politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Marf on Merkel; a date for your diary and polling highlight

Ack - Can't do as its a weeknight. I'll probably be at Doncaster Races though this Sat - anyone else who fancies coming pm me, might have a free ticket.

Very good, Marf!

I hope I'll be able to make the 20th. Are we running the usual sweepstake on where JohnO ends up?

Is Mr Thomas going to attend the meet?

I listen in, You tap, He gets banned from posting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24658177

Why tapping mobile calls is 'trivial'

Remember everyone - the man from Special Branch will have shiny shoes.

In this round, what happens next? Orders popcorn and drinks.

The dispute first flared up in the summer over the company's treatment of Unite official Stephen Deans, who has worked at Grangemouth for more than 20 years He was accused of trying to rig the selection of a Labour candidate for the Falkirk seat at Westminster but was later cleared. But Ineos has been carrying out its own investigation into claims Mr Deans improperly used the refinery for union business. Its findings are due to be published on Friday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24647843

At least Tom Watson is maintaining radio silence, perhaps until he has had his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

RichardNabavi said:

On Free Schools, I don't think this is an issue of any salience. Those who actually want to send their kids to one are presumably very much in favour and care a lot, those parents who are against have no reason to care very much - no one is forcing them to choose a free school for their kids - and those who are ideologically opposed or part of the educational vested interests who have sent us down to near-bottom in the OECD rankings were never going to vote Conservative anyway - they don't want the disaster which is much of UK state education to be challenged.

In a nut shell Mr Nabavi - far to early of course to know if free schools are a success or not, but the shake up of bog standard state schooling certainly has some in a tizz.

Unlike the Dept for Business Information and Skills, PB can look forward to drinks.

http://order-order.com/2013/10/24/that-recovery-in-full/#comment-1913125

Tis a good job that there are no nationalised breweries.

In the article posted by Dr Spyn there is the nugget that len wants to meet Ratcliffe face to face.

That would make a good C4 documentary!!

dr_spyn said:

At least Tom Watson is maintaining radio silence, perhaps until he has had his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

He wasn't yesterday:

"I am sure that the Secretary of State will be as saddened as many of the workers were to hear that the negotiations that he managed to secure around the table at ACAS were slightly thwarted because the billionaire hedge fund manger who runs INEOS, Mr Jim Ratcliffe, was on his yacht in the Mediterranean, so the negotiating team had to phone him. I think that shows a lack of seriousness. One of the big concerns people have is that tax avoidance disguises the profitability of the site. Will the Secretary of State consider conducting an independent financial assessment of the site to see what options future buyers might have?"

@Taffys An ideal move, would be to rent a Scottish Palace with rooms similar in seize to Mussolini's office in Sala del Mappamondo, in the Palazzo Venezia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/8325274/Mussolini-balcony-to-be-reopened-after-decades-of-neglect.html
One, two, three, four, keep him waiting at the door,
five, six seven, eight...come.

Knowing Tim's dislike of repetition I hope he doesn't mind me replaying his link from the last thread which seems particularly relevant to this one.

http://www.politicshome.com/uk/story/38051/

There was also a sharp move against Academies in the same poll

CarlottaVance said:

dr_spyn said:

At least Tom Watson is maintaining radio silence, perhaps until he has had his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

He wasn't yesterday:

"I am sure that the Secretary of State will be as saddened as many of the workers were to hear that the negotiations that he managed to secure around the table at ACAS were slightly thwarted because the billionaire hedge fund manger who runs INEOS, Mr Jim Ratcliffe, was on his yacht in the Mediterranean, so the negotiating team had to phone him. I think that shows a lack of seriousness. One of the big concerns people have is that tax avoidance disguises the profitability of the site. Will the Secretary of State consider conducting an independent financial assessment of the site to see what options future buyers might have?"

Why does he call Jim Ratcliffe a hedge fund manager?

Jim is just a top bloke. A nice ordinary chemical engineer (and northern to boot) who bought a near bankrup plant from ICI (chlorine possible?), turned it around and then used it as collateral to buy a series of bigger businesses. The last one being BP Chemicals, which is what nearly flattened him.

I can only assume that Watson (a) hasn't done his research and (b) is using "hedge fund manager" as some kind of insult.

@Huck67

"The public are finally sensing that the Tories are an arrogant out of touch bunch, who will not tackle the strong vested interests in the country."

Tackle them! The public think they are there as a pressure group for the vested interests and if anyone reads the Tories on here what else could they think. Making Sir Philip Green whose wife pays tax in Monaco 'waste tzar' should have been a pointer....

If the Tories offered parents to ballot to open a few more grammar schools as well as offering free schools and academies I suspect the policy would be more popular!

