Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
Obama timed US military action specifically to steal Farage's thunder.
"Hello, White House. Bomb Iraq to get up the Kippers noses? Yup, anything for you Dave"
Except the US, France and a bunch of other countries are already bombing the place. The decision for the British to discuss it late is entirely Cameron's...
Well if the Tories' answer to Sally Bercow has decided to comment on it then its got to be dodgy!
Remind me is mensch an mp, or just a gobby member of the public?
She is a former Tory MP and candidate just as Bercow is a former Labour (council) candidate. Given she was actually elected though does I suggest make her marginally more significant than Bercow.
Anyway given your view does that mean that the next time that John Major appears on TV we should consider him as just a gobby member of the public?
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
That reform has to mean that English MPs have the final say over measures that only affect English matters.
But EV4EL will only do that for legislative measures. For all the non-legislative changes made by the Education Secretary and the Health Secretary, the English get screwed.
Do you know think that it is possible to devise some system to ensure that properly scrutiny of such matters happens?
I believe it is.
And it is unthinkable, going forward, that an Education Secretary will not represent an English constituency.
The budgets for specific devolved areas are currently developed as part of the overall annual Government budget by the Chancellor (formerly two Scots in succession) and the Chief Secretary of the Treasury (two Scots in succession). The budget is and has to be voted on by all members of the House giiven it is a Pan UK budget. How do you propose that the allocation of specific budgets for devolved areas is made an English only matter?
How do you address areas like the Home office which will have devolved areas such as police and non-devolved areas such as Immigration. Are you going to break up one of the great offices of State or just ban non English MP's from a job that should be available for them.
How do you identify which Peers (who will be able to block all legislation from the Commons) are non-English and which are not? They do not necessarily previously have constituencies. After all it would be a bit pointless having EVfEL if Mick Martin, David Steele and Neil Kinnock were then able to block it in the Lords.
The idea that you can provide national integrity for English only matters within the UK Government/ Parliament is highly implausible. In fact to adapt a William Hague phrase its a bit like being 'In England but not run by England'
There is a big difference between 'English Votes for English Laws' and 'English Rule for English Laws' and the latter is where we should be heading.
Very interesting, but I don't see a compelling reason here as to why MPs representing Scottish constituencies should vote on laws pertaining only to England. We shouldn't even be discussing it -it should just have been the basic stop-gap option when devolution was first introduced.
The imperfections you raise are a valid reason for continuing to work toward a better system, but not to allow a blatant democratic injustice to stand in the meantime.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So Cameron wants to ask Parliament if he can bomb Assad's opponents.
Just over a year after Cameron asked Parliament if he could help Assad's opponents.
Clueless.
We are going to bomb the FSA? Or are you one of the numpties who believe that ISIL are the same as Al Nusra, who are the same as the secular FSA?
We let the FSA down last year, and in so doing removed our best chance of ending the conflict quickly. The FSA are now mostly a defeated force, when they were winning before Assad used chemical weapons. Their defeat has allowed al Nusra and ISIL a great deal of room to manoeuvre.
And that is leaving aside the issue of arming the Kurds, whose militant wing was involved in terrorist acts that killed tens of thousands. That's going to end well ...
I'll say it again: Miliband has blood on his hands over the events last year.
Might be worth a look as it is by Vernon Bogdanor on EV4EL and so on - was he not Mr Cameron's tutor at Oxford?
Any pb reader will have noted that ev4el posts have died away on recent threads, presumably as the party has realised it ain't that straightforward, which is presumably why Hague's committee has been established, and perhaps for fear of a causing a backlash -- maybe CCHQ's private polling (you see what I did there?) showed that in general English voters don't really care and Scottish and Welsh ones fear a hostile Conservative Party.
How on Earth is it hostile to prevent the Scottish and Welsh ruling the English on stuff they get devolved?
Whether it is or not, the question is whether it is perceived to be. One factor here would be its source. The SNP proposing ev4el is less likely to be seen as anti-Scots than an absolutely identical proposal from the Conservative Party because that party is already seen -- fairly or unfairly -- as being hostile to Scotland: the effing Tories, as the Prime Minister put it. And even if Scotland is written off, there are eight Welsh seats to defend.
So the Conservatives aren't allowed to do the fair thing because the Scots have a chip on their shoulder? With respect, that's a ridiculous position.
No, there are two aspects to it. One is what should be done; once you've moved beyond sloganising, it isn't obvious: hence Hague's committee. The other is getting elected, and that is where perceptions of voters matter. Both these factors suggest it will be kicked into the long grass.
Having Billy Vague run it increases the chances of fudge, muddle and no action.
Ever since his Damascene conversion to europhilia, I have had a pet hunch that the Coalition has 'the goods' on William Hague. Though what that might be over I wouldn't speculate. He seems to have become a safe pair of hands -a Coalition 'dirty bank' if you will -paws all over the unpalatable foreign policy for instance. If true, it's hardly surprising he wants to quit politics.
Ed Miliband just had a difficult interview with a very unconvinced Jon Snow on Channel 4 news.
The election campaign is going to be a bloodbath for poor Ed....
He did his best, but when you've just forgotten the thing that is the biggest "known known" facing the country 2015 - 20 you are only in damage limitation mode at best.
"Mitt Romney’s internal polling in 2012, showed him believing he was on course to win the Presidency"
I think this misrepresents Mr Romney's position. The US pollsters results fell into two groups, the variation being on who they thought would be the electorate. The pro-dem pollsters were right, the pro-gop pollsters were wrong.
You can see something similar in current UK polls. There is a high-UKIP group, and a low-UKIP group.
All the polling showed that Obama was the favourite.
Private polling will give similar results to public polling, so long as it's done properly.
That reform has to mean that English MPs have the final say over measures that only affect English matters.
