politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » EdM continues to progress with LAB voters in YouGov’s “Well

Sod Proust, I'm orf to view the toffs of Downton (and finish off a bottle of bubbly)!

Must say Carson would make an excellent Tory candidate.

NickPalmer said:

...I didn't use the housing allowance to help buy property in any way: I rented a small flat with it, and when I left Parliament I left the flat, without any profit in any form. Why is that taking the piss?

That seems like a perfectly reasonable use of the housing allowance to me... But on this point, is there any other job in the UK where you can claim mortgage payments on expenses? The fact that MPs could (still can?) buy a house, have it done up, and then sell it (after house prices have risen nicely, thankyouverymuch) all paid for by their employer - i.e. the taxpayer - just seems incredible. How did the issue stay out of the public eye for so long??

TheScreamingEagles said:

SMukesh said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SMukesh said:

nigel4england said:

Osborne has done well in a very difficult position.

However he is viewed as a person is immaterial, he has managed to turn a catostrophic situation around without relating mass unemployment and deserves huge credit for that.

And I am not a Tory"

Osborne was never handed down a catastrophic situation though the coalition like to pretend that he was.The real catastrophe was in 2007/8 when queues were forming in front of Northern Rock but luckily we had a steady hand at the time to negotiate the situation.Not that Brown will get any credit on here.

Osborne has had some successes but he`s nowhere done as well as the right would like to think he has.He has continued to miss the targets he had set for himself and by some margin.

I remember back in 2007, someone on here said that Northern Rock would be forgotten by next weekend.

The fact that it`s nearly forgotten is a tribute to the way it was dealt with.

Unfortunately it is RBS that everyone remembers and the one we're still dealing with.

It is not just now we are dealing with RBS. The economics column in the ST today points out that business investment is still 27% down on what it was in 2007. Some of this is demand driven, who wants to invest in more output when our main markets were in recession, but a lot of it has been driven by the failure to address the RBS and its desperate need to reduce its balance sheet reducing the lending available to businesses as well as domestic mortgages.

Our largest domestic bank has been a major drag on credit in this country for 5 years now. What is plain with the benefit of hindsight is not the Osborne made a mistake in pushing Hester out of the RBS but that he took too long to do it. If that thorn is finally grasped prospects for future growth and rebalancing will be greatly improved.

I think David Davis could have won a majority for the Tories in 2010.

Does Peter Hain support a price freeze for electricity to reduce taxpayers contributing to his bills?


Name: Neath MP: Peter Hain Party: Labour Claim (£): 4,571.74 Fuel type: Electricity Other fuel

TSE Davis would still have got a conference bounce and Brown was so cautious and such a ditherer he would not have called an election unless he were sure of a landslide

John O After the economic crash Brown was always doomed, even if more voters may have switched from Labour to LD than Labour to Tory in 2010. Also watching Downton and agree on Carson

Roger Maybe, but they would not have got a seat in government and Ed Miiband would have still united the left and Davis the right leaving only centrist voters for Clegg

IOS Blair also destroyed Labour membership but won elections, something Cameron needs to emulate in 2015

The most depressing thing about the expenses scandal was the sheer pettiness of it. If you're going to fiddle, make sure you claim for plutonium-powered helicopters or major shareholdings in dotcom stocks. Not Remembrance Sunday wreaths and soft porn.

It's a symbol of the decline of this country that our politicians are so accustomed to thinking on such a small scale.

antifrank said:

The most depressing thing about the expenses scandal was the sheer pettiness of it. If you're going to fiddle, make sure you claim for plutonium-powered helicopters or major shareholdings in dotcom stocks. Not Remembrance Sunday wreaths and soft porn.

It's a symbol of the decline of this country that our politicians are so accustomed to thinking on such a small scale.

But, but, but the day the story broke about Jacqui Smith's husband claiming for porn on expenses was one of the funniest threads ever on PB.

I said at the time, he and his wife would beat off of those problems.

@TSE He was so sleeping on the sofa for the next month. Probably wearing a chastity belt with the key dangling around Jacqui's neck.

Bobajob said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

My best expenses claim (that was approved) was the time I claimed for the meal and heavenly money at Stringfellows when entertaining a potential new client.

For the uninitiated, heavenly money is the money you buy to give the ladies to take off their clothes.

Is that a system they set up just so guests get a receipt ?

Mostly to avoid any unfortunate misinterpretations, some people think handing over your money to a woman to take her clothes off entitles you to more.

antifrank said:

@TSE He was so sleeping on the sofa for the next month. Probably wearing a chastity belt with the key dangling around Jacqui's neck.

Home made porn, that's the way to go.

