How much can we read into this?
March 6th, 2010
But could Labour activists now be more motivated?
In the next few weeks we’ll be seeing a lot of data about difference aspects of the campaign from the British Election Study - a big academic programme involving a number of universities and quite a lot of polling.
In this posting Professor Paul Whiteley writes: “The survey shows that about a quarter of the electorate have been contacted since July 2009, and the chart shows the percentages contacted by the different political parties. It is apparent that the Conservatives are way ahead of their rivals in contacting the voters, reflecting in part the effects of the funding provided by Lord Ashcroft. Even more interesting is that the Liberal Democrats came second in the list with a contact rate of 46 per cent, and Labour came a poor third by contacting only 35 per cent…. We know from research that such contacts have positive electoral effects, making this type of activity a vital part of the overall effort to win votes.”
Whiteley’s right - the more that local organisations are working on the ground the more likely it is that they’ve identified many of their potential supporters in a general election - information that is vital in tight battles when an effective GOTV (getting out the vote) operation can deliver several hundred or even a thousand or so extra votes.
A key determinant of campaigning on the ground is the number of councillors that each of the parties has. Incumbents are paid quite generous allowances which provides campaigning resources and they they’ve also got a close personal interest in furthering the prospects of their party in their particular ward.
But much of the BES survey took place while Labour was seriously in the doldrums and a general election defeat seemed inevitable. I wonder whether the recent closing of the deficit behind the Tories has given a boost to local Labour activists?
Finally the survey suggests that the Lib Dems are working hard in the seats that are critical to them and incumbents going to be very difficult to beat. In CON-LD clashes the squeeze will be put on Labour supporters to back Clegg’s party to stop the Tories.
Mike Smithson
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not first
lonely around here!
Some very interestin statistics there and its nice to see the Lib Dem activists working hard. This is an important election for us and we can’t allow it to be a step back for us.
Labour seem to be up for the fight, but the Tories seem to have picked themselves up off the ground too.
I have noticed the anti-Labour anger returning whilst it was subsiding a bit a couple of weeks ago. That really motivates the troops.
3 – Joshua, what do you regard as ‘a step back’ for the LDs ?
More importantly, Cameron has started firing again. His speech this morning was very good.
And Brown’s Afghanistan trip will really hurt him if the cynicism charge sticks - which it easily could, and definitely should.
Good to see the Lib Dems punching above their weight too. We can only hope that it is mainly in LD/Lab marginals.
The secret meeting between Labour abd liberals is an election nightmare for the libs, confirming they want to support brown for 5 years.
Posters should be out saying that the libs have talked to brown about staying in power for another 5 years, why on earth would even liberal voters vote for more of this purgatory.
The AV vote will be used an excuse, but if Brown is allowed to stay in charge despite getting under 30% of the vote I genuinely believe there will be riots.
FPT 255 John Marston - Why do you post such utter drivel ? The Welsh Assembly is a Labour/Plaid run coalition . the LibDems are in opposition as they are for example on Cumbria CC where it is a Labour/Conservative run council - vote blue get red , vote red get blue .
FPT
BBC first story headline:
PM visits soldiers in Afghanistan
Gordon Brown visits British troops in Afghanistan amid a growing row over his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry.
Downing Street claim:
“Downing Street insisted the timing of his evidence and the trip to Helmand province were organised separately.”
But that isn’t to say they could not have rearranged Helmand to avoid the appearance this was intentional. These trips being secret must be far and away the easiest thing in a PM’s schedule to refix. And as SallyC points out this has the flavour of the wrecking the tory conference 2007 trick, and we know how that turned off the public. Chilcot may prove to obey the Brownian 10p tax band rule that everything looks fine and dandy for the first 48 hours after a Brown car crash.
This could have legs. How sad that this blog’s legendary News Sense is nursing a hangover in a shooting lodge and cannot give us guidance on this.
* Have you any proof of a secret meeting ?
Local Labour activists? What is this mythical beast of which you speak?