But EV4EL will only do that for legislative measures. For all the non-legislative changes made by the Education Secretary and the Health Secretary, the English get screwed.
Do you know think that it is possible to devise some system to ensure that properly scrutiny of such matters happens?
I believe it is.
And it is unthinkable, going forward, that an Education Secretary will not represent an English constituency.
Very interesting, but I don't see a compelling reason here as to why MPs representing Scottish constituencies should vote on laws pertaining only to England. We shouldn't even be discussing it -it should just have been the basic stop-gap option when devolution was first introduced.
The imperfections you raise are a valid reason for continuing to work toward a better system, but not to allow a blatant democratic injustice to stand in the meantime.
Well if the UK Lords can block any amendments English MPs make in English legislation that's a bit of a showstopper and having non English ministers setting the policy agenda and controlling the budgets for devolved areas is as well but that aside I agree EVfEL is a small step forward even if it does basically pay lip-service to the English democratic deficit and only go as far as Tory self-interest allows.
The thing is there are regularly those (mainly Tories) on here who like to claim that EVfEL is the be all and end all of this issue and will end the English democratic deficit. It won't. EVfEL maybe the start of democratic reform but it cannot be the end of it!
This makes Pete Wishart's tweet this morning even funnier.
They want to replace all Main Stream Media reporting with people on Facebook telling each other they are going to win...
Still no sign of Stuart Dickson? Was he a MI5 mole?
I suspect Stuart Dickson has gone the way of Stuart Truth and now inhabits a parallel Universe where reality is exactly what you want it to be.
I dont remember Stuart ever saying he thought 'yes' would win - he mostly said it would be close and 'yes' was value.
Yes he frequently said he didn't know who would win - but pointed out the disparity between the polling odds (close thing) and betting odds.
Prize turnips for "getting it wrong" must go to "GOTV Pork" and "hopeless" malcolmg......
Poor hapless Pork. The indignity of seeing his sparing partner Seth vindicated when Lansley became leader followed by getting the Scottish referendum badly wrong because he understood less about what was going on than the out-of-touch-fop-twits.
Was it Pork or tim who used to obsess about the horse Cameron rode and how he would have to resign by the weekend?
We've had another "Cameron will resign any moment now" obsessive here recently.....
It was the cowardly bully Tim.
Was it the horse that was going to resign? A pedant writes!
So Cameron wants to ask Parliament if he can bomb Assad's opponents.
Just over a year after Cameron asked Parliament if he could help Assad's opponents.
Clueless.
We are going to bomb the FSA? Or are you one of the numpties who believe that ISIL are the same as Al Nusra, who are the same as the secular FSA?
We let the FSA down last year, and in so doing removed our best chance of ending the conflict quickly. The FSA are now mostly a defeated force, when they were winning before Assad used chemical weapons. Their defeat has allowed al Nusra and ISIL a great deal of room to manoeuvre.
And that is leaving aside the issue of arming the Kurds, whose militant wing was involved in terrorist acts that killed tens of thousands. That's going to end well ...
I'll say it again: Miliband has blood on his hands over the events last year.
I suspect he's one of the 'numpties' who believes that these groups are completely porous in terms of membership, loyalties, mergers, weapons, equipment, etc., making it at best idiotic and at worst homicidal to provide the 'nice' ones (a total myth) with weapons and training. See the recent 'non-aggression agreement' between the FSA and ISIS in Damascus: http://www.ibtimes.com/us-backed-moderate-group-syria-signs-truce-isis-reports-1687662
Which if you haven't guessed, wouldn't actually make him a numpty, it would make him a vaguely sentient human being with the capacity for critical thought.
As for the rest of your ludicrous stream of consciousness, you seem to be forgetting the object of last year's proposed bombing campaign was not to unseat Assad, it was to 'punish' him -weakening his regime but leaving him in power and prolonging the bloodshed. Suggesting it would have removed him and lead to peace is fantasy beyond even the claims of its biggest backers.
"Milibelivers felt thin on the ground this week. I made a point of asking everyone I spoke to how they assessed the mood. “Flat,” was the usual response."
"The dearth of Milibelivers had the effect that pragmatists felt less conference peer pressure to align themselves with the optimists and more to mirror the concerns of the pessimists. We entered a spiral of negativity. "
Adding to the fire over UKIP conference and Syria:
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So you think its purely political and not for operational or diplomatic reasons? That still doesn't explain why Friday is better than Monday (as Monday fits your criteria just as well) but hey you saying its political is fine by me........
merely looking at the yoy change Richard, clearly you're not. It's going the wrong way despite Osborne's ducking and diving.
We've had this discussion each year for the last three years. There are well-known reasons why the timing is skewed more towards the end of the year this time round.
No-one, least of all Osborne, every claimed that this was going to be easy. It will take three terms of Conservative government to get fully back on track, as it did last time the country got itself in a dreadful mess.
The Rothschilds disinvest from oil yesterday,today ALEC loses Google and Facebook.The secret state is being pulled down across the pond.As an environmentalist,it hasn't felt this way since the '70s.This green revolution is a cause for optimism.
merely looking at the yoy change Richard, clearly you're not. It's going the wrong way despite Osborne's ducking and diving.
We've had this discussion each year for the last three years. There are well-known reasons why the timing is skewed more towards the end of the year this time round.
No-one, least of all Osborne, every claimed that this was going to be easy. It will take three terms of Conservative government to get fully back on track, as it did last time the country got itself in a dreadful mess.
"Milibelivers felt thin on the ground this week. I made a point of asking everyone I spoke to how they assessed the mood. “Flat,” was the usual response."
"The dearth of Milibelivers had the effect that pragmatists felt less conference peer pressure to align themselves with the optimists and more to mirror the concerns of the pessimists. We entered a spiral of negativity. "
In fairness, not all of it is quite that bleak.
