politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour continues to struggle in Scotland where it used to hold
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Labour continues to struggle in Scotland where it used to hold 41 of the 59 seats
There is a new Scottish poll out this morning and the picture remains gloomy for LAB. As can be seen Panelbase still has the party in third place behind, of course, the SNP and the Conservatives.
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No Indy question asked/released?
We should be due an Ipsos MORI soon, that'll be interesting to see if it shows this sort of no change.
Anyway, better to find out now than for qualifying.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jun/29/london-house-price-growth-at-nine-year-low-amid-edinburgh-and-manchester-spurt
I don't understand the people that didn't vote in the Indyref either.
O/T: I'm just been cancelling my sub to the Times and Sunday Times (as I had it for work but my media team colleagues cover that now). Boy, they make it hard. You can't do it online - there's a number you have to call dedicated only to sub cancellations, and it seems to be barely manned (I got on with work while letting it ring for 25 minutes before they finally answered). They then made a series of haggling offers, finally offering the sub for £1 a week. I had to say three times "But I don't like the newspapers, I no longer need them, and I want to cancel" before they finally gave in. Is it actually in accordance with Trading Standards to require you to cancel via a rarely-answered phone number?
For those who do like the papers, I recommend pretending to want to cancel, and holding out till you get the £1 offer.
http://www.spacex.com/webcast
This should be the last of the Block IV Falcon 9's, and there will be no landing attempt of the first stage.
When he became Tory leader the Tories has 40 fewer MPs in Scotland than Labour.
The day he retired the Tories had the same number of MPs in Scotland as Labour.
Nationally he took the Tories from 198 MPs to 331 MPs.
Keep an eye on your bank account to make sure they don't "accidentally" take out any money after the cancellation... We had that with SKY and in the end we went into the bank and told to block any further payments to SKY.
We eventually recovered the money they took but that was another saga.
I do think the Tories will get a boost shortly in Scotland, albeit temporarily.
In the next few months there’s going to be lots of coverage of Ruth Davidson and her baby.
Unless you’re rather craven or heartless you’ll like her a bit more.
What is surprising in some ways is how the SNP support has remained so solid. The Scottish government has performed very poorly for some years now. Our health service is seriously struggling and Nicola's BFF forever has just had to "resign" as health minister. Education is a disaster area. Alex Bell, Salmond's one time speechwriter, is no friend of the SNP these days but this is a devastating description of Swinney's time at education: https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion/alex-bell/678862/alex-bell-as-one-of-the-snps-three-ss-john-swinney-has-become-untouchable-despite-education-failures/
At the same time as the reshuffle he abandoned the Education bill that he has been working on for 2 years. Taken with the named person fiasco it is difficult to see what has been achieved other than declining standards and an ever tighter grip on colleges and Universities that seeks to stamp out dissent.
And of course in the last day or so we had some incompetent foul mouthed harridan who had to resign as a new Minister before she was even officially appointed.
The SNP are living on the desire for independence. This has fallen off slightly but not by much and there is some evidence that the ongoing farce in Westminster is lifting it slightly again. It gives them a base that any other party in the UK would give their eye teeth for. But if Nicola is ultimately seen as not being able to deliver a second referendum all bets are off. It seems likely to me that Labour would be the main beneficiary in such a scenario.
And if any bank in Europe tried such a trick, every deposit holder in Europe would instantly take their money out and put it in the bank of a country with a functioning legal system (eg the UK hopefully). So no more EU banking system.
Apart from this, how would the bank know which deposit holders to steal from? They have an Italian sounding name?
The point is that pro-EU people like to pretend that Target2 is not a problem. It is a problem, as this nonsensical suggestion shows.
I don't dislike Davidson, but I don't see why having kids means you have to like someone more. Not disputing that a poll boost might follow the media coverage, though.
[Also, I'm not sure 'craven' makes sense in that context].
It coincided with the announcement and the birth of Leo Blair.
There’s going to be a lot of pictures of her with a newborn baby, the media love that stuff.
