Time to be betting on Brown 2011?
January 31st, 2010
Will he really stay on if Labour loses?
The big story in the Sunday Times has serious implications for several betting markets if its turns out to be correct.
The report opens: “Gordon Brown is making secret plans to stay on as Labour leader after the general election even if his party is defeated. The prime minister has told close colleagues that he will refuse to quit unless the Conservatives win a significant majority.
“Gordon has said he believes his enemies in the party are too divided among themselves to force him out,” said a senior Labour source. “He thinks that if the May election is indecisive and if there is any prospect of a second election, Labour should not be plunged immediately into a messy leadership contest.”
The goes completely against the received wisdom that after Labour’s likely fall from power then Brown would slip quietly out of the scene and the summer would be dominated with a contest to find his successor.
Many of the thousands of bets that have been placed on the Labour leadership have been made because punters believe that this will all come to a head in the period after the election.
Not so - if this latest report is to be believed.
If Brown wants to do this then the chances are that he’ll be able to see off any challenges - just in the way he has seen off plot after plot over the past year.
One market on this is the Brown exit date market on Betfair. I win £500 for a £67 outlay if he is still Labour leader on January first next year.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
First?
*twiddles thumbs*
FPT 464 Plato
We need a good criminal lawyer here. Is “reasonable force” a statutory provision or a common law concept? The courts have centuries of precedent in determining what is “reasonable”. Do they have similar experience with the qualifier “grossly”?
Perhaps one of pb.com’s learned friends could comment.
This is a killer because it is so true…
“If Brown wants to do this then the chances are that he’ll be able to see off any challenges - just in the way he has seen off plot after plot over the past year. ”
I can feel the horror of Labour Cabinet/activist members when they read this - it’s even worse than Maggie going on and on and on. At least she hadn’t lost an election at that point!
I think it is quite likely that this article correctly reports what Brown would like to happen after a Cameron victory or hung parliament.
However, I don’t believe that the Labour Party would allow him to stay on. The mechanism to get rid of him may be cumbersome, but it does exist. He is near-universally despised by his colleagues and by the party as a whole. I cannot believe he would survive a challenge.
IIRC, isn’t it much easier for a challenge when the party leader isn’t PM?
FPT
“What I don’t understand is that, in my view, the “hung parliament” narrative is more likely to be to the Conservatives’ advantage…”
Instead of your leader risking social and political death as “Can’t Make-It Cameron…”
5. Is he universally despised by the party as a whole? I imagine most MPs can’t stand him, but what about grassroots members and more importantly, trade union barons?
Somewhere in London Charles Clarke pulls up his explosive underpants, ties a kamikaze headband round his head, clambers into a micro-lite, and flies towards the downing street bunker screaming Tora Tora Tora!
Isn’t this more about making a last ditch attempt to revive the coup before the General Election.
If the press continue speculating about the Labour leadership and the public continue reading there will come a time when even the most ineffective assassins in history start sharpening their knives.
Can’t see it working though.
The Labour Party hates Gordon Brown and can’t stand him at any level. He will be forced to resign as leader within weeks of the general election - even if Labour wins.
It’s great for the tories canvassing - vote decisively for us or you get ‘5 more years of Brown’
This is very dangerous for Brown as while the tories are not too popular he is hated by a lot of people …
7 Rod Crosby
Are you pissed out of your mind?
7. RodCrosby.
Yup, keep adding weight to the evidence that your position is bias and your pontifications are worthy only of being ignored.
8 Not by the grassroots (least not the bits i know) - thing is Mandy-Campbell were too successful in their “Iron Chancellor” stuff and the goblins were too successful in their “pukka socialist not like Dorian” stuff and both too successful in hiding the fact he’s completley ******.
The man is incredible. Anyhow:
unless the Conservatives win a significant majority.
This would mean at least a lead of 7%+ so even on this measure Labour will have been soundly and rightly thrashed. There would be open revolt in the Labour party, were it not for the fact that they have proved themselves to be gormless sheep. Maybe it’s worth a flutter?
Wonder what the assorted Millipedes think? Not that it matters, they are the Wimpy and Wimpier brothers. Luckily Harperson won’t stand for it.
11 Mr Loony - any suggestions as to how they’d do that? All other attempts have failed when the stakes were much higher - I’m thinking of Purnell after the polls closed, Blears, Flint etc.
Gordon was supposedly fatally wounded and yet like a zombie did not die.
Wot’s all this about Camo saying no significant cuts in the first year?!!!!!!!!!!!
Camo needs to make it clear that there will be HUGE MASSIVE BRUTAL cuts on the public sector immediately and the deficit will be cleared by year 1 by scrapping all state benefits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Otherwise we may as well stick with Gordon PM 2011!!!!
I seem to recall that one of the first postings I made on PB was on the subject of Brown’s departure date when many PBers were harbouring the crazy idea that Brown might put the Labour Party before self interest and walk.
I said then in relation to his occupation of No 10 that he would never voluntarily give up a role he has spent 24 years plotting to achieve and so it will be with the leadership.
What constitutes a serious loss to the Conservative Party? Kirkcaldy not returning a Labour MP?
17. Ave it: Wot’s all this about Camo saying no significant cuts in the first year?!!!!!!!!!
By the time a budget can be implemented, the financial year will already be a quarter over.
Its total meltdown for Camo in the North!
Labour fancy it in Skipton!!!!!
I have put money on Labour holding Workington and Bradford West!!!!
18 “What constitutes a serious loss to the Conservative Party? Kirkcaldy not returning a Labour MP?”
Wouldn’t a massive postal vote by Tory supporters in Gordon’s seat be marvellous
And then we could see what sort of Downfall lefty supporters come up with - actually, are they any lefty Downfall pee-takes of Cameron?
13. Stone cold sober. I never touch a drop before sundown, anyhow.
It’s just that I’ve decided. Today is No More Nonsense Day. It’s too close to the election to afford you that luxury.
Anyone (Tories or otherwise) who posts tendentious nonsense will not be spared. You have been warned…
14. Thanks for the free endorsement. There really is no such thing as bad publicity…
19 ok lets have extra quick cuts in the last 9 months!
Benefits to spongers can be stopped on Day 1!!!
And lets put up VAT to 50% on Day 2 (ready for when the unmarried mothers go shopping beyond their means on the Saturday - make them pay!!!!!)
If that statement does reflect the mindset of Gordon, then Labour should pray for a clear tory win. An existential threat to Labour only exists with Gordon at the helm.
248.Coffee House Blog - “The Rawnsley book may make Brown’s temper a major election issue—which would be a disaster for Labour. The Sunday Times is reporting that Brown wants to stay on as Labour leader if the Tory majority is less than 20. This news might well prompt some former insiders to conclude that the interests of the Labour party are best served by revealing just how fraught life has been within Brown’s Downing Street.”
I honestly thought that Times front page was a wind up, but this is beyond parody. Gordon Brown: I will go on and on
“Allies of David Miliband, the foreign secretary and Balls’s main leadership rival, fear Brown will use his continued control of the Labour party machinery to boost the schools secretary’s chances of succeeding him.”
Judging by the way the briefing on this was reported in the article, I had come to that conclusion myself before I got that paragraph. Its all a bit obvious isn’t it, or is it?
“The prime minister is also understood to be privately opposed to Harriet Harman, his deputy, becoming a “caretaker” leader during any contest, as Margaret Beckett did in 1994 after the death of John Smith.”
I queried this on a recent thread, but no one posted to clarify Harman and the Deputy leadership post rules. Has Harman given up on being permanent leader, and is she hoping to get the care taker job for a while in this way before reverting back to her current post?
Some very mischievous briefing going on this weekend?
by ChristinaD January 31st, 2010 at 12:27 am
The post-election PLP will contain a lot of newbies, many of them Brownite place men parachuted into safe seats at the last minute. Brown will dominate them even more than he dominates the present lot. If Brown decides to cling on they are unlikely to force him out, especially if a 2nd GE is at all likely.
22.Excuse me, but who the hell made you milk monitor on PB.com?
22. RodCrosby: Today is No More Nonsense Day.
Oh good. We’ll see you after the election then.
22 Does that mean you wont be posting this side of the GE?
4 - “If Brown wants to do this then the chances are that he’ll be able to see off any challenges - just in the way he has seen off plot after plot over the past year. ”
The Daily Mail article shows one way he can head off a plot, otherwise its back to the good old smearfest.
28.
Here, something for you to play with to keep you amused…
http://tinyurl.com/yjvpzp3
22 Rod Crosby
Today is No More Nonsense Day.
Then perhaps you might like to start by answering the questions in comment 411 of the previous thread.
28/29. Snap!
31. RodCrosby.
So it took you 8 minutes to break your own injunction. Oh dear.
26.History boy, good point. I think we need to remember the influence of Unite in some those safe seat selections, especially we so many Labour MP’s standing down now. We saw a real Blairite/Unite tussle in one of those selections only last year. And I would imagine that the Brown/Balls/Whelan axis is working hard right now with a view to life post GE in the Labour PLP.
Bottom line, Balls and Whelan must view solidifying their own power base, and the chances of Balls being able to succeed his boss as being better the longer Brown can hang on.
I’m not sure about whether the GB did manhandle one of his staff, which if he did, is a serious matter which does bring his ability to lead into sharp focus.
But there is another side to this which is rather worrying.
There seems to be a game of chess going on here, where one side, lets call them the anti-Browns (and they are the Tories plus half the Labour party it seems), appear to have a war chest of stories which they seem to produce at carefully staggered times in the lead up to the general election. And this story of workplace bullying is just the latest.
On the other side are the Brownites, who are just hunkering down and waiting and hoping that eventually the antis will just run out of ammunition.
The nearest analogy i can think of is that Camp-brown is like some old WW2 Tiger Tank that somehow is still going. Its gun is out of action, the turret no longer works, there are cracks in the armour from all the relentless shelling and bombing, and most importantly of all its radio no longer works so it cannot communicate with the outside world.
But its driver (Gordon Brown) has made an irreversible decision. The bridge that he crossed in his tank a few months back has been destroyed, he can’t go back, only forwards. But he can now see his enemy through his sights. He can’t shoot back at them because his gun is out of action, but they can still shoot at him.
However, the gun shooting at him is only a 7 pounder, and can’t penetrate his armour. So his has calculated that he can survive long enough and endure the incoming shells and hopefully run over his enemies and crush them; that meeting point being May 6th.
Now, as you can imagine, Gordon Brown the tank commander is going all the way on this one. He is shell shocked and has that glazed over look in his eyes, all he can think about is that cannon at the end of the road that keeps shooting at him, and he is dreaming about squashing them like grapes.
However, he has cracks in his armour. Although the shells cannot penetrate his thick skin, if one lucky shell finds one of those crack and drills through it, its game over, and he will literally be stopped in his tracks.
Or maybe he’s calculated that if they haven’t found that crack by now, they never will, and he will win.
Or maybe that 7 pounder gun pounding away is just a ruse to bring him into a dead end. And just round the next corner there’s a Howitzer just waiting to rip his turret off at point blank range.
Maybe, maybe , maybe……………
In the meantime Gordon Brown just rumbles on, forever onwards towards that gun emplacememnt at the end of the road. Bang, boing, bang, boing, bang, boing, go the shells on the outside. Gordon Brown, hearing all these ricochets, starts to grin manically. He’s almost there, only 600 yards to go, then grape juice. Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.
And all the time his terrified crew of 2, Balls and Cooper, (the 4th one bail out ages ago), are sitting at the back of tank watching their Commander becoming more and more possessed, and all the while thinking, “I could be fishing now beside a beautiful river”.
Then Gordon Brown lets a blood curdelling scream, “JAM TOMMORROW”.
27. “Milk Monitor”? You’ve got the wrong idea, luv…
http://tinyurl.com/y8agjo3
35 If Labour in defeat choose Balls, it’ll be even worse than Hague - at least he was likeable in a goofy way.
Balls is simply media toxic - and scary looking - a little toothbrush moustache is all that is needed
14 - “Yup, keep adding weight to the evidence that your position is bias and your pontifications are worthy only of being ignored.”
Always used to make me chuckle when Rod protested he was totally impartial
not quite as funny as timbot spinning / smearing god knows how many hours a day on behalf of a party he claimed not to be able to vote for though
Arsenal 0 Man U 2
23 Dissapointed and disillusioned already?
Can we put you down as a don’t know?
32. I’m busy… Can’t it wait until the end of this Turkey-Shoot?
36 “And all the time his terrified crew of 2, Balls and Cooper, (the 4th one bail out ages ago), are sitting at the back of tank watching their Commander becoming more and more possessed, and all the while thinking, “I could be fishing now beside a beautiful river”.”
Nah, one of them is lovingly gazing at the back of McFrankenDoom’s head thinking “sigh, my hero” while the other is thinking “i wish he looked at me that way”.
7. Rod, I would have thought it’d be senseible to actually wait for the ballots to be counted before gloating?
If the Tories get a majority of around 20 or less he will stay until Cameron beats him convincingly in a second election. Many leadership contendors will not be too unhappy, they avoid being a Hague and allow him to again lead the party to a second defeat, thus enabling them to pick up the crown and renew the party at an election they might even win!
23
Ave it.. The EU wont allow us to put VAT up to 50% !!!!
I think the limit is about 24%
Forget it He loses, he goes. Even his allies will drop him because they will want to move on.
Instead he’ll get an honourary role at Gamblers Anonymous making speeches to illustrate how much trouble you can get into while gambling with money on credit.
44. I’m not gloating. I’m still covered in feathers!
42 Rod Crosby
In your own time.
Just don’t leave it ’til after May 6th.
40: ok sack wenger title between rooney and terry…
41: 88 - I’m sure you watch this all day every day, say nothing then come on when i say something!!!!!!
Am i your hero - would you like me to autograph something for you???
46 GRRR ok that will do then!! Lets put up interest rates to 24% as well - proper return on savings then!!!
Oh my word…just the thought of Brown going on and on!!
Isn’t this just another example of Gordon potentially choosing the worst option yet again?
Gordon guaranteed even if they lose?
50 “Am i your hero”
Silly question - you’re everyones hero
Rod, since you’re about, and in good form. Can you explain to me why you’re saying swingback says Hung Parliament.
Because prior to the Crewe and Nantwich by election, where the Tories achieved a swing of 17.6% you said about the swings
10%-15%: Very good- a hung parliament with the Tories as largest party is most likely.