Weren't they always thin on the ground? Ed won by union votes.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So you think its purely political and not for operational or diplomatic reasons? That still doesn't explain why Friday is better than Monday (as Monday fits your criteria just as well) but hey you saying its political is fine by me........
I don't rule out other reasons at all - just this Friday fits the thesis and allows Cameron to get over his jet lag as he was in N York today I think too.
Pick what you like, but Comres on leaders looks good for Farage, especially when compared to the rest of the opposition:
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 51m But Cameron wins on intelligence, competence, right policies (just, over UKIP) and trust: ComRes for ITVNews pic.twitter.com/kNsN3rVJJL
"Mitt Romney’s internal polling in 2012, showed him believing he was on course to win the Presidency"
I think this misrepresents Mr Romney's position. The US pollsters results fell into two groups, the variation being on who they thought would be the electorate. The pro-dem pollsters were right, the pro-gop pollsters were wrong.
You can see something similar in current UK polls. There is a high-UKIP group, and a low-UKIP group.
All the polling showed that Obama was the favourite.
Private polling will give similar results to public polling, so long as it's done properly.
I suppose there will always be a market for providing polling which tells people exactly what they want to hear though. It's just a problem in making that a long term business - having been proven wrong so decisively with your private polling to please a client, how do you get hired again?
Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) 24/09/2014 19:44 Around 1,000 people have turned out for Ukip mtg in Clacton w/ @DouglasCarswell@Nigel_Farage --> #Ukipconf14 pic.twitter.com/4GdYbd29cj
Might be worth a look as it is by Vernon Bogdanor on EV4EL and so on - was he not Mr Cameron's tutor at Oxford?
Any pb reader will have noted that ev4el posts have died away on recent threads, presumably as the party has realised it ain't that straightforward, which is presumably why Hague's committee has been established, and perhaps for fear of a causing a backlash -- maybe CCHQ's private polling (you see what I did there?) showed that in general English voters don't really care and Scottish and Welsh ones fear a hostile Conservative Party.
How on Earth is it hostile to prevent the Scottish and Welsh ruling the English on stuff they get devolved?
Because you are taking a sweetie away from them. The fact that it doesn't belong to them and it isn't fair they use it, doesn't alter the fundamental fact that people ascribe value to what they possess
1. Distortion of questions - a private pollster has no reason to resist asking leading questions etc. 2. Selection of best results. You might have four private polls done, and leak the one that suits you best. 3. Pollster distortion - trying to please the customer by helpful rounding etc.
Number 3 seems the least likely - it would just be annoying to have a pollster who makes stuff up. Those unscrupulous enough to lie to the public can make up their own lies based on non-existent pollsters. But either 1 or 2 looks possible.
I'd suggest a couple of other points.
1. Is there private poll bias, or do we only hear about it when it's badly wrong (outliers etc)?
2. Is it the polling. The Canadian example above talks about analysis of the results. Pollsters place a lot of emphasis on their being a snapshot. Is it a case of the forward projections of polls (and Yes moved up to near level before falling back again) being trickier and more error prone than polling.
It is Douglas Carsewell who has currently left his former constituents without any form of Westminster representation in a vote on this issue now Parliament has been recalled. And its also Douglas Carsewell who has chosen to self indulgently put his constituents through a costly by-election as a UKIP political stunt just months before a GE.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So you think its purely political and not for operational or diplomatic reasons? That still doesn't explain why Friday is better than Monday (as Monday fits your criteria just as well) but hey you saying its political is fine by me........
I don't rule out other reasons at all - just this Friday fits the thesis and allows Cameron to get over his jet lag as he was in N York today I think too.
Jet lag? I'd stop digging if I were you because your still not coming close to explaining why Friday is more appropriate than Monday.....
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
So Cameron wants to ask Parliament if he can bomb Assad's opponents.
Just over a year after Cameron asked Parliament if he could help Assad's opponents.
Clueless.
We are going to bomb the FSA? Or are you one of the numpties who believe that ISIL are the same as Al Nusra, who are the same as the secular FSA?
We let the FSA down last year, and in so doing removed our best chance of ending the conflict quickly. The FSA are now mostly a defeated force, when they were winning before Assad used chemical weapons. Their defeat has allowed al Nusra and ISIL a great deal of room to manoeuvre.
And that is leaving aside the issue of arming the Kurds, whose militant wing was involved in terrorist acts that killed tens of thousands. That's going to end well ...
I'll say it again: Miliband has blood on his hands over the events last year.
I suspect he's one of the 'numpties' who believes that these groups are completely porous in terms of membership, loyalties, mergers, weapons, equipment, etc., making it at best idiotic and at worst homicidal to provide the 'nice' ones (a total myth) with weapons and training. See the recent 'non-aggression agreement' between the FSA and ISIS in Damascus: http://www.ibtimes.com/us-backed-moderate-group-syria-signs-truce-isis-reports-1687662
Which if you haven't guessed, wouldn't actually make him a numpty, it would make him a vaguely sentient human being with the capacity for critical thought.
Nope, it makes him a numpty. Several points to say:
1) If true, then it is a tactical agreement in a small area.
2) The strategic situation now, after a year of heavy defeats for the FSA, is very different to the one in August last year.
3) The FSA is a different beast to what it was last year. A year of getting hammered by three other groups tends to do that.
4) The timings of this 'deal' are rather suspect. It could almost have been invented by the Syrian regime or their Russian lackeys ...
You could also point to the reports of deals between Assad and Al Nujra and ISIS. But you do not, for some reason... (1)
Supporters of Assad are just as sick as those who support ISIS. Yet sadly, at the moment, ISIS are the bigger threat to us. But Assad's still using chemical weapons, and the blood of every single man, woman and child who dies or gets injured in those attacks is on Ed Miliband's hands.