Could anyone explain why, whenever we get near an election, the Guardian gets hysterical about the Tories? We had them comparing Boris to the Nazis at the Mayoral, and now the madrassa comparison.*
*Of course, the irony is that it won’t ever criticise proper madrassas being set up in the UK.
Gordo spent 16 hours in a plane so he could spend an hour on the ground in front of troops to announce more spending on metal detectors…
No electioneering there then.
Maybe a poster saying, “my son died because he did not get the equipment he needed to survive a bomb, despite the army knowing they worked and asking Brown for them.”
Maybe another with soldier who has left forces in a wheelchair saying a pity (i)he had not been in a Canadian tank (or whatever), he would still have his legs if he had been.
Time to play dirty.
5 - I think a step back would be polling less, in the popular vote, than we did in 2005. Of course I expect losses of some seats, but I equally expect surprising success in the North and London.
It had to happen: after the disappointment of ‘hope and change’, the T-shirt..
http://www.patriotdepot.com/missmeyett.aspx
11 Mark .It came fom an article by Peter Obourne. Doesn’t of course mean its corect although Oboune is a pretty reliable journo. I don’t know whether you have read it but it makes very interesting reading.
From having a look at the ConHome summary of Cameron’s Welsh speech, this should be the main message that Tories on TV need to get across
“I defy anyone to call our plans of changing the way government works timid. They are bold – and they will make a massive difference. And they are why we can look the British people in the eye and say a Tory pound will go further than a Labour pound…that good government costs less with the Conservatives.”
A quote about good government costing less, 3 examples of Labour spending incompetence and 3 examples of how Tory plans would help need to be repeated ad naseum.
No one gets excited about cutting the deficit (and as the Parris article in the Times shows, the uncertainty worries voters) however a more positive message of saving would. It also leaves an irrelevant Labour going on about Latvians, Ashcroft,etc.
It has been admitted Mark (11) that a secret meeting has been held and whilst Clegg and Brown were not there they have been informed what happened. Not denied.
Sounds like something Ming would organise, he and Brown have history in that area, although names not given out as yet.
Time for CCHQ to dig and blow it apart.
17. Won’t be long until the Gordo version appears…
Or not.
16 – Cheers Joshua for you candour, it mirrors my thoughts for the next GE outcome - although I can’t comment on any London successes.
I doubt anyone should take Professor Paul Whiteley conclusions seriously!
Contact by party activists when there is no reason for contact is largely determined by the popularity (including indifference) of leader and brand. How many activists are going to volunteer to go canvassing on freezing grey wet day in Croyden when practically every voter is giving you verbal abuse? Not many, which the professors findings support. The activists of the party of government aren’t particularly willing to go canvassing because there getting to much abuse!
As an old Wardour Street advertising bloke, I really feel getting a negative message across about death and injury in Afghanisatan would work.
The media avoids injuries, coffins yes, but injuries no, and avoidable injuries is a new subject altogether.
Comparison with soldiers from other countries in the same area would be hard to argue with.
We need to stop dehumanising the war as “over there” and bring it home to people that it is a matter in Britain as well.
Queensberry is dead, as his rules should be too.
Living in a three-way marginal, I get a bunch of election literature. The latest Lib Dem flyer caught my eye because it is the mirror image of the Tories vote yellow get Brown message:
‘In areas like this, the only way to get real change is to vote Liberal Democrat. Voting Conservative could just help Labour win again’
Leaving aside the fact that the London mayoral elections saw the Tories gain the most votes in the seat, the striking thing about this message is how it difficult it would make it for this Lib Dem, if he wins, to prop up Brown in a hung parliament. Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves in a real pickle if no party wins a majority. As Peter Oborne writes today, the party wouldn’t stomach a deal or even an understanding with the Tories. But propping up Labour could be fatal for the Lib Dems in seats like mine.
PS Interestingly, I have yet to receive anything from Labour despite them holding the seat.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5821803/the-lib-dems-campaign-rhetoric-will-make-it-that-much-harder-for-them-to-do-a-deal-in-the-event-of-a-hung-parliament.thtml
20 Admitted by whom ?
O/T
I heard the Landale report on Gordon’s ’surprise’ trip (his words)to Helmand today (minus jacket this time).