Greater than 15%: Excellent- the Tories probably are on course for an overall majority.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/04/30/will-it-be-all-change-at-crewe-on-may-22nd/#comment-648917
53 TY
If Labour lose Brown will go, he may not want to, but go he will. If in the unlikely event of a Labour win, Brown will stay. If a hung parliament (looking more-n-more likely) no party would support Labour unless he goes, so his head would be the price.
There has been some warming to Brown, but not enough.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2439?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PollingReport+%28UK+Polling+Report%29
Sometimes on here we get so hung up on polls that we fail to “Sniff the Wind”, which is why posters like Yellow Sub add a lot to the site. I think we should also spend my of our time looking at the stories coming out and trying to do a little reading between the lines. Now, from what I recall, this is the first No.10 friend sourced story saying that Brown will stay on after an election defeat. That he would want to stay on does not surprise me, but to my mind this is the first time that we have the words electoral defeat coming from anywhere near the PM. That to me is significant. It suggests that Brown expects not to win the next election (not something I can recall coming from No.10 in the run-up to 92). So look at what Yellow Sub is saying about the softness of Labour’s support, look at the difference between the hard vote and support polling figures (eg. YouGov v ARS) and I think we have a stronger indication of where the wind is blowing than any mathematical model will ever produce…
And, what’s more, if by some incredible fluke he actually won, I think there’s also a good chance he’d be deposed, although admittedly that would be much more difficult. In some ways the urgency would be greater, in that scenario, because allowing Brown to keep hold of the reins of power and continue his orgy of wasting money we don’t have would certainly kill off Labour’s chances for the election after next. I can’t see Mandelson, Darling, Miliband and the other vaguely sane senior ministers taking that risk for a second time.
Of course, it all really depends on whether there are actually going to be any Labour MPs left after the election.
Ok, there will be some but the nature and the dynamic of the PLP will be transformed if Balls, Clarke, Darling, Denham, Bradshaw are not returned. Are both Millibands safe. And Johnson. I haven’t looked.
We know that many of the useless Blair Babes are bed-blocking in the safer seats so perhaps Gordon’s “I will NEVER surrender” line is just his way of saying that all hope is lost for any Labour seat except where there’s more than a 10pc swing required to unseat.
Only GB and the rest of his Scottish mafia will be left. That’s what he’s trying to say. It’s like that Terminator film where the metallic goo somehow reconstitutes. ‘I’ll be back’. [:irony:]
52. To misquote what Churchill said about the US
‘Brown will always do thw wrong thing, but only after exhausting all other options.’
Seems my last post is stuck in moderation. So, as I was saying… This story is Gordon’s way of saying that there’ll be no-one left in the Party to lead apart from a few Scottish chums, some Blair Babe bed-blockers and GB.
No Balls, Clarke, Darling. He’s admitting that there’ll be noone left. They’ll all be gone. He’s like that metallic goo in the Terminator film that will somehow reconstitute itself. ‘I’ll be back’ [irony]. That’s what he’s saying.
Be afraid. Be Very Afraid.
If this did happen, would be fascinating
Could Jacques Chirac add to the Chilcot inquiry?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5742628/could-jacques-chirac-add-to-the-chilcot-inquiry.thtml
Now seems a very good time to reprise the lyrics to Waterfall, by the Stone Roses.
The song was written, of course, in satire of Margaret Thatcher, when she said she would go “on and on”. Suitably adjusted for gender, it seems even more applicable to Brown. They even got the day right.
Chimes, sing sunday morn
Today’s the day he’s sworn
To steal what he never could own
And race from this hole he calls home
Now you’re at the wheel
Tell me how, how does it feel?
So good to have equalised
To lift up the lids of your eyes
As the miles they disappear
See land begin to clear
Free from the filth and the scum
This american satellites won
He’ll carry on through it all
He’s a waterfall
He’ll carry on through it all
He’s a waterfall
See the steeple pine
The hills as old as time
Soon to be put to the test
To be whipped by the winds of the west
Stands on shifting sands
The scales held in his hands
The wind it just whips him away
And fills up his brigantine sails
He’ll carry on through it all
He’s a waterfall
He’ll carry on through it all
He’s a waterfall
Rod,
You are a fan of averaging polls. What say you to the charge that if you average out the poll results for January 2010 (exclude ARPO if you like - it doesn’t help you much) Labour are polling lower than they were in January 2010. And the same is true of December November, October and September (in each case 09 v 08). In some cases the difference in Labour polling is significant.
The Toris are also slightly down on an equivalent analysis, but not by as much. The LDs have gained strongly over the same period.
I have some rough numbers I can throw at you but I am sure you can look them up quickly enough.
I’m still unclear whether Gordon has actually said he will go on and on - or whether Miliband supporters merely “fear” this is what will happen?
Labour really are ferrets in a sack aren’t they?
54. I knew that would be misconstrued a million times.
At the half way or three quarter point of a marathon, someone can be “on course” to finish in record time. But they can still run out of puff, or drop down dead…
A spaceship can be “on course” for the moon, having reached “escape velocity” (C&N swing) but it can still blow up or become marooned in space…
It was reckless of me to say what I said, forgetting the nature of my audience
but I always knew what I meant. 
But the Tories just couldn’t sustain it, as I thought they might…
FPT 275 AndrewG “The whole point of ‘human rights’ is that you can’t ‘leave them outside’. They’re applicable under all circumstances.”
As I understand it, care home residents not funded by the state leave their human rights outside when they enter.
http://blog.housingcare.org/post/2009/01/09/Elderly-care-home-residents-and-the-Human-Rights-Act.aspx
58 - It’s one reason why i don’t subscribe to this view that it is particularly important for the Tories to get a majority come what may. Obviously their ideal is a working majority, but i think that they would much prefer being clearly the largest party in a hung Parliament than with a sub-10 majority. Basically because in neither scenario would they be able to get much done, but in the former they could convincingly blame the opposition parties, but the latter the focus would be on rebellious backbenchers on their own side.
But also because I think Labour would spend months tearing itself apart trying to get rid of Brown. Not too disastrous for them if he goes quietly, a catastrophe if he fights on.
61 Perhaps he could answer this.
In the morass, essential questions surfaced briefly, were avoided and remained, amazingly, ignored. Question: “Had President Chirac phoned to say that his position was being misrepresented out of context?” Answer: “I remember speaking to Chirac on a number of occasions.” Yes? And? What is the answer? We will never know as the examination drifted gently on to another topic, and obscurity remained.
Bob Marshall-Andrews writing in the Guardian.
Chilcot: trial without tribulation
Bereft of lawyers, the Iraq war inquiry has suffered total forensic failure. This was a cakewalk for Blair
65 - So you mean you were talking bollocks then, and you’re not talking bollocks now?
As the election approaches I plan to be a bit more discreet about my canvassing returns, which will be a relief to those who don’t believe them anyway. Briefly, today’s (500 contacts in a middle-class commuter area, detached and semis) was more 2001 than 2005. What may be worth adding is the change in activist mood. We had the largest number of people out for months (half of them non-members), and they were enjoying it, whereas I think you could say it’s been a duty rather than a pleasure at times. How much morale matters is debatable, but it clearly helps in the ground war.
Gordon’s stock has risen in parallel at grass roots level - a lot of people feel he’s put up with a lot of crap and come through it, and if there’s no Tory overall majority I can’t see any successful challenge happening.
Labour need the next election for leader to be an open fight, not compromised by the actions which individuals have or haven’t taken in trying to actually bring that election about in the first place.
61
Pete the Hitch thinks there should be a Tory there too.
Only once did he say anything interesting, moaning that he had been under pressure to go to war from the Tories. This is quite true.
The Opposition’s failure to question this birdbrained adventure should not be forgotten and at least one senior Tory should be invited before the inquiry to explain it.
This might make them wonder about their current support for the mistake we are now making, the bloody and futile Afghan war, whose purpose nobody can explain.
But only if the media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who seems to have bought David Cameron wholesale, actually allows them to think about this.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1247302/PETER-HITCHENS-The-great-good-support-mercy-killing–thats-Im-worried.html#ixzz0eD8Ym8ET
67 i agree - we know DUP will support us and we think we can do a deal with SNP - we will make the necessary concessions…
310 saets should be enough…
70 ‘today’s…was more 2001 than 2005′ - dont you mean ‘more 1931 than 2005′?
65. RodCrosby.
Why should the narrowing trend continue when the widening trend didn’t?
ConHome survey is up
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/01/new-conservativehome-survey-is-live.html
70 - “if there’s no Tory overall majority I can’t see any successful challenge happening.”
Christmas come early for the Tories? Of course there is one reason why they would like him to go. If he goes then the Queen is not obliged to keep him on as PM until a vote of no confidence!
70 - “Briefly, today’s (500 contacts in a middle-class commuter area, detached and semis) was more 2001 than 2005…”
Can anyone assist in reminding someone of advancing years of any learned article suggesting that Labour might be heading for a landslide at the next election. I’d be ever so grateful.
Is there any truth in the notion that Nick Palmer might be related to another Midlands Labour MP?
Interesting find Screaming.
O course on the night of the C&N result Rod was trying to sping the 17% swing as not that bad for the Tories because they didn’t achieve the 29% swing that Labour achieved in Dudley in 1994;
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/23/the-spread-markets-suggest-a-tory-majority-of-50/#comment-676012
The more you look at Rods past posts the more it really does look as though he just makes it all up as he goes along?
64. That’s true. It’s also true that Rawnsley’s stories have been floating round in one form or another for a while. I demand new and shocking stories!
78.Interesting find Screaming.
Of course on the night of the C&N result Rod was trying to sping the 17% swing as not that good for the Tories because they didn’t achieve the 29% swing that Labour achieved in Dudley in 1994;
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/23/the-spread-markets-suggest-a-tory-majority-of-50/#comment-676012
The more you look at Rods past posts the more it really does look as though he just makes it all up as he goes along?
77 surely not this?!
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
78 - I’m trying to find his predictions for the 2008 London Mayoral campaign.
How many people appreciate their local MP knocking on the door on Sunday afternoon when the Football’s on?
57.StLondon Nick, I don’t think this is the first time we have had briefing like this from close to Gordon Brown, Charlie Whelan was certainly spinning this line before today. The headline is actually quite damaging to Brown and Labour right before a GE. Brown is personally unpopular among the electoral, and I doubt that they want to hear ‘Brown’ claiming he will go on and on, regardless of the ultimate ballot box poll.
I would urge the utmost caution when reading anything attributed to Brown, especially from sources close to him. Gordon Brown’s current position and future prospects are closely intertwined the those of Balls and Whelan. Their own current positions of power within Downing Street and the Labour party are dependent on Brown’s current position as PM, and that as Leader of the Labour party. If they are briefing this story to the media, then its a sign that neither is yet confident of Balls being in a position to succeed Brown as leader, nothing more.
70
You get it from the horse’s mouth. A LABOUR MP is praising a man in a position of seniority who is a bully to junior members of staff. Would NPMP be praising a Chief Executive of a Bank who bullied junior members of staff, because that Chief Executive had put up with ‘a lot of crap?’
Of course not.
This bully, will even remain leader of the LABOUR party, NPMP avers, if his defeat isn’t comprehensive. In other words, if the rumours, quickly denied, of the PM’s behaviour don’t result in comprehensive defeat, LABOUR MPs will leave the bully in place to continue his reign of terror.
Have you no shame?
Whoever thought that arsenal could possibly win the league?
81 - Good gracious. ‘Pon my soul, that’s an extraordinary find, and so quickly.
Ave It = Prince among men.
John Glen selected by Tories in Salisbury
What are you allowed to use to remove Gordon, reasonable force or anything that isn’t grossly disproportionate?
I’m as confused as David Cameron.
61 - TSE -So the Spectator now thinks Jacques Chirac should testify on Iraqi WMD?
Thats funny, so do I
At the invitation of Saddam Hussein (then vice-president of Iraq, but de facto dictator), Chirac made an official visit to Baghdad in 1975. Saddam approved a deal granting French oil companies a number of privileges plus a 23 per cent share of Iraqi oil.[11] As part of this deal, France sold Iraq the Osirak MTR nuclear reactor, a type designed to test nuclear materials.
88 - The astronaut?
82 - Not a chance for Boris and expressed in his usual cautious, diffident and modest way.
73 I think 312 would be enough - but cannot see the SNP supporting the Tories. If they did they would lose voters in droves back to Labour.
69. “What we got here is… a failure to communicate.”
90 - He’s a high-flyer you know. Tim Montgomerie will be in ecstasy.
90 no.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/john-glen.html
62.Seant, listening to it now, you wonder who will have the longer lasting legacy and still be remembered? That is where Thatcher will go on and on.
96. yes, I read it was Montgomerie’s favourite candidate
84. I’m pretty sure Rod didn’t think Boris would win the Mayoralty.
93 - That’s what I thought John.
Perhaps we should have a new award, the Roderamus Seer Award.
Heard an odious Mandelson on the way back from Nottingham this afternoon. If talking about the dangers faced by the country’s economy is “unpatriotic” God alone knows how you’d described the idiots who completely buggered it up in the first place. Saying that Cameron and Osborne’s statement is disappointing. Are the LDs now the only party who guaranteed to the sensible and necessary strategy of “Savage” cuts?
97 - Shame. John Glenn always came across well on TV. Bit old now perhaps.
72. More 2001 than 2005? Labour heading for a landslide then NPMP?
You do make me laugh!
80. “not that bad”
82. “not that good”
Why, thanks, old pal, that’s exactly what I was trying to say…
Any time, old pal…
Stranger things have happened.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/martinbright/5740702/tony-blair-the-next-labour-prime-minister.thtml
91 - There’s so much I want to say about Jacques Chirac, but sadly Carter-Ruck or their french Equivalents may get upset
106 - I stuck some money a while back on Tony Blair being next Labour Leader @ 250/1
Then again I did stick money on John Reid too.
89 John O
94 justin - they wont say they will support the Tories BEFORE the election dont be silly…
106. Coldy, have you seen the poll in todays MoS? Blair is a busted flush and isn’t going to come riding to the rescue.
38 - “Balls is simply media toxic - and scary looking - a little toothbrush moustache is all that is needed”
Well, he already has the uniform ………
Outside of the 1992-7 Parliament (final result Labour majority 170) C&N was not far short of the largest by-election swings throughout history if Rod’s website is to be believed.
If Brown wishes to depart gracefully on 7th May he could just catch the last two sessions of Surrey v Gloucestershire at the Oval.
100. [can't wait for this one]
[reloads]
Good God. Rod sees ONE poll that would definitely suggest a hung Parliament and he posts a hundred times about how he’s super right and anyone who disagrees with him is so obviously wrong.
