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For Ukip to have the nationwide organisation capable of putting up candidate in three quarters of the seats is a massive achievement. They’ve nearly beaten the LD total
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I suppose no one knows just how many of these candidates are paper candidates?
Edit: Thanks to Mr Senior for these figures
• Lady Thatcher thought the Tories were not doing badly enough in the polls, Burns said. That's because she felt a government in mid-term should be taking unpopular decisions, he explained.
I remember last November showing her a poll in one of the Sunday papers and it showed that we were nine points behind. And she asked when the next election was and I said it wasn't for another two and a half years. And she said: "That's not far enough behind at this stage." She took a view that to do things that were right did entail unpopularity until people saw that what you were doing was working. And she always had confidence that what she was doing would work, and coincide with the electoral cycle ... which is why she won three general elections and was in power for 11 and a half years.
The party is lacking confidence in itself, not at ease with itself in Government, and various factions are convinced they are the answer. So it will be a real test of the party's strength and discipline over the summer if they do badly.
LibDems would have won that a few years ago (it's in Guildford).
Especially if it leads to changes in attitudes to FPTP
If true, that anecdote could explain a lot about how she managed to wrongly convince herself that she still had the slightest chance in an election in 1991 or 1992.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/09/public-sector-services-hold-up-despite-cuts?CMP=twt_fd
6 Tories unopposed in Wiltshire
1 Tory unopposed in Northumberland
A further 1 seat already guaranteed in Shropshire
6 Labour seats guaranteed in Durham
Lansley's march to victory begins.
But then the general public has only the vaguest idea of who its councillors are anyway, so the perceived distinction between hard-working Fred who has toiled for the community for 30 years and new-boy George who just popped in his nomination papers for a laugh is not as large as we might wish - especially at county level. I suspect that even some of us here would struggle to name their county councillor(s).
I think she was wrong and, anyway, by then hubris was setting in. 10 years is the maximum a leader can sensibly be in power for. Apparently Denis T also thought this but was unable to persuade her to step down voluntarily.
May I say how grateful we are for your decision to cut short your overseas travels and return to PB in its hour of need.
Looking at East Midlands Euro candidates...could you tell me who is Khalid Hadidi?
There's a Khalid Hadadi who is the General-Secretary of the Lebanese Communist Part.
There's also a Khalid Hadadi who is European Affairs Manager at Channel 4.
I guess we can rule out the former, could this KH be the latter?
One strange example is Hynburn in Lancs where the UKIP candidate in Accrington North lives in Padiham and yet Padiham itself has no UKIP candidate .
If you think about a typical would-be Tory candidate, they will be weighing careers and be concerned that life and salary as a (Tory) MP will represent an income drop from one in, say, the Professions. Plus these days with AWS and the like and the need for diversity etc that the chances of being selected are small. Much better (they may think) to go for a broadly similar agenda with a smaller party where the chances of selection will be far higher.
Whether these will remain with UKIP once/if they are not selected will be interesting. They will no longer be political virgins and, knowing the ropes, return to the Cons.
But it might nevertheless mean an uptick in UKIP candidate quality (in particular for the GE rather than locals).
What that means for the price of eggs goodness only knows.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22077834
God, Allah or FSM?
The Visa Expenditure Index, which publishes in advance of the ONS Retail Sales statistics bulletin and is widely regarded as a strong and reliable early indicator of the ONS figures, has published its report for March.
Headline findings:
• Third successive monthly rise in consumer spending: growth of +1.3% registered in March (February: +0.9%).
• Year-on-year spending increased in March: growth of +1.2% (February: +0.1%). Best growth in this measure since October 2010.
• Underlying spending improved in March: 3m/3m growth rate at +1.3% (February: -1.1%).
• Expenditure trends across all broad sectors remained varied; solid gain in spending online.
• First increase in face-to-face spending since September 2012.
And all this in spite of the snow! All the time George and Nick have been spending on the ski slopes practising their slalom techniques is now paying dividends to us all.
what was the excuse? They said "administrative error"
No idea and not sure I wanr to! Could cover a multitude of sins ranging from submission after the deadline or errors in those signing the nomination papers.