He must be the only person in the UK surprised - I’m not at all, I had said to the Mrs on Tuesday he’d be bound to have a quick photo-shoot with the troops this weekend. It was always going to happen and is as subtle as a brick in the face, announcing a bit of spending is hardly a shock either now is it?
We all know the red team’s modus operandi by now.
I had to go via PB2 to get to the PB site. Could not get direct.
Fabulous slip on BBC News
“Gordon Brown made a supervised visit to Afghanistan…”
Like an abusive partner perhaps?
The Ashcroft marginals money story is a good motivator for Labour, as is the media presence of the ludicrous Hague.
Mark, We then need to ask Osbourne to reveal his sources.
If the liberals had a similar meeting with Cameron and said they wanted to talk to both aprties to clear the air then fair enough, but a secret meeting with one party, like the secret meetings by the big 3 English parties about the telly debate means only one thing. anyone not invited is not part of the game and will get shafted.
24 - Saying that less soldiers would die and be injured under a Tory government is a major risk, is it not?
“More Nats, less cuts” seems to be the headline slogan from today’s SNP campaign launch in Edinburgh East this morning. Describing SNP MPs as local “champions”, the message is clear -
The more Nationalist politicians at Westminster there are, the less cuts Scotland will face from a Labour or Tory Government as a result.
It’s a very smart strategy as it pushes back against the threat of a Tory vs Labour squeeze given that either Brown or Cameron will be cutting Scotland’s budget soon and significantly. While I am personally in awkward agreement with George Osborne, that we are all in this together and consequently cuts on either side of the border have to be found, there is no doubt that this is a potentially huge vote winner for the SNP.
http://www.snptacticalvoting.com/2010/03/snp-kicks-off-general-election-campaign.html
30 tim
I can certainly believe that Ashcroft really motivates anti-Tories, but I also feel there has been a hardening of anti-Labour sentiment over the last few days.
People are polarizing.
mark, Oborne not Osbourne sorry.
tim - why have labour so mis-managed Gordon as to send him out to Afghanistan for a photo call the day after his Chilcot evidence?
Why now? Why invite so many to recall his stunt during the Tory conference in 2007 & risk again using the troops for his electioneering?
It’s inept and invites a negative narrative about his news-sense and gives oxygen to the ex-generals complaints doesn’t it?
also when did we last hear anything from Ainsworth? Why didn’t he go along too?
30 Yes tim but which is the bigger story: peer gives money to marginals vs chancellor doesn’t give money to army, prevaricates to inquiry and is caught at it. And who is more ludicrous - Hague or whatever collection of clowns thought Brown’s trip today was a good idea?
35.
“Oborne not Osbourne sorry.”
Well you did say ‘reliable’ which rules outn the latter.
37.He ‘accidently’ forgot his passport, well, it’s dangerous out there!
Re the PM in Afghanisatn; I wonder if any of the troops will be allowed to ask him questions? Will he accept unscreened questions from the people he is there to support? Somehow I doubt it, the troops are once again going to be forced to be props in party political propoganda.
Ludicrous Hague….
Umm, what does that make Hattie Herpes-son after Wednesday’s PMQ’s, utter clap…
I can cut and paste from the paper as you can, but to state ameeting took place and the party leaders were informed is not the sort of thing a journalist would do if it was not correct.
Easy enough to issue a denial which as of now has not been done.
Wibbler - at a local level you’ll see Toty candidates that haven’t had money from Ashcroft scrambling to tell their local paper, leaving a problem for those that have.
On a national level the Times reported this morning that senior Tories are concerned that Hague won’t get through his next press conference.
38 - It depends on who you ask really.
Whether Ashcroft is a big story or not, what we now know is that David Cameron’s commitment to transparency in British politics is just one great big sham. As the Economist and the Times both say, that is quite troubling given that he is likely to be PM in a few weeks time. If he is not straight on that, what else is he ot going to be straight on?