So as I said, Hugh's a numpty. And a dangerous one.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So you think its purely political and not for operational or diplomatic reasons? That still doesn't explain why Friday is better than Monday (as Monday fits your criteria just as well) but hey you saying its political is fine by me........
I don't rule out other reasons at all - just this Friday fits the thesis and allows Cameron to get over his jet lag as he was in N York today I think too.
Jet lag? I'd stop digging if I were you because your still not coming close to explaining why Friday is more appropriate than Monday.....
Well I'm only musing. It's not that vital to my existence what day it is.
I do not believe in an English Parliament. I do not believe in devolution to cities (or even city states.) And I certainly do not believe that the current system can continue without reform.
That reform has to mean that English MPs have the final say over measures that only affect English matters.
I think the mistake that people are making is to assume that we are bound by the current structure of the Crown-in-Parliament, which is - IMV - at the root of many of the problems that we have in the UK government system.
If you take the executive out of the legislature, and make the PM directly elected (and getting to appoint his executive team) then there would be absolutely no problem in electing English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland parliaments.
The Executive would take executive decisions. And if they wanted to propose legislation then they would need to convince a majority of members of the relevant national parliament.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Don't think ukip should kick up a fuss about this really... It's true we have no MPs so why should parliament care when the conference is?
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
I see UKIP have taken to wearing the SNP's used victim mantle.
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
Pick what you like, but Comres on leaders looks good for Farage, especially when compared to the rest of the opposition:
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 51m But Cameron wins on intelligence, competence, right policies (just, over UKIP) and trust: ComRes for ITVNews pic.twitter.com/kNsN3rVJJL
Some curious ones there from my perspective. I'm surprised Farage is rated as 'weird' (although also highest on 'comes across as someone like me', funnily enough), as I thought the whole reason people liked him is he comes across as a genuine sort of chap (no joke) even if he is not a man of the people, he seems normal if well off, hence why is is seen as the least out of touch. Even his opponents, who might claim his policies are weird, I did not think sought to portray him personally as weird.
I am also amazed Cameron is rated so highly for 'can get things done'. I suppose his high profile failures do not eliminate what I would expect is a high boost factor from merely being the PM (as with statesmenlike), which must give people some confidence someone can get something done.
Poor old Clegg doesn't even lead on any of them, except 'none of the above'. Though it takes away somewhat from people attacking him as untrustworthy, when apparently the general anti-politician untrustworthiness is barely higher.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Seriously Nick what is so special about recalling Parliament this Friday and not last Friday or this coming Saturday, Sunday or Monday?
Because it's post Scotland vote, post Labour conference, but pre Tory and Lib Dem. so no thunder stolen or horses frightened, and fair enough really as we need a genuine consensus here and it won't do anyone any good to have another " surprise " like last year.
So you think its purely political and not for operational or diplomatic reasons? That still doesn't explain why Friday is better than Monday (as Monday fits your criteria just as well) but hey you saying its political is fine by me........
I don't rule out other reasons at all - just this Friday fits the thesis and allows Cameron to get over his jet lag as he was in N York today I think too.
Jet lag? I'd stop digging if I were you because your still not coming close to explaining why Friday is more appropriate than Monday.....
Well I'm only musing. It's not that vital to my existence what day it is.
Well i imagine if the activities of government were constrained by Jet lag and jet lag alone I imagine it would cause more than a few musings! Anyway I take your point
So people approve of a tax on others. Hardly surprising, but as has been pointed out on here actually collecting it would not be straightforward in the least.
It is Douglas Carsewell who has currently left his former constituents without any form of Westminster representation in a vote on this issue now Parliament has been recalled. And its also Douglas Carsewell who has chosen to self indulgently put his constituents through a costly by-election as a UKIP political stunt just months before a GE.
Douglas Carswel's little toe makes more of an MP than Louise "revolving door" Mensch ever did...
And it's Douglas Carswell who is so popular with said constituents that he is 1/50 with some bookmakers to win the seat for ukip, and is holding a public meeting tonight with 1000 attendees
I do not believe in an English Parliament. I do not believe in devolution to cities (or even city states.) And I certainly do not believe that the current system can continue without reform.
That reform has to mean that English MPs have the final say over measures that only affect English matters.
I think the mistake that people are making is to assume that we are bound by the current structure of the Crown-in-Parliament, which is - IMV - at the root of many of the problems that we have in the UK government system.
If you take the executive out of the legislature, and make the PM directly elected (and getting to appoint his executive team) then there would be absolutely no problem in electing English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland parliaments.
The Executive would take executive decisions. And if they wanted to propose legislation then they would need to convince a majority of members of the relevant national parliament.
Why on earth do national assemblies need to be predicated on a presidential style executive? I do not think that has any direct relationship to the issue at all. A basic use of subsidiarity is all that is required to justify the assemblies.
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
I see UKIP have taken to wearing the SNP's used victim mantle.
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
Up your too. The Lab/Lib/Con tribe leading us to a low level confrontation and suckers like MM are now calling it WW3.
The most popular policy of the four is means-testing the winter fuel payment for pensioners so it no longer goes to the richest 5% of pensioners: fully three-quarters support the policy.
How things as changed. At the last election, this was one thing no party wanted to say they would get rid of universality of benefits for the old.
While we are at it, free tv licenses and bus passes, cost an absolute packet. £500 million a year for tv licenses alone, another one of Gordo's expensive wheezes.
On topic, so Salmond commissioned an untried and untested foreign firm with no experience of polling in the UK (never mind Scotland specifically), and chose to believe them over every established UK company? Well more fool him.