"Barnier says 'huge and serious' gap remains between UK and EU demands on Brexit – Politics live"
means that we are on the verge of a deal.
As to the priority, I think with last night's deal they have shown that compromise can hold the association together but that might as easily embolden them as inhibit them , because ours is a different scenario whereby they don't need to hold anything together because we have told them we want to leave.
But a deal will come, regardless.
I also think that we've got through the worst of the downturn pretty much unscathed. It also goes some way to explaining why the deficit is still falling so fast, the economy is still growing.
In the UK news, "10,000 people died from Cancer this year"
In the Scottish news, "10,000 Scots died from Cancer this year"
Subtle, but important and pervades everything.
Also good to see Kubica in the Williams, dare I suggest that he’s going to be a lot more useful in providing feedback to the engineers than a couple of young pay drivers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44652846
I think if May comes back with a deal that makes many of the loons wince she will be cheered to the rooftops by the vast majority who really want all of this to go away and she will have no difficulty in getting it through the Commons. Still think that will be October but now would be good.
Remarkable.
You could ask companies to execute cancellation requests within 24hrs, but you really can't tell them how to do it.
(note irony of Labour voter pointing out to Tory voter the trouble of regulating business)
The Telegraph last year covered a number of stories about people trying to cancel Sky, that included people closing bank accounts, solicitors’ letters and small claims court cases. People got little or no response until journalists got involved.
I suppose it is easy for me to say this as I'm not a SLAB MP defending his/her seat!
Or "Comrades".
Mr. Sandpit, Sirotkin's been praised quite a bit, I understand. Gives good feedback and doesn't complain, or sometimes even mention, an unfixable problem, leaving discussion of it for the garage.
Mr. Meeks, you could write "10,000 of Her Majesty's loyal subjects".
The piece will be introduced by someone saying, "What does X mean for Scots? Let's join Fred in the high street.
I am not saying that it is a conspiracy. Far from it. But it is there, a very subtle thing. Personally, I think word Scot just sounds better/punchier. But it has a political effect.
It's about accessibility and that is very much something that can be regulated. If a company said you can only cancel by calling a toll number between 3am and 4am on a Wednesday during a full moon would that be ok?
Edit: But you can cancel that yourself - so this is a pointless post.
Also, see EU digital vat rules for forcing businesses to do things. You have to check 3 different methods of location ID before allowing a purchase, then collect the VAT, provide paperwork for all 27 countries, yadda yadda. You basically have to be the VAT police for every EU country.
Forcing a company to have a cancel subscription button really is trivial compared to that.
Companies tend to like to bear that sort of integration cost for the things that make you money, not the things that cost you money.
Mostly I get my news from R4 (national UK), The Guardian (national UK) or the Irish Times (national Ireland - for a view on Brexit from within the continuity EU). Very rarely I will see something from the Edinburgh Evening News about cycle lanes (Facebook knows that I'm of an age/gender to be cycling).
I think it must be pretty different on TV news.
One of my businesses have a subscription service and we only offer online sign-up and cancellation, and it is all pretty much automated.
Although I've no idea what it is actually saying. Must try harder, it sounds like.
And it's not Barnier freelancing.
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/35966/29-euco-art50-conclusions-en.pdf
...2. The European Council expresses its concern that no substantial progress has yet been achieved on agreeing a backstop solution for Ireland/Northern Ireland. It recalls the commitments undertaken by the UK in this respect in December 2017 and March 2018, and insists on the need for intensified efforts so that the Withdrawal Agreement, including its provisions on transition, can be concluded as soon as possible in order to come into effect on the date of withdrawal. It recalls that negotiations can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken so far are respected in full.
3. Work must also be accelerated with a view to preparing a political declaration on the framework for the future relationship. This requires further clarity as well as realistic and workable proposals from the UK as regards its position on the future relationship. The European Council reconfirms the principles set out in its guidelines and the position defined in March 2018. The European Council recalls that if the UK positions were to evolve, the Union will be prepared to reconsider its offer in accordance with the principles stated in the guidelines of 29 April and 15 December 2017 as well as of 23 March 2018.
https://twitter.com/Holbornlolz/status/1012641555759468544
Personally I don't bother with Sky.