27- Brown’s trip to the battle zone is very good politics, though. It not only makes him look brave and statesmanlike, but calls attention to a reason that voters might hesitate to vote Tory: lives are on the line, no time for a novice. It may also be conflated in voters’ minds with the inquiry testimony, helping to create a general positive impression of Brown’s handling of war issues. Not that this episode will be a gamechanger, but it is a good political move.
41 - Kind of like when David Cameron goes out to Afghanistan as well then.
My questions for this visit is simple -
1. How long was he there for?
2. Are the new detectors / vehicles new announcements with new money and if it is really ‘new’ then why is it him, not Ainsworth announcing it & where is Ainsworth if so?
3. Why has Labour not learnt that using troops and a war zone to make PR announcements for UK audience consumption is not a great tactic?
4. Why announce new vehicles which have been complained about for years just prior to the election and not do that sooner - it just begs the question of leaving it so late?
Going to Afghanistan is one thing, going to Iraq is entirely another.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7051889.ece
… the affair poses serious questions about Mr Cameron and Mr Hague. They were too weak to confront Lord Ashcroft and insist that he tell them his tax status. More disturbing still has been their reaction upon learning the truth. They have calculated that taking action would produce too much political turbulence. So, instead, they have have hunkered down, hoping the whole thing will go away. In other words, they have put political convenience ahead of principle.
Given that the way Mr Cameron governs his party provides the best insight into how he might govern the country, this is not encouraging.
are not is
O/T.
ConHome today tells us that Lorraine Fullbrook, in South Ribble constituency has the best Tory local election results in the country. Next door in Sefton, where the two Conservative lady parliamentary candidates are councillors, you have some of the worst Conservative local election results in the country.
There are not too many places which have actually LOST council seats under Khamereon. Can anyone throw any light on the disparity of results across the Lancashire-Merseyside border? Could the Conservative-Labour coalitions on council bodies in Sefton and Merseyside have anything to do with it?
non-dom non story - next.
Time for an IHT / DMT discussion anyone?
IFA’s love 61% marginal income tax and IHT………….
This is the sort of survey where you don’t have to worry about “false recall”. What matters is whether people remember, or think, that they have received a leaflet from a party, rather than whether they have actually done so.
50. Given that the way Mr
Camerongoverns his party provides the best insight into how he might govern the country, this is not encouraging.How many leadership coups have there been?
“Brown’s trip to the battle zone is very good politics, though. It not only makes him look brave and statesmanlike”
Does it heck as like. It firstly reminds people of his consistent use of the armed forces for political stunts, not least in 2007 when he lied to the troops about the number going home. And now, when the papers are full of how the generals are flat out calling him a liar, it makes it look like a spin operation, not someone who actually cares about the troops. Which we know he doesn’t anyway, given his more than parsimonious attitude towards defence.
No wonder people like Tim push so hard on Ashcroft when they know they’ve somehow got to support and defend such a despicable man who plays politics with people’s lives.
Anyone got any tips for ridding oneself of an annoying pen pal?
I keep getting letters, almost weekly now, from a chap called Nick from London (seems to live in the Cowley St area), railing about bent politicians, bankers’ excesses, NHS cutbacks, the nasty Tory Party which won’t offer real change, the useless Gordon Brown (in fact, every letter seems to enclose a leaflet with a picture of Gordon with his head in his hands). Now he seems obsessed with horse racing, every letter or leaflet going on about two horse races (I’m not into racing, but surely you want to see a few more runners than that?) and how only the apparently heavily backed “Lib Dem” runner can beat the Labour favourite.
I’d just got used to spotting the yellow borders on his leaflets and letters and sticking them straight into the bin. Now he’s changed his colour scheme to turquoise or blue to try and catch me out.
He seems a very irritating chap, with a really bad hairdo as well. How can I make him get lost?
53 - Absolutely right …nothing to see here, just move along, everything tickety-boo and no problems at all. Those two bastions of the left - The Economist and The Times - are merely causing trouble when there is none.
37
That would require the ‘Dear Leader’ to share the stage with someone else.
Even a non-entity like Ainsworth might draw the eye of the voter away from the magnificence that is ‘The Son of The Manse’.
