver-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.
About as establishment as you can get, but do not assume that means neither father nor son have no talent.
"The British Textile industry is the simple and obvious illustration of NMW destroying jobs. We said that it would so New Labour amended the law to criminalise the sacking of anyone who generated less than NMW value-added, with the result that even more workers lost their jobs when their employers went bust. More than three-quarters of the workers have lost their jobs since 1997."
Blimey. Was there ever a house so full of cruelty, bitterness and hatred as No 8 Coulthard Street?"
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/15/what-remains-tv-review
FFS Avery I;m a thatcherite tory and even I'm asking when was the last time a person from a modest background got a powerful job with this government.
There isn't even a token John Prescott type.
Let's face it, ordinary people are neither liked nor trusted.
He's just saying he might stand for parliament to get himself a few days of publicity.
As a businessman you should be well aware that the state is interfering more and more.
What we have is a state that increasingly looks upon the people of this country as its servants not its shareholders.
A state which doesn't think its there to help the average people but instead that the average person is there to obey its instructions.
Getting rid of that statist mentality will benefit the young more than older generations. You could say pretty much similar things about how Labour treated the young while in government. There was nothing so damaging to the economic and housing prospects of the younger generation than allowing over a million economic migrants for example.
And how often do we hear from the PB leftists that we need immigration because "the locals aren't willing to work".
Except Bertie and his chums never aspired to run the country.
How Oliver Letwin is still fluttering around in government has always astonished me, he has a greater potential for causing disaster than even Oliver Hardy did.
It was either that or an N.M. Rothschild or Goldman Sachs bod, although the latter two types would be unlikely to give up their private remuneration packages for the peanuts offered by a government job.
In the distorted world in which we live, JLP's acceptance of his appointment should be seen as an true act of self-less public service.
The job requires contacts and influence throughout the city and international banking community. A big name with long experience of the industry and impeccable national service credentials in the family is just what's needed. Finding buyers for £50 billion plus of taxpayer debt financed shares in a difficult market for bank shares is going to be a tough task.
In this particular case, James Leigh-Pemberton seems to be an inspired appointment.
It is a good appointment.
This is a glorified salesman's job. Except that it is selling product which is arguably worth £50 billion.
Someone good at sums, with the gift of the gab, and with rich friends and contacts is just what is needed.
I am all for improving the life chances of Cheshire farmers but giving them the job of selling equity in British Banks to overseas investors would be a step too far in risk taking.
Any feel for how many of the 68 won open contests? Though it must be said that 46.9% is an impressive result however they achieved it.
Britain should consider banning Muslim girls and young women from wearing veils in schools and public places, a Home Office minister has said."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10311469/Jeremy-Browne-Ban-Muslim-women-from-wearing-veils-in-schools-and-public-places.html
Is this Jeremy Browne trying to make up for his silly comments about Romanians the other day?
I don't think James Leigh-Pemberton will be calling on you in Camden with a request to underwrite the first placement of £5 billion of Lloyds Banking Group shares.
That will have to wait until after you have finished your sixth novel and your daughters are firmly ensconced at Cheltenham Ladies College.
"Dr Sarah Wollaston, the MP for Totnes, said the veils are “deeply offensive” and are “making women invisible”. She suggested that the niqab should be banned in schools and colleges.
Writing for The Telegraph, she said: “It would be a perverse distortion of freedom if we knowingly allowed the restriction of communication in the very schools and colleges which should be equipping girls with skills for the modern world. We must not abandon our cultural belief that women should fully and equally participate in society.”
Jason Cowan @jason_manc 3m
Reaction to Jeremy Browne+ @drwollastonmp interventions in veil debate instantly reminds me of response to Jack Straw http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/oct/06/immigrationpolicy.religion …
They have less to fear or dislike from EdM in government than they would the Conservatives having a working or lower middle class leadership.
So their every move is an attempt to exert control over the Conservatives and to show their hatred for their less privileged rivals.
Richard II's words after the Peasants Revolt sums up the Cameroon mentality:
"rustics you were and rustics you are still. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher".
Daily Mail Comment - Clegg and the return of flirty Madame Fifi
But facts sometimes don't matter when there is a perception issue.
My Mother was convinced this woman couldn't see her (my mother) in her peripheral vision - She literally charged into my mother as though she wasn't there.
She also just carried on storming up the street without aplogogy or seemingly registering that she'd sent someone flying to the ground...
So maybe they should be banned on grounds of health and safety...
Here is a Grauniad article: bit.ly/16b2g8i
The charity used to have a much finer name but it was changed to avoid offending the rustics.
Now that's an irony.
Actually I don't think Farage runs UKIP very efficiently although he seems to be running it rather more effectively than the Cameroons are running the Conservative party.
Never explain. Never apologise.
Just spit.
It puts us lower orders in place,
Whether this person will actually be any better at winning elections than Cameron/Osborne remains to be seen...
His desperate attempts to maintain her approval are remeniscent of his desperate attempts to gain that of Obama. So whatever her latest interest is - windmills, gay marriage, bombing Syria - soon becomes government policy.
Cameron is a lump of arrogance on a ladder feeling insecure whether he looks up or down.
Forcing Sam to weekend at Chequers is like getting a town mayor to retire to a bungalow.
After Normanby Hall, everything is a disappointment. Even Angela's renovated Schloss.
The Conservatives tried Heath (son of a builder), Major (son of a trapeze artist) and Thatcher (daughter of a grocer).
Only one worked.
It is not the class. It's the character.
Look what upper middle class, public school and Oxbridge educated, married into showbiz star Tony Blair did for Labour.