The little laughing face is REALLY annoying too.
As is Arsenal’s atrocious defending.
86. I thought it was pretty clear that the source was a friend of Miliband? The purpose being to tell everyone that Brown was SUPER CRAZY and was planning to marry Ed Balls and found the purest dynasty the world had ever seen? So, maybe somebody should do something about it?
re 72 Nick you realise that if your majority doesn’t go up this post will be quoted frequently thereafter.
111 - Perhaps Martin Day could photoshop this picture
http://preview.tinyurl.com/BallsNeedsToVisitTheClapClinic
86 Chris, Recently trying to think up game changers in run up to election. Certainly a civil servant or SpAD laying a complaint against the PM for bullying or assault would be one, short of that its probably not, a book or talk would kill off Mandelson’s attempt to reinvigorate Not Flash, “he’s authentic” apparently, but no more than that.
Without an actual complaint, even if the story is headlined, Gordon only has to appear at a Monday press conference, tearful and talking about the attacks on his character for the Lobby to write supportive commentary and Nick Palmer to talk about the crap poor Gordon has faced.
64. The whole album might as well be about Gordon. He does, after all, want to be adored. Despite being effectively made of stone. Probably considers himself to be the resurrection. Sarah goes out banging the drum for him. I imagine he’s not too keen on Her Majesty.
And the only appropriate response to him losing in May, will be to say “Bye Bye, Badman”.
118 - You mean like this Midlands MP was constantly quoted after making an electoral prediction?
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/conference/2007/09/labour-majority-increase
112. It was good - come now, let’s not be churlish - but still, no cigar…
From now on, whenever you click on my name, it’ll take you to Sion Simon’s article.
72.”Gordon’s stock has risen in parallel at grass roots level - a lot of people feel he’s put up with a lot of crap and come through it”
As a Conservative could I just utter 3 little letters in response to that one. IDS!
“and if there’s no Tory overall majority I can’t see any successful challenge happening.”
So is that a nod to the idea that the Labour party will hang onto an unsuccessful leader and PM who couldn’t even manage to hang onto power by winning a GE? Kinnoch may have lost two GE’s, but he did so from opposition. Brown is going to manage to survive a GE defeat when neither Thatcher or Blair survived 3 GE wins to be even be given the option of facing defeat at the helm? The only leader in a similar position was Major, and he had a previous win under his belt and still stood down.
Seriously, if the Labour party are happy for this idea to take hold then they have really lost the plot.
123. Why not just change your name to UselessArticle?…
Simples
112. alex: Outside of the 1992-7 Parliament (final result Labour majority 170) C&N was not far short of the largest by-election swings throughout history if Rod’s website is to be believed.
But, of course, multiple Labour-SNP marginals are more important.
125 - Only if you change your screen name too.
85: Nobody mentioned the footie when they answered (but perhpas some didn’t answer as they were watching?) - don’t think Forest were on so who cares?
87: Two answers to that - first I don’t usually express an opinion about colleagues here, though I report what others are saying; second, I tend to discount second-hand anecdotes by people selling their books, especially if my personal experience of the subject of the anecdotes is different.
102.If Brasso have any sense, they will bottle Mandelson and sell him.
110
I remember the same thing being said about HW after his defeat in ‘70.
Never underestimate the power of, ‘events’
Rod, you haven’t replied to my post requesting your thoughts on the fact Labour’s polling in Sept 2009-Jan 2010 was significantly worse than in the period Sept 2008-Jan 2009, and indeed that the decline in the Labour vote is greater than that of the Conseravatives over the same period. How does this fit in with your analysis?
I see Paddy Power have a couple of markets on May the 6th
Weather temperature on May the 6th
Applies to the max temp recorded at Heathrow Airport on May 6th according to http://www.wunderground.com
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/uk-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=224306
and
Rain in London on May 6th
Applies to the rain recorded at Heathrow Airport on May 6th according to http://www.wunderground.com under their hourly readings for the day in the Events section.
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/uk-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=224305
129. Those wishing to bottle Mandelson, please form an orderly queue.
131. Sorry, yes, I was keeping my eye on UselessArticle.
123 Mr Eagles - inspired! And so elegant
‘The little laughing face is REALLY annoying too.’
Under PM Cameron, if it cvomes into your house, you can punch it.
Right, we are all expecting turnout to increase arent we?
If so, what about this market from PP, about turnout compared to the last GE
Last Gerneral Election consider as 61.3%. Applies to the official turnout for the general election reported by the BBC. Void if they are the exact same.
Higher than last General Election 1/5
Lower than last General Election 3/1
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/uk-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=223826
130. In 1970 Harold didn’t resign as Labour leader, quit the Commons and become widely regarded as a compulsive liar amongst the British public after engaging the UK in the most disasterously unpopular war for half a century.
NickP - if you accept that the polls are broadly split 40/30, to what do you attribute doorstep returns reminscent of an election which ended 42/31 in the other direction? Some possibilities: (1) sample unrepresentative of Broxtowe trend; (2) Broxtowe unrepresentative of UK trend; (3) Good local MP
; (4) Polls badly wrong; (5) Untrained canvassers misreading mood; (6) Other; (7) combination of the above.
I’d welcome your thoughts.
Some movement on Betfair NOM…
139. Maybe they just tell him what he wants to hear to get him off their doorstep on a cold and wintry Sunday afternoon?
139 - I wonder if Nick has sub-analysed his canvass returns dependent on which members of his team are doing the door-knocking?
125. RodCrosby: Why not just change your name to UselessArticle?…
That’s at least your third personal attack in the last few hours.
Time for you to take a break.
Has anyone got a link to that Major/media chat on the battle bus in 1992 where he appeared quite confident of the result, off the record?
malcolmG should be here soon….
I don’t remember it being very good for Maggie’s career when she said she would ‘Go on and on and on’.
143. Rod’s in a funny mood this afternoon.
132 - Those Paddy Power markets are basically raffles with a PP huge overround built in.
145. Will it be good for the Tories?
139 Four broad segments of the 2005 Labour vote - different mood within each.
149 i think thats a different malcolm?
148 - I’m expecting a glorious sunny day, to herald the Cameron era.
146 - She went on for another three years.
128 Nick P
I’ll bet you will be more discreet, especially if the polls are not in convergence with what you have been trying to sell.
144. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvt-HQHqPpY It’s in here about 2 minutes in.
On from Guido: ‘Vote Brown and get even more sh1t than you bargained for’.
152. I’m expecting it to be grey, cold and miserable unfortunately. Springs that follow cold winter are rarely much to write home about.
Last price matched on a March election 2.70!!
Would have been better off laying the 1.2 on a May election.
131. I don’t have KF data at the moment prior to Jan 2009. What is obvious that the Tory lead is now about where it was on New Year’s Day 2009, and lower than at any time in the last 12 months.
Despite Bob Worcester’s occasional meanderings on the subject, it’s the lead, not the share that is all important, and gives a better at-a-glance view of the state of the race, and the trend…
http://www.titanictown.plus.com/hp/lead.png
The downside is the MOE of the lead is larger than the share MOE, but one can’t have everything…
151. That’s on Betfair
152. “I’m expecting a glorious sunny day, to herald the Cameron era.”
Not impossible - it wouldn’t be the first time the British weather has “done irony”.
119.Ted, wasn’t there recent rumours that someone who worked closely with Brown was wavering about breaking cover and talking publicly?
153. Next poster:
Next to a picture of Gordon, ‘When Maggie said she would go on and on, quite unexpectedly, she survived for another three years.’
It’s a winner.
tim is here…
139-Broxtowe seemed to have had a very similar swing to the average in 2005. I am guessing NPMP was as good a local MP pre 2005 so prognosis must be he is toast.
Tories are on 37%. In Lab-Con seats you are normally home and dry on 41%, so anything over 36% for the Tories should mean Broxtowe in the blue corner.
159. RodCrosby: it’s the lead, not the share that is all important
Both matter, since the larger the share, the smaller the lead required.
157 - But we now live in the era of man made global warming. Expect extreme weather patterns.
Monsoon flooding on May the 5th and hotter than Ibiza on May the 6th.
166. From memory, John Major got 43% of the vote in 1992 on top of an 8% lead, and was still only a few hundred votes from losing his majority. Dave won’t be getting 43%.
“That’s at least your third personal attack in the last few hours.
Time for you to take a break.”
Sorry, wrong site. Try Wikipedia. I hear they are looking for admistrator to join “The Officious Merkins’ Discussion Collective”
157…. Gin, Au Contrare. My experience is for a fine and hot mid spring, following cold winters.
168 scotland =
165 Peter2 - Ah, but in 2005 ‘Conservatives for Palmer’ didn’t exist. That’s a group of people who supported Michael Howard in 2005, but presumably prefer Nick Palmer’s politics to David Cameron’s. They will ensure Nick keeps the seat in order to assist their Conservative aims.
Or something like that.
169. RodCrosby.
At least four.
171 - No, no no
It is
Scotland = Andy Murray
England = Roger Federer
167 - A light dusting of snow to accompany the trust fund boys arrival?
168 From memory, we had pretty much a two party system then so an 8 point lead was smaller, relatively speaking.
172 - Well if you read some of the “Life long Tories” on conhome, that scenario is entirely possible.
171 Does that signify you are looking forward to going there for your hols.
172
Broxtowe is clearly a hotbed of compulsory ID Card activists, which makes me wonder why the disastrous trial is in Manchester.
NPMP, I will accept the rumour excuse, but return to the subject on March 1st, one way or other.
175 - Only if Will Straw becomes an MP.
174. “It is
Scotland = Andy Murray
England = Roger Federer”
But Andy Murray actually is Scottish, isn’t he, whereas Roger Federer is…Swiss? Remind me who the English no. 1 is again? (Actually, perhaps you’d better remind the English no. 1 who he is.)
174
- bit like SNP now!!!
176 i agree back then SDP were
120. It was a great album. The best by an English band of its era, arguably. Even if it wasn’t all about Gordon, really.
I just searched it on iTunes so I could listen to it, and for some reason my laptop gave me Us & Them, from Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd.
I can’t listen to that track without feeling a bit weepy. It just gets me. The defiant yet plaintive saxophone, the angry and yet wistful chorus, the delicately insistent piano, the way I can’t describe it without sounding like a wanker.
That’s the mark of a truly great work of art, when you have to describe why it is so good, you sound like a wanker.
Anyway it made me wonder why some bands are visited just once by genius, and all else is mediocrity. Pink Floyd did some interesting early songs, and some nice stuff after Dark Side, but that album stands out supreme by a couple of light years. Add as for the Stone Roses, one album of pure genius, then a 2nd embarrassing charade, then heroin. And oblivion.
I’ll shut up now. I am drunk in Siem Reap and today I saw Pol Pot’s house and the apsaras of Banteay Srei and maybe it got to me and…
g’nite.
“Rod’s in a funny mood this afternoon.”
Funny? Funny how?
Do I amuse you?
Do I make you laugh?
168-So the majorities in the most marginal seats amounted to several hundreds? By the same token the majorities in Labour’s 25 weakest seats in 2005 amount to about 25,000. Out of 26m+ votes. So what are you trying to say?
176. “From memory, we had pretty much a two party system then so an 8 point lead was smaller, relatively speaking.”
Sally, I’m afraid your logic is wrong - the complete opposite of that statement is true.
170. My view is that the pattern that cause’s the cold winter (i.e. blocking highs over Greenland or Scandinavia) usually continue to repeat themselves through spring (obviously its all relative, a blocking high in April won’t be as cold as a blocking high in January) Of course it doesn’t always work out like that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if spring 2010 was pretty mediocre….
159 - So you don’t seasonally adjust your figures then?
Sometimes I think the most devastating thing Cameron could do would be to withdraw all Conservatives from the election and just force Labour to carry on in Government and deal with the mess they have made. It could ruin Labour for ever as the entire country will grind to a halt with everyone absolutely clear Brown & Co are 100% responsible.
Of course, Cameron won’t do this. Like parents who always end up coming to the rescue of wayward children, the Conservatives will step in and undertake the painful process of getting Britain back into a sustainable position. They will take enormous flack for doing this and in the process they will enable Labour to wipe the slate clean by putting all the crap, anger and resentment into a toxic dump called ‘Gordon Brown’.
This is why I am baffled by Roger, Gabble, tim and the comrades getting excited when polls move their way. They cannot have thought it through. Winning would be a disaster for Labour. A hung parliament would be an even bigger disaster for Labour (having created the mess, the country will demand they get out of the way and let someone else clear it up). Nothing but a crushing defeat will give Labour the platform to regroup and come back fighting in 5 years time.
As someone who was relaxed when Blair was PM, I have come to hate Labour with a passion since Brown took over. I despise Brown more then any public figure I have ever known. I resent the fact that Brown and Labour will get off the hook with a defeat this year when someone else will have to stand up and endure the pain that only Labour deserve to feel. And part of me would love to see Brown utterly destroyed as the spinning plates started to fall to the ground and smash. But as I live in this country and am bringing my children up here I know we cannot afford the luxury of that kind of revenge.
I believe Nick when he says he has Tories for Palmer. I think there are to of them. And if he wins by 2 votes, we will know its made all the difference.
Incidently, I had a an Old Labour voter saying they were going to vote Tory at the GE and at the next locals.
190. …there are TWO* of them.
155.afleitch, thanks. I just find the disconnect with the media impression as conveyed by Max Hasting and George White, coupled with the polls, and how it was at variance with both Gould and the Tories private focus groups and the mood on the ground really interesting.
Take some polling that shows Cameron is not doing as well with women as he is men. I have found the total opposite to be the case, something that might help with those soft Libdem/SNP voters.
186. Sanity arrives at last…
I didn’t think I was able to hold the fort for much longer…
Time for a rest. I’ll do the night shift. OK?
176-Uhm…
1992, LD 17.8%
2005, LD 18.3%
But, Con+Lab
1992, 76.3%
2005, 67.6%
SNP, PC+others (not NI) seats were:
1992, 7
2005, 12
5 seat difference in a c650 House. May be different in 2010 of course…
“That’s the mark of a truly great work of art, when you have to describe why it is so good, you sound like a wanker.”
Very good definition.
176 - From memory, we had pretty much a two party system then so an 8 point lead was smaller, relatively speaking.
I think you need to increase your memory.
180 - I hope its not too hot, for Jacob Rees Moggs nanny’s sake.
On one magnificent occasion two summers ago, both maid and nanny were to be found tending to their charge in the bucolic glory of Glyndebourne, where they took turns holding an open book over Rees-Mogg’s thin and pale neck to prevent it getting burned as he entertained a party of guests to a picnic.