HYUFD said:

PeterthePunter Must have missed that?

Cough up, Huyfd.

And none of that bitcoin nonsense, if you please....

Telegraph View - Miliband is posturing on the economy
"Another weekend; another Labour gimmick. Ed Miliband’s idea of subsidising employers to offer their workers pay rises for 12 months comes from the same stable as his proposed short-term cap on energy bills. The Labour leader has alighted on the blindingly obvious – namely, that living standards have been falling – and is endeavouring to make as much political capital as possible from this fact."

AndyJS said:

It must be raining in central London at the moment.

It is.

AndyJS said:

Not surprising that all the metropolitan high-flyers on here despise David Davis.

JohnO will be greatly amused at that description, and so am I.

David Davis is crap.

TheScreamingEagles said:

AndyJS said:

Not surprising that all the metropolitan high-flyers on here despise David Davis.

JohnO will be greatly amused at that description, and so am I.

David Davis is crap.

Ooor, ahhhh, we countreee bummmkins mus stick t'gether.

TheScreamingEagles said:

HYUFD said:

JohnO I never sad he was a nice man and even Davis would not resign as leader. TSE Brown would still have bottled a 2007 election

I'm not sure.

I know a Davis led Tory party would never been able to perform the way Dave and George did in 2007, which altered the narrative and the polls, and made Brown and Darling look like amateurs.

I'm curious as to how you think Cameron and Osborne performed in 2007 was so impressive ?

Cameron gave a good conference speech but during the summer had made numerous mistakes which made himself look like a lightweight and Brown statesmanlike in comparison.

What did Osborne do ? I presume you mean the IHT idea. An idea that I came up with beforehand so perhaps you should include me as having a political effect in 2007. But again Osborne had looked like a lightweight beforehand and did so afterwards.

The big political effect of 2007 was Brown marching his men to the top of the hill and then shitting his pants. But that had nothing to do with Cameron and Osborne and everything to do with Brown being a lifelong coward.

The big political effect was to come in the 2008 budget with the abolition of 10% tax - that was the point when Labour's disdain for the low paid became visible to all.

TheScreamingEagles said:

JohnO said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

AndyJS said:

Not surprising that all the metropolitan high-flyers on here despise David Davis.

JohnO will be greatly amused at that description, and so am I.

David Davis is crap.

Ooor, ahhhh, we countreee bummmkins mus stick t'gether.

We must, or we'll end up on the train to Bournemouth

Not with those unspeakably VULGAR shoes we won't. I'll have you turfed out at Woking.

SeanT said:

SouthamObserver said:

SeanT said:

Bwanji.

I am writing this from the Royal Livingstone Hotel, on the very riverbanks of the Zambesi. With a massive gin and tonic to hand.

Zambia!!

A friend of mine was due to go there for Xmas with his family, but BA have just shut the route down and have cancelled his flights. Apoplectic is the word, I think.

Yup. You now have to go via Nairobi, Schiphol, Joburg, etc - with KLM, Air France, SAA &c - and I can't help thinking this is perhaps a sign of our Total F*ck Up in regard to London airports. Is it really not profitable for BA to fly to Lusaka direct 3 times a week (Lusaka being the capital of an ex British colony) but it IS profitable for KLM?

Or is this just because there are so few free slots at Heathrow BA will sacrifice feebler African links in favour of Chinese links, thus detaching London from important parts of the world economy?

BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY, OR BUILD BORIS AIRPORT. Just Get On With It.

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

DM fp:

'Did Unite tamper with GRANDMOTHER'S statement?'

another_richard said:

SeanT said:

SouthamObserver said:

SeanT said:

Bwanji.

I am writing this from the Royal Livingstone Hotel, on the very riverbanks of the Zambesi. With a massive gin and tonic to hand.

Zambia!!

A friend of mine was due to go there for Xmas with his family, but BA have just shut the route down and have cancelled his flights. Apoplectic is the word, I think.

Yup. You now have to go via Nairobi, Schiphol, Joburg, etc - with KLM, Air France, SAA &c - and I can't help thinking this is perhaps a sign of our Total F*ck Up in regard to London airports. Is it really not profitable for BA to fly to Lusaka direct 3 times a week (Lusaka being the capital of an ex British colony) but it IS profitable for KLM?

Or is this just because there are so few free slots at Heathrow BA will sacrifice feebler African links in favour of Chinese links, thus detaching London from important parts of the world economy?

BUILD THE THIRD RUNWAY, OR BUILD BORIS AIRPORT. Just Get On With It.

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

Simple, the world wants to come to London. It hasn't much interest in anywhere else in Britain.

