Undefined discussion subject.

JackW said:

Plato_Says said:

This election has something for almost everyone - Corbynites can crow about the result, moderate Labour and Kendallites have another one in their fold and the Tories can continue to buy popcorn shares.

JackW said:

felix said:

On the header I'd largely agree but regardless of the candidate's abilities the big winner is Cornyn.

If in Oldham "the big winner is Corbyn" then the biggest winners nationwide are the Conservatives.

Cameron is a rather lucky Prime Minister.

Unicorn sausages for breakfast anyone ??

So THAT'S how you're getting rid of the horse meat.....

rottenborough said:

Watson R4 - If this was a referendum on Corbyn, then he has won.

He's the real power, isn't he - translation:

"I've decided to let Jeremy keep his job"

Pauly said:

#StevenWoolfe4UKIP Farage has hit the end of the road, but may as well wait until after the referendum before resigning in my view.

One more vote he can screw up before he disappears. :-(

foxinsoxuk said:

Pulpstar said:

rottenborough said:

Not a good one for the Greens either. Sub 1% now.

Yes I was expecting the Greens to beat the yellow peril. I think the remaining Lib Dem vote at the GE was definitely the "core" now, but Labour is taking votes off the Greens.

Green candidate was deaf and communicates via a BSL interpreter. Possibly voters thought that might be a problem for an MP!

lol.

You've got to love the greens

Jonathan said:

Was always bizarre to me why Mike thought the Libdems were recovering. They had done nothing to apologise or move on from the Clegg years and are now largely invisible.

Yet oddly, their local election results are not as bad as they could be. Perhaps this is because they're at rock bottom, or because they still have a lot of keen activists locally in many areas. If the latter, that can be the start back.

Charles said:

Plato_Says said:

OT This story is so WTF, given how many here are pet owners...

One drug which is causing increasing excitement is rapamycin, an anti-rejection medicine used in patients who have undergone kidney transplants and which has been shown to extend the life of mice by more than 25 per cent. If successful it could see dogs living for an extra four years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/12031351/Anti-ageing-dog-trial-could-see-pets-live-for-an-extra-four-years.html

Companion animal geriatrics is one of the big areas of research in the field - everything from derivatives of jellyfish for canine Alzheimers through to antibodies for canine lymphoma.

Rapamune is an mTOR inhibitor. A bit meh, to be honest, in humans with revenues of only about $350m and a black box warning. If you are really interested, I'm have dinner with one of the senior executives of the company developing the product in a couple of weeks and can ask about it.

Very interesting, canine kidney and liver disease was a story line in "New Tricks" when elderly dogs were found dead minus their livers, which were juiced to provide a rather poisonous "health drink".

On a rather more serious note, the cost of canine insurance increases dramatically after age of 7 years, by several thousand percent in some cases/breeds. If this drug becomes available, then the market will be huge as most owners will want to extend the life of their canine family member.

It also brings a moral dilemma, will extending the life of the canine have unintended consequences. Even now, I see dogs being dragged around for their daily walkies, who to be quite honest, are well beyond their expected life expectancy, and are obviously not happy with having no life worth living.

I will be honest here and admit I am on number 5 canine friend and have been as guilty as hell of the above. He will be my last, and I don't know what I will do when the time comes. If it is possible, I will be only too happy to try and give him a longer life. As would many, many others.

Rattled

rottenborough said:

Pulpstar said:

rottenborough said:

Not a good one for the Greens either. Sub 1% now.

Yes I was expecting the Greens to beat the yellow peril. I think the remaining Lib Dem vote at the GE was definitely the "core" now, but Labour is taking votes off the Greens.

Question for Greens is whether this is a temp tactical switch by Greens to Lab in order to stop UKIP or a more permanent, Corbyn-related effect.

Just asking the Greens a question is a waste of a question.

MikeK said:

Good morning.
Bad day for UKIP. It's been a bad year for UKIP. Looks like another look at the drawing board.

Best of luck. The lds are still invisible, so I'm concerned were getting back to 2 party politics only.

hahaha Ken "getting on a bit".

surbiton said:

So what exactly was wrong with the postal vote ? That they mostly voted Labour ?

Diane James said some of the bags were all Labour. Well, if those bags came from Asian localities or heavily WWC areas, they would be , of course. Labour received 62% overall. In some of the above wards, they probably got 80% of the votes.

99% was referenced by Nuttall.

There is a parallel universe in which Piers Corbyn is the Prime Minister and the turnout in Oldham was 20% because of the heavy snow, due to Jeremy Corbyn's theory on global warming.

A heartfelt Do As I Would Be Done In By...

rottenborough said:

Watson : "I never, ever, ever want to lead Labour"

DavidL said:

For UKIP the bad news keeps coming. Getting a tactical squeeze the next time is going to be even more difficult after a result like this. They look a fading force but the referendum gives them another chance.

