politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks: How the Eurosceptics are destroying the Co
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Alastair Meeks: How the Eurosceptics are destroying the Conservative party
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By that definition, the Eurosceptic right of the Conservative party is insane.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Stuxnet?...Yes.
"We have confirmed that Flame uses a yet unknown MD5 chosen-prefix collision attack,"
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/flame-crypto-breakthrough/
Ed Miliband to warn against EU exit
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35868007
My point was the comment that Apple iPhone system couldn't be broken by brute force alone. Neither could MD5 on the surface, or that was the original thinking and the US government had tech to do so years before anybody realised it was even really possible.
Excellent post, Mr Meeks.
I really fear a Corbyn or McDonnell-led Government (or one led by a Labour leader who shares their views). If the Tories don't behave themselves that is what we might get.
Cameron may not have acquitted himself with glory over the EU deal etc but he is a formidable politician and the Tories will miss him when he goes. I am no fan of the EU but am even less of a fan of an ungovernable governing party or of handing the next election to a party as morally deficient and incompetent as Labour has proven to be under Corbyn and his allies.
You must always create an effective defence that counters the weapons that you create, just in case.
Goodnight.
The thoughtful case against the EU - and there is one - has been lost amongst the carpet-chewing........
I chose the picture as a reminder of past Tory insanity.
Trump 47 -2
Cruz 31 +16
Kasich 17 +11
Basically the same as the CBS/NYT one, but with different movements.
Hillary 53 +1
Trump 41 -3
Is the Republican party united: Yes 8%
Republican voters upset if Trump is the nominee: 21%
Democratic voters upset if Hillary is the nominee: 11%
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2773296-rel5a-2016.html
How about the IDS [IN DEPTH SHIT] budget...
Since this is another Meeks criticises the Tory right (shocker) to loud applause from the Cameroons (shocker) thread I will duck out and hope there is some more interesting being talked about later.
Believe in BRITAIN!
Be LEAVE!
(disclaimer - I am not, and have never been, a member of the Tory party!)
Of course if Gove & Stuart could impose some discipline on the rabble.........but I fear too many 'Men of Destiny' (sic) in their ranks......
1) Will the Tories be able to sort themselves out after the referendum? Assuming not:
2) With Con and Lab both shitting the bed simultaneously, maybe the time is right to do the SDP again?
3) Or maybe UKIP can clean up?
What we need is electoral reform, in the form of Proportional Representation then there would be no need for these coalitions within the two big parties. It's a complete joke that Ken Clarke and the likes of Peter Bone are in the same party, just like it is a nonsense that Dianne Abbott is in the same party as Tony Blair. FPTP has had it's day.
"The British debate about Brexit, at the moment, reminds me of the discussions I heard in the US, late last year, about Donald Trump. Back then the opinion polls said that Mr Trump was well ahead in the race. But the conventional wisdom in Washington was that he would never win the Republican presidential nomination. Everybody told me that, once voters focused on the race, Mr Trump’s lead would crumble.
In Britain today, there is a similar unwillingness among mainstream political analysts to believe the warning signs from the opinion polls. Several recent polls have shown small majorities in favour of the UK leaving Europe when the country holds its referendum on June 23. But most political pundits I speak to still think it is pretty unlikely that Britain will really vote to leave. When it comes to both Mr Trump and Brexit, the political establishments in Washington and London find it hard to believe the public will ultimately make a choice that the establishment regards as self-evidently stupid."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/35bef41c-ecfe-11e5-bb79-2303682345c8.html#axzz43bhO9Zmq
Greece should never have joined the Euro. Greece should have left the Euro in 2010. They should again have left the Euro early in 2015 when SYRIZA was first elected. And they should finally have left the Euro in late 2015 when the last bail-out was agreed.
There is this idea that the Germans - or the EU - forced them to stay in. This is untrue.
In particular, in early 2015, the Greek government was offered the support of the IMF for Grexit. (In particular, the IMF offered a package for recapitalising the Greek banks.) Both the ECB and the German government agreed that Greece would find it easier to restructure its debts outside the Eurozone. But Tsipiras bottled it. He feared that his government would not survive exit from the Eurozone. (Which is probably true). But in bottling it, he did his countrymen an enormous disservice.
CBS
.@realDonaldTrump appears to pluck woman from press conference crowd and offer her a job: https://t.co/ivrbx314C1 https://t.co/6sv2J177ee
US Airforce
Take a break today and help us name our bomber for the 21st Century! @AFGlobalStrike https://t.co/tQ6myyGZs6 #B21 https://t.co/DOWMj1Z4HV
In fact, in 1999 only Luxembourg met the official entry criteria without extensive fiddling of the figures. Which of course goes a long way towards explaining the Euro's current existential crisis.
Agree with the rest.
Alastair makes some very good points, the Eurosceptics are playing with fire and even Jeremy Corbyn may not save the Tories.
To correct this problem, Labour have elected the 67-year old son of a millionaire trade unionist who got two Es at A-level and failed.a polytechnic course, and whose political beliefs have led him to make common cause with fascists and murderers, and to cover up for paedophiles.
This has undoubtedly led to a change in people's perceptions. Now they see Labour, who are still incompetent, stupid and out of touch, as very ill intentioned as well.
This isn't progress, and short of a major purge of Corbyn and all his crazy acolytes (Milne, Macdonnell, Abbott, Thornberry, etc.) it's difficult to see how Labour comes back from it in the next 10 years.
