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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Clegg’s big day
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Clegg’s big day
I expect the issue that damaged the Lib Dems from the start, tuition fees will get an airing, as that probably helped defined the Lib Dems in government, but as he apologised in the past with no benefit, it might be a mistake.
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http://www.mediafire.com/view/ucts0e9657e1421/YouGov sine 01092013.jpg#
I was nearly right:
"Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
Ed does indeed have a problem with his lack of natural supporters in the party and his failure to build a team. One or two dodgy opinion polls and half the shadow cabinet seem to be on manoeuvres.
Nick, on the other hand, seems to have done well in keeping a team together under the most incredible pressure. The sangfroid of the Lib Dems under fire in this government has been remarkable. Every now and then Vince has to let out his inner socialist but other than that they have been incredibly disciplined. Not sure if it has done them any good but it is still impressive.
Actually, as I have made clear on here I agree with him. It is completely unrealistic and in many ways immoral to argue, as Osborne does, that from here spending cuts have to take all of the strain of deficit reduction. The scale of the problem is too great.
I wonder if it is just possible that Nick might be willing to pick up this point today and tell the truth (or as near as a politician can get). Will he say that deficit reduction is key but that unlike the tories they value public spending and are willing to put up taxes to protect it. Unlike Labour they think the deficit is important and one or two gimmicks are simply not going to be enough to solve the problem let alone allow for further increases. Cable, Alexander and Clegg would then be singing off the same hymn sheet and putting a serious and credible case to the electorate.
Clegg's apology exacerbated the problem. Not only had the party abandoned not just a manifesto pledge but one it actively campaigned on, but Clegg went on to explain that because the LibDems could only ever be junior partners in future coalitions, no voter should ever believe a word they said.
"The fact the former Tory MP will be returned on a UKIP ticket has been priced in from the moment the first opinion pollsters did the rounds of Clacton, if not before"
By-elections are often trumpeted as seismic blah blah and never are. I can't think of a single by-election in my lifetime which has turned out to be the herald of anything. They are always full of protest: people using it as a cathartic exercise because it means little.
As suggested yesterday, the LibDems won't perform as badly as the current polls indicate. They never do. I'm expecting their poll rating to rise a little from here to the election. Clegg is a good speaker and should bring back some support. That will impact most on Labour.
But this having been done the scale of cuts in the next Parliament is going to impact much more directly on government services and the money of the needy. I agree with the Lib Dems that if a rebalancing of £25bn (actually probably a bit more) is required and health is to be protected the consequences of having that scale of cuts elsewhere are unacceptable and tax increases should be a part of the mix.
In this conference season this is the third day in succession that LAB 2010 retention has stayed at 77% - their lowest 2014 score. However their losses to UKIP remain at ~7% which is about the same as their current loss to the Cons.
The Cons are down a bit on retention with a few more bits going to LD and Green but still under attack to UKIP at 16%.
The LDs 2010 VI show a loss to UKIP of 18% (normal is about 11-12), which seems to have come from last weeks larger loss to the Cons.
Last week I underwent an outpatient procedure, and was in the (London teaching) hospital for two hours, of which perhaps fifteen minutes was "clinical" time and much of the rest devoted to paperwork. I guess if you don't want to know whether or not hospitals practice racial discrimination and so on, you could cut it down a fair bit. But it's not so much the NHS staff who create the paperwork as the politicians.
Clegg's speech will be fairly polished and use one of those new contraptions, an auto-cue. Likely to attack both other parties. He has to say what the Liberals are for these days and not just being some kind of sheet anchor on the other two in coalitions.
Hodges had some nonsense yesterday about Clegg going in June 2015 and that's why he looks so relaxed. Not convinced myself. On current polling he could still be deputy PM for a couple more years and then off to EU Commission.
Blog by @DPJHodges on Nick Clegg well worth reading. Dan at his best http://fw.to/UwT1hXB
He'll have to say where the money is coming from though.
It is a bit of an odd one because it is a bet I would quite like to lose!
Tory-bashing galore. The little montage of Lib Dems casting moral aspersions on the people they've been working with for years won't help them. Rightwing voters will see them as hypocrites, leftwingers will prefer the 'safe' (in terms of not joining a coalition) party of Labour.