To be fair, there were plenty of us saying that it was hard enough for any company to get the polling right given the lack of precedent to use as a working model, so there was some reason not to give too much attention to the pollsters (or arguably, to pay some attention to those outside the mainstream), but it still smacks of comfort-blanketism.
Thank God Miliband stopping the strengthening of ISIS last year.
Unfortunately he did the exact opposite. His schoolboy attempt at playing politics did serious damage.
It's one of those alternative history things where we'll have to agree to differ - personally, trying to learn from Iraq, I think he did both Syria and Britain a considerable service by preventing intervention, and he should have done it for Libya too. We have no business killing people to favour one dubious group over another. It's possible that you're right and it would have led to a better outcome - if we're honest we'll never know for sure.
Reluctantly, I agree that ISIS is a nastiness class apart and intervention against them does make sense.
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
I see UKIP have taken to wearing the SNP's used victim mantle.
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
Up your too. The Lab/Lib/Con tribe leading us to a low level confrontation and suckers like MM are now calling it WW3.
The "liblabcon" thing always reminds me of that old logical fallacy:
We need something different Ukip are different Therefore we need ukip
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Don't think ukip should kick up a fuss about this really... It's true we have no MPs so why should parliament care when the conference is?
It's hardly going to stop people going is it
The big negative on this isam and Nick is that the TV Parliament channel was going to give non- top coverage of the opening day of conference. I still hope it will. However I've a feeling that it will now concentrate on the vote in the house, which after all is it's primary buisiness.
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
I see UKIP have taken to wearing the SNP's used victim mantle.
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
Up your too. The Lab/Lib/Con tribe leading us to a low level confrontation and suckers like MM are now calling it WW3.
The "liblabcon" thing always reminds me of that old fallacy:
We need something different Ukip are different Therefore we need ukip
I am very interested to see in the coming years if UKIP are in fact different. I am always wary of politicians claiming not to be like other politicians, but hopefully they will get the chance to prove themselves right. Or very wrong.
On topic: private polling tends to be inaccurate because the 'private' client is incapable of asking a neutral question and/or agreeing to weight the sample properly. They let their unconscious (and sometimes conscious) bias creep in to assist in framing the poll to give the answer they want to hear, which they then of course believe.
The most popular policy of the four is means-testing the winter fuel payment for pensioners so it no longer goes to the richest 5% of pensioners: fully three-quarters support the policy.
How things as changed. At the last election, this was one thing nobody wanted to say they would get rid of universality of benefits for the old.
While we are at it, free tv licenses and bus passes, cost an absolute packet.
Yeah, these should be taxed. Clearly a pensioner on say £7k wouldn't pay a bean on these and would get them tax free and the odd pensioner on £50k gets 40% tax. Cheap to administer through HMRC I'd think.
We have a 63 yr old at work with company car and flat in Andalucia. Gets bus pass and heating allowance. He thinks it's nuts, and he's right.
By contrast, the least popular policy of the four, freezing the level of child benefit until 2017, which 54% support overall and 33% oppose
So the logical thing for Osborne to do is scrap the freeze, and shift the pitiful cut involved - £200 million - elsewhere.
Child Benefit is payable to millions so it directly affects people.
The average Joe or Joanne is going to worry more about their Child Benefit payment being protected, than whether Sheikh Your Moni-Maker's housing bill changes
I'd love to know how many would support the notion that "We could have a much better NHS if the UK didn't implement a Mansion Tax but invited in 100,000 multi-millionaires - and took the tax they currently pay in other countries."
Rich people may be hated by most of the population. But for balance, remind them they pay for the NHS. If they leave, we'll be left with homeopathy....
I'd award 20 peerages each year to the 20 people with the highest personal income tax contributions as measured by HMRC. Let's celebrate how much they choose to pay by staying in this country.
'Record low' of only an astonishing 3% of Welsh voters want an independent Wales according to a new BBC/ICM poll in the aftermath of Scotland's referendum, a higher number, 12%, want the Welsh Assembly abolished. Though 49% would like it to have more powers.
It does seem a little odd to have the parliamentary vote on whether to join the air strikes after the air strikes have begun...
To be fair, the vote is on whether Britain should join in. We haven't yet. I think Cameron is behaving properly here.
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Don't think ukip should kick up a fuss about this really... It's true we have no MPs so why should parliament care when the conference is?
It's hardly going to stop people going is it
The big negative on this isam and Nick is that the TV Parliament channel was going to give non- top coverage of the opening day of conference. I still hope it will. However I've a feeling that it will now concentrate on the vote in the house, which after all is it's primary buisiness.
I honestly don't think it's going to cost ukip too many votes Mike.
Much as I wouldn't vote for Cameron, I don't think so bad of him that he would risk the countries role in world peace to deny ukip tv coverage of their conference
Nope, it makes him a numpty. Several points to say:
1) If true, then it is a tactical agreement in a small area.
2) The strategic situation now, after a year of heavy defeats for the FSA, is very different to the one in August last year.
3) The FSA is a different beast to what it was last year. A year of getting hammered by three other groups tends to do that.
4) The timings of this 'deal' are rather suspect. It could almost have been invented by the Syrian regime or their Russian lackeys ...
You could also point to the reports of deals between Assad and Al Nujra and ISIS. But you do not, for some reason... (1)
Supporters of Assad are just as sick as those who support ISIS. Yet sadly, at the moment, ISIS are the bigger threat to us. But Assad's still using chemical weapons, and the blood of every single man, woman and child who dies or gets injured in those attacks is on Ed Miliband's hands.
So as I said, Hugh's a numpty. And a dangerous one.
2/3) I agree the situation has changed -thankfully Syria is on its way to being fully re-controlled by an authoritarian but comparatively enlightened pseudo-democratic Baathist dictatorship. A situation which the people (women especially) of Bahrain or KSA can only look on in abject envy. The FSA, like its Western concocted 'opposition' has never held any legitimacy nor widespread support amongst the people, or Assad would not still be in place.