UKIP +3%
Con -10%

Not quite what the opinion polls are saying.

But Farage has reached the end of the road.

Fortunately Corbyn hasn't.

Evenwel vs Abbot in the Supreme Court of the United States of America is due to be heard next week .

It will decide whether American constituency boundaries are based on population (as now) or number of voters.

A matter not without relevance to our own boundary reviews.

The UKIP reaction to their defeat shows I was wrong to want them to win. And given that reaction and who the party's agent was/is (?) for Oldham it's hard to believe that sending out a van to blare White Christmas around the constituency was entirely innocent. So I'm actually glad they did so poorly - and they really did. The party's leadership has a lot of thinking to do. The left leaning white working class may not like Corbyn Labour but that does not necessarily mean it will support a party that is further to the right than the Tories.

Corbyn is certainly strengthened by the result and that is a matter of great regret. On the plus side Labour get someone in the Commons who is grounded, smart and on the party's sane wing. That's good news.

This is a wonderful result for the Tories. They really could not have hoped for this result.

OchEye said:

Charles said:

Plato_Says said:

OT This story is so WTF, given how many here are pet owners...

One drug which is causing increasing excitement is rapamycin, an anti-rejection medicine used in patients who have undergone kidney transplants and which has been shown to extend the life of mice by more than 25 per cent. If successful it could see dogs living for an extra four years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/12031351/Anti-ageing-dog-trial-could-see-pets-live-for-an-extra-four-years.html

Companion animal geriatrics is one of the big areas of research in the field - everything from derivatives of jellyfish for canine Alzheimers through to antibodies for canine lymphoma.

Rapamune is an mTOR inhibitor. A bit meh, to be honest, in humans with revenues of only about $350m and a black box warning. If you are really interested, I'm have dinner with one of the senior executives of the company developing the product in a couple of weeks and can ask about it.

Very interesting, canine kidney and liver disease was a story line in "New Tricks" when elderly dogs were found dead minus their livers, which were juiced to provide a rather poisonous "health drink".

On a rather more serious note, the cost of canine insurance increases dramatically after age of 7 years, by several thousand percent in some cases/breeds. If this drug becomes available, then the market will be huge as most owners will want to extend the life of their canine family member.

It also brings a moral dilemma, will extending the life of the canine have unintended consequences. Even now, I see dogs being dragged around for their daily walkies, who to be quite honest, are well beyond their expected life expectancy, and are obviously not happy with having no life worth living.

I will be honest here and admit I am on number 5 canine friend and have been as guilty as hell of the above. He will be my last, and I don't know what I will do when the time comes. If it is possible, I will be only too happy to try and give him a longer life. As would many, many others.

My wonderful companion of a dog is now 15 and we are managing his decline. His bones are aged, but he still has a great appetite, still plays with his toys and still enjoys sniffing the doggie newspaper as he ambles rather than walks.

He'll let me know when it is time, but I suspect this will be his last Christmas of gleefully trashing the wrapping paper. Gonna hurt like hell when he goes, but I wouldn't prolong it for a day to be selfish.

Plato_Says said:

Sky reported that postals went from 55% to over 70% on polling day via hand deliveries.

MarqueeMark said:

Not a great night for the Can't Be Arsed Party - but they still got a stonking swing.....turnout down from 59.6% to 40.3%, so one in five voters in the constituency moved to them.

Worried about postal votes though. With them being so easy to obtain, hard to see the heady heights of 80% of voters going for Can't Be Arsed ever again...

Labour GTOV operation presumably. "Have you posted your vote?", "No mate I forgot", "Don't worry we can hand it in for you"

Plato_Says said:

The coverage of Oldham this morning on Sky has been dominated by Nigel's outburst - followed by a lot of comment about Labour activists bullying/police protection for Labour MP and staff from their own side/Corbyn asking activists not to threaten others - plus hilarious intvs with Left Unity.

Even the casual non-political person can't fail to notice this drip drip. The Left's PR is in the bog here.

Surely if anyone notices anything, which I doubt, it will be that Labour won big.

Dylan Sharpe
Tom Watson very strong on Momentum: "they look like a but of a rabble... they're an irrelevance" says Ken Livingstone is "getting on a bit"

Jonathan said:

Plato_Says said:

The coverage of Oldham this morning on Sky has been dominated by Nigel's outburst - followed by a lot of comment about Labour activists bullying/police protection for Labour MP and staff from their own side/Corbyn asking activists not to threaten others - plus hilarious intvs with Left Unity.

Even the casual non-political person can't fail to notice this drip drip. The Left's PR is in the bog here.

Surely if anyone notices anything, which I doubt, it will be that Labour won big.