Has he ever held one about Rotherham ?
Now six weeks after the Rotherham report and these questions remain unanswered:
1) When is Home Secretary Theresa May going to take action against the South Yorkshire Police over the widespread reports of its collaboration with child rapists.
2) What is Policing Minister Mike Penning doing to ensure that the police's much hyped 'day of reckoning' with its 'wave after wave of arrests' actually takes place.
3) When is Children's Minister Edward Timpson going to place Rotherham Children's Services into special measures.
4) How much did the locally well connected former Communities Minister Sayeeda Warsi know about what was happening and what did she chose to do about it.
I am maybe not into this betting thing enough.
@DavidL
We are not too far away in agreement, but around here there has been very few/no cuts in the public sector staffing, but there has been a rush to close schools, libraries, leisure centres, country buses, reduce road repairs, recycling centres etc.
In general, the UK has avoided the complete root and branch cuts that Ireland did (probably the Coalition would not wear it), but at the same time have avoided looking at ways that things could be done differently, better and at a lower cost.
For example is parts of Europe, parents have to buy their child's text books each year, there are no bin collections but waste/recycling silos every 100 metres street-side that are changed daily and children start school at 8.30 and finish at 4.30.
In other European countries there is no working tax credit and no child benefit after the first year - how much money would that save? Unemployment benefits end after 18months. Also OAP benefits are taxable if your income is too high.
Our problem is that GB etc have given away too many sweeties and there will be shrieks if they are taken away
When is the PCC by-election? Can’t remember!
"Liberal England died a strange death in the last century. Once again the grave-diggers are standing by."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11146579/The-death-of-the-Left-in-British-politics-cannot-be-ruled-out.html
" Patrick said:
Who cares?
It strikes me as a difficult task to put out three threads a day and effectively run the site for Mike while he's away particularly when you have another job......
So my question is this; do you find comments like the one above from Patrick offensive or is it just water off a ducks back?
The CIegg Speech:
The EagIe represents any one of six different things. The Tories. The EIectorate. The Iib Dem members. The PeopIe's Party. You name it.
PersonaIIy I think the CoaIition deserve around 7 or 8 out of 10 for what have achieved, ignoring the poIitics.
The greatest irony is that the Tuition Fees promise was wished on CIegg by his Iefty wing, who now bIame him for the consequences of their action.
Brent Crude dips below $91.
When Mike first asked me to guest edit PB a few years ago, he gave me a few tips, one of which was "You're going to get attacked no matter what you write, look on it with amusement"
My favourite time was when I was accused of being anti Labour. About two hours later Labourlist ran a piece looking and agreeing with what I had said.
I no longer think that Parliamentary democracy can deliver the answers to these questions (and others: ISIIS, Ebola) that we need to survive. I don't particularly want to live in a Putin-esque shamocracy, but that seems to be where we're going.
But for now, the bridge table beckons. Enjoy yourselves...
I very much doubt it.
Labour should have that clip on loop and play it back to Cam in a PPB, pointing out that the Tories added more debt in five years than Labour in 13.
Utter stupidity from Cameron.
I don't think the LibDems will be wiped out. They're a tenacious bunch, with good local support where it is needed. A key question for me is whether they will beat UKIP on national vote share. They will certainly beat them for MP's.
Re. Mary Riddell: don't think so. Throughout my lifetime the death of left or right has been perennially foretold and it has never come true. I think there will always be a rump, a core, of Labour and Conservative voters at around 25% each.
Put up or shut up.
My recently graduated grandchildren don’t seem to be worried about paying back the loans. They seem to regard it as part of taxation and get on with it.
Admittedly neither has yet tried to get a mortgage. However, it seems possible that one of them will try to set up a home with a partner before too long so that might change things.
Pinch a few of Osborne's ideas he can't get through fully in the Big Business run Conservative Party.
He may have broken his word on tuition fees but the end result is a lot better and fairer than it was.
I hope Nick continues to be in government after the election, we need him to curb the extreme sides of either party.
If things go badly wrong and he loses his seat, or leadership of his party I won't feel too sorry for him, not with a wife like his.
Moniker is entitled to suggest something about Labour's vote share without that sort of boorish behaviour.