4) Hilarious conspiracloonacy. It really is funny to watch people who no doubt pour scorn on 'conspiracy theorists' tying themselves in knots to come up with ever more bizarre plots to lay at Assad's door, or indeed that of the 'Russkys'.
Even the Telegraph source you post knows that their story is manure -hence the mealy mouthed 'unnamed intelligence sources' quotes. We dealt with this nonsense last time around. If you want to talk ISIS allies, deals, facilitators, and funders, where is your chat on KSA, Qatar, or Turkey -you know, the people who actually *are* helping them?
As for being suspect, the source as you see is the ever reliable 'Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' -ie one man in a council flat in Coventry. I would agree with you that this is hardly a credible source of information -the only problem for you being that this same source is responsible for the vast majority of 'information' used in the mainstream press relating to the ongoing conflict in Syria. And if you doubt him on this, it would call into question the entire argument for the removal of the Assad regime. But by all means continue to trash it.
Your penultimate paragraph is inexcusable smear; and I'm not going to engage with it on any level.
I think people can make up their own mind about who the numpty is in this discussion.
It is Douglas Carsewell who has currently left his former constituents without any form of Westminster representation in a vote on this issue now Parliament has been recalled. And its also Douglas Carsewell who has chosen to self indulgently put his constituents through a costly by-election as a UKIP political stunt just months before a GE.
Douglas Carswel's little toe makes more of an MP than Louise "revolving door" Mensch ever did...
And it's Douglas Carswell who is so popular with said constituents that he is 1/50 with some bookmakers to win the seat for ukip, and is holding a public meeting tonight with 1000 attendees
Thank God Miliband stopping the strengthening of ISIS last year.
Unfortunately he did the exact opposite. His schoolboy attempt at playing politics did serious damage.
It's one of those alternative history things where we'll have to agree to differ - personally, trying to learn from Iraq, I think he did both Syria and Britain a considerable service by preventing intervention, and he should have done it for Libya too. We have no business killing people to favour one dubious group over another. It's possible that you're right and it would have led to a better outcome - if we're honest we'll never know for sure.
Reluctantly, I agree that ISIS is a nastiness class apart and intervention against them does make sense.
Utterly disagree. And if you have learnt any lesson from Iraq, then it appears to be the wrong lesson.
"We have no business killing people to favour one dubious group over another."
So if Miliband backs bombing, then you will say he's wrong? And do you think the use of chemical weapons should be punished, especially after the west's craven capitulation over Halabja?
Parliament recalled over air strikes on Islamic State in Iraq
Cammo trying to drown out the start of the UKIP Conference in Doncaster? It won't help him or any of the Lab/Lib/Con team.
You're not helping damp down the perception of Kippers as fruitcakes with comments like that!
I Know it's the Tories and Cammo that are the true nut-cases. Even Nick Robinson agrees with me that the recall on Friday is a put up job to spoil the UKIP conference opening. Cammo waited all this time to recall parliament, he could have waited until Monday.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
I see UKIP have taken to wearing the SNP's used victim mantle.
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
Up your too. The Lab/Lib/Con tribe leading us to a low level confrontation and suckers like MM are now calling it WW3.
No, you are calling it WW3, you excitable old muppet....
The most popular policy of the four is means-testing the winter fuel payment for pensioners so it no longer goes to the richest 5% of pensioners: fully three-quarters support the policy.
How things as changed. At the last election, this was one thing nobody wanted to say they would get rid of universality of benefits for the old.
While we are at it, free tv licenses and bus passes, cost an absolute packet.
Yeah, these should be taxed. Clearly a pensioner on say £7k wouldn't pay a bean on these and would get them tax free and the odd pensioner on £50k gets 40% tax. Cheap to administer through HMRC I'd think.
We have a 63 yr old at work with company car and flat in Andalucia. Gets bus pass and heating allowance. He thinks it's nuts, and he's right.
Somebody still in decent paid employment getting these perks is as you say totally nuts, and increasingly people will continue to work until they are older, so this needs to be addressed immediately.
It actually raises a wider point about the continued mess of benefits system. And I don't mean IDS / universal credit computer system. Anybody who has looked at the handbook for even the major benefits will see that it needs burning and starting again afresh.
It is Douglas Carsewell who has currently left his former constituents without any form of Westminster representation in a vote on this issue now Parliament has been recalled. And its also Douglas Carsewell who has chosen to self indulgently put his constituents through a costly by-election as a UKIP political stunt just months before a GE.
Douglas Carswel's little toe makes more of an MP than Louise "revolving door" Mensch ever did...
And it's Douglas Carswell who is so popular with said constituents that he is 1/50 with some bookmakers to win the seat for ukip, and is holding a public meeting tonight with 1000 attendees
It is Douglas Carsewell who has currently left his former constituents without any form of Westminster representation in a vote on this issue now Parliament has been recalled. And its also Douglas Carsewell who has chosen to self indulgently put his constituents through a costly by-election as a UKIP political stunt just months before a GE.
Douglas Carswel's little toe makes more of an MP than Louise "revolving door" Mensch ever did...
And it's Douglas Carswell who is so popular with said constituents that he is 1/50 with some bookmakers to win the seat for ukip, and is holding a public meeting tonight with 1000 attendees
'Record low' of only an astonishing 3% of Welsh voters want an independent Wales according to a new BBC/ICM poll in the aftermath of Scotland's referendum, a higher number, 12%, want the Welsh Assembly abolished. Though 49% would like it to have more powers.
That reform has to mean that English MPs have the final say over measures that only affect English matters.
