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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Preview: February 27th 2014
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Local By-Election Preview: February 27th 2014
Result of by-election held on December 19th 2013: Non Party Independent 529 (51%), Conservative 219 (21%), Liberal Democrats 148 (14%), United Kingdom Independence Party 138 (13%) (Non Party Independent GAIN from Conservative)
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/britain-possibility-joining-euro-labour-frontbencher
kle4 said:
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Like the coming of the tides, I doubt we'll have to wait long.
I must say, I really am supportive of backbenchers not being pushovers, but these Tory ones seem like the most unpleasable and miserable bunch ever conceived.
MickPorkYou don't perhaps think their trust and gullibility has been well and truly tested to destruction many, many times before now? Oh I'm 100% certain there is a small hardcore that would like nothing better than to see Cammie humiliated at every turn but let's be realistic here. It's not just a small hardcore any more nor can all the endless posturing and pledges be easily forgotten. It's a two way street and they have good reason to be miserable if they keep believing the spin. The BOOers will never trust Cammie but we know it's not just them. Syria was not out of the blue. His own backbenchers warned him. Syria was also just the last time since there's plenty of other times. So yes you are quite correct. These tory backbenchers seem like the most unpleasable and miserable bunch ever conceived. But there's a reason they are that way and I'm afraid Cammie and the chumocracy can hardly pretend that reason is nothing to do with them.
That is true. I would certainly agree with Cameron regarding the core intransigents, in that my views are far closer to his than theirs, but ultimately he is responsible for having no control over his own party, and the numbers and variety of those ranging from total opposition to him to willingness to humiliate him, shows he has no grip on them at all.
I have been trying very hard to avoid answering your comment but the queue seems to have disappeared and I can only see a Warwickshire malcontent glowering.
I don't think we need to get too excited by the RBS results. Underlying profitablility is sound and the additional (non-cash flow) impairment provisions are necessary to further prepare the bank for flotation and division.
You should note that even the greatest managers have to take such hard decisions. Even St George has felt it necessary to take a £13.9 billion net provision in this year's UK National Accounts to reflect a mark down to market prices of the assets purchased by the Bank of England as part of the Quantitative Easing programme.
The legacy left by Labour is costly, Mr. Brooke and the costs, though reducing in aggregate, are still with us.
You want Ed to manage RBS?
@JohnRentoul: Ed Balls, wearing his headphones upside down. Via @ianpatterson99 & @stephentall http://t.co/JlrSHIK7oH”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/ian-smart-is-worse-than-a-racist-says-brother-1-2924947
given his utterings maybe Ed will do a better job on RBS than George. He's more likely to just break it up.
Despite your best attempts to polish the turd, on today's results we'd need a multiple of about 20 to get the taxpayer back to par. Ambitious to say the least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Liddle
Reason I mention Lloyds is twofold:
1. Recovering value of the original taxpayer investment is as much time related as 'multiples' driven. RBS is probably trading well below its real value and its underlying profits prospects are probably much higher than £2-3 bn recorded this year. So give RBS a couple more years and the extent of the payback will be clearer and easier to predict.
2. Lloyds is sailing and will pay dividends this year even if George decides not to sell. So dividend income and/or 'profits' made on the disposal of Lloyds shares may end up balancing the overall books.
As for breaking up the banks, you can't do this unless the resulting bits are sellable. But Ed wouldn't understand that. Don't let him anywhere near the decision, Mr. Brooke.
I would rather have Pork as PM.
I would not argue that sexual acts between adults and minors should be lawful. Nor would I link up with an organisation that campaigned for such legalisation.
Time is money Avery old bean and there's no way in the short or medium term the taxpayer is getting his money off RBS. The Bank of Mordor may be a different matter.
I'm afraid with RBS we've burned the cash and it's not coming back, a range of smaller banks from RBS would serve the economy much better. And as for a sale or float I thought that's what you London chappies were paid extortion fees for. If you're stuck I'll do it from the Midlands pro bono.