Moniker has never knowingly accepted a bet against his off expressed forecasts.
When asked to back his trolling with hard cash he invariably does a runner.
One of those is holding the economy together the other is keeping house prices (and the banks) from collapsing.
Sticks to what he believes in: +10 (+5)
Strong: +13 (+4)
Good in a crisis: +14 (+2)
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/x58kyjlf36/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-071014.pdf
The Who Cares? question was about the LibDems and their relevance! It was not a dig at TSE and the interest of the thread. It is a key question - are the LibDems still relevant in British politics or are they on the way out?
TSE does a fabulous job. Stop stirring.
It is like a puppet show on here nowadays , all these virtual alter ego's pontificating and spouting mince.
It's worthy of a caption competition, "This is how I managed to pull 30 women"
If you had posted that to Financier he would be litigating by now.
Good morning conference! Sadly it is our last day, but join us for 'Towards a Federal UK', the Environment Q&A and more.. #ldconf
'Towards a Federal UK' - Interesting; will the LDs be proposing an English parliament? #cynic
"Morning all and the talk on Twitter is Clegg to announce he is standing down as LibDem leader but will remain Deputy PM. Now that would be fun. Farron would be the new David Miliband."
It would be very bad news for Labour. Ed foolishly hasn't given anyone a clue what Labour stands for so the stage is empty for Farron to enter stage left. All the new leadership has to do is rid the place of Clegg Alexander and laws and he might even get my vote.
Noticed that BBC seem to have fixed that little reoccuring problem on most read articles.
It's the one big chance,the electorate has to see the leaders face to face,relatively unfiltered from the Dacre/Murdoch lie machine.That's why Cameron is so frightened of holding them,not forgetting the claims of a puffed-up Farage and the Greens too.
When will Cameron pull his finger out on the TV debates?
A general question to our resident GE result forecasters. In prior GEs the date has not been known. So if you asked people in 2004 what their voting intentions were, you were asking them about an event possibly two years away. In 2009 it was clear the election was a year away.
What effect might this have on opinion polls?
Surely you should decide what needs to be done by government and then look at how best to fund it. There is no intrinstic value in public spending vs private spending vs third sector.
Private spending pays for the public spending so I think your quasi formula is a little simplistic. I admit that I'm very poor at third sector analysis.
"The Who Cares? question was about the LibDems and their relevance! It was not a dig at TSE and the interest of the thread. It is a key question - are the LibDems still relevant in British politics or are they on the way out?"
If I had taken the trouble to get up at 6 o' clock on a rain sodden Yorkshire morning to pose a question for the delectation of PB readers I'd be slightly disappointed not to arouse a more interested response than "Who Cares?"
Of course there is a degree of administation which is necssary, but the NHS has far too much paperwork - often unnecessary and poorly implemented
You and others should also take the 1/3 on Hallam being a Lib Dem hold.
I've just found out that the former sex worker Charlotte Rose is standing as a candidate in the Clacton by-election, and Shadsy is offering 25/1 on her beating the Lib Dems.
http://sportsbeta.ladbrokes.com/British/Clacton-By-election/Politics-N-1z141maZ1z13ybcZ1z141ng/
Who is the unknown this time?
I suspect that a lot of people have learned their lesson, and that next year's debates will attract lower viewing figures and change very few minds on anything.
FYI - Mike takes over early hours of Friday.
Quite a long piece about her here http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Exeter-sex-worker-Charlotte-Rose-stand-parliament/story-22937831-detail/story.html
Apparently she used to be a “conventional” teacher!
'Well, I'm still here...'
"I've just found out that the former sex worker Charlotte Rose is standing as a candidate in the Clacton by-election,"
As Gyles Brandreth said to Jordan when interviewing her as an independent candidate standing in Salford.....
"I know you've got your knockers but I'm all for people taking part the democratic process...."
http://sotonpolitics.org/2014/10/08/polling-observatory-41-opinion-stable-for-now-but-election-battle-lines-are-being-drawn/
How outrageous!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11147495/First-alleged-Isil-terror-plot-on-UK-foiled-amid-growing-fears-of-beheadings.html?WT.mc_id=e_3595183&WT.tsrc=email&etype=frontpage&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_2014_10_8&utm_campaign=3595183