politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » LD Newswire survey has Tim Farron heading for 58-42% victor
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » LD Newswire survey has Tim Farron heading for 58-42% victory over Norman Lamb for next party leader
The results will be announced on Thursday and given the fact that second class reply envelopes have been used then virtually every party member planning to vote will probably have done so.
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http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Mini-driver-smashes-fish-van-pleasuring-sex-toy/story-26891651-detail/story.html
This interview with Yanis Varoufakis contains some astonishing revelations from behind the scenes of the Greek negotiations. A must-read...
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/07/yanis-varoufakis-full-transcript-our-battle-save-greece
Still, it's a very interesting article - I agree with @handandmouse that it's a must-read. You don't often get a guileless, child-like account of international negotiations.
The section on "What is the greatest problem with the general way the Eurogroup functions?" is particularly relevant to our renegotiation. It's one of the key issues - the Eurozone needs a more formal structure (if the Greek crisis has proven one thing, it is that), and we need more protection. There's a deal to be done there.
If you're arguing that the Eurozone should have a formal structure, ruled by strictly-enforecable rules, under direct Eurozone-wide democratic control, with its own bureaucracy and so on, making it more like a federal state, then, yes, that is a view widely held in EU countries. It probably is a precondition for making the Euro work properly, and it's the next logical step of ever-closer union. The trick for us, outside the Eurozone, is to ensure we have protection from it built into the EU treaties.
Labour's David Lammy has surged into second place in the race to become the party’s candidate for London Mayor.
A YouGov poll published today shows that backing among Labour supporters for the Tottenham MP has crept ahead of former shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan.
Before Mr Lammy’s rise, Tooting MP Mr Khan was the main challenger to frontrunner Tessa Jowell. Her backing from Labour supporters remains solid in the new poll — at 37 per cent — and she has led the race since the series of polls began.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/lammy-leaps-to-second-place-in-labours-mayoral-candidate-race-10384863.html
Or do I need a visit to specsavers ?
My local radio station does 80's playlists on Bank holidays, but none of the DJs were born in the 80's so they pronounce it Brose, not Bross
http://www.libdemvoice.org/who-lib-dem-voice-members-think-should-be-the-next-leader-46010.html
I'm not backing Abbott at any price though ;p
I can see that Norman will get on well with Tim, whoever wins, they seemed to have quite a positive relationship at the hustings, much more than the Labour candidates seem to do.
HL: You must have been thinking about a Grexit from day one...
YV: Yes, absolutely.
YV: The answer is yes and no. We had a small group, a ‘war cabinet’ within the ministry, of about five people that were doing this: so we worked out in theory, on paper, everything that had to be done [to prepare for/in the event of a Grexit]. But it’s one thing to do that at the level of 4-5 people, it’s quite another to prepare the country for it. To prepare the country an executive decision had to be taken, and that decision was never taken.
HL: And in the past week, was that a decision you felt you were leaning towards [preparing for Grexit]?
YV: My view was, we should be very careful not to activate it. I didn’t want this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t want this to be like Nietzsche’s famous dictum that if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss will stare back at you. But I also believed that at the moment the Eurogroup shut out banks down, we should energise this process.
HL: Right. So there were two options as far as I can see – an immediate Grexit, or printing IOUs and taking bank control of the Bank of Greece [potentially but not necessarily precipitating a Grexit]?
YV: Sure, sure. I never believed we should go straight to a new currency. My view was – and I put this to the government – that if they dared shut our banks down, which I considered to be an aggressive move of incredible potency, we should respond aggressively but without crossing the point of no return.
We should issue our own IOUs, or even at least announce that we’re going to issue our own euro-denominated liquidity; we should haircut the Greek 2012 bonds that the ECB held, or announce we were going to do it; and we should take control of the Bank of Greece. This was the triptych, the three things, which I thought we should respond with if the ECB shut down our banks.
… I was warning the Cabinet this was going to happen [the ECB shut our banks] for a month, in order to drag us into a humiliating agreement. When it happened – and many of my colleagues couldn’t believe it happened – my recommendation for responding “energetically”, let’s say, was voted down.
This from last year
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2674736/ISIS-militants-declare-formation-caliphate-Syria-Iraq-demand-Muslims-world-swear-allegiance.html
The problem was that the Greek banks were insolvent. He wanted the ECB to continue to fund insolvent banks indefinitely - something that was clearly not possible.