Osborne to praise IDS and defend ‘compassionate’ budget http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4718670.ece
If the Greeks had wanted to leave, they would have done so. In reality, they were desperate to do anything but.
Regardless of whether or not I agree with the views, I can see that obsessing about Trident, as many refugees as possible, and remembering good times past with assorted Terrorist Haters Of Britain™ is not a good look. It's going to be hard to win an election, certainly one fought Crosby-style, with Jezza's particularly history on these things.
But a candidate without his particular priorities who otherwise shares the broadly social democratic (in some EU countries centrist) views on the role of the state, industrial policy, public services, opportunity and social justice would also be very acceptable to the membership. Probably more than Corbyn, who has shown he's a bit crap at the day to day job. Unfortunately the leadership election didn't offer any other such candidates.
Would you feel more comfortable going into 2020 with some such candidate or would you still see that as indulging in unelectable ideological purity?
PR gives a rather naive and fake purity but then after the election a coalition is cobbled together that the public never voted for at election time.
Next!
I can't use any website, bank, bookie, store or online booking service now without being asked via email for "feedback".
Invariably, it's tedious and geared towards given them some nice % KPIs to throw about in their marketing literature. So I ignore.
On the rare occasion where I offer unsolicited feedback (e.g. to my bank, over the telephone, about being transferred/put on hold too much) it's made perfectly clear to me in the dismissive response by the operator that it's not their job, and not particularly welcome either.
However, as a result of that I was able to get her to open a training session for nurses on HRT, which got me quite a lot of brownie points.
1) Corbyn goes and someone competent takes over. He could go voluntarily, be run over by a bus, or replaced by election. The probability of one of these is actually fairly high.
2) Tories lose their reputation for economic competence. This would be via a world downturn (not seen the end of the China Crisis yet), or simply the recession that comes round every now and again in the economic cycle. Most damaging would be if the recession was seen as self inflicted - such as being caused by a Brexit vote. The probability of this is also quite high.
There are other events possible too of course, but if both of these happened we could easily see Labour back in for a generation. It was the combination of Tory economic mismanagement of the ERM, a moderate reformist Labour Leadership and Tories fatally split over Europe that caused the 97 landslide.
At the moment we are at about '90 with the LibDems on the floor and Labour still divided. Next comes defenestration of an electorally successful Tory leader.
Today, we have this piece (and Mr. Meeks, although well written as usual - if 50% too long (also as usual) - you don't really have much of a grasp of the inner workings of the Tory Party, do you.
There are a bunch of irreconcilables. There always will be. They have more power right now because of a small majority and have latched on to the EU referendum as a means to attack Cameron.
But the vast majority of the Tory party - in parliament and outside - is minded towards unity. They will disagree - vehemently - on this issue. I have no doubt that some individual relationships will be shattered. But overall the party wants to remain in power, and believes that Corbyn would be a disaster for the country. Many of the positive-Leavers on this board (e.g. @PhilipThompson @MarqueeMark) have said they would vote for Cameron if he was to stand for re-election after the referendum.
It won't be BoJo. It probably won't be Gove. It won't be Javid (or Morgan). It won't be Osborne. May has a good chance as a safe-ish pair of hands if there is a choice in the next 6 months. Otherwise I think it will be a mid-ranking member of the Cabinet (a Truss, Rudd, Crabbe or somesuch).
One advantage for the Tories of rushing the referendum through is that it gives them longer before the election to pull themselves back together. If they want to, of course.
How many get out clauses in that?
They might have looked bonkers but what they rebelled against was bonkers. And it's not just here. If our referendum is out, or even a narrow in, the pressure on other states for the own referenda will become deafening. The people didn't sign onto a juggernaut of bankers and bureaucrats doing what is right for their narrow interests regardless of cost. The politicians claim a mandate but what mandate when your choices of government are all saying the same thing?
Hence the title.
I will give it to the folks at Peterborough Court: they know how to gouge their clients to the max.
Labour's problem isn't JC, it's the oppositionist thinking of his fan club. That includes Nick Palmer (and indeed my daughter) both of whom I had thought had far more sense.
Osborne is his own worst enemy in this. If his budget had simply set the fiscal framework for the year ahead without all the spin it would have been much better received.
As in the 1990s, the small minority will be allowed to wreck the government because of the connivance of a larger minority sympathetic to their cause. Once that happens, the identity of the next Conservative leader is more or less irrelevant: we will have non-government.
I expect I am not unusual. My priorities are not their priorities.
Here there is a single referendum which will largely deal with the issue (Except for the anti-Cameroon individuals who would be anti-Cameron anyway and are largely ignored)
There is a bigger issue with the fact that there are a bunch of Tory MPs who are swayed by social media and lack a spine.
Dream on.
I'm interested to hear what TSE and Meeks hope to gain from such toadying, obsequious behaviour. A job, an audience with Dave, recognition - what is the motive? In thread header after thread header Meeks calls Leavers insane, infantile and mad, there has to be a bigger picture.
Interestingly the header says that Cameron is the politician the public respects, hogwash. Ask labour voters, ukip voters, SNP voters, a growing number of conservatives if they respect Cameron, of course they don't. This site is increasingly representative of this peculiar, self appointed bubble that seeks to frame but is actually massively out of touch with public opinion.
If, and its still a reasonable sized if, Leave wins, this site will be like a day old battlefield after the referendum.