Going out now - see you later!!!!!!!!
Can the idiot who has just backed a March election at 2/1 do it again please? Always happy to get money for nothing
194 TY. Saved me a job.
There’s specialist services for the adult gentleman who wants to be nannied - i saw it on one of those late night documentary shows.
190 - Incidently, I had a an Old Labour voter saying they were going to vote Tory at the GE and at the next locals.
coincidentally, a guy at work tels me his father a lifelong Labour man (until the euros / locals last year) has now gone the whole hog and is voting Tory next time.
Bring on Hilary Benn
200 - There is, some of the frequent the classified sections of the Manchester Evening News.
I found this out recently, when looking for a nanny/au pair.
When she says “I have my own toys and am willing to discipline” then she may not be a traditional nanny.
199. “TY. Saved me a job.”
Sally, are you still disputing the fact that the relative weakness of the Lib Dems in 1992 (in terms of seats) effectively made John Major’s 8% lead larger, not smaller, as you claimed?
Tory leaders have quit immediately after defeat (or before a truelly horrific defeat in the case of IDS) without it being very beneficial to the Party’s fortunes.
There is a case for holding on while the Party regroups. Not that Brown is a natural for that role.
201 It’s not a ’seen the light/now I am Tory’ moment.
Just a case of losing any sense of connection with and belief in the Labour Party and liking the local Tories as individuals.
205 - I still wonder what would have happened if Lady Thatcher had led the Tories in a GE in 1991/92.
I think her removal benefited the Tory party, at least for the 1992 GE
205 IDS was not given a choice. How long should the holding go on though? More than a year seems way out if there is no secnd election. Callaghan holding on for 18 months probably helped Foot ito office. Howard probably got it just right.
Points any nanny-craving posters at post 203 - why live a lie any longer?
208. “Callaghan holding on for 18 months probably helped Foot ito office.”
Although in a way that was largely unforseeable. As much anything, Healey lost the leadership for himself with his own arrogance.
206… smaller, relatively speaking, than now.
If the two main parties are both on lower figures, a specific % gap is effectively wider.
207 Almost certainly a narrow defeat followed by Black wednesday for Labour. The Tory party would have avoided that, the Maastricht row and avoided the poison from her removal while watching Labour get hit by the currency event as well. A very different history.
205 A regrouping in such circumstances works because a leader takes a back seat whilst everyone else makes up their mind.
Brown will expect make up everyone’s mind for them.
207. 1992 would have been a hung parliament if Maggie had been leader, IMO.
The Welsh Windbag and Paddy Pantsdown presiding over the ERM disaster. What fun that would have been.
211. “If the two main parties are both on lower figures, a specific % gap is effectively wider.”
No. Quite simply not true. The lower the Conservatives’ share, the bigger the lead they need to win a majority.
The increased strength of the Lib Dems and other parties compared to 1992 would make an 8% lead effectively smaller, not larger.
212 - Very different history.
Today we’d be 13 years into a Tory Administration, with Michael Portillo as PM?
“I think her removal benefited the Tory party, at least for the 1992 GE”
Mephistopheles himself could not have extracted a harder bargain…
Healey lost the leadership because MP’s about to deffect to the SDP voted for Foot in order to lumber Labour with an ineffective leader.
The pitfalls of an mp’s only vote
215.
No. Quite simply not true. The lower the Conservatives’ share, the bigger the lead they need to win a majority.’
According to bog standard electoral models which have yet to hold true in 2010 and about which serious questions have been raised.
211 - A quick look at the 1966 and 1970 election results would lead to you correcting yourself.
NPMP
Seeing as you’re fond of anecdotal evidence I’ll give you some of mine. I work in your constituency, and have done so for a number of years. I can assure you that whatever people say to you or your activists, many of those who voted for you in 2005 are not planning to do so again. 2010 won’t be as kind to you as 2005, let alone 2001.
Let me ask you as a human being, rather than a politician: Do you have any idea what you will do after the election should you lose your seat? Don’t you think some sort of back-up plan might be in order?
219 A long look at google to do your usual [and Rod's] would lead you to saying that.
217. I thought you had gone until the night shift comrade Crosby?
Shame that NickMP is winding up his canvassing reports as they are such a joy to read.
NickMP here is some old fashioned canvassing advice.
Canvassers should go into the pub after the canvass not before it.
IIRC at every election people talk about the defeated leader staying on for a few months or years in order to “allow the dust to settle” or similar words, but most of the time they resign a few hours after the results come out.
Tory lead:
1987 - 11%, majority=102
1992 - 8%, majority=21
Shows what a difference a few percentage points can make.
208 Howard announced he was going but delayed the resulting election - to give the party time to consider the lesson of three losses.
Ted Heath on the other hand stayed in place until Thatcher’s insurgency, he retained the loyalty of the (soon to be) Wets and much of the activist base, but it would have been disastrous if he had remained. He took the same view as Brown is reported to have, that a minority Government (or one with small majority) would fall sooner rather than later and he would be returned by a grateful populace.
223
I was amazed at Nick Palmer’s figures the other night for telephone canvassing. It was a hell of a lot in one evening. Either the phone was put down a lot or he had a massive team assisting him
Off topic. One reason Lib Dem strategy looks confused is that they are ignoring their own polling.
From the January Liberator “Attendees at the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors’ Kickstart weekend in Birmingham in late November were startled by polling evidence presented by campaigns director Hilary Stephenson, which appeared to some to argue that voters wanted change, the Tories represented ‘change’, therefore the Lib Dems should not attack the Tories. If this were what she meant, it would be a bit awkward for Lib Dem MPs facing challenges from Tories.”
222. just snoozin’and lurkin’ (like a crocodile enjoying his repast)
Belch!
225 - I’m not sure if this is true. But I heard Matthew Parris mentioned this a while back.
After being defeated in the leadership election, Ted Heath received a 160 letters from his MP’s saying, it was a tragedy that he had lost, and that they had voted for him.
Ted Heath actually received a 119 votes in the election.
215. James Kelly.
And yet a 43% Tory share this year would give no real prospect of a hung parliament (assuming a floor of 8% for Others and 16% for the LDs, both below the minimum I expect).
226 What night was that?
218. Had Callaghan gone by the end of 79 though there may have been no split. Jenkins was still in Brussels and the SDP talk only took off well into 1980. A newly empowered Healey could well have stomped on Foot and Benn and limited the breakaway by reassuring colleagues or even preventing it entirely. Callaghan going in 79 could have made the result very different.
Here is the perfect photo for the poster:
GORDON BROWN - 5 MORE YEARS
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/slideshow/ALeqM5jpB7fey1We-3rNLPXim3SgwOZxxg?index=1&ned=uk
229 - my favourite anecdote regarding Heath and Thatcher is the way that when Thatcher visited Heath’s house to tell him she would be standing against him in 1975, the conversation lasted all of 10 seconds but then Thatcher hung around in the hallway for about 15 minutes so the press outside wouldn’t think the visit hadn’t consisted of just a few frosty words between them, which in fact it had.
233 - No Stuart, it has to be one of these pictures
http://www.treehugger.com/gordon-brown-community.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/27/article-0-03308A89000005DC-78_224×340.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PxZyE6Jgabo/SyYvf2vhuyI/AAAAAAAANb8/lkMRkOu0SGo/s400/gordon-brown_1542857i.jpg
234. Nah, the best anecdote from the leadership election is Airey Neave advising Tam Dalyell to “put his money on the filly”.
234 - That is a great anecdote.
133.HistoryBoy,
Its snowing heavily here right now, if it keeps up and that wind doesn’t die down, the kids are going to get a day off tomorrow.
231
I think it was Fri night. IIRC there were 355 canvasses which struck me as a lot… It was a evening post sometime after 9pm
239 TY. I know we sometimes marvel at his returns. The efficiency is proof positive he has Tories working for him!
235. The Screaming Eagles
How about this one:
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00447/news-graphics-2007-_447744a.jpg
236.AndrewG, and he would have known better than anyone.
I would love to have heard some of the private reactions of those Tory MP’s who voted for Thatcher when the result was announced. Airey Neave did his job well.
240 - Oh dear god.
Stuart, that should have been posted after the lagershed.
242. TSE
Feel free to re-post it at will!
Iain Martin at his WSJ blog - The Haunting of Tony Blair
“The other interesting feature of Blair at Chilcot was that he didn’t take the opportunity to express regret for the deaths — Iraqi and British. John Rentoul writes that this was a mistake, and he’s right. At the end Blair should have acknowledged the families in the room and their loss. That he didn’t suggests he was so preoccupied with the inquiry, so determined not to be caught out, that it simply didn’t occur to him.”
I have a comment on moderation because I mispelt my own name. Must be the cough medicine and the whisky - or the long nails, or all 3.
241. Yes, he convinced different groups to vote for her for different reasons.
i) so she’s not humiliated
ii) to give Ted a fright
iii) to open up the contest for a heavyweight to enter the second round
iv) because she’s going to win
And they all believed him, and voted accordingly!
243 - If you look at that picture, the poster on the wall, is that a poster of William Hague?
Roughly at the same level as Gordon Brown’s head.
145. Ave It , Nice to see you awiting my appearance. Been having a few refreshments , I did notice your posts early and must say I agree with you, you should stand under the “cut payouts of peoples hard earned money, if you don’t work tough luck” banner.
207.The was she was removed was catastrophic and ensured civil war. Thacher was no ordinary leader, she generated intense loyalty, her departure was seen by many of us as a betrayel. Would she have won in 1992? Yes, she would have had to have lost a majority of over 100 & she lead a party with a seat advantage over Labour of 147. It was destiny that Kinnock would never be Prime Minister.
We would also have been spared John Major, the worst Tory leader in terms of leadership of the 20th century.
Stuart Dickson 233 - Bang on the money !!
What I can’t understand is how Brown can get out well from Chilcot.
A/ Says he was in the ‘inner circle’ - confirms that it was pointless to dethrone Tony, as he would be just as unpopular.
B/ Says he was not in the ‘inner circle’ - Campbell crucifies him, and Clare Short confirms he did not support the war, but couldn’t stop it either, because he was busy with other priorities.
This thing could be completely ruinous for him in the run-up to a General Election campaign..
171. Ave It, you must have Scottish lineage
247 - Malcolm, several of us at work, are tempted to start a Higher Rate TaxPayers Party.
Could we count on your vote?
‘Gordon Brown aims to remain as Prime Minister even if Labour loses general election’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247514/Gordon-Brown-aims-remain-Prime-Minister-Labour-loses-general-election.html
So, Mr Blair is smearing Mr Brown? Is that what The Bunker are saying? Truly astonishing.
The article features the front cover of Rawnsley’s new book.
249 - Eric, this cartoon sums it up so wonderfully well
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01569/ADAMS310110_1569292a.jpg
254 Fiscal drag could mean you have very broad appeal.
248. It would all ended in tears somehow. A Fourth-term Thatcher left with no majority or a tiny majority would have resembled the transformation of Ursula Andress at the end of the film She…
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/9711/Hammer_She_07_Ashton_SFX5.jpg
255.Oh dear, has Mandelson just insulted the housewives favourite in that article, and I am not talking about David Cameron. Ouch!! Mandelson is a disaster waiting to happen, media savvy he ain’t these days.
257. ‘Fiscal drag’ - a cross-dressing Scottish prosecutor?
251 - A fourth Thatcher term would have been preferable to Majors for one reason.
I suspect she would have saved tens of thousands of Bosnian lives rather than helping to facilitate their deaths.
TSE -256 Bingo !! That cartoon sums it up brilliantly !!
255. ‘Yesterday Number Ten fiercely denied claims of several incidents being investigated for the book,’
Let’s see if they make it in.
261. Would have been worth it just to see if Bill Clinton could charm her.
re 261. Tim - you’ve made that point several hundred times in one form or another - please think of other things to write.
“David Cameron is like Des O’Connor”
Genius, because there is a truth in there. They finally have an attack line that works.
Eric Mandleson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqn2lnx9SbI
Great days.
Kelly Revisited
Classified medical records relating to the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly could be made available to the public.
The Ministry of Justice said a review to overturn a 70-year ban on post-mortem reports, photographs and other medical documents is under way.
The move was confirmed after The Mail on Sunday revealed last weekend that Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the David Kelly affair in 2003, requested an embargo on the records.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247428/Classified-Dr-Kelly-medical-records-public.html#ixzz0eDjh9nrp
259. Mandelson does not bother with the trivia of democracy. He fears nothing from the electorate. I often write on here wondering why polls are rigged, and elections are subject to fraudulent practices. Many think this mildly amusing as they cannot conceive how it could be happening in a reasonable world.
This evening I’ve been watching an expert presentation on Neuro Linguistic Programming, the brainwashing techniques used on susceptible public servants, which remove their normal scruples and permit them to carry out acts which previously they would have thought wrong.
Unfortunately it was a DVD sent to me in the mail, and not yet on Youtube, which it should be in my opinion, as it explains to me and therefore maybe to others how the things we observe can possibly be happening.
http://tinyurl.com/ygsvs8y
266. Eh?
It’s so lame. Not funny. No resonance. Is that really what passes for genuis in the Labour Party.
The Dark Lord = a very poor Basil Bush.
Boom Boom.
264.I watched her performance addressing Congress on youtube the other week, I was amazed at just how controversial it was, a number of times every Republican standing cheering, while Democrats sat silent. Clinton would have gone out of his way not to court her.
I wonder, now we are in “recovery” if Brown will start whelling out his favourite promise of “no return to boom and bust”
“David Cameron is like Des O’Connor”
What? - he had a number-1 hit called “I pretend”?
265 - No different to the other hundreds of times we’ve had to endure the endless obsessions of IHT, Waffen SS, MMR, the Rees Moggs, Bill Wiggin, Hague, Grayling with the latest being Dave banging on prion vans.
Shouldn’t you get a grip and ration him to one tedious repetition per day?
271 A slow return to boom and a possible return to bust in the next quarter.
OGH said “Tim - you’ve made that point several hundred times in one form or another”
And thats just this year.
269 No resonance, nail hits head more like. Anyway why so serious? It’s just a bit of fun.
276. It’s just so bad. Painful. Best ignored. Not hailed as genuis.
265. Turn the spam filter on Mike
265 - Sorry Mike, just killing time waiting for the latest Tory policy cock up.
And here it is.