The point is that they make you jump through hoops to provide them with a notification of cancellation which they will accept, which is what’s wrong.
From a systems point of view, it’s as easy (or otherwise) as they want it to be.
A standard (as with GDPR) which companies can choose how to implement...
1. There's far too much stuff outstanding for comfort. Gibraltar, for starters.
2. Northern Ireland is stuck.
3. The EU is waiting for British proposals. It will look again at its own ideas if Britain stops draping itself in union jacks and starts engaging what the EU thinks of as "sensibly".
4. There's a real risk this is all going pear-shaped. Plan accordingly.
I'm not sure I agree with that. In some ways, the referendum just jolted Westminster VI into line with Scotland's voting for other bodies. These are the SNP/Lab shares (plus others, where SNP/Lab was third) for the major elections in Scotland from 2005GE onwards (for Scottish Parliament elections (SP), I've used the regional vote; for local elections, I've used first preferences):
2005 GE Lab 39.5 SNP 17.7 (LD 22.6)
2007 LE Lab 28.1 SNP 27.9
2007 SP Lab 29.2 SNP 31.0
2009 EP Lab 20.8 SNP 29.1
2010 GE Lab 42.0 SNP 19.9
2011 SP Lab 26.3 SNP 44.0
2012 LE Lab 31.4 SNP 32.3
2014 EP Lab 25.9 SNP 29.0
2015 GE Lab 24.3 SNP 50.0
2016 SP Lab 19.1 SNP 41.7 (Con 22.9)
2017 LE Lab 20.2 SNP 32.3 (Con 25.3)
2017 GE Lab 27.1 SNP 36.9 (Con 28.6)
So while there was a spike to an unprecedented level for the SNP after the referendum, and while it certainly shifted Westminster voting in a way it had never gone before, it didn't 'change everything'. In particular, the 2011 Holyrood election gave a good foretaste of the 2015 Westminster vote, and looking at the 2005-14 results, it's really the Westminster votes which stand out as exceptional, both with Labour doing so well and the SNP so badly (the contrast between 2009 and 2010 is particularly striking and a measure of how brittle Labour's vote had become).
Have to say the Mercedes looks stunning through Turn 1. Hard on the brakes, carrying good mid-corner speed and really stable on exit. Looks a cut above the rest.
Edd Straw...
Bet accordingly.
But yes, as you say, it is telling us, in effect that Brexit (ie our papers and agreements on Brexit) means Brexit.
A pile of upgrades to the German cars this weekend.
Right now it looks like a 20-25% chance of a crash out based on the utter failure of the two sides to understand each other.
Now that assesment might be borne of mischaracterisations of Barnier's utter inflexibility/requirement for Britain to be on bended knee in the press, and I hope the EU is being more reasonable than it appears.
Clearly with point 4, the EU is well prepared preparing for there to be no deal - and we are not.
If it's to be Brexit humiliation for Britain then so be it but I'm not sure that is the best footing for the EU to be starting off with with their largest export partner heading forward.
Whether something is legal or not depends on (1) whether appropriate domestic legislation entitles the state to act as it has and, in extreme cases, (2) whether the act infringes very basic human rights. Whether the act is sensible or practicable are different questions - and, I'd suggest, a more fruitful line of opposition.
I'd argue that legally the state has the powers needed to act as suggested, which are twofold: the right to tax - i.e. to require payment based on an identifiable asset or action - and the right to compulsorily purchase, subject to appropriate compensation. In this case, it'd be effectively a savings tax followed by the compulsory purchase of residual balances, paid for in Turkish Lira. Such an act would, of course, be hugely unpopular and damaging - but it wouldn't be illegal providing the proper processes had been followed.
Oh and the UK govt have realised the EU have their red lines too.