Bobajob said:

JonnyJimmy said:

"I have discovered that Ed Miliband is involved in a major Labour cover-up. The party’s leader, an advocate of greater transparency in British politics, is mainly keeping his jacket on in public these days. The era of shirtsleeves is largely over. A mole disclosed that a focus group was consulted on the vitally important issue of whether Red Ed should be seen in or out of the top half of his £750 Spencer Hart suit. Men weren’t especially bothered either way but, muttered the Labour insider, women voters thought the young Milibrother looked more prime ministerial in a jacket. He’s all nicely decked out in knotted pastelcoloured ties, too. The Labour leader’s office calls it smart politics."

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/labours-great-big-cover

Good - I am a traditionalist when it comes to menswear.
Women have fashion. We have rules.

Arf - well put sir.

RichardNabavi said:

I hope I'll be able to make the 20th. Are we running the usual sweepstake on where JohnO ends up?

Bursts into tears and stamps his little booties. You would have to choose the ONE day in November I just cannot make as that's the evening of the Elmbridge 'Cabinet' from which I cannot skive.

It's a conspiracy.

perdix said:

Unfortunately most of the public don't really understand what is meant by "qualified" so they are expressing an opinion in ignorance.

I suspect that if the question was rephrased as "Should head teachers and governors in state schools have the same freedom to recruit teachers from outside the traditional teacher training programmes as their counterparts in private schools have?", you'd get a very different answer.

dr_spyn said:

In this round, what happens next? Orders popcorn and drinks.

The dispute first flared up in the summer over the company's treatment of Unite official Stephen Deans, who has worked at Grangemouth for more than 20 years He was accused of trying to rig the selection of a Labour candidate for the Falkirk seat at Westminster but was later cleared. But Ineos has been carrying out its own investigation into claims Mr Deans improperly used the refinery for union business. Its findings are due to be published on Friday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24647843

At least Tom Watson is maintaining radio silence, perhaps until he has had his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

management will extract maximum benefit and give him his jotters and dare Unite to complain.

JohnO said:

RobD said:

JohnO said:

RichardNabavi said:

I hope I'll be able to make the 20th. Are we running the usual sweepstake on where JohnO ends up?

Bursts into tears and stamps his little booties. You would have to choose the ONE day in November I just cannot make as that's the evening of the Elmbridge 'Cabinet' from which I cannot skive.

It's a conspiracy.

Simple, host the cabinet in Dirty Dicks!

LoL. Or move Dirty Dicks to Oxshott Heath...oh, wait....

Tell them you're off investigating the dogging problem.

A place called Dirty Dicks will give you plausibility.

I like the cartoon, Marf!

I claim the Lonsdale belt in this thread, and will now retire.

tim said:

@RichardNabavi.

You're confusing Free Schools and Academies.
Free Schools are centralised, secretly funded from Goves office, governors appointed and sacked by Goves office, opened and closed at Goves whim.

And of course if a school is needed in the area a local authority cannot open one,it must be one of Goves pet projects, controlled directly from his office.

Politically of course its a gift for Labour and the Lib Dem switchers tend to despise Gove with a passion.

Free schools are academies.

tim said:

antifrank said:

My diary looks free. I now need to concoct an excuse with my other half, who regards pb as a cult.

Tell your other half you're having an affair with the personal trainer?

Sadly, given how my personal trainer looks that isn't remotely plausible. He's in a bodybuilding competition next weekend and I've only ever seen bodies like his is now in pictures that have been heavily photoshopped.

Next week should be an interesting one for PBs moderators. Perhaps a few sessions with antifrank's photoshopped personal trainer might help

tim said:

Life_ina_market_town said:

tim said:

@RichardNabavi.

You're confusing Free Schools and Academies.
Free Schools are centralised, secretly funded from Goves office, governors appointed and sacked by Goves office, opened and closed at Goves whim.

And of course if a school is needed in the area a local authority cannot open one,it must be one of Goves pet projects, controlled directly from his office.

Politically of course its a gift for Labour and the Lib Dem switchers tend to despise Gove with a passion.

Free schools are academies.

Academies are usually preexisting schools, Gove personally chooses which Free Schools can start up, and when they close, as you'll see soon with his Madrassa than got out of hand I suspect.
The secrecy surrounding the free school funding also marks them out as different.

What do you have against Madrassas, tim?

Smashing cartoon, Marf! And thanks, SeanT! We'll get advice from tim on what to order.

Interesting rumour about Cam not attending - the issue of whether Britain has been part of the listen-in party has, oddly, not been asked to my knowledge. But if the Americans were listening to Merkel, I expect we were too.