Why Greece didn't leave the Eurozone in January with solvent banks, and negotiate debt relief from a position of strength is one of those questions that will be asked for decades.
One thing I think harmed Greece from day one was that their negotiator was a game theory expert. I think it led everyone else to question his every move, and assume everything was planned as part of some game theory exercise. When, in fact, it was not.
The second issue was that the Greek government underestimated the effect of their negotiations on the Greek economy. The problem was that the threat of Grexit caused people to withdraw capital from the country, meaning that the Greek negotiating team was - with every day that passed - negotiating from a weaker, and weaker position.
Yes: 9.4 / 9.8
No: 1.11 / 1.12
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/#/politics/market/1.117087478
Maybe the progressives will be spurred into action against ISIS when they see women workers exploited by being paid less than the living wage?
https://twitter.com/mailonline/status/620598760847077376
Whoa! Hold your horses here! :-)
I'm just reporting the relevant bits of YV's interview back to Mr Fox - don't assume that I agree or disagree with YV or Syriza.
The only thing that I would say on the Greek crisis (and here you can shoot me down if you disagree with me) is that I think the best thing for Greece would have been to leave the Euro in a managed fashion with the help of the IMF years ago, when it became clear that the EU plan wasn't working.
See post at 15.26:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jul/13/greek-crisis-tsipras-battle-bailout-deal-backlash-live
The structural reforms, meant that in the long term the EU plan would have worked. However, since the Greek people did not want to implement them and face the pain (possibly a perfectly reasonable preference) then as you say an early managed exit from the Euro would have been best.
Madness writ large.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159037/Teenage-rape-victim-used-bait-bid-lure-attackers-raped-bungling-Indian-police-failed-follow-meeting-point.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/33509974
Another drugs cheat gets testicular cancer.
Also...
"His diagnosis will also increase the focus on Armstrong's arrival in France next week to ride two stages of the Tour with ex-England footballer Geoff Thomas - a day ahead of the race - to raise money for a cancer charity."
WTF...I have a lot of time for Geoff Thomas and all the good work he does, but why is he hitching his ride to Armstrong.
I see that we have nesting back.
There is no right answer. Only degrees of wrong ones.
It's best they start again from scratch, they represent no one and have no charisma or star quality to hide that
“No, no, no, this has to be a comprehensive review. Nothing will be implemented if you dare introduce any legislation. It will be considered unilateral action inimical to the process of reaching an agreement.”
"Harman about to go on TV to wobble on her backing for child tax credits limit."
A pointless exercise. She either believes what she said and sticks to it - splitter, splitter, splitter. Or she was lying yesterday - liar, liar, pants on fire.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/07/09/potentially-mortal-threat-to-hillary-s-candidacy.html
To be fair, which delinquent debtor ever says they were well treated by their lenders? listen to them and the lender is always a callous villain.
"Schäuble was consistent throughout. His view was “I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything. Because we have elections all the time, there are 19 of us, if every time there was an election and something changed, the contracts between us wouldn’t mean anything.”
So at that point I had to get up and say “Well perhaps we should simply not hold elections anymore for indebted countries”, and there was no answer. The only interpretation I can give [of their view] is “Yes, that would be a good idea, but it would be difficult to do. So you either sign on the dotted line or you are out.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11735544/labour-in-crisis-over-welfare-cuts-live.html
http://mobile.news.com.au/technology/environment/earth-heading-for-mini-ice-age-within-15-years/story-e6frflp0-1227439329592
@schofieldkevin: Senior Labour source on child tax credit row: "There's no point saying you'll take difficult decisions then not taking difficult decisions."
I knew I had a vast number of lefty air headed friends on facebook, but it is interesting how many intelligent well meaning educated late middle aged prosperous people are expressing support for him.
[kicks EU messenger down the well!]
If they'd have been prepared to leave, they may have been able to get a better deal... or left. But they were bluffing, Germany rightly called them out.
mathematician predicts sun to go quiet for ten years from 2030
But new "Maunder Minimum" stories are not exactly new...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/14/ice_age/
"Our official policy is that we have no official policy until after the leader is elected so we will vote for/against/abstain after 3 rounds of rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock..."
And what is the value of an interim leader if they can't actually do any leading?