Tories forced to re-think plans for RDAs after business backlash
By David Bailey on Jan 31, 10 03:42 PM in Economics
The Conservatives are now undertaking a last-minute rethink on its plans to scrap Regional Development Agencies (labelled a “complete waste” by David Cameron last year) after a fierce backlash from regional and national business groups.
As noted in earlier blogs, Tory shadow minister Geoffrey Clifton-Brown sparked much incredulity in Birmingham last December when he said the Tories would scrap RDAs except in London; “by and large they are going to be abolished… it is quite unnecessary to have an RDA structure. It is a tier of government which is not needed.”
And in the North West business groups have reacted angrily to Tory plans, as recently highlighted in the local press. More generally, the CBI and British Chambers of Commerce have pointed out that scrapping RDAs would fail to deliver the “strategic infrastructure which business thinks is so important”.
With perhaps just 11 or 12 weeks before a General Election, Ken Clarke, Tory Shadow Business Secretary, has ordered a review of policy on the issue after admitting Tory current policy was “not clear”.
Mr Clarke’s intervention also represents something of an embarrassing put-down for Tory communities spokeswoman Caroline Spelman, who had suggested replacing RDAs with local authority led “local enterprise partnerships” with businesses. She later suggested - somewhat on the hoof it seemed - that slimmed down RDAs could be kept where popular but that they would be stripped of powers on housing and planning.
http://blogs.birminghampost.net/business/2010/01/tories-forced-to-re-think-plan.html
Depends how you define “significant majority.” If there needs to be a second election more or less straightaway, there might just be an argument for sticking with Gordon on the grounds that a summer leadership contest would be a distraction. In any other circumstances, though, I just don’t see how he could stay on. The last defeated Prime Minister who tried to was Heath, and look what happened to him.
Otherwise he risks doing a Heath -
277 We’ll see. Cameron the airbrushed game show host.
NuLabour’s elf and safety Navy are a shameful bunch. First the Iranian capture and now this. Are they issued with ammo these days? Or do they get their courage from Brown? Having watched the BBC programmes about the Navy and Nelson in particular, read and weep.
“November 14: It emerges that the crew of a Royal Navy vessel was forced to watch the Chandlers being kidnapped by pirates. Military officials insist that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment tanker Wave Knight, carrying 75 merchant seamen and 25 Royal Navy sailors, could not have acted without endangering the lives of the couple.”
http://tinyurl.com/yd2syx4 Daily Mail.
So they were better off left in the captivity of kidnappers?
269.SallyC, Mandelson basically used Terry Wogan, and insulted him to take a pop at Cameron in that interview. Only the most popular radio presenter in the land for years, the housewives choice. So according to Mandelson, Terry isn’t authentic, but that excuse for a PM in Downing Street without any mandate from his party or the country is?
Bet Brown would have loved Wogan’s approval ratings.
This one is for Diane Abbott - Trust in me
At the risk of sounding pedantic,does it not take two consecutive quarters of growth to represent a recession (the classic economists definition as I recall),so even if Q1 2010 was negative,it would not techinically herald a return to recession?
(Obviously,if mid-campaign it would be the very final nail in Gordon Brown’s coffin,FWIW I quietly but emphatically expect a mid-April election)
284 First sentemce should include phrase ‘negative growth’
279 no tim, you were killing time waiting for the latest release from the bunker…or something negative from wherever to post about the Conservatives.
One for Plato et al
“http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1247376/Controversial-climate-change-boss-uses-car-AND-driver-travel-mile-office—says-YOU-use-public-transport.html”
“Controversial climate change boss uses car AND driver to travel one mile to office… (but he says YOU should use public transport)”
“On Friday, for the one-mile journey from home to his Delhi office, Dr Pachauri could have walked, or cycled, or used the eco-friendly electric car provided for him, known in the UK as G-Wiz.”
“But instead, he had his personal chauffeur collect him from his £4.5million home – in a 1.8-litre Toyota Corolla.”
281 - Cameron the airbrushed game show host.
Dave Winton
283 The repeated references to O’Connor are probably an attempt to destract from the obvious gaffe on Wogan.
Now of all times, when the age group most likely to vote are mourning their man.
Silly.
279 tim - It’s the housing and planning part which (quite rightly) is the main target. It is an absolute disgrace that planning powers should be given to an unaccountable quango; Labour supporters should be ashamed of this particularly pernicious attack by New Labour on democracy.
RDAs are also a waste of money, and will certainly be cut down drastically.
While you’re on, care to comment on this one?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7009751.ece
Part of a pattern of Labour placemen being used to subvert democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKBmWl2XKfM&feature=related
Compare and Contrast Thatcher & Brown
279 - strange, I thought the Tories had no policies.
The Scottish Labour apparatchik Yousuf Hamid has posted on his blog that a defection FROM the SNP to Labour is imminent.
290 - It does seem a waste of money.
Pickles and Spelman undermine themselves for free every time they go on Question Time.
On the Tories RDA policy, I doubt they have a clue what the policy is or will be, as with so many other things.
292.Andy D, on the QT, its Labour that don’t have any policies right now. If the Tories were not coming out and announcing theirs, there would be the sound of silence coming out of No10 right now.
Ah, the nostalgia. I remember when the Tories tried to paint Blair as a gameshow host.
Didn’t really work.
293. Rab C Nesbitt’s wife?
279 thanks tim, thought-provoking stuff. A proposal to abolish multi-million pound quangocracy produces howls of protest from vested interests with feet in trough. Whoever would have foreseen such a thing?
Football chant of the weekend? Tune is the Lord of the Dance.
‘Chelsea wherever you may be, don’t leave your wife with John Terry.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247511/Team-Bridge-Manchester-City-players-wear-T-shirts-solidarity-team-mate-centre-John-Terry-sex-scandal.html#ixzz0eDqFcvmL
291. Brings a tear to my eye, ended up flicking on a few of the falklands war youtube videos. Truly incredible, Thatcher was a real leader, i feel a piece of me will die inside when she passes away.
Mrs Thatcher might be one of the greatest ever leaders of the modern world.
294 getting desperate tim when you have to quote that reknowned publication “the Birmingham Mail”.
POLL TRIVIA
I’ve now gone back through the last few months of polls and from these the underlying weighted political breakdown used by each of the pollsters over recent months seem to be:
(Pollster Con:Lab:LD:Other)
ICM 33:38:22:7
Populus 32:38:22:8
Comres 32:38:22:8
Yougov 36:43:15:6
Mori 29:44:15:12*
ARPO 40:23:19:18
*Figures extrapolated from Mori past vote figures
For comparison National Vote Shares at elections:
2005 GE 33:36:22:10
2006 LE 36:29:26:10
2007 LE 40:26:24:10
2008 LE 43:24:23:10
2009 LE 35:22:25:18
British Social Attitudes Survey equivalent figures:
BSAS 2005 30:48:16:6
BSAS 2006 33:44:15:8
BSAS 2007 33:46:12:9
BSAS 2008 42:33:12:13**
( **Others figure of 13% assumed)
Annual Poll Averages
2005 Poll Ave 32:39:21:8
2006 Poll Ave 37:33:19:11
2007 Poll Ave 37:34:17:12
2008 Poll Ave 42:30:17:11
2009 Poll Ave 41:27:18:14
2010 Poll Ave***40:29:18:11
(***January only)
290. RDAs are certainly a waste of money and should all be scrapped forthwith, the bleatings from the dimwits at the CBI notwithstanding.
But what is really offensive about them is that they are a blueprint for the undemocratic ‘technocratic’ (sic) government of the future. A future in which major policy decisions are to be removed entirely from the hands of the voters, on the grounds of ‘efficiency’ or ‘complexity’.
290. Untouchable. RDAs are part of Mandelson’s empire.
298 - Careful, that was policy at breakfast, it’s moving fast.
Brown to stay on.
Brown to stay on until un-Lord Mandelson can return to the Commons to claim his rightful destiny?
297 Yep,Elaine C.Smith,who played Rab’s missus,is a bust SNP activist.
BTW,has anyone on here watched ‘Rab C Nesbitt’ since it returned a fortnight ago-I have avoided it as apparently now he’s 50-odd and abstinent from booze,I might find it depressing-I’d rather remember him from the early 90s,when he and drinking partner Jamesie Cotter were putting the worlds to rights in their local boozer!
Completely OT, Intrade have a market on whether Tiger Woods will plain a PGA tournament before 30th April 2010.
Am I missing some news about Woods planned return or does a sell at 65 not look quite interesting? Hes got 3 months to appea again and that looks pretty tight to me.
300
I wonder what piece, or has it withered already?
tim, have you given the thicket the evening off? Your heart doesn’t really seem in it tonight. Endless repetition, dreary links to august organs such as the Birmingham mail, it all seems, well, just a teeny little bit crap.
307 Bust should say ‘busy’!
236. brown with flak jacket and suit.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235853/QUENTIN-LETTS-The-Labour-benches-car-park-broken-dreams.html
brown as macbeth
http://www.rantsite.co.uk/viewtopic.php?id=3&t_id=38
tse. hope all goes smoothly. glad to read all are ok.
Gordon staying on till 2011 - nope, surely even Labour couldn’t be so stupid to keep him in post after a crushing electoral defeat.
102 - I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one hugely disappointed with Cameron today - that was WEAK WEAK WEAK. Does he want to be known as the PM who brought on a gilts strike by such weasly indecisive action. The last thing we need the next prime minister to be is a Blairite ‘I feel your pain’ clone. That was almost like saying, I’m going to be no more decisive if you give me a majority, that if I have to lead a messy coalition as a result of a hung parliament. Why does Cameron deserve a working majority after such a show of weakness?
Full results of MORI’s monthly poll is now out.
I see Vince Cable, (CofE in the coalition government 2010 to ?) has commented on Dave’s, ‘You cut if you want to this man is not for cutting, or perhaps I am, who knows, I certainly don’t’
Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable said the Conservatives had got themselves into a ‘terrible muddle’ over their plans for cuts.
‘I understood until a day or so ago that the reason the Conservatives were different was that they were promising very rapid and severe cuts immediately. Now They seem to be retreating from that,’ he told the BBC.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247497/The-NO-swingeing-cuts-public-Tory-government-Cameron-vows.html#ixzz0eDuZ0OUn
287 - thanks for bringing that to our attention Floater, The hypocrisy of the AGW crowd knows no bounds. I’m glad that Dr Pachauri (head of the IPCC) is getting the flak that he much deserves now, that Himalayan glacier claim was absolutely risible!
Disappointing weekend sports wise with the Murray defeat, Arsenal’s lack of physical strength ruthlessly exposed by Utd today. All that after Ronnie’s defeat to Higgins last night, Welsh Open final hasn’t been the best today. A great shame that Egypt aren’t going to be in South Africa, astonishing they win 3 African Nations on the trot, and yet miss out on the World Cup.
313. “Gordon staying on till 2011 - nope, surely even Labour couldn’t be so stupid to keep him in post after a crushing electoral defeat.”
They were stupid enough to give him the job in the first place, I wouldn’t count on the Labour party regaining their sense any time soon. Still it could be worse, they might let Balls have a go next time.
Good news for supporters of election night: the four Kirklees constituencies will be counted on the night - Huddersfield, Batley&Spen, Colne Valley and Dewsbury:
http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2010/01/28/general-election-count-through-night-in-kirklees-86081-25702030/
314 - not exactly difficult for Vince given he was attacking an open barn door there!
Saw Vince at the LSE speaking on electoral reform on Thursday night, very reasoned contribution as always from my favourite LibDem by far, I wouldn’t hesitate to vote for him if I was a constituent of his in Twickenham.
Guido lays into Brown
I cannot help but chuckle at the fairly likely prospect of there being two Rees-Moggs in parliament after the next election.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg MP and Jacob Rees-Mogg MP
Tim will have a fit.
314 coldstone - Vince showing how unfit he is for any senior job.
What part of ‘first year’ doesn’t he understand?
316 - I would relish Balls as Labour leader, he is one of the contenders capable of drilling into the Labour bedrock vote, and ensuring a return to 19th century Liberal Tory politics. I hope that I can say at the end of my lifetime that Labour was a 20th century aberration in British politics, such is the corrosive influence they’ve been whenever they’ve been in government.
How many times have we concluded “Brown can’t survive this. The party will get rid of him”.
And everytime the smoke clears, Brown is still there.
If the Times piece is not just rumour then who can doubt that Brown stands a very good chance of remaining leader until his ‘annointed’ is ready for the job.
As somebody else has pointed out, many of his sworn enemies are not planning to return to the commons or are in parlous electoral positions. Brown will still have his machine behind him; the same machine that let him bulldoze his way to the top. And this time the Labour party will have suffered a defeat and will be in some degree of disarray. If the Labour party, in good order, can’t get rid of Brown, why should the damaged party be any more adept at the job?
319 - Two MPs.One nanny.United in struggle.
I can’t wait.
319 - where is Annuziata standing? Jacob is in Somerset NE from memory isn’t he? Is Dan Norris standing there again? Not a chance of holding on with the boundary changes and opinion polls.
3. “We need a good criminal lawyer here. Is “reasonable force” a statutory provision or a common law concept? The courts have centuries of precedent in determining what is “reasonable”. Do they have similar experience with the qualifier “grossly”?
“Perhaps one of pb.com’s learned friends could comment.”
There is a pretty good definition of reasonable used in judicial review - ‘Wednesdbury unreasonableness’ - which is a decision so absurd that only a madman would consider it reasonable. That doesn’t really apply in self-defence cases, however, not least because you can legally take ‘reasonable’ steps in relation to a wholly unreasonable belief - e.g. I shot him because I genuinely thought he was an alien.
In self-defence cases the decision as to what constitutes reasonable is left to the jury.
The standard of ‘grossly disproportionate’ is now used for civil cases for damages where some alleges that the householder used disproportionate force. This would be for a judge to decide, but I’m not aware of any jurisprudence on the matter.
317, let’s hope the nearby constituency of Morley & Outwood follows suit. They had a piece on this on the local bit of the Politics Show. The jobsworth slacker who wants counts on Friday refused to be interviewed, apparently because he’s a nancyboy undemocratic cowardly one-legged transvestite Manchester United-supporting Frenchman.
323 tim - Did they have to share a nanny? Country going to the dogs.
317 - Colne Valley very likely Con gain, Batley & Spen is an exciting possibility with a good campaign .
Racial politics muddy the waters in Dewsbury and Malik is a divisive character but may just cling on in the face of divided opposition and another high BNP vote.
Huddersfield will remain Labour although Martin Day would probably contest that assertion.