The electorate must realise that it is Gordon from whom all blessings flow…
Re: Brown’s trip to the battle zone. It’s the same as tears for Piers etc: the over-riding question is “Why now?”
There is nothing wrong with a Prime Minister going to show support for the troops, quite the reverse.
But with Browm there is always the lingering suspicion that this (or any other PM event) has been done - particularly the timing - for personal advantage rather than any other reason. He has form on trips to the front.
I haven’t seen the coverage but was there any repartee, any chatting with the lads, any informal Q & A? I suspect not.
45. Sure, Cameron comes out of the Ashcroft affair looking bad - undignified and muddled. But to put things in perspective do I really have to say more than the one word, “Ecclestone”?
Or do you still think of Tone as a preddy straight kind of guy?
Brown in Afghanistan: Downing St Secretaries, rejoice.
56 - Ashcroft has written two books on military heroes, his takings from which are all donated straight to Help for Heroes. He will also fund a new gallery at the Imperial War Museum to showcase for the nation the collection of Victoria Crosses he has accumulated and prevented being bought by private collectors.
Nothing to do with your post; just thought some of the people here might like to see what someone does when they are actually proud of the military
On topic, I think contacting voters directly can make a difference. Small, but nonethless real.
Last year, a friend of mine - a newly qualified teacher aged 23, never voted before, not at all interested in politics - voted Tory, simply because they were the only party to ask him for his vote.
Another friend swings wildly all over the major and minor parties, but frequently votes for whoever sends him a leaflet or knocks on his door asking.
Sometimes, it really is as simple as that. Not election-swinging stuff, but it could conceivably make a small but crucial difference in the tightest of marginals.
southam, Do you ever find anything positive to say about Cameron.
The 3 main parties have all done dodgy dealing on expenses and funding. The barrage against Ashcroft just confirms bias in the media, not much more.
I am sure people in Middlesborough are questioning an Indian chappie far more than Ashcroft, after all he got carbon credits and shut the factory down they were provided against.
And that nasty Ashcroft, with all those funds for saving VC’s to the nation, setting up Crimestoppers and claiming no expenses in the Lords.
Puts a lot of the others to shame, so perhaps those issues should also be in the media, even in the biased ones.
45 The economist is a left wing rag and the times is bitter about ashcroft. The actual affair is irrelevent as Labour can’t answer why all their non doms didn’t have to meet such stringent measures to become a peer as Ashcroft. Without answering that the foaming from Labour supporters in and out of the media just looks ridiculous.
57 Call the national bullying helpline. Ask for Christine.
61 - Cameron is just like any other politician. And so his calls for transparency in British politics, as well as claims that he wants to clean up the system and restore trust in it should be viewed for what they are: hot air and nothing more. It is now clear he has just been saying what he thinks people want to hear, because given the opportunity to really demonstrate a commitment to change he has sat on his hands and done nothing. And to think some people on here have called him brave.
58.Or alternatively, this topic has been discussed all week. What exactly are you alleging Lord Ashcroft will do after the election? Mount a coup?
58- the problem for Labour and Lib Dems in attacking the Ashcroft issue is that they also use non dom donors, and Labour appointed one as a privy councillor.
Cameron’s Angle:
“In 2001 and 2005 Labour did a pretty good job of making the question ‘who do you trust to spend more of your money?’
“At this coming general election the question has definitely changed again. Why? Because the money’s gone. Gordon Brown spent it all.
“So the question in 2010 is this: who do you trust to make things better without spending more money? Today we certainly cannot afford more waste, more bureaucracy and more overspending from a Labour government.
“At a time like this you need the people with the grit, the determination and the new ideas to get more for less – and those people are the Conservatives.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7384341/David-Cameron-Ill-make-things-better-without-spending-more-money.html
68- again SO, if that’s true it applies equally to Brown and Clegg
Presumably, SO, you didn’t vote for Labour after Eccelstone, Lord Paul, the Hindujas and Brown’s personal slush fund.
65 - No, I can think of very few positive things to say about Cameron. He comes across as a chancer with no real convictions - as the Ashcroft affair demonstrates perfectly.
72 - I agree completely.