Yep. And that opponents are making accusations, but people expect that, even if in actuality such talk is rare than they think.

If McMahon voted for Liz Kendall, doesn't that make him a Tory? Why are Labour so jubilant?

A thumping win, and it should allow Corbyn to make his mark on the party. Nuttall looked a bit upset last night. Mostly sour grapes, but Governments only bring in electoral changes that benefit them. Tony brought in the changes to PV, so it was hardly likely to help other parties.

Plato_Says said:

The coverage of Oldham this morning on Sky has been dominated by Nigel's outburst - followed by a lot of comment about Labour activists bullying/police protection for Labour MP and staff from their own side/Corbyn asking activists not to threaten others - plus hilarious intvs with Left Unity.

Even the casual non-political person can't fail to notice this drip drip. The Left's PR is in the bog here.

There's certainly an element of being a bad loser about UKIP's response but there's also a element of truth in it.

And for Labour to be increasingly associated with dubious postal votes being harvested by Muslim 'Community Leaders' will be severely bad for it.

Take a look at May's results in the Hindu / Jewish areas of Harow - Hendon - Finchley as an example.

In the Corbyn era. the Libdems should have gone for Lamb. Farron can't stand out in the way he might have done against a conventional suit. If Lamb could have apologised for the coalition he might have been on to something.

MarqueeMark said:

kle4 said:

MikeK said:

Good morning.
Bad day for UKIP. It's been a bad year for UKIP. Looks like another look at the drawing board.

Best of luck. The lds are still invisible, so I'm concerned were getting back to 2 party politics only.

We still have three party politics - it's just that two of them are Labour....

We have four party politics: Old Labour, Older Labour, Conservatives and SNP.

That would be illegal

Yes. And?

There are only two reasons for postal votes:

1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)

2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.

People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.

Interesting:

Labour sources attribute the scale of the party's victory to the strength of their candidate Jim McMahon, the much-admired Oldham council leader, who had "crazy name recognition" in the words of one campaigner. They also emphasise their performance among Asian voters, who account for 26.5 per cent of the electorate and who shunned Ukip. While the Labour leader has more than passed his first electoral test, one shadow minister spoke of how "Corbyn's office signed off leaflets and a campaign plan that deliberately sidelined him and national politics, and accentuated the local candidate. They know that Jim McMahon was electable because he was a great centrist candidate." (McMahon voted for Liz Kendall in the leadership election.)

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/12/labour-win-oldham-west-election-11000-majority

chestnut said:

Plato_Says said:

Sky reported that postals went from 55% to over 70% on polling day via hand deliveries.

MarqueeMark said:

Not a great night for the Can't Be Arsed Party - but they still got a stonking swing.....turnout down from 59.6% to 40.3%, so one in five voters in the constituency moved to them.

Worried about postal votes though. With them being so easy to obtain, hard to see the heady heights of 80% of voters going for Can't Be Arsed ever again...

Playing Sherlock, a couple of thousand postal votes handed in on polling day, which Farage implies as originating from one part of the community on the morning after we vote for airstrikes in Syria.

If they really sent out a van playing White Christmas, then complaining about postal votes really does look like sour grapes!

Alternatively, playing the song energised people to hand in their PV's!

runnymede said:

That would be illegal

Yes. And?

And would be easy to prove.

PS - Have you found the evidence for allegation that I was "cheering the Conservatives copying Blair's policies"? - I hate to think you were talking shite, again.

Wanderer said:

One lesson I need to take from this is that UKIP don't actually try to manage expectations (in the sense of slightly downplaying prospects so the result looks better). They try instead to create the impression of momentum. It may or may not be there.

It's a hard balance to get right. Unless you can push the message of "having momentum", it's difficult to motivate your own supporters to get out, and to get supporters of other parties to vote tactically for you.

But if you boast of being just behind and then fall short, you turn a decent result into a disaster.

My take-away from this is two-fold:

1. The UKIP ground game is still rubbish
2. It's still quite hard for UKIP to break 30%
3. UKIP is still relatively transfer unfriendly

I don't know if a different leader would make a difference. Certainly, I think UKIP needs more organisational skills on the ground.

The EUREF leave campaign will be relying on the UKIP ground game / GOTV operation in places like Oldham.

It came up seriously short yesterday.

Punters take note.

blackburn63 said:

A few points from Oldham.

First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.

Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.

The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.

I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.

Who would you like to see replace him?

I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.

rcs1000 said:

Wanderer said:

One lesson I need to take from this is that UKIP don't actually try to manage expectations (in the sense of slightly downplaying prospects so the result looks better). They try instead to create the impression of momentum. It may or may not be there.

It's a hard balance to get right. Unless you can push the message of "having momentum", it's difficult to motivate your own supporters to get out, and to get supporters of other parties to vote tactically for you.