NickPalmer said:

Smashing cartoon, Marf! And thanks, SeanT! We'll get advice from tim on what to order.

Interesting rumour about Cam not attending - the issue of whether Britain has been part of the listen-in party has, oddly, not been asked to my knowledge. But if the Americans were listening to Merkel, I expect we were too.

Most likely we were acting as their poodles as usual and actually doing the dirty deeds

Roger said:

Any chance we can call Hunchman before the PB public accounts committee?

FT index standing at 6713.

LOL!

R0berts said:

TOPPING said:

It's perfectly understandable that everyone should be looking at key policies such as free schools. We have the luxury of a recovering economy.

But it's more than that - the Cons have redefined the terms in which we discuss the economy; the Eds' plan has been thoroughly discredited.

Lab opposition to free schools is simply following the classic five stages of grief and at the moment is on Bargaining (change them, qualified teachers, only where there is a need, etc). Acceptance will soon follow although I regret there will be a period of interim depression.

Not to say the Cons don't still need a coherent energy response.

Your posts fascinate me. A lot of the time you seem to come from the progressive, centrist, potentially electable wing of the Tories. A sensible and insightful Tory amongst the PBTory white noise, always readable.

But sometimes you seem to be way out Right, as you've been beamed up and had your brains scooped out by the crazed Govians in their sinister mothership.

I mean all that in a nice way. I think.

LOL (in a nice way!). And thank you...I think!

Thing is, there is a need for extra school places. I don't think anyone disputes that. Were it not so then you could reasonably argue that allocating funds to a free school takes money from the overall educational pot that could be spent on, for example, textbooks or bunsen burners in the state sector.

But many state schools are bursting at the edges. I don't think free schools are therefore the demonic presence some paint them out to be. Often for example it is simply not possible to expand capacity in existing schools, or the will is not there.

Add to this the ethos which is that free schools (with some exceptions) are founded by enthusiastic parents, must be non-selective (despite the accusations of FSM place allocations thrown around by some of this parish) and are unashamedly of the market, I am a fan.

In an ideal world all those enthusiastic parents would send their offspring to their local state primary but, and I'm not just channeling Diane Abbott here, often there simply is not the room. So given the choice....

The Press Standards Board of Finance are applying for permission to claim judicial review of the decision of the Lords of the Privy Council not to recommend the approval of their draft Royal Charter. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24662567

Salmond has arrived in Dunfermline for the latest push!

Is SLAB really losing it?

One of the Sunday Herald journalists wondered the same but added Labour is still confident.

''Hunchman has no more idea than anyone else what is going to happen. ''

What made you think that he did?

Absolutely nobody expected the 2008 banking crash to come when it did, except nouriel roubini, and he;d been predicting it for many years.

RichardNabavi said:

A very predictable development, and, although IANAL, one which I would have thought has quite a high likelihood of success. After all, what were the grounds for refusing a Royal Charter for this particular body? The fact there is a proposal for a different body which also wants a Royal Charter doesn't seem very relevant, and the views of the government even less so.

It will be interesting to see how its plays. On the other hand, if one were to accept your argument that the two draft charters are entirely independent of each other, then it follows that the last thing that this litigation can be is a collateral attack on the government's charter, designed to prevent the entry into force of the sections 34 to 42 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013...

Two days running we have two brilliant Marf cartoons in a single day!

wonderfully generous of Sean T for drinks - thanks, dude. I hope to be able to make it, I'm starting a new job, albeit short-term, on the 4th.

TOPPING said:

Thing is, there is a need for extra school places. I don't think anyone disputes that. Were it not so then you could reasonably argue that allocating funds to a free school takes money from the overall educational pot that could be spent on, for example, textbooks or bunsen burners in the state sector.

But many state schools are bursting at the edges. I don't think free schools are therefore the demonic presence some paint them out to be. Often for example it is simply not possible to expand capacity in existing schools, or the will is not there.

As a matter of interest, is this generally true, or mainly in London and a few high-growth areas? In the prosperous suburban constituency where I'm standing, there are schools that are full, but others that are definitely not, and there's a fairly obvious choice between expanding the most popular ones and doing more to make the less popular ones attractive (we don't have any really bad schools). The third choice of setting up some new school isn't obviously sensible, regardless of its nature.

The second story on this link has been pulled from Bloomberg's website, not sure if it only applies to the UK.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-18/weil-on-finance-u-k-s-censorship-diktats.html

Yorkcity said:

Roger said:

Next week should be an interesting one for PBs moderators. Perhaps a few sessions with antifrank's photoshopped personal trainer might help

I thought next week until christmas the site would be shutting down to avoid any comments.