But EV4EL will only do that for legislative measures. For all the non-legislative changes made by the Education Secretary and the Health Secretary, the English get screwed.
Do you know think that it is possible to devise some system to ensure that properly scrutiny of such matters happens?
I believe it is.
And it is unthinkable, going forward, that an Education Secretary will not represent an English constituency.
The logical extension of EV4EL within the House of Commons means that apart from the Foreign and Defence Secretaries, all other Ministers including the Prime Minister has to be from England.
It was great to convince the Scots to stay within the Union. Then tell them they cannot be PM any longer !
Of course, a separate English Parliament or Regional Assemblies solves that conundrum.
Does the Scottish Parliament take every single decision regarding Health and Education for instance ?
Comments
Just over a year after Cameron asked Parliament if he could help Assad's opponents.
Clueless.
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-09-24/calvin-wank-arrested-on-suspicion-of-public-lewdness/
It all goes back to Blair and Tories like David Cameron who cheered on the disastrous invasion of Iraq, sadly.
Anyway given your view does that mean that the next time that John Major appears on TV we should consider him as just a gobby member of the public?
It may overshadow the UKIP conference a bit, but then the same happened to Labour's conference, and it's hard to be sure it won't do the same to the Tories. We can't really ask ISIS to hold up their war for a week while we mull over the constitution.
Very interesting, but I don't see a compelling reason here as to why MPs representing Scottish constituencies should vote on laws pertaining only to England. We shouldn't even be discussing it -it should just have been the basic stop-gap option when devolution was first introduced.
The imperfections you raise are a valid reason for continuing to work toward a better system, but not to allow a blatant democratic injustice to stand in the meantime.
The election campaign is going to be a bloodbath for poor Ed....
We let the FSA down last year, and in so doing removed our best chance of ending the conflict quickly. The FSA are now mostly a defeated force, when they were winning before Assad used chemical weapons. Their defeat has allowed al Nusra and ISIL a great deal of room to manoeuvre.
And that is leaving aside the issue of arming the Kurds, whose militant wing was involved in terrorist acts that killed tens of thousands. That's going to end well ...
I'll say it again: Miliband has blood on his hands over the events last year.
Given these are all pre-modded and only available for subs - this was a good centre right yardstick IMO.
Private polling will give similar results to public polling, so long as it's done properly.
You sound like boxing commentator Jim Watt when a stoppage appears imminent....
The thing is there are regularly those (mainly Tories) on here who like to claim that EVfEL is the be all and end all of this issue and will end the English democratic deficit. It won't. EVfEL maybe the start of democratic reform but it cannot be the end of it!
You're so vain
You probably think this bombing's about you pic.twitter.com/KplS9OMXDy
Oh and it jumped by a further £127 billion, but even I won't lay that one as Gormless George's door. Maybe he's got a touch of the Tescos.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11117335/Just-how-big-is-Britains-debt-mountain.html
And, married to a really attractive woman.
Andrew Neil@afneil·2 mins
Ed Miliband reeling from full frontal assault by Jon Snow on top form on @Channel4News
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-backed-moderate-group-syria-signs-truce-isis-reports-1687662
Which if you haven't guessed, wouldn't actually make him a numpty, it would make him a vaguely sentient human being with the capacity for critical thought.
As for the rest of your ludicrous stream of consciousness, you seem to be forgetting the object of last year's proposed bombing campaign was not to unseat Assad, it was to 'punish' him -weakening his regime but leaving him in power and prolonging the bloodshed. Suggesting it would have removed him and lead to peace is fantasy beyond even the claims of its biggest backers.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2014/09/24/milibelievers-were-thin-on-the-ground-at-labour-conference/
"Milibelivers felt thin on the ground this week. I made a point of asking everyone I spoke to how they assessed the mood. “Flat,” was the usual response."
"The dearth of Milibelivers had the effect that pragmatists felt less conference peer pressure to align themselves with the optimists and more to mirror the concerns of the pessimists. We entered a spiral of negativity. "
In fairness, not all of it is quite that bleak.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m
Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
No-one, least of all Osborne, every claimed that this was going to be easy. It will take three terms of Conservative government to get fully back on track, as it did last time the country got itself in a dreadful mess.
#useless
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 51m
But Cameron wins on intelligence, competence, right policies (just, over UKIP) and trust: ComRes for ITVNews pic.twitter.com/kNsN3rVJJL
24/09/2014 19:44
Around 1,000 people have turned out for Ukip mtg in Clacton w/ @DouglasCarswell @Nigel_Farage --> #Ukipconf14 pic.twitter.com/4GdYbd29cj
1. Is there private poll bias, or do we only hear about it when it's badly wrong (outliers etc)?
2. Is it the polling. The Canadian example above talks about analysis of the results. Pollsters place a lot of emphasis on their being a snapshot. Is it a case of the forward projections of polls (and Yes moved up to near level before falling back again) being trickier and more error prone than polling.
Nick Robinson @bbcnickrobinson 7m
Choreography of consensus on bombing IS clear - nothing during Lab Conf, at request of Iraq, not to include Syria & vote during UKIP Conf
1) If true, then it is a tactical agreement in a small area.
2) The strategic situation now, after a year of heavy defeats for the FSA, is very different to the one in August last year.
3) The FSA is a different beast to what it was last year. A year of getting hammered by three other groups tends to do that.
4) The timings of this 'deal' are rather suspect. It could almost have been invented by the Syrian regime or their Russian lackeys ...
You could also point to the reports of deals between Assad and Al Nujra and ISIS. But you do not, for some reason... (1)
Supporters of Assad are just as sick as those who support ISIS. Yet sadly, at the moment, ISIS are the bigger threat to us. But Assad's still using chemical weapons, and the blood of every single man, woman and child who dies or gets injured in those attacks is on Ed Miliband's hands.