Would that be a personal decision (and a defence of the right for individual solicitors/firms to decline) or one you would argue all solicitors and their firms should follow?
My membership list suggests there are no members to be found between Watford and Edinburgh.
Subject to anti-discrimination legislation, solicitors' firms can accept or reject any client.
The border was closed from 1969 - 1985 so many of us have already lived for a significant period of our lives reliant on goods brought in by sea. We've maintained complete independence in terms of water and electricity since then (just in case) so a renewed Spanish blockade would be deja vu.
The Spanish will close the border and the air routes again and we'll0 just settle back into siege mode again. Only hopefully this time the whole Rock won't have to keep switching between butter and margarine depending on which supply ship came in last.
The US $ is very dodgy, I don't think we should use that currency as an alternative, the rouble, yuan and yen have their own problems. I really don't think Salmond's fantasy currency plan is going to fly either.
So, if a new currency comes along, do we say, "our pound has done us well since time immemorial, we are going to stick our heads up our backsides" or are we going to see what possibilities there may be.
Let us consider that in the event of a currency union of whatever kind, who would actually be disadvantaged : obviously, the currency exchangers and speculators will be out of a job.
I can buy through PayPal, from any where in the world, with a very good result, goods and delivery. Believe it or not, it is a UK company (only 1) that is causing me problems. A minor, although annoying cost is the exchange rate. As more people buy and sell their products and services across the globe, then there will be a lot of pressure for a single currency.
Now, this may seem difficult to understand, but do we use a currency used by 60 million in one country, or do we use a one in use by 300 million to a billion people that we could just possibly have an input into.
I can actually remember the change from £sd to £p. We had been warned that it would take 6 months, it actually took, practically, 24 hours.
Paddy Power @paddypower 1m
If Soldado fell into a barrel of tits right now he'd come up sucking his own thumb.
I know the difficulties second hand having shared a big chunk of my life with a family law barrister who ended up specialising in child abuse cases (on both sides).
It is not easy work.
I'm not sure it will be very interesting at all. In fact it will be very predictable.
The border was closed from 1969 - 1985 so many of us have already lived for a significant period of our lives reliant on goods brought in by sea. We've maintained complete independence in terms of water and electricity since then (just in case) so a renewed Spanish blockade would be deja vu.
The Spanish will close the border and the air routes again and we'll0 just settle back into siege mode again. Only hopefully this time the whole Rock won't have to keep switching between butter and margarine depending on which supply ship came in last.
I'd love to visit Geoff - never been. I'm fascinated by this avaricious obsession the Spanish have with the place. I understand they still sometimes close the border today. It's now the only controlled border in Western Europe. An interesting place.
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead now five points: CON 34%, LAB 39%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead now five points: CON 34%, LAB 39%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%
Anyway, having hit the word count I'm off to reward myself with some orange jelly.
*The exception is the Yuan, with China buying thousands of tons of discounted gold in the recent price crash engineered (once again) by the central banks to bail out the (once again) broken bullion banks. None of the various kinds of fiat scrip have any more value than the faith given to it by its users and the government who insists on receiving tax payments in it. But they are currency, not money. Money is gold and silver.
Cross-over tonight too?
We really need to teach more of the details in schools. But then again, my school never even touched upon the British Civil Wars for goodness sake.
That is unless you were a member of the Labour government which went behind the back of the people of Gib and tried to give us to the Spanish against our will. Yes NPxMP, I'm talking about you.
{EDIT: to try to fix or at least organise the blockquotes}
Do we use a currency used by 60 million which is controlled totally by ourselves and can always be used in our interests or do we use one used by hundreds of millions of people that requires a consensus of multiple nations to control and at anyone time may be used in a manner that is against an individual nations best interests (much as it has been used in manner that is against the interests of the PIGS countries in recent years).