But if you boast of being just behind and then fall short, you turn a decent result into a disaster.

My take-away from this is two-fold:

1. The UKIP ground game is still rubbish
2. It's still quite hard for UKIP to break 30%
3. UKIP is still relatively transfer unfriendly

I don't know if a different leader would make a difference. Certainly, I think UKIP needs more organisational skills on the ground.

In addition;
1) Labour still have a working ground game and level of activists which will make any By-election tricky for UKIP.
2) This now cements Corbyn in place until at least May
3) I think the Tories will be pretty happy with it all.
4) 'Organising' postal votes is vital in any election. (I don't meant that in a corruption way)

TheScreamingEagles said:

There's a danger Labour will now think UKIP aren't a threat to them.

Which would be a courageous move.

A seat with different demographics could still result in UKIP giving Labour a shock. UKIP came too close for comfort in just one of those seats only last year.

CD13 said:

If McMahon voted for Liz Kendall, doesn't that make him a Tory? Why are Labour so jubilant?

A thumping win, and it should allow Corbyn to make his mark on the party. Nuttall looked a bit upset last night. Mostly sour grapes, but Governments only bring in electoral changes that benefit them. Tony brought in the changes to PV, so it was hardly likely to help other parties.

Ha. Yes good point. Blairite warmongering scum have won the day.

TheScreamingEagles said:

There's a danger Labour will now think UKIP aren't a threat to them.

Which would be a courageous move.

They are undoubtedly a threat, but the seeming UKIP assumption that disillusioned WWC Labour voters will just walk into their arms is also being tested to destruction. UKIP needs to offer more than it does to economically left-leaning social conservatives, and that is a big challenge for the party's leadership.

AlastairMeeks said:

Wanderer said:

lol
https://twitter.com/George_Osborne/status/672687202611109888

It begs the question which class they were both travelling in.

On reflection it has to be first doesn't it? Unless they met at the buffet, in which case who bought whose coffee?

CarlottaVance said:

blackburn63 said:

Oh and something for pb Tories to consider, I'm meeting Dan Hannan later to do some campaigning. I'm not anti Tory, I'm anti Cameron's brand of unprincipled and vacuous govt as demonstrated by his obsequious disciples on here.

I do hope you campaign like that;

'Are you an unprincipled obsequious vacuous Tory, or a patriotic UKIPer like me?'

Works a treat, I expect.

Reminiscent of the Nat approach, no wonder their GOTV didn't win them the Indyref..

blackburn63 said:

A few points from Oldham.

First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.

Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.

The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.

I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.

Farage seems to have become very angry. This is not a good look in any politician. Fairly or unfairly the brand has become somewhat toxified and UKIP need someone who can detoxify it. Having 13% of the electorate who love you is no good if most of the rest hate you.

Slackbladder said:

SouthamObserver said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

There's a danger Labour will now think UKIP aren't a threat to them.

Which would be a courageous move.

They are undoubtedly a threat, but the seeming UKIP assumption that disillusioned WWC Labour voters will just walk into their arms is also being tested to destruction. UKIP needs to offer more than it does to economically left-leaning social conservatives, and that is a big challenge for the party's leadership.

The Labour 'brand' is still super strong in places like Oldham. I dont really think UKIP is the right vehicle for taking it.

What the situation of it (the labour brand) in the top 100 swing seats is another matter.

I imagine it is poor to poisonous right now. But it will be the Tories, not UKIP, who will benefit from that.

Yet out of your price range, apparently.

blackburn63 said:

CarlottaVance said:

blackburn63 said:

Oh and something for pb Tories to consider, I'm meeting Dan Hannan later to do some campaigning. I'm not anti Tory, I'm anti Cameron's brand of unprincipled and vacuous govt as demonstrated by his obsequious disciples on here.

I do hope you campaign like that;

'Are you an unprincipled obsequious vacuous Tory, or a patriotic UKIPer like me?'

Works a treat, I expect.

...Humility costs nothing.

Quite - our wards rarely resemble an archipelago.

Sandpit said:

eek said:

DecrepitJohnL said:

Evenwel vs Abbot in the Supreme Court of the United States of America is due to be heard next week .

It will decide whether American constituency boundaries are based on population (as now) or number of voters.

A matter not without relevance to our own boundary reviews.

Not quite. Here we still have workers knocking door to door to make sure all voters are registered, in the US some states have allowed voting registration centers to be moved to explicitly make it near impossible for some parts of the potential electorate to register.

Yes, the politics of the electoral boundaries, systems and processes in the US are thoroughly rotten, but both sides just see it as part of the 'game' to be played.

We have our problems in the UK with abuses, but its not usually the parties themselves involved - although there have been a couple of high profile exceptions, these are generally exceptions.