How many times did Manchester and Birmingham bid unsuccessfully for the Olympics? London got them at its first attempt.

- London got them at its first attempt.

and the second and third times, also. I believe the Olympics have been in London 3 times.

In some ways the Davis Cameron split is similar in Australia to the Abbott Turnbull split, while Turnbull had more appeal in most polls than Abbott just as Cameron had in relation to Abbott in the end it was the Labor government of Rudd-Gillard who lost the election just as it was Blair-Brown here who lost in 2010. (The Liberals in Australia also do not need to worry about a strong centrist party after the demise of the Australian Democrats).

MikeSmithson said:

dr_spyn said:

Guardian help for Huhne day.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/03/press-self-regulation-leveson-censorship?CMP=twt_gu

Great to see Huhne back. The sharpest brain in British politics

HYUFD said:

Nigel4England Davis would probably have not got as many swing voters who voted for Blair switching to the Tories as Cameron got, they would instead have gone to Clegg, so the Tory share would likely have been a little lower and the LD vote slightly higher. A Davis led Tory party would probably have got about 33/34%, not much different from what Michael Howard got, Labour would probably have been unchanged on 29%, but the LDs would likely have been higher on about 25/26%. As Clegg would never have formed a coalition with Davis, who he has much less in common with ideologically than Cameron, the likely result would either have been a Tory minority government or a Labour-LD coalition, with either Alan Johnson or David Miliband succeeding Brown as PM as the price for Clegg's support. However, Davis would not have lost the votes Cameron now has to UKIP

If the numbers had been right Clegg would have formed a coalition with David Davis

Why is a man who lied to the police, lied to the public and lied to his wife fit to hold high office?

Richard_Tyndall said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Richards plural.

I don't think David Davis would have been in the position Dave found himself at the end of Blair's resignation.

Such as leading the polls, as Cameron was.

So the Brown bounce would have seen a larger Labour lead if Davis was leader, which would have given Brown the confidence to call an election in the Autumn of 2007.

Another Richard, Cameron made mistakes, and yes it was Cameron's speech, you had Kinnock predicting the end of the Tory party, we even had a Labour MP writing in the new statesman there would be an election, with an increased Labour majority.

Osborne came up with the policy that gladdened Tory hearts, and swung the marginals.

Remember that ICM marginals poll after the the Tory conference.

Labour had spent a million quid in preparation for the election.

We shouldn't forget John Major's contribution during that period as well.

Between October 2009 and May 2010 Cameron managed to throw away a 19% poll lead and ensure he failed to gain a majority.

As I said Brown lost the 2010 election but Cameron, who had every chance to win it, failed to do so.

Indeed.

The public perception during the election campaign went:

1) We have to get rid of Brown
2) Errr I'm not too sure about this Cameron
3) Oohh this Clegg looks interesting
4) On second thoughts I'm not too sure about this Clegg either
5) Brown, Cameron, Clegg - is this really the best we can do? Now who don't I want to win ...

Cameron failed to seal the deal but it was his luck that Brown had already sealed it enough for him. Even then it took Brown's trip to Rochdale to get the Conservatives over 300 MPs.

David David was comprehensively beaten in the Conservative Leadership contest after a lengthy campaign in which he failed to shine among his own party, never the mind the country during this period.

another_richard said:

fitalass said:

David Davis couldn't even win a Conservative Leadership Contest, he wouldn't have been able to win a GE.

Richard_Tyndall said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

HYUFD said:

JohnO I never sad he was a nice man and even Davis would not resign as leader. TSE Brown would still have bottled a 2007 election

I'm not sure.

I know a Davis led Tory party would never been able to perform the way Dave and George did in 2007, which altered the narrative and the polls, and made Brown and Darling look like amateurs.

Nope I think that is utterly wrong. With hindsight I don't think there was ever a chance that Brown would win the election whenever it came.

I still hold to the idea that Oppositions don't win elections, Governments lose them. It doesn't matter how good the opposition is, if the Government isn't bad then they will stay in power.

What was interesting in 2010 was that Brown lost the election but Cameron failed to win it. I don't think Davis would have made the same mistakes Cameron made which led to that result.

Davis easily beat Cameron in the Conservative leadership debate.

Its unlikely he would have been beaten by Clegg in the election debates as Cameron was.

another_richard said:

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

fitalass said:

David David was comprehensively beaten in the Conservative Leadership contest after a lengthy campaign in which he failed to shine among his own party, never the mind the country during this period.

another_richard said:

fitalass said:

David Davis couldn't even win a Conservative Leadership Contest, he wouldn't have been able to win a GE.