2005 - Lost 7.6% of the vote compared to 2001
2010 - Lost 8.8% of the vote compared to 2005
That said I would expect him to gain share in 2015. However, in the longer term this seat could be vulnerable to UKIP if Labour get back into Government and become unpopular.
1983: 26,626
2010: 17,531
Agree with comments below that next Tory leader will not be an Etonian so rules out Boris, however, much he wants it.
I found quite a good post on this very subject:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/majority_conservatism/2012/03/the-grit-list.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/how-a-small-team-of-democrats-defeated-larry-summers-and-obama/279688/
Your dislike of someone winning means you vote for someone else who you may not agree with but may be less bad than the expected winner.
I think that mindset is the best hope for the LibDems in the UK, few want to vote for them yet peoples dislike of others may improve their vote above expectations.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10301435/Can-you-crack-the-code-GCHQ-unveils-fiendish-puzzle-for-new-recruits.html
https://canyoufindit.co.uk/
Indi
Fairfax
McEwen
Parramatta
http://cf.datawrapper.de/AcVho/1/
http://cf.datawrapper.de/AcVho/2/
A trend on pb lately has been polling micro-focus. It's a trend which probably began Stateside, and which to an extent has been taken up by Michael Ashcroft. Nowhere now does it more regularly (some might say monotonaously) than pb.com. In particular the trend has emerged of focusing on the 2010 LibDem voters, something which perhaps suits Smithson as a LibDem.
I don't have the time to do a proper hatchet job on this theory, and I'll leave it to others to pick up the cudgel, or rather cudgels, for this micro-focus has many flaws. All I will do here is set out a number of reasons why it is a dead-end alley. Some of these are obvious but need re-stating, others may be less so. These apply to General Election polling.
1. Polls are rarely accurate. Election after election they get it wrong. Much has been made of a so-called 'gold standard' pollster, when in reality it generally means this pollster was lucky enough to stick the tail the right place on the donkey's arse three times in a row. What's that? The fourth time it wasn't so good? There's a surprise.
2. To an extent this isn't the pollsters fault. Until the night before the vote, when they rarely poll, they are attempting something artificial, namely: 'how would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?' Well there isn't going to be a General Election tomorrow, and 9/10ths of the population, actually make that 99/100ths of the population, have no interest in the question whatsoever, which leads me to
3. Most people don't care about politics. It's very very boring. It has become even more so over the last twenty years. Actually it's deathly dull to most people. So unless there's a genuine local campaign (viz NIMBY) like HS2 they would much rather be watching / listening to / doing other things. No-one but anoraks go around thinking about how they would vote tomorrow.
4. It's all about floating voters, of which I'm one, unlike almost everyone else on pb.com. I've voted for all three main parties. We are the people who decide the election because we're pliable. Unlike almost all other floating voters I find politics interesting, probably because I studied it. Other floaters don't.
5. People forget and lie. This is the most important so far. As point 4 I am interested in politics yet I, yep me who took politics, cannot remember how I voted last time. I 'think' I voted LibDem but I'm not actually sure. I might have voted Labour. I either can't fully remember or I have selective memory based on the fact that the LibDems have proved bitterly disappointing. But I'm not sure. I know I vote differently in different elections, and that I have voted for all three parties at least once in the last ten years. See, I'm a floater. But am I a 2010 LibDem voter? That might be what I'd tell the pollster, but I'm not sure.
6. Allied to the fact people forget and lie is the way the voting electorate changes. Around 30 million people vote in a General Election, but they're not the same 30 million. In fact it's surprisingly fluid. People die, move away, others become new voters, some voted last time but won't next and vice versa.
7. So what's the lesson to draw from all this? It's as follows:
I. Do not focus on the minutaie. The more you do the more inaccurate you become. No, the election is NOT just about how many 2010 alleged LibDems switch or don't. That is to look at fern seed a mile away and miss the elephant standing right in front of you.
II. What it IS about is trends. This is the only value in mid-term polling. What are the trends happening? Who is losing support, who is gaining? What are the leads and deficits? These are the key questions.
III. Second to point II are the key associated questions about trust and popularity. Who do you most trust to run the economy and which leader is most liked / disliked. This last question is incredibly important. The General Election IS a like/dislike contest, something that only becomes apparent in the last 4-6 weeks of the campaign when most floaters firm up. Again, look for trends. It's not about levels, it's about trends.
The rest is froth and bubble. In a way, I don't care. In another way I do because this has been a great site and it's deteriorating by too much micro-focus and not enough trend focus, which when driven by an undeniable bias towards LibDems is skewing objective analysis. So in summary:
The trend is your friend.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDivisionFirstPrefs-17496-160.htm
After that he's aggregating the constituencies to give you a number for all marginals, and some grouping like "marginals in London", which gives you much bigger sample sizes for those aggregated groups than a typical poll.
A bigger issue here is probably actually finding the voters in the right constituencies in the first place. This isn't necessarily trivial, and pollsters have a lot less experience in doing it than they would in a regular national poll, so there could well be some systematic error there.
Ricardho's comments are an interesting challenge, though he strikes me as a floating voter only in the sense of plato - he's quite partisan now, but has voted for different parties in the past. So have I, but I'm pretty partisan. Anyway, leaving aside the personal - he's right that we get too obsessed by daily polls, and that's partly because we need something to chat about. But Mike is right that the long-term trend of LibDem voter movements is very very clear and very very sustained in scores of polls one after another. It would be eccentric on a betting site to dismiss them as merely the result of polling errors and voter inattention.
Having said which, I'm off to Glasgow for the LD conference. Maybe see some of you there.