So as I said, Hugh's a numpty. And a dangerous one.
(1): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10585391/Syrias-Assad-accused-of-boosting-al-Qaeda-with-secret-oil-deals.html
A bizarre strategy. All the dirty work to be done by the next government.
Bonjour! From a sunny Geneva, having chilled for most of the day beside the Lake - in the arms of my glamorous Swiss girlfriend Veronique.
OK, maybe belay that last bit, LOL.
OK, bon! Here is the Sunil on Sunday ELBOW (Electoral Leader-Board Of the Week) for 21st September (8 polls):
Lab 35.8% (+0.1)
Con 32.1% (+0.6)
UKIP 14.0% (-1.3)
LD 8.1% (+0.3)
Lab lead 3.7% (-0.5)
Broken, sleazy UKIP on the slide?
Changes from first ELBOW from 17th August:
Lab -0.4
Con -1.0
UKIP +0.7
LD -0.6
Lab lead +0.7
If you take the executive out of the legislature, and make the PM directly elected (and getting to appoint his executive team) then there would be absolutely no problem in electing English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland parliaments.
The Executive would take executive decisions. And if they wanted to propose legislation then they would need to convince a majority of members of the relevant national parliament.
It's hardly going to stop people going is it
Mansion Tax supported by Tory voters 58 - 35.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/labour-insiders-worried-could-lose-7825911
The country's elected representatives are discussing going to war. Move your bloody conference if it means that much to dominate a news cycle.
I am also amazed Cameron is rated so highly for 'can get things done'. I suppose his high profile failures do not eliminate what I would expect is a high boost factor from merely being the PM (as with statesmenlike), which must give people some confidence someone can get something done.
Poor old Clegg doesn't even lead on any of them, except 'none of the above'. Though it takes away somewhat from people attacking him as untrustworthy, when apparently the general anti-politician untrustworthiness is barely higher.
twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/514852984644440064/photo/1
They must feel sooooo let down
How things as changed. At the last election, this was one thing no party wanted to say they would get rid of universality of benefits for the old.
While we are at it, free tv licenses and bus passes, cost an absolute packet. £500 million a year for tv licenses alone, another one of Gordo's expensive wheezes.
To be fair, there were plenty of us saying that it was hard enough for any company to get the polling right given the lack of precedent to use as a working model, so there was some reason not to give too much attention to the pollsters (or arguably, to pay some attention to those outside the mainstream), but it still smacks of comfort-blanketism.
Reluctantly, I agree that ISIS is a nastiness class apart and intervention against them does make sense.
We need something different
Ukip are different
Therefore we need ukip
Nothing revelatory there, of course. Next..
We have a 63 yr old at work with company car and flat in Andalucia. Gets bus pass and heating allowance. He thinks it's nuts, and he's right.
PS "A serious and good philosophical work could be written with spaces after all the commas", as the great man himself said.
Child Benefit is payable to millions so it directly affects people.
The average Joe or Joanne is going to worry more about their Child Benefit payment being protected, than whether Sheikh Your Moni-Maker's housing bill changes
Rich people may be hated by most of the population. But for balance, remind them they pay for the NHS. If they leave, we'll be left with homeopathy....
I'd award 20 peerages each year to the 20 people with the highest personal income tax contributions as measured by HMRC. Let's celebrate how much they choose to pay by staying in this country.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29331475
Much as I wouldn't vote for Cameron, I don't think so bad of him that he would risk the countries role in world peace to deny ukip tv coverage of their conference
2/3) I agree the situation has changed -thankfully Syria is on its way to being fully re-controlled by an authoritarian but comparatively enlightened pseudo-democratic Baathist dictatorship. A situation which the people (women especially) of Bahrain or KSA can only look on in abject envy. The FSA, like its Western concocted 'opposition' has never held any legitimacy nor widespread support amongst the people, or Assad would not still be in place.
4) Hilarious conspiracloonacy. It really is funny to watch people who no doubt pour scorn on 'conspiracy theorists' tying themselves in knots to come up with ever more bizarre plots to lay at Assad's door, or indeed that of the 'Russkys'.
Even the Telegraph source you post knows that their story is manure -hence the mealy mouthed 'unnamed intelligence sources' quotes. We dealt with this nonsense last time around. If you want to talk ISIS allies, deals, facilitators, and funders, where is your chat on KSA, Qatar, or Turkey -you know, the people who actually *are* helping them?
As for being suspect, the source as you see is the ever reliable 'Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' -ie one man in a council flat in Coventry. I would agree with you that this is hardly a credible source of information -the only problem for you being that this same source is responsible for the vast majority of 'information' used in the mainstream press relating to the ongoing conflict in Syria. And if you doubt him on this, it would call into question the entire argument for the removal of the Assad regime. But by all means continue to trash it.
Your penultimate paragraph is inexcusable smear; and I'm not going to engage with it on any level.
I think people can make up their own mind about who the numpty is in this discussion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-29331475
"We have no business killing people to favour one dubious group over another."
So if Miliband backs bombing, then you will say he's wrong? And do you think the use of chemical weapons should be punished, especially after the west's craven capitulation over Halabja?
It actually raises a wider point about the continued mess of benefits system. And I don't mean IDS / universal credit computer system. Anybody who has looked at the handbook for even the major benefits will see that it needs burning and starting again afresh.
If UKIP take both seats on the 9th, it'll be UKIPalypse now for the established parties.
Apparently Carswell made a speech and forgot to mention the coming by election or the EU
We love the rest of the UK after all
It was great to convince the Scots to stay within the Union. Then tell them they cannot be PM any longer !
Of course, a separate English Parliament or Regional Assemblies solves that conundrum.
Does the Scottish Parliament take every single decision regarding Health and Education for instance ?