Richard_Tyndall said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

HYUFD said:

JohnO I never sad he was a nice man and even Davis would not resign as leader. TSE Brown would still have bottled a 2007 election

I'm not sure.

I know a Davis led Tory party would never been able to perform the way Dave and George did in 2007, which altered the narrative and the polls, and made Brown and Darling look like amateurs.

Nope I think that is utterly wrong. With hindsight I don't think there was ever a chance that Brown would win the election whenever it came.

I still hold to the idea that Oppositions don't win elections, Governments lose them. It doesn't matter how good the opposition is, if the Government isn't bad then they will stay in power.

What was interesting in 2010 was that Brown lost the election but Cameron failed to win it. I don't think Davis would have made the same mistakes Cameron made which led to that result.

Davis easily beat Cameron in the Conservative leadership debate.

Its unlikely he would have been beaten by Clegg in the election debates as Cameron was.

Davis easily beat Cameron in the leadership debate.

I know you don't want to admit it but that's still the fact.

However that proved irrelevant as Cameron had already been effectively crowned by the media at leader-in-waiting at the party conference.

But Cameron's failure in the Conservative leadership debate was a precursor to his failures in the general election debates.

Tissue_Price said:

another_richard said:

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

I'm aware that a lot of people live in China.

But that doesn't explain why there's this great number of British people who want to fly to provincial Chinese cities from Heathrow as we're constantly told.

Charles said:

MikeSmithson said:

dr_spyn said:

Guardian help for Huhne day.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/03/press-self-regulation-leveson-censorship?CMP=twt_gu

Great to see Huhne back. The sharpest brain in British politics

Why is a man who lied to the police, lied to the public and lied to his wife fit to hold high office?

There's no good answer to that. But nonetheless, it's a first class article by Huhne.

tim said:

Bloody Miliband

@suttonnick: Monday's i front page - "‘Give living wage to all workers’" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://t.co/luoujfiL7r

And once everyone has the 'living wage', which isn't an actual living wage, how long before the demands start for everyone to paid some other made up rate and name. A 'fair wage' or 'decent wage' perhaps.

NickPalmer said:

another_richard said:

On the other hand who wants to fly to Chengdu or Lusaka. Or are provincial cities around the world different to provincial cities in Britain.

Curiously, I had 20 visitors from Chengdu this week, come to hear me (inter alia) on corporate finance options. Next week, I've got two similar talks, and they're among dozens of similar seminars by others. There's a surprising demand from provisional China to find out how the West works. I suspect the traffic is mainly coming this way (and going back, of course) rather than UK->China toutrism. Even In Beijing I didn't see that many Western tourists.

That sounds very believable Nick.

So to attract these Chinese visitors all we need to do is rename our airports for foreign usage. Give them the names of football teams and whoever the current pop idol is and they'll be desperate to fly there.

If you're Chinese and looking at a map of Britain then Manchester or Birmingham must look practically next door to London in any case.

How long does a flight here from China take ? 10-12 hours at a guess, so what's an extra hour or two after they get off the place. Assuming they have to go to London that is.

another_richard said:

Tissue_Price said:

another_richard said:

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

I'm aware that a lot of people live in China.

But that doesn't explain why there's this great number of British people who want to fly to provincial Chinese cities from Heathrow as we're constantly told.

Because the cities are at the heart of regions that are competing with each other and all are expected to hit multiple targets set by the central government. It creates lots of opportunities to export expertise and services, on top of the goods that all Chinese people want. Then there are the incentives to locate manufacturing and R&D etc, the special economic zones, Shanghai's new free trade area and so on. In addition to which China is very big - you can't just fly into Beijing and be somewhere else interesting a couple of hours later. You'd have to fly, so why not fly direct if you can?

another_richard said:

Does anyone have details of the percentage capacity usage of British airports ?

Heathrow is 98% or something ridiculous. I use Brum every now and again, and clearly has plenty of open slots. The problem seems to be no-one wants them. BA no longer flies from there, but you can connect to the KLM/Air France global network. I flew to Shanghai from Brum via Paris out and Schipol back. But because of the stopovers it's about five or six hours longer than going direct.

SouthamObserver said:

another_richard said:

Tissue_Price said:

another_richard said:

Can anyone explain why there's supposedly so much demand to fly from London to provincial Chinese cities but apparantly no demand to fly from the main Chinese cities to British airports within 200 miles of London ?

Almost all British airports have spare capacity so if the demand is there to fly to Chengdu, Lusaka or wherever it would be met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_China_by_population

I'm aware that a lot of people live in China.

But that doesn't explain why there's this great number of British people who want to fly to provincial Chinese cities from Heathrow as we're constantly told.