317 / 326 - pleased to hear that. I remember Elizabeth Peacock confounding expectations in 1992 holding onto Batley & Spen, at which point it was obvious the Tories were going to hold on to many northern marginals that year. If B&S, Colne Valley and Deswbury are safely in the blue column then the Conservatives should have a majority of at least 50 or so.
OT Have any PBers bought an existing business? I’m going to sell up my house/downsize and buy a cattery but haven’t done this before.
Any insight re canny tactics/pitfalls that I should be aware of? Obviously I’ll be getting finance/legal advice if it gets that far…
The fragrant Annunziata (Nancy to her friends in Conservative high command!) is seeking to storm the Lib Dem bastion of Somerton and Frome I believe
Can anyone point me to a newspaper article, etc. which confirms what someone has posted on the Facebook Save General Election Night, which is that the two Portsmouth seats will now be declaring on the night?
330 - I do it for my clients most weeks.
I’d be happy to offer you some advice.
327 - See post 196, it appears that Jacob has a maid and a nanny to prevent his neck getting sunburnt.
I don’t know where there are othe domestics to take care of the other parts of the Moggs.
333 Oh Mr Eagles - that’s really kind, many thanks. PB’s expertise strikes again!
Do you have an email address? I’m guessing timisabetwelcher@wankersrus.com is probably full of spam from Latvian Waffen SS sympathisers
334- Oh dear . I appear to be in the throes of a crush on the gorgeous Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Let’s hope that it’s just a phase.
335 - You can email me at
LickMyLovePump69@gmail.com
(it’s my tribute to Spinal Tap in case anyone is wondering.)
336, has she excited your swingometer?
330 Plato:
I do acquisitions frequently.
OGH has my business e-mail address, or just ask him to give me yours and I will send you a list of points to look out for.
330 - I did it once, but it was in France.
Not sure how relevant that experience would be as the ways of doing business are totally different to here.
Guido keeps hinting he has something more on Brown…
http://order-order.com/2010/01/31/labour-will-have-a-khrushchev-moment-of-truth-in-the-end/
334 Well if Mr Rees Mogg can afford to employ staff, good luck to him.
Although I have never found “it keeps the sun off” to be a good argument when asking someone to sit on my face!
(At this point I probably need to admit to having spent the afternoon in the pub, and to offer to get my coat)
336 - Here she is, just for you.
She joined the Conservative Party at the age of five.
Here is her Bentley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoBwpX6j3CA
Jacob also has a Bentley and his nanny takes him canvassing in it.
Isn’t it the weay? I post canvass returns for mild entertainment for years, to gentle derision, and when i say I’m going to stop everyone gets keenly interested.
To respond to the queries above;
- flockers: As I said the other day, part of this is just polarisation. I’m getting lots of people who voted LibDem last time as the tactical issue is glaringly obvious this time and the non-Labour-for-Palmer groups didn’t formally exist last time, but I assume the Tories will too. You can’t accurately estimate voting share of other parties with canvassing, since at least half the ‘antis’ won’t specify. So although I hope to do better than 2005, I also expect the Tories to do better. Apart from that, there are local factors which I won’t bore people with.
- MTF: there were nine of us phoning for 2 hours. I forget the exact number of contacts now but 20 an hour is pretty normal.
- Gooey: well, we’ll see, can’t really say more than that. But welcome to the site. What would I do if I lost? Good question, but it can only really be addressed if it happens. I speak six languages which I’ve always kept fresh wth translation and interpretation and have a fairly successful background in both large and small business: perhaps something would turn up.
William Rees-Mogg if I remember rightly supported Blair in certainly 1997 and maybe 2001 too. His newspaper utterances always gave the impression of bumbling yet kindly incompetence in the vein of one-nation Toryism of times past.
His predictive powers are famous for their hilarious and unerring tendency to be totally wrong on almost every subject.
ChristinaD, I did see your post a bit earlier on. I am not so sure that we should simply dismiss this report as not being from Brown. Remember the Brown form of trying to spike a story with a seemingly bad one to hide an even worse one behind it. I don’t doubt that there is plenty of manoeuvring and plotting going on in the senior echelons within the PLP at the moment and there is a chance this came from the Blairite-end of the party, but I don’t think so. Rumblings over this Rawnsley book must have been around - he is too well connected. I suspect this is the attempt at a story that can drown that out for a while.
339 Thanks Mr Financier - Mike, please pass on my email address.
You and Mr Eagles are real gents. Plato is very grateful
341 - from the link
“Gordon Brown is a malevolent, deeply damaged and unpleasant human being. He is at the centre of a culture of political bullying that has been unhealthy for the Labour Party and the government. The loyalist cabal around him are unpleasant people who have no place in a healthy political culture, they are as secretive and malicious as they are vindictive and vicious.”
Yep.
Annunziata can sleep safe in the knowledge that I would be willing to polish her Bentley anytime she so desired.
Today Somerton & Frome! - Tomorrow the world!! …or at least Minehead.
“Because of Blair, Britain will now be shaped by the world”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5742843/because-of-blair-britain-will-now-be-shaped-by-the-world.thtml
347 Plato
Just for you - a cattery in Scotland ! Now you can house that other old pussy James Kelly.
http://uk.businessesforsale.com/uk/Brambles-Cattery-Kennels-In-Superb-Rural-Setting-For-Sale.aspx
Site should be of use if you’re seeking businesses elsewhere.
Has anyone watched Straight Talk with Jackboots? Is it worth watching?
349 - I really wish she wasnt standing against the Lib Dem MP that has impressed me the most.
‘I joined the conservative party at the age of five .My membership card was definitely one-up on a blue peter badge’
Annunziata Rees-Mogg. A woman of the people.
345. Indeed, he was dubbed Mystic Mogg by Private Eye for that reason; his Times colleague Anatole Kaletsky is equally reliable when it comes to predicting the opposite of what will come to pass. For anyone who enjoys betting on politics and economics writers of that sort are to be cherished beyond all measure.
Mogg seems to have been widely respected as editor of The Times, however (long before my time, mind) so he may well have had something about him. But good editors often don’t make good columnists, and vice versa.
353 - granted she’s better than her brother, but they hardly send out a great signal that Cameron’s Tories are a party of 2010. (And I write as someone who sent in his CV after the candidate list was reopened last year, and who didn’t even get an acknowledgement letter, which was pretty poor on the comms front by CCHQ…)
Did Jacob Rees-Mogg *really* get driven around council estates by his nanny in a Bentley to canvass in the Fife Central constituency when he stood for election there?
This is beyond parody.
355 - Maybe your name put them off.
Is your surname B’Stard
355 - alot of fuss is made about the Tory party being ‘unrepresentative’ in regards to women and ethnic minorities. Little is said about the grotesque under-representation of working-class candidates and this holds true for all the parties nowadays.
356 - He did, and their most memorable trip out was when Jacob had his first visit yo a fish and chip shop.
He was thirty.
In one priceless encounter, he glided on to Ali G’s spoof interview slot on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show to discuss class. ‘What makes a girl upper-class?’ Ali had enquired of his contemporary. ‘Is it things like she spits in a hankie? What if someone was so rich dey had a swimming pool, would dey be upper class?’ ‘What if you got busy with my sister?’Ali then went on.
‘I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your sister,’ replied Rees-Mogg.
‘Ayeee, well, it can be arranged. She’ll be keen.’ If his sister had a child by Rees-Mogg, Ali said, what class would it be?
‘I think that speculating on my having a relationship with somebody I have never met, and that leading to a child being born, and then to what class it might be, is so farfetched as to be ridiculous,’ said Rees-Mogg stiffly.
Since he was small, Rees-Mogg has seemed to be about 65. At eight, this heartbreakingly pale little boy was reading the Financial Times to follow his portfolio of stocks and shares.
(Nanny made him appointments to speak to his broker.)
“If B&S, Colne Valley and Deswbury are safely in the blue column then the Conservatives should have a majority of at least 50 or so.”
You might be surprised to learn the odds of that happening are around 2/1…
The only name that crops up in my head as a working-class Tory MP is Patrick McCloughlin , a former miner. No wonder working-class people can feel nothing but trepidation about an incoming Conservative government.
357 - Tim, you’re a cheeky imp for sure. No, I work in higher education (yes, before you say it, a public sector eejit voting for Christmas), am a Samaritan volunteer, and don’t believe in sending small children up chimneys. Truly fairly far removed from B’Stard, but I would rather try to get involved and do summat rather than making snide comments on websites…
355 - agreed, and I plead guilty to being a white, middle class male, so I guess that explains the lack of interest in my application!
359 - how sad. I bet Annunziata would never date a peasant like me.
Enough Rees-Mogging for one night. I am Rees-Mogged off.
re 322
I just remembered the point I wanted to make(doh)
Brown doesn’t see himself as a Conservative party leader, to be casually dumped after a failed GE campaign, he sees the Labour tradition as one of supporting its leader until they take the decision to step down - like Kinnock (2 campaigns) or even Wilson (3 campaigns).
328 Should the Tories fail to capture Dewsbury, then they have no chance of winning an overall majority.
Hmmm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/31/gordon-brown-labour-election-manifesto
The rest of the article is interesting too - looks like Labour are going to make co-ops a big part of their manifesto.
82. GIN
“Of course on the night of the C&N result Rod was trying to sping the 17% swing as not that good for the Tories because they didn’t achieve the 29% swing that Labour achieved in Dudley in 1994;”
Rod also claimed that is wasn’t a PROPER 17% Labour to Conservative swing but was in fact caused by the unwinding of Gwyneth Dunwoody’s absolutely enormous personal vote.
This ‘fact’ was dropped after the 16.5% Norwich North swing. Conicidentally Rod repeatedly refused to give a Crewe style targe list for Norwich North.
Anyone watching “Mo”?
A very good portrayal of Mo Mowlam by Julie Walters and a good screenplay too, in my view.
So over the weekend we have heard of 2 pieces of potential post election news:
Iain Duncan Smith to be in David Cameron’s govt if he wins GE which I think is a good thing as his experience will be most welcome.
Gordon Brown to attempt to stay on as Labour Leader if we see a hung parliament or a Conservative majority of up to 20. There is indeed a parallel with Heath who lost in February 74 and stayed on till he was forced out in February 75.
I think there will be indeed be a GE in 2011 if Tories have most seats in 2010 without overall majority as no other party would support them. However if Cameron has an overall majority of 8 or 10, then I think he accept the result and there would be a normal 4-5 year parliament as he would receive some Ulster Unionist Support.
Bringing IDS back would cover him from being threatened by the right if they wished to challenge his authority.
“The Mail on Sunday has not seen the book, not due out for some weeks. It may make uncomfortable reading for Brown, but not for reasons given by the Mail.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/31/gordon-brown-labour-election-manifesto
368. Very small chance, agreed. But that wasn’t what he said…
Looks like UPIK need a spellchick !
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2010/01/fighting-for-britian.html
LABOUR GAIN JANUARY
369.Weeks from the next GE, and that is all Brown has got?
370. Whispering in corners, again?
376.
LABOUR LOSE MAY
368 - Theres also a favourable boundary change in that seat.
BTW Peter, following the excellent thread on the BNP/UKIP/Green votes % on friday I’ve had a look at the number of candidates selected so far for the BNP, those projecting that they may stand in a massive number of seats may be surprised to know that they only have 68 candidates in place.
Less than 500,000 votes is a certainty unless they are planning to suddenly select another 150 candidates which I doubt.
376 gabble
so you’re boasting you hung in for another month becasue you were afraid to face the voters.
Pity it cost us £16 billion.
100 days and then you are toast.
314 It won’t be possible for the Conservatives to achieve large cuts in financial year 2010-11 if the election is held in May or June, i.e. after the FY has started. Assuming a budget towards the end of June, there would just be 9 months of the FY left. Cuts take time to organise and implement.
The message of ‘large cuts in 2010-11′ was unrealistic, and it’s sensible for the Conservatives to have ditched it.
However…an Osborne budget at the end of June will have to make clear where and when the axe will fall, not only in 2010-11, but also in subsequent FYs, in order to pacify the gilts market.
342. From that Guido -
‘Gordon Brown is a malevolent, deeply damaged and unpleasant human being. He is at the centre of a culture of political bullying that has been unhealthy for the Labour Party and the government. The loyalist cabal around him are unpleasant people who have no place in a healthy political culture, they are as secretive and malicious as they are vindictive and vicious’
Echoing my comments from earlier today.
BORIS WOULD BE A VOTE WINNER
What will be Camerons next move, now the polls have narrowed?
Really and truly, the Conservatives should be in the mid forties now. So is ARS right and the rest are overstating Labour or are the Tories not getting their message across?. I am starting to think that Cameron is starting to wobble a bit. Where are all the weekly policy announcements ?
I think the tories have been too honest and need to start showing a spring in their step and painting a rosy future ahead and how they will get us their! otherwise people won’t voting for any of the parties.
The big question I keep hearing people say is “Labour are hopeless/finished, but how are the tories going to be any better?
Cameron is also very indecisve in my opinion, I hear it from loads of others as well!
Boris would be a type ray of sunshine right now, like Blair was in 97. What do others think?
369/373-Posted before refreshing!
368. PfP
“Should the Tories fail to capture Dewsbury, then they have no chance of winning an overall majority.”
True and the same goes for several other West Yorkshire seats - Keighley, Halifax, Pudsey and Elmet.
While another cluster - Wakefield, Batley, Leeds NE, Leeds NW and Morley bring the Conservatives into landslide territory
Perhaps we should concentrate a little more on West Yorkshire rather than say Scotland.
Jackie Ashley writes
Here lies New Labour – the party that died in Iraq
Chilcot is a reminder that the war led to poisonous infighting which has destroyed progressive politics for a generation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/31/new-labour-iraq-destroyed-progressive
355
Perleeese its Nancy Mogg!!
384 - Cameron’s secret election winner will be Ken Clarke.
380. Tim and PfP re the BNP at the GE, someone here reckons on at least 200 candidates - there’s a running list:
http://bnpelectionresults.blogspot.com/2009/12/list-of-ppc-standing-for-bnp-so-far.html
389 - Winner = Weapon
Tim give it a rest on the Rees-Moggs. Why should the Labour party have a monopoly on candidates from the aristocracy and media?
Nick’s postings increasingly remind me of comments made by some of my friends and others in our party who were defending much safer seats in 1997. They too thought they were holding back the tide of change. However they were high profile and in many cases household names but they were swept away, in many cases their majorities being exceeded by those of their Labour replacements.
Nick will do well if he keeps Anna Soubry’s majority below 10,000.