For Ukip to have the nationwide organisation capable of putting up candidate in three quarters of the seats is a massive achievement. They’ve nearly beaten the LD total
I can only hope that what you say is a fact regarding Ukip organisation, Mike. Although I support Ukip and will advance their cause as much as I'm able, I do know that in the past, organisation has been a weakness in Ukip activity.
http://youtu.be/ufbWFqCEeZk
We need to wait some days before knowing the answer to your conundrum, but consumer spending may well be rising due to a fall in the growth of the household savings ratio or due to the increase in overall employment in the economy.
You should also take note of the underlying churn in the figures. Expenditure on Services and Miscellaneous Goods increased by 19.9% annually, compared to falls in Household Goods of -6.6% and Clothing & Footwear -2.6%.
All this rather suggests the rise is retail spending reflects increased confidence in the upturn of the economy, evidenced in increased demand for domestic services rather than a splurge on imported goods.
As spending in Restaurants & Hotels increased by 7.2%, perhaps we can conclude that the country may be recovering as a result of its occupants getting drunk. Funny that as I see no immediate reason for such celebration.
It's indefensible that some Conservative councillors are being returned with no opposition at all.
Last time UKIP won 7 seats. I think they could manage 30-40 this time.
As for consumption being good news, it isn't . We've consumed too much in the last 30 years, we need to produce more if we want good news.
http://www.guildford-dragon.com/2013/04/06/election-agents-mistake-means-no-conservative-candidate-for-shalford-in-county-elections/
And in my bit of Essex there are several BNP candidates.
I dont think I would have survived another day out there
Ps many thanks to all the PBers who advised me on what to do in Boston, I really enjoyed all the suggestions
Not all Surrey Tories have as effective a campaign team as our JohnO
Can't wait for the Euros when there can be a eurosceptic 1,2 on the ballot
The Trade figures are nowhere near as bad as being portrayed in the media and when analysed closely underpin the recent signs of a recovery in manufacturing and manufactured goods exports.
Let's take the big figures first. Oil exports are down £265 month on previous month and £654 three months rolling on previous year. This reflects the known, mainly late 2012, interruptions to North Sea production due to maintenance. Large increases in investment and development in the North Sea are underway but are not expected to reverse declining output trends until late 2013 at the earliest.
On consumer goods (other than cars), exports are down -£122m (m/pm) but imports down by more on the same meaure -£155m, so improving the trade balance.
Car sales are the obvious good news. Exports up £947m on the quarterly figures compared with imports up £435. This balance is slightly reversed in the monthly figures though.
But back to the real indicators of manufacturing revival. The increases in imports are coming in Intermediate Goods (Exp. £61, Imp. £342m month), Chemicals (Exp. -£191m, Imp. +£271) and Semi-manufactured goods other than chemicals (Exp. -40; Imp.+ £112).
What this seems to indicate is that, once oil trade is excluded, the vast bulk of the increase in imports is going to factory gates rather than shop shelves. A good not a bad sign for the economy.
http://greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/Elections/webverLE09cands.pdf
Might Britain get its second female PM in 2013?
Next time he will jump up and down when someone else posts a link first.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032
Way to go Kent PCC Ann Barnes.
Mr. Brooke, your irrational prejudice towards the current government is blinding you. The thirty year BoP problem you correctly identify will not disappear in a single month's statistics. It will be especially difficult to reverse in a period of enforced fiscal consolidation. But the signs of proper correction are beginning to come through in the figures.
For example, we are not seeing increased trade imbalances due to a boom in imported consumer goods. We are seeing increased investment and output in our main exporting productive sectors. We are seeing manufacturing slowly recover at a time when production is plummeting in all our main European competitor countries.
Take today's ONS news on Industrial production:
UK industrial production rose by 1.0 per cent month-on-month in February, when compared with the previous month, but even so remained at the same level as in September 2012. Manufacturing output rose by 0.8 per cent on the month, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The consensus estimate was for a gain in industrial production of 0.1% month-on-month (-2.9% year-on-year). Manufacturing output was expected to increase by 0.3% month-on-month.
An improvement was registered in all sectors, the first time this has happened since July 2012.
All sectors rose during the month in question – this last happened in July 2012. Despite the increase in production though the index is still only at the same level as in September 2012. In mining&quarrying output grew by 2.8% versus February whilst Energy supply did so by 1.3% and that of water&waste management did so by 0.8%.
The largest gains within manufacturing were those for machinery&equipment (3.3%), transport equipment (2.1%) and basic metals (1.8%).
In terms of quarterly rates of change industrial production grew by 0.3% and in manufacturing contracted by 0.2%.