Because the cities are at the heart of regions that are competing with each other and all are expected to hit multiple targets set by the central government. It creates lots of opportunities to export expertise and services, on top of the goods that all Chinese people want. Then there are the incentives to locate manufacturing and R&D etc, the special economic zones, Shanghai's new free trade area and so on. In addition to which China is very big - you can't just fly into Beijing and be somewhere else interesting a couple of hours later. You'd have to fly, so why not fly direct if you can?

So why not fly from Birmingham to Chengdu or Shanghai if the demand is there.

It would certainly be easier for you to get there than Heathrow.

Here is a simple, incontrovertible test of anyone's political sanity, one so powerful that it might be the only question you ever need to ask to ascertain whether the person you are talking to understands anything about politics.

The question is: Did the Tories make a mistake when they chose Cameron rather than DD as leader?

Score as follows:

Yes: Never take this person's views seriously again
Don't Know: Never take this person's views seriously again
No: OK, at least they passed politics elementary grade, first-day quick test

Daily Mail - Did Unite tamper with grandmother's statement? Key witness's bombshell accusation in vote-rigging storm

Herald Scotland - Union official at heart of Grangemouth dispute to quit as Labour chairman in Falkirk

another_richard said:

Isn't that the Notting Hill dinner party test of political sanity ?

I believe that there's a similar one but which gives the opposite result. Its called the Grimsby chip shop test of political sanity.

I'll ask Avery about it when he returns from visiting Cousin Seth.

I mean, DD? The guy is, how do I put this politely, not exactly the sharpest operator or quickest thinker on the planet. Brown (let alone Mandelson) would have absolute mincemeat of him, it would have been so painful to watch, we'd have had to call in the RSPCA.

And that was obvious even before his character flaws came to light. What in the name of heaven was that ludicrous flounce about? Resigning because you disagree with your party's line makes sense, resigning because you disagree with the other side's position, is, shall we say, creative.

A politician who seriously wanted to do something about civil liberties in the UK might perhaps have planned ahead a few months, realised that he was 100% certain to be Home Secretary in the very likely result of a Cameron government, and therefore was soon going to be in the strongest position of anyone on this earth to do something about civil liberties in the UK, and, you know, just stayed in his Shadow Cabinet position and voted, along with his colleagues and the PM, against the government proposal which he rightly thought was abhorrent.

A very, very lucky escape for all of us, both in the leadership contest and in the timing of his flounce, which at least showed him up before he was in government, not after.

[BTW I've never been to a dinner party in Notting Hill!]

nigel4england said:

An ex-Labour MP lecturing the Chinese on corporate finance options?

Marvellous stuff, cheered me up for the rest of the week.

We aim to please here on nighttime pb :-) But it's really the combination of management in a multinational with Parliamentary experience that they find interesting - there aren't that many people who've seen both sides of the legislation/management fence in more than one country. That's my Chinese USP, for what it's worth.

Thankfully we now have Cameron as Conservative Leader, and Theresa May as Home Secretary. A win win for the party.

RichardNabavi said:

another_richard said:

Isn't that the Notting Hill dinner party test of political sanity ?

I believe that there's a similar one but which gives the opposite result. Its called the Grimsby chip shop test of political sanity.

I'll ask Avery about it when he returns from visiting Cousin Seth.

I mean, DD? The guy is, how do I put this politely, not exactly the sharpest operator or quickest thinker on the planet. Brown (let alone Mandelson) would have absolute mincemeat of him, it would have been so painful to watch, we'd have had to call in the RSPCA.

And that was obvious even before his character flaws came to light. What in the name of heaven was that ludicrous flounce about? Resigning because you disagree with your party's line makes sense, resigning because you disagree with the other side's position, is, shall we say, creative.

A politician who seriously wanted to do something about civil liberties in the UK might perhaps have planned ahead a few months, realised that he was 100% certain to be Home Secretary in the very likely result of a Cameron government, and therefore was soon going to be in the strongest position of anyone on this earth to do something about civil liberties in the UK, and, you know, just stayed in his Shadow Cabinet position and voted, along with his colleagues and the PM, against the government proposal which he rightly thought was abhorrent.

A very, very lucky escape for all of us, both in the leadership contest and in the timing of his flounce, which at least showed him up before he was in government, not after.

[BTW I've never been to a dinner party in Notting Hill!]

fitalass said:

Thankfully we now have Cameron as Conservative Leader, and Theresa May as Home Secretary. A win win for the party.

And more importantly for the country.

Theresa May in particular is proving to be a star, which was not something most people predicted.

Richard Navabi David Davis never posed in budgie smugglers either