The Mo Mowlem drama is brilliant. Julie Walters should win an award for her portrayal of one of the few real stars in the 1997 Labour cabinet.
368. Peter.
Tories to win Dewsbury are now 4/7 with Ladbrokes.
What odds have you got and how do you currently rate the Tories chances in Dewsbury in value/odds terms?
353 Plato I watched a bit and couldn’t concentrate on anything she said. I just couldn’t get over how much weight has piled on her face. I wondered if she is physically unwell.
My team is winning! 3×1 against Flamengo. I’m so so happy!
392
Yeah there’s nothing better than eulogising over a Labour politician whose dead is there.
As for the Moggs, what more appalling group of people are there, than upper crust Anglo Catholics. Particularly the West Country ones, droning on about Evelyn Waugh,and showing you the priest hole in the family pile, makes you wanna vomit. The best thing to do with that lot, make ‘em drink a couple of crates of Buckfast Tonic Wine, that’ll sort ‘em out. Thats if you Scots can spare it?
“He thinks that if the May election is indecisive and if there is any prospect of a second election, Labour should not be plunged immediately into a messy leadership contest.”
This sounds fine to me. Just read what it is saying. If the election is indecisive and there is a prospect of a second election within six months or so, it would be disastrous for Labour to have a messy leadership contest.
Far better for Brown to try and win 2nd time around and have a chance then to go to the 2nd election with the public seeing a divided party which would get well and truely beaten.
396 - Without wanting to pedantic, you can only eulogise about someone who is dead
396. Rees-Mogg is a Roman Catholic, not an Anglo-Catholic. The real deal…
Great piece from the Mail its a classic, linking Zac of course to debauchery. Think the Libdems will hold Richmond ok.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247385/Wolfman-gives-account-night-Goldsmith-heiress-died–lays-blame-happy-pills-taken-millions-NS-patients.html
Hmmm so happy pills turned Freddy Starr into a zombie, can’t say I noticed, thought that was his natural state.
384. Wayne
I think Cameron is waiting for the actual election date to be offically made public. This is when the public at large (as oppossed to us on here) take a real interest in politics.
399
Sorry by Anglo-Catholic I meant more Anglo than Roman, if you know what I mean. They have their bookshelves stuffed with Father Brown and Campion mysteries that sort.
345 NPMP.Six languages? Not again!!We heard about that over two years ago(and several times since) - suggest you keep your CV for May 7th, when presumably you will be leaving the ship you helped to sink, to go back to Switzerland.
Anyone else think Andrew Rawnsley looks like a fat William Dafoe?
On topic!! For what its worth Brown will do till the end of 2010 should Labour not win the general election. Its the best for the party.
Why does anyone think any different?
403 - No.
399. How do you manage to make all your posts sound slightly sinister, Rod?
380 tim - Good research. I thought Mark Senior was getting carried away…
How up to date is your figure?
403-Does that mean he is just like Rory Stewart?
403. No, but I look like Andrew Rawnsley, so I’m told.
And Earl Spencer, Robert Palmer(!) and Eddie Izzard
Always being mistaken for someone, wherever I go. Damned nuisance!
5 more years?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/banking/7095301/Britains-banks-downgraded-by-Standard-and-Poors.html
didn’t see this detail in the Reuters story from Friday
“One of the world’s biggest credit ratings agencies said that Britain’s ongoing “weak economic environment” and Gordon Brown’s failure to properly reform the financial system had led to its unprecedented decision to “downgrade” Britain’s banks.”
“The international creditworthiness of the country’s banking system is now on a level which is equivalent to poorer countries such as Chile and Portugal.
It could now cost banks more to borrow money on the wholesale financial markets – with consumers facing higher prices for mortgages and loans as a result.
The downgrade underlines the growing concerns over Britain’s financial state among international investors and is a major embarrassment for the Prime Minister just days after Britain only managed to limp out of recession.”
“Standard & Poor’s also warned that the banks may face a further downgrade if Britain “fails to strengthen” by tackling “persistent budget deficits”.
There is increasing criticism among financial experts at the Government’s failure to announce detailed plans for public-spending cuts to reduce record levels of public-sector borrowing.”
Thanks Labour
Oh well, must be just me then.
409 - Is that Eddie Izzard when he’s in drag?
406. Dunno, perhaps your preconceptions make you hear them that way…
399 he meant English Roman Catholics - those who survived the post Reformation oppression, not all aristocratic though Dorset has more than its fair share of those.
The parish I live in has “yokel” English Catholics, the local lord paid the fines of his tenant farmers and servants for non-attendance, got round the laws on education (RCs weren’t allowed to be),protected them from the worst of Protestant laws. It’s always had a Catholic priest and Masses (the parish Church by Sir John Soame was built in 1776 to replace an earlier one) - one of only three such parishes IIRC.
410 - The best political lookalike is Nigel Farage and the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DvlWo60SGRg/SqFprhNTpHI/AAAAAAAABwc/o8R_97af-6E/s400/Nigel+Farage.jpeg
http://www.topnews.in/files/Dmitry-Medvedev_7.jpg
401 Coldstone the religion of the Rees-Moggs is of no relevance nor indeed is the fact their father was the rather pompous editor of a national newspaper.
Glaswegians are not selfish. We are quite happy if other people wish to enjoy the health giving properties of Buckfast tonic wine.
In the Mo Mowlem drama some of the actors portraying real life politicians are very like the real chaps.
front pages so far,
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/The-Papers—National-Newspaper-Front-Pages-On-Monday-February-1/Media-Gallery/201001415539359?lpos=Home_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15539359_The_Papers_-_National_Newspaper_Front_Pages_On_Monday_February_1
412. Actually, I think it might be the use of the ellipsis …
411. I never bothered to pursue the reason why they thought so…
409 Rod it is far nicer to be recognised as oneself by others.
3×3. I’m so so sad…
418. Bit difficult for blank strangers to do that though…
414. Easteross. Agreed. I think it was an exceptional, affectionate but probably very accurate portrayal of Mo. Deseves all the plaudits it hopefully gets.
415. The independent one is a classic, instead of dealing with the fact that Climate Research Unit had been making up their figures and cherry picking results, they try to attack the possible organisation that exposed it.
Has all the fingerprints of a nulab spin operation. Remember when they got their friendly journalists to suggest that one of the instigators of the slow hand clap for tony blair at the WI conference was a member of the BNP.
The Thick of It satirised it with the ‘do you know what its like to clean your own mother’s piss’ woman
423 Only if one is a nonentity
“one of only three such parishes IIRC.”
This one
http://www.allertonoak.com/merseySights/OutlyingAreasCS.html
and one in Norfolk, IIRC.
I thought that Brown was being reigned in over making spend commitments he cannot keep:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7010508.ece
£35 billion!!
Once again he is deciding what the strategic defence review will recomend.
384 Wayne. Have just completed the Conservative questionnaire - only given two unequivocal top grades, William Hague and Boris. Of course, Tim and Gabble (and maybe some others) will view this selection with contempt, but I think of this as an accolade.Boris for the Conservative third term,perhaps, if he hasn’t burnt out by then.
429
the questionnaire is far too long.
More than 500,000 patients every year are readmitted to hospital after apparently being sent home too soon, alarming figures reveal.
Labour’s waiting-time targets have been blamed for the 50 per cent rise in emergency readmissions of patients within days of them being discharged.
Critics said it was a scandal that almost 1,500 a day were apparently being released before they are well enough, harming their recovery
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247568/500-000-hospital-patients-sent-home-soon.html
428. I don’t believe a word from any party about defence. It’s more politically palatable to cut defence rather than health or education. I fear whoever wins will make some dreadful mess of long term defence planning.
Metro Harris Poll:
“Gordon: Weak and out of touch, says our poll”
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/811121-gordon-weak-and-out-of-touch-says-our-poll
434 Gabble are you feeling well? Are you becoming a LibDem? You highlighted a negative article about your great leader
428 Rod Crosby
“Sniggery Wood, Little Crosby”
Rod, it can be dangerous to release details of your home address on the internet.
434 - The Metro didn’t need to pay money and a commission a poll to tell them that Gordon Brown is weak and out of touch.
I could have told them that for free.
437. “I could have told them that for free.”
But as a lawyer, you’d still have billed them for it.
£35 bn, where did he find that? Down the back of the sofa? Those damn kids stuffed it down there when he wasn’t working. No wonder Darling lost £100bn the other year!
£35 bn, where did he find that? Down the back of the sofa? Those damn kids stuffed it down there when he wasn’t looking. No wonder Darling lost £100bn the other year!
436. Spent many an idyllic afternoon playing there as a kid, with those poor lads who took a different turn in life…
432 - But I’m sure our resident health expert, Timmy, will soon be telling us it is all a load of bollox. Daily Rant + health story, normally gets him going.
432. TSE, I thought the Nufffield were waxing lyrical about how good the English NHS was just a week ago.
Guido’s latest is a must-read.
How we ended up with our government being head by a man as unsuitable for the role as Gordon Brown, is a tragedy I can’t explain.
444 - And it looks like 30+% of the voting population are going to back him for another 5 years! Scary stuff.
438 - More than likely, if it moves, bill it. If it doesn’t, bill their estate.
251 - Rubbish. Major won a 4th term almost unparalleled in his party’s history and after Labour had a heavy lead before Thatcher was deposed. Thatcher was the more significant figure, but Major set the tone for the post-Thatcher consensus which has continued through Blair to Cameron. A Kinnock premiership in 1992 would have been a disaster, only Major prevented it, Heseltine would have split the party irretrievably.
The Guardian (Labour) going after Lord Ashcroft again, they won an FOI appeal for the cabinet office to provide details of his undertaking when joining the HoL.
Not on line yet.
443 - Indeed, we are a bit schizophrenic when commentating/analysing the NHS
Gabble
Still up?
Seems the David Miliband - Hilary Clinton affair de coeur is just a quickie.
Follow me!
448 - I thought it was already public knowledge what his undertaking was and that he had met that commitment, no?
416. Wardour, Ted?
450 Gabble
New link
http://tinyurl.com/comeupandseemesometime
Just had it confirmed. There are over 200 super injunctions in force right now.
454 - In other news, I noticed Jug Ears was absent from his show this morning.
452 runnymede
I was wondering about that. 1776 seems a little early for a completed Soane Church. He was still studying at the RA at the time (albeit winning medals).
429.Brown is going to launch a green paper and talks of billions to be spent. No definite defence review as yet, and no mention of the fact that the MOD is basically br0ke.
Tucked away at the near the end of the article was this little gem.
“A government source said the Ministry of Defence would look to cut up to 10,000 extra civilian jobs, without waiting for the Strategic Defence Review.”
Chalk this down to Brown talking big Defence to get a Monday morning headline, but without the detail to back it up. Same old tactics from this cynical and bankrupt government.
If Mike is around, I have got the same comment stuck in the mods box twice.
#412 S&P revision was made back in December [21], but not picked up on by the MSM [weather and Christmas?]:
…I’ve also attached the December announcement of the revision of the UK BICRA. The paragraph below spells out the timeline of the revision (on 21 December).
We placed the U.K.’s banking system in Group 3 out of our 10 Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment (BICRA) groups on Dec. 21, 2009, which primarily reflects our view of relatively high leverage in the U.K. economy and the losses the industry could bear during the deleveraging process. (For more information, see “U.K. BICRA Revised Downward To Group 3 From Group 2 Due To High Leverage In The Economy And Weak Earnings Prospects“.)
The scale ranges from Group 1 (strongest) to Group 10 (weakest). The macroeconomic and banking industrywide factors that affect the BICRA influence all bank counterparty credit ratings in the U.K.
Not helped by the stellar growth in GDP.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/01/28/136791/a-poor-uk-market-reaction-to-sp/
related link also good fun:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/01/26/134706/uk-gilts-resting-on-a-bed-of-nitroglycerine/
451 - Don’t know, this is the appeal decision
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/decisionnotices/2010/fs_50197952.pdf
417 TSE I still like Cameron and Steve the Pirate
http://nealbrown.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/david-cameron.jpg and
http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/steve.jpg
460 - That is uncanny.
That link makes me want to watch Dodgeball again
219. SallyC - “According to bog standard electoral models which have yet to hold true in 2010 and about which serious questions have been raised.”
According to fairly basic, irrefutable arithmetic, actually. But the “serious questions have been raised” is a definite early contender for the ‘weasel words of the year’ award, so well done on that.
According to Sky Sports News, Gerry Sutcliffe, the sports minister, wants to have words with the FA about John Terry’s adultery.
The party that gave the country, two shags, is going to lecture the FA about adultery.
463 - What next, Gordo to front a campaign against physical and verbal abuse of women in the workplace?
464. Well, if Mrs Thatcher could quote St Francis of Assisi with a straight face…
464 - And Damian McBride to front a campaign on the dangers of mis using work emails.
If Rod is there, a question - which of the 1974 elections did you say you’d like to watch?
463 TSE
Can’t Gerry Sutcliffe just put in an FOI request for Terry’s address book?
468 - I’ve already asked for a copy of Terry’s address book
416 yes (don’t tell coldstone though as it’s meant to be one of the models for Brideshead)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reveal-ashcrofts-status-officials-told-1885162.html
467. Hi Andy, thanks for your excellent work on 1979.
It has to be Feb 1974, really, doesn’t it? - which I for one have never seen…
Hung parliament, nationalist rise, sensational constituency results all round, “wrong winner” election…
It’s a no contest.
“…and about which serious questions have been raised.”
Not by any serious people, unfortunately for you…
456 It was enlarged in 1788 - that’s when Soane did the work. Its at the end of one wing of a Palladian mansion, the family sold up so the rest is now apartments but the chapel is retained as one of the two parish churches.
447.Major lost 4/5th of the majority he inherited despite getting rid of the poll tax & fighting a popular war in 1992. I think to be fair Blair set the consensus post Thatcher, he dropped every principle that traditional Labour held dear. Major was marking time setting up cone hotlines & being battered between Ken Clarke/wets & Michael Portillo/drys. He was a disaster, as shown conclusively in 1997.
But your right about Kinnock.
447 Also there’s the chance,an incoming 92-97 Kinnock govt would have handled the pounds over-valuation to the then-German mark within days,and achieved a controlled,managed ‘re-alignment’,accepted by UK and other Euro politicans..truth is we never will kno what might have been
476.Yes first he would have had to devalue, but we would have then gone into the narrow band of the ERM, the effect would have been the same - Britain was a sitting duck from the moment we entered.
475. “Major lost 4/5th of the majority he inherited despite getting rid of the poll tax & fighting a popular war in 1992.”