As i am in a LD/CON marginal and am out canvassing almost every day i feek well qualified to see what is happening on the ground.
Lib Dem vote has been hardening over the last 7 days but Tories are starting to get a lot of UKIP back to them with the narrowing of the polls.
This could make the difference.
Battle lines are drawn and there are clear areas where the Tories will need to get their vote out and the same will be for the LDs.
the trouble will occur with the GE and locals being on the same day.Activist stretch will prevent the LDs unning their normal impeccable GOTV straegy as there are going to be conflicting priorities for where the votes fall in different wards.
I am hearing on the grapevine that this is causing considerable problems between cllrs and MPs.
73 - Yes I did. I knew that Labour was no better or no worse than any of the other parties when it came to funding.
SO, Mandelson has overcooked it. There is a good chance he may well be facing a rebound over the next few days unless something knocks it out of the papers.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100028561/mandelson-labour-should-tell-the-truth-about-its-non-doms/
74.What in your mind makes you post against Ashcroft/Cameron in a way that you are not posting against Brown/Paul?
“Yes I did.”
Uhuh. I know what to do with your criticisms about what it says about Cameron as PM, then.
70 - True enough. But that does not make the Tories look any better or make their claims that they will clean up politics any less hollow.
Southam, I support the SNP, but I am open minded enough to see some of the strengths and weaknesses of all the leaders.
You said a few Cameron positives, would love to see a list. You will choke whilst writing it though!
77.So as regards party funding it’s a score draw. Fine. Move on then.
75 - you may well agree, and yet you never actually say it beyond such platitudes. For someone who claims to hate the general state of politics, and have no interest in Labour or the Lib Dems winning, you sure as heck seem to spend a disproportionate length of time repeating bunker lines and attacking the Tories. The more blatant this has become, the more your reputation as one of the better left-wing commentators on this site has been battered.
46 Stars and Stripes
Are you joking?
Amazing Pompey going to Wembley assuming they aren’t wound up beforehand.
79 - Let me refer you to the second leader in today’s Tory-leaning Times:
… while Michael Ashcroft is not a household name, he is nonetheless a very powerful political figure. He has influenced, financed and organised much of the current Conservative campaign. It is reasonable to expect that people who wield power in politics, and help to determine Britain’s tax regime, should be fully subject to that regime. Lord Ashcroft is not. He said he would become a permanent resident, then discreetly negotiated a new status as a long-term resident. He said one thing and did another.
The second, is that while Lord Ashcroft’s desire for privacy in his business affairs was an understandable response to the media scrutiny he faced ten years ago, this desire is not compatible with holding high political office in the Conservative Party.
Third, Michael Ashcroft has forced his party leader and William Hague, one of his best friends, to endure years of uncomfortable questions and, now, a calamitous scandal at a bad moment. He continues to require them to act as a human political shield for him. This is not what a friend does. If Mr Hague and David Cameron have only known Lord Ashcroft’s tax status for weeks, then for years he allowed them to defend him while knowing that the whole truth, when it finally emerged, would be very embarrassing to them. Again, this is not what a friend does.
Finally, the affair poses serious questions about Mr Cameron and Mr Hague. They were too weak to confront Lord Ashcroft and insist that he tell them his tax status. More disturbing still has been their reaction upon learning the truth. They have calculated that taking action would produce too much political turbulence. So, instead, they have have hunkered down, hoping the whole thing will go away. In other words, they have put political convenience ahead of principle.
Given that the way Mr Cameron governs his party provides the best insight into how he might govern the country, this is not encouraging.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7051889.ece
87.Why not just post the entire Times Newspaper, or perhaps if you start thinking for yourself.
84 - I have never claimed to be anything other than left of centre with a deep suspicion and dislike of the Tories. I am hoping that once they are in office they will surprise me and, if they do, I hope I am broad monded enough to admit it.
Still, giving ministerial and privy council status in exchange for money is fine for Labour, eh, SO?
“disparity of results across the Lancashire-Merseyside border”
That sort of talk won’t go down well in Southport, where the “M” word is not particularly well appreciated so far as I know.
And as a proud Lancastrian, I don’t like it either…
87 - You asked.