Of course until the whole globe adopts the Euro (I will not be holding my breath) there will continue to be the inconvenience of exchange rate commission to be paid. In my view, for this country that's a small price to be paid to ensure that little old UK with its paltry population of 60 million keeps total control over its financial future.
I actually think a balance between all skyscapers and no skyscapers is quite a good one. Gives it some character even as things change (I recall reading a piece about Mecca destroying a lot of historic buildings without a care, in one sad example). Certainly as much as I do not think I could live in London - too much of a small town lad - it is a hugely compelling place visually, aided by such modern ministrations. London needs to be a city both historical and timeless, not easy to pull off.
No one can be surprised by events in the Crimea in the last 24-36 hours. That the Ukrainians made a go of suggesting the UN turn up in Crimea is an indication of how keen they were to head off the actions now taking place. The build up of Russian military activity since Sunday in Crimea and around Ukraine's eastern borders was spotted a mile away.
When you get Russian officials suggesting they are talking to the Ukraine military (the government being bypassed) about restoring order you do wonder. Bearing in mind the man the ousted President put in charge of the Ukrainian Army after the former Chief of Staff refused to put tanks on the street is still in that post it all starts to look tricky.
The problem for Kiev is that they cant just sit and watch and they aren't but are in a position where to restore some kind of order down in Crimea means a likely head top head with ever enlarging Russian forces. They are putting security forces around the Crimea (but not in it) and I'd find it doubtful that the Maidan activists will take what looks to be brewing laying down.
Ukrainians in Crimea have called on Kiev for protection, elements in the Tatar community have called out to Turkey for the same.
The irony of all this is that though there is the popular oversimplification that this is a Pro Europe vs Pro Russia conflict stoked by ethnic divisions one of the protesters' primary causes for going on the street was that they'd had enough of the corrupt state, the suppression of democratic process and associated liberal society right and the feeling that they had tied to the yoke of Russia. What drove many many people was that they wanted democracy and liberal democratic principles in their truest sense.
Now, however, it is very much much about pro and anti Russian sentiment.
Ousted President reportedly in Rostov, not too far from the South Eastern border of Ukraine. Still president apparently. Who says? Russian officials.
Friday's Sun front page - "Labour chiefs: It's ok to have sex with 10-yr-olds" #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/XaLhd4jGd0
https://twitter.com/TheSunNewspaper
http://www.retrowow.co.uk/architecture/60s/tricorn/reflections.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/death-brutalism-and-prepubertal-sex-jonathan-meades-embraces-some-difficult-subjects-in-his-tv-series-and-memoir-9144497.html
(*) In general. There is certainly a functional grace in slipformed water cooling towers, and there are some good brutalist buildings. But generally they can age awfully, and I hate them.
A murky situation though - usually I at least feel like there is an accepted train of thought in popular opiniom, right or wrong, about whether something is good or bad, but at the moment everyone still seems disputed over whether Putin is on the backfoot, still has the upper hand due to USA and EU traditional dithering, or anything in between.
That is surprising and interesting news that the Chief of Staff has not been replaced by his predessor though.
57% of voters believed that the failure by any party to win a majority would lead to “weak government.
87% of Tory voters would prefer another coalition with the Lib Dems than see Ed Miliband become PM.
On a minority govt vs a second coalition.
48% of Tory Voters would prefer a minority govt and GE after a year or two, 44% would prefer a second coalition with the LDs
Of all voters
33% want a Labour majority, 30% a Tory majority, 10% a Lib-Lab coalition and 7% wanted another deal between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.
The YouGov poll was conducted among 2,062 people online on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Possible, but unlikely...
However, a note of thanks for another clear synopsis of another brewing crisis.
I really wonder if the average tory backbencher would wait long enough to hear the explanation before they swallowed the sweet and demanded more.
If Hacked Off had their way this would never have come to light
Is a big 'anti-tory' paedophile revelation about to break?
Or is it simply a reinvigorated press getting revenge for Leveson?
Very strange to see The Sun take over the baton from The Daily Mail.