The Tory vote in 1992 was identical to what it had been in 1987 - the slashing of the Tory majority was entirely due to a swing from the Liberal Democrats to Labour. Welcome to the surreal world of first-past-the-post elections.
478.Liberal Democrats didn’t fight the 1987 election.
477 Yep,I hear you-one justice would have occurred that did NOT in our universe-Ken Clarke would have been leader of the Opposition,and as likely as not PM-he is the only Tory leader since Macmillna,long before I was born,thta I could stomach voting for at a GE!
472 - thanks Rod, I’ll see if I can get hold of it. The October one was quite interesting as well - I heard somewhere that the BBC computer was predicting a Labour majority of 150 at one stage which of course was a bit of an exaggeration of the actual one of 3.
I agree that February is probably more interesting since we could be about to have a hung parliament again on May 6th so there’s a nice parallel there.
More about tim’s and my specialist subject
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/feb/01/tories-evasive-ashcroft-tax-status
Interesting question in the MORI poll
How important is it to you personally who wins the next General Election?
Importance, GB, Eng, North (including Scotland)
Very, 40%, 42%, 38%
Fairly, 30%, 30%, 28%
Not very, 18%, 17%, 22%
Not at all, 9%, 8%, 9%
Not surprising, I suppose. English domestic issues are of little interest to Scots (who I would guess are responsible for the comparatively little importance being attached to the GE in the “North”).
482.NickP, I suggest you read the same story as reported by the Independent up thread @471. Not quite so amusing for the government in that article, but about par for what we have come to expect from New Labour.
Blimey what next?
The country recently changed its constitution to ensure the protection of the “dignity” of plant life and passed a law last year guaranteeing rights for all creatures - from guinea pigs to goldfish.
If Swiss voters approve the referendum in March, every canton in the country will be obliged to appoint a lawyer to act on behalf of pets and barnyard animals in order to protect them from abuse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/7120931/Switzerland-to-hold-referendum-on-lawyers-for-animals.html
482.I should imagine he gives the taxpayer excellent value for money, I wonder how his expenses compare to yours?
Happy new month everybody (except the Americanists).
I’m a bit surprised to find loads of messages on this thread writtn between 9:00pm and 11:10pm. “Mo” on Channel 4 was suberbissimo, excellenttastic, and sublimely moving. 8537 out of 10. Much better than I had expected. Anybody who did not watch it must do so a.s.a.p. on the Cahnnel 4 catch up website thingy.
I remember an episode of the West Wing where a similar ludicrous proposition was rejected - but fact is stranger than fiction
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/02/01/home-office-gives-10k-to-fight-crime-with-prayers/
The Christian Police Association (CPA) was handed the one-off cash payment [£10K] to help publicise its message, which includes encouraging members of the public to pray that criminals are swiftly brought to justice.
The group believes that praying can help police to solve crimes, protect officers from injury on duty and reduce anti-social behaviour.
Thank God
Scotland is a less Christian country than England.
485.Just Don’t tell Harman, the new equality watchdog already has an annual budget of £70million
479. “Liberal Democrats didn’t fight the 1987 election.”
Neither did the Alliance fight the 1992 election - hence why it makes more sense to talk about a Liberal Democrat-Labour swing.
But I’m sure your objection was sincerely meant.
488. “Scotland is a less Christian country than England.”
Are we really?
486.I am really interested to find out how much this campaign has cost the taxpayer?
(OT) At the moment I’m reading “Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire” by Victor Sebestyen. I hadn’t realised (or perhaps I had forgotten) that Hungary and Romania came close to war in 1988 over the treatment of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania. One of the main themes of the book is that the old grey leaders of the People’s Democracies were very slow on the uptake in realising that Gorby meant it when he said that it was not the job of the USSR to interfere in their internal affairs.
490.There was no swing from the LibDems 1987-92 they didn’t exist in 1987 and in 1992 the 3rd party vote was split.
491 James Kelly
Yes census questions 2001
493. One strange thought that’s occurred to me recently is that in some ways the Soviet communist leadership of the late 80s/early 90s was actually more liberal/reformist than the present-day Russian leadership.
496.Yes, the Gorbachev government could probably have made the Iraq war legal, simply by abstaining.
N Ireland
http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/site/sinn-fein-about-to-breach-the-dups-defences/
“It is likely they will make a will make a statement confirming they are determined to press ahead and that they have reached agreement on the handling of parades and the Irish language.”
494. Oh God, I do so love a pedant. The Liberal Democrats are the legal successor party to both the Liberals and the SDP, so it’s entirely meaningful to directly compare the Liberal Democrat vote in 1992 with the Alliance vote in 1987. David Owen’s ‘continuing SDP’ (which strictly speaking no longer existed in 1992 and attracted a derisory vote in any case) was a completely new organisation, in spite of using the old name and logo.
“in 1992 the 3rd party vote was split.”
In the literal sense it always is - no more so in 1992 than any other occasion.
497. “Yes, the Gorbachev government could probably have made the Iraq war legal, simply by abstaining.”
Hardly. The words I used were ‘liberal’ and ‘reformist’, not ‘neocon’ and ‘imperialist’.
ON TOPIC
So why is Brown thinking of continuing the perceived agony of it all?
Remember there is at this time no credible candidate to replace Brown. New Labour is terminally discredited, and there is a strong mood for radical change at the top, from the bottom, of the so called radical party. The main reason being that all of the potential candidates have repeatedly shown themselves to be as spinelessly ineffectual, as petulant jellyfish. As collectively, or individually intelligent, as under evolved Amoeba, as well as cohesively driven as a coach load of suicidally inclined spring lambs.
Could this be a deliberate attempt to select the next leader of The Labour Party from somewhere close to the establishments heart, as they can openly get away with? In other words, a possible Marxist stile co-agitator, with seeming revolutionary tendencies?
Possibly a man, or more likely a women, that is very little, if at all nationally known, yet has already been selected for the task of defeating Brown at the next Labour leadership ‘contest.’ Which will very quickly put this person in a far better position to make Cameron’s long time in office as unpopular, unpleasant, and unproductive for the electorate as possible. For only this person could now command any respect within The Labour Party, the Trades Unions, and a large enough minority of the country as a whole.
Logic would dictate that this should take some time, possibly 2-3, or even 4 years to happen. It could even be possible that Brown has been ordered to stay on until just after the general election after next. At which time Gordon Browns successors credentials, and establishment connections, could have been well and worthily recommended.
On the other hand.
It could just be that Brown will carry on for a few more months, after the next election. Then stating failing heath as the excuse, run merrily away to Morgan Stanley, or The IMF. Leaving The Labour Party to sort out their own desperately surviving BS all by themselves.
Exhausted Gordon can then go home, try on that bola hat he always fancied himself in so very much, then smugly pour himself a very well earned double large single-malt.
Should Browns personal force of conscience per-chance finally act in partially keeping down his often vain and unbecoming thoughts, he will forever console himself with his unshakeable belief that, no one even liked him, never mind loved him, in the first place, so what indeed did he have ever to lose?
He will feel even better when he correctly assures himself that it never was going to be himself that was designed and destined to be the big time loser, that dubious distinction was always going to be the ordinary British peoples.
For the truth of the matter is.
Love is never having to say you are sorry.
We have always assumed that our leaders were simply either dangerously incompetent fools, or ideologically miss-guided ones.
We did not believe that our leaders were intentionally doing evil.
We did not in the main part love them, as well as we knew that they most surely did not love many of us. Save those that were more youthfully and actually bending over, as well as more in need of relatively easy cash, then the rest of us.
Therefore we still very much do expect the worst of them to say sorry, especially when they have clearly got their hands so deeply and firmly caught in the Tax-payers cash register. However we did not in general believe that our leaders were in reality acting directly and deliberately against the material and spiritual interests of virtually the entire British population.
Therefore we don’t just expect a sorry, we demand public floggings, hangings, or in certain peoples cases, far worse.
Thatcher should now be seen as Mother Teresa, albeit with a smidgen too much of over an zealous Mrs Whip bewitchingly stirred in, when being compared to the double act of the Grand Worshipful Masters pick pocket Gordon Brown, and his snake-oil selling Past-Master Tony Blair.
It takes a very special character to bare such a very special level of pure hated coming from all possible political or otherwise directions. Which makes Gordon Brown and Tony Blair a highly complimentary pair of extremely special characters.
499. The “Social Democratic Party” still exists as a registered party, with (as far as I know) 47 members, and (until recently) three councillors (all in one ward in Neath). The SDP which was launched in 1988 suspended its national organisation in 1990 after the Bootle cataclysm, but allowed its local branches to continue under their own steam if they wanted to. It is therefore not entirely correct to say that the SDP “strictly speaking no longer existed in 1992″, although it is also arguable that the SDP which became registered under the terms of PPERA from 1998 is a new party, or only one branch of the former SDP.
499.Maybe meaningful in your mind but given the all new singing & dancing LibDems began life with under 10% of the vote after an acrimonious debate about merger. I mean you may think it’s fair to compare…
In reality Major ran a lousy campaign, the highlight of which was a visit to his old house. Inspiring stuff. Labour’s tax bombshell wasn’t to explode for another decade…
500.A Neocon, Imperialist vote on the UN Security council is worth less than a Communist dictatorship…ok, this international law thing is fun!
496. Another theme of the book is that Gorbachev had the intelligence to realise that the USSR wasn’t working and needed to be reformed; but he
didn’t know how,
didn’t have a plan for doing so,
didn’t understand market economics,
thought that the peoples of Eastern Europe would embrace a continuing reformed socialist commonwealth of co-operating nations, all with their own mini-Gorbachevs,
delayed in making crucial decisions, e.g. withdrawing from Afghanistan
503. “I mean you may think it’s fair to compare…”
I do. Indeed I do. And I’m afraid you’ll find ‘Liberal Democrats are the direct successors to the Alliance’ is a meaningful concept in more minds than just mine.
“In reality Major ran a lousy campaign, the highlight of which was a visit to his old house. Inspiring stuff. Labour’s tax bombshell wasn’t to explode for another decade…”
It was indeed a dismal campaign, but that doesn’t change the reality that the Tories got exactly the same share of the vote as they did five years earlier, and the slashing of the Tory majority was entirely due to a swing from the Liberal Democrats to Labour.
502. John, yes, I was vaguely aware that some branches of the SDP had lingered on. Isn’t it Bridlington that’s their big base now, or have they lost all their councillors there as well?
I remember a by-election in the early 90s when someone shouted out during the declaration “the SDP are back!” but I can’t recall which one it was.
BBC - Ministers aim to halve number of people smoking by 2010
“A plan to halve the number of smokers in England over the next 10 years has been unveiled by ministers.
The number of people smoking has fallen by a quarter in the past decade to 21%, and the proposed target is 10% by 2020.
Measures being considered include removing branding from packets and banning cigarette vending machines, as will happen in Scotland next year.”
Another day, and another ban in Scotland. I don’t think that the Scottish government has thought this vending machine ban through, but it will effect those who live in rural areas much more than in cities. What is life like in Yorkshire?
504. “A Neocon, Imperialist vote on the UN Security council is worth less than a Communist dictatorship…ok, this international law thing is fun!”
Actually, international law was nowhere near ‘fun’ enough for the neocons - in a nutshell that’s basically the reason why they ignored it.
Todor Zhivkov was a senile old twogliak who kept on saying “Brezhnev” when he meant “Gorbachev”. In January 1989, tens of thousands of people attended a rally in Prague to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Jan Palach; they only knew it was happening because the government announced in advance that it would be banned. There are eight thousand species of millipede, but only two of them are carnivorous. From 1964 to 1989, the East German government sold 34,000 people to West Germany for up to DM200,000 each. It was more viable to arrest awkward people on trumped-up charges, and sell them, than to process visa applications for them to leave.
506. I think the by-election you’re referring to would be the one in Neath in 1991, when the SDP got 1,826 votes and the Lib Dem got 2,000. The SDP had three councillors in Neath until about 2006, mainly because they had never bothered to leave or defect. It is indeed Bridlington where most (i.e. 40 out of 47) of their members are, but any councillors there were longer ago than in Neath.
496. James Kelly February 1st, 2010 at 1:59 am
“One strange thought that’s occurred to me recently is that in some ways the Soviet communist leadership of the late 80s/early 90s was actually more liberal/reformist than the present-day Russian leadership.”
Certainly true, but why strange?
511. “Certainly true, but why strange?”
Simply because the Soviet leadership represented a nominally ‘far-left’ ideology, whereas the current Russian leadership are nominally…I don’t know, centrist?
512 There was a good piece in The Spectator the other week that described Russia as a feudal society.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/5686623/theres-something-rotten-in-the-state-of-russia.thtml
513.Don’t get into the current Scottish system, its pretty depressing.
514. A somewhat ironic comment given the Scottish Tories’ opposition to land reform legislation a few years ago!
If the election is tight I can see Labourites in Scotland coming out as they will be told their vote might keep Cameron out, which in a landslide would not be the cae and they could vote for who they prefer.
Not good for the SNP to have a close election. But with the Tories still up by double digits in England all this hung parliament stuff needs to be put in perspective. If it was 5 to 7% in england that would be another story.
Time for the tories to fight dirtier. State that Brown has a record of being irrational, and verify from a secondary source of Rawnsley’s comments are correct about him attacking a woman at Number 10. Find the woman who was attacked, and get her to tell her story 7 days from the election.
McBride style tactics, but this is a media war and the Tories are just too soft when it comes to bringing about positive column inches for them and negative for Brown and his cronies.
I worked at a major London media and marketing organisation in Wardour Street, London for many years, and getting good press is vital in all aspects of business and life. Soft gets you nowhere.
With the Mail on Sunday leading on Brown’s bullying that should have been followed up with press releases questioning whether Brown is fit to look after himself let alone the country.
That would annihilate Brown. Female vote would collapse en masse.
Then get the media to go hard, and force the Beeb and Sky to talk about personal character as a key issue.
Labour lie at elections as a matter of course, the comments in Scotland in 2007 about costing people thousands if they voted SNP were libellous. Right amount coincidentally, just caused by another party.
Wet sop will not cut it, talking about change and being the same as them on expenses and the war does not cut it. Get your hands dirty, admit the economy is tanked, explain that the experts such as S and P have said UK was a basket case, no point denying it now, and say we need to fix it which will take 10 years at least.
But come out fighting; this lukewarm waffle and damage limitation exercise approach is going to suggest weakness and indecision for the Tories as well.
Screaming Eagles, are any of the 200 plus super injunctions involving politicians?