90 - Where did I say that?
87.Specifically what in YOUR view is the danger posed by Ashcroft to the future of our country? What in your view makes Ashcroft a more important topic, than the national debt, war in Afghanistan etc etc
Dispatches, Monday 8pm Channel 4
Political journalist Andrew Rawnsley interviews Conservative leader David Cameron, as well as his colleagues George Osborne, William Hague and Michael Gove. He finds out what policies the nation can expect in terms of taxes, wages, public services and unemployment if the party wins the forthcoming General Election, and gets an opposing perspective from Labour politician Peter Mandelson
Ashcroft means that Cameron is unfit to run the country, but you’ll happily vote for a party that gives such positions in exchange for cash. The implication is clear.
95.I think Rawnsley will be hard on the tories, he needs to mend fences with his Labour chums.
Southam, Nothing in the times article about other non doms, those that go to the Lords and claim expenses, even become Privy councillors, based on merit of course, so the usual drivel from quasi Trotskyites and frustrated schoolboys who have never grown up it seems.
If the Times was tory leaning, daft comment number 26 from you today I feel, they would have been more balanced and done what I mentioned above. They are biased in Scotland against the SNP in the same way they are against the Tories in England.
Sad truth is, the Times has given up the pretence of even being anything other than a wipe for my dog when he goes out on the beach.
96.Given his views on Iraq, 24 hours after Brown’s appearence before Chilcot, you would have thought he’d more concerned that Brown was still defending the conflict as ‘the right thing to do’. But no, let’s instead go after a Tory Lord, much better sport.
82 - I am struggling to come up with anything much in Cameron the politician that I admire. He is clearly an eloquent speaker and much more PR savvy than Brown. I am much more impressed by other individual Tories - people such as Gove, Willetts, Clarke and even Ian Duncan Smith, bless him.
23. Contact by party activists when there is no reason for contact is largely determined by the popularity (including indifference) of leader and brand. How many activists are going to volunteer to go canvassing on freezing grey wet day in Croyden when practically every voter is giving you verbal abuse? Not many, which the professors findings support. The activists of the party of government aren’t particularly willing to go canvassing because there getting to much abuse!
Thinker - at which “bog standard” comprehensive weren’t you taught English?
100.Had a think yet, on what dangers Ashcroft will present the country after a tory victory?
94 - My view is that the whole Ashcroft affair reveals a worrying gap in what David Cameron says and what he does. Given that he is going to PM in a few weeks time, that strikes me as being a very serious issue.
Southam, When you come up with something pro Cameron put it in CAPITALS, I normally do not like that but I have a gut feel many on this forum will be happy to make an exception just this once.
SO, if this was a bank funding the tories, your outrage would know no bounds, yet you fail to mention it. Strange that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7377307/Britains-biggest-union-takes-over-Labour-after-11m-donations.html
97. The fascinating thing about the programme is that the assault is being led by Mandy. To paraphrase Carol Voderman, the stench of hypocrisy is overpowering.
The man who had to resign from cabinet twice opines on judgement.
The man from Brussels opines on tax exiles.
The man parachuted into the Lords to save Gordo opines on unelected peers.
You couldn’t make it up!
southam, I have a compliment about Gordon Brown in return, HE GENUINELY CARES ABOUT HIS FAMILY AND HIS FRIENDS, IT IS JUST THE OTHER 61 MILLION IN THE UK HE DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT.
87 The Times is broadly neutral, but bitter about ashcroft due tobeing sued.
You are becoming as bad as Tim for the distortions I am afraid sotham.
103.So you can’t think of any dangers posed by Ashcroft, you just don’t like the spin being put on it by Cameron. Unbelievable.
100 - Southam, your posts regularly follow a certain routine – you constantly attack Cameron for one thing and another without mentioning any reference to other party leaders who are often worse offenders, when pushed, you reluctantly agree they’re all the same.
Your moral outrage would hold more water if you applied it equally and consistently from the outset. But you rarely do.
98 - A fine rant with very little substance. I hope it made you feel better.
Anyone like to suggest why Labour are