You may wish for more dramatic and faster changes but this would be near impossible to deliver without causing massive corresponding distortions in the overall economy, e.g in debt levels and servicing costs.
George is a skilled doctor. The English patient is slowly recovering. We must be patient and keep faith.
Was that the shade used on an Austin Allegro?
Odds pls PetertP
It looked exactly like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chrysler_Avenger_Estate_UL.jpg
I remember my dad putting the back seats down and my sister and I snoozing in the back in sleeping bags during a long journey. H&S hadn't even been invented back then!
I got the problem a moment ago which I resolved by purging the page.
Speaking of the 70s, my wife and I emigrated from England during the winter of discontent. It was a nightmare. There was garbage everywhere, the truck drivers were on strike, so there was a fuel shortage and it meant that traveling round to say goodbye to friends and family meant renting cars, as it was the only way you could get petrol. Moving out of our house was a problem for the same reason, and getting our furniture to the docks for shipping was also a nightmare.
It was so bad that we didn't even want to visit again for over a decade. The UK in the 70s was a grim and dire place - something needed to be done.
I wasn't in the country during Thatcher's time, merely observing from afar. But love or hate her, she changed the terms of the debate.
It's in a highly active seismic area. Lord knows why they chose it, to be honest.
Oops, sorry about that, although not responsible for the entire 7.2%, - just spent three days celebrating a family christening and get together on the south coast. – life goes on - as do such ‘celebrations’ I’m afraid.
I have little more to add.
May I be so bold as to suggest counselling may help?
After twenty-four hours of the effusive and vitriolic tributes to Margaret Thatcher, I'm left with a number of unconnected thoughts so here goes:
Inasmuch as can be said about anyone, Margaret Thatcher was a product of her time and her background. She was a suburban woman with suburban mores and values honed in the 40s and 50s and who came to champion a generation traumatised by the social upheavals of the 60s and 70s.
I would argue she led a countercultural revolution in which she and those like her sought to reshape the country around values of former times and policy was honed to that end. The problem was that while the economic and political battles could be fought and won, the societal and cultural war was already lost.
A consequence of that was that the essence of self-responsibility, a central tenet of the Thatcherite ethos, went largely unachieved. Indeed, while it may have been "Victorian values" that some in her Party were seeking, it was the French concept of enrichessez-vous as propounded by Guizot which came to rule the day.
To be more controversial, she enjoyed the luck that seems to find certain politicians but used good fortune to the maximum. Did she change Britain? To an extent, yes, but technological innovation played its part and I would contend that some of the structural changes might well have happened anyway. From the 80s we have the mobile phone, the personal computer and the video recorder, the descendants of which are essential to the lives of so many today.
She played a supporting role in the denouement of the Cold War though Mikhail Gorbachev's role was infinitely more important. I credit her with seeing the inherent flaws in European federalism and German re-unification and with understanding the problem of climate change and the need to safeguard the environment.
The demographic timebomb was known about in the 1980s and here again perhaps the onus on self-responsibility was an inherent failing in an economic culture predicated on consumption. Had the 1980s instigated a proper savings culture and given future pension provision the attention it needed, we would not be in the mess we are today (though both the Major and Blair administrations are also at fault).
For me, her record is mixed. The irony is that while some claim she continues to shape politics today, I'm less convinced. The more I listen to Cameron, Milliband and Clegg, the 1980s politician I hear is David Owen.
There's a thought...
It appears Warwickshire is still covered in snow.
Yes, in many ways it was but in other ways it was much better than today. It was a freer, friendlier place, despite the problems with inflation prices for essentials were affordable for the average working bloke and HMG was not constantly trying to organise peoples' lives. I had a great time.
"I have little more to add
May I be so bold as to suggest counselling may help?"
Mr Pole,
you may have left it too late, but I will try to counsel you where I can and lead you back to the rightward paths and away from the big state.
BBC Parliament will be re-broadcasting the BBC's 1979 election programme in full, this Saturday from 9am.
Should be good...
Legislation to promote occupational pension schemes pre-dated Thatcher and on the whole was very successful. The UK was probably the best prepared in Europe by the end of the 1980s. The rot set in when companies were allowed to take contribution holidays if their schemes were in surplus (as many were) and then Brown got his sticky mits on the levers and totally destroyed they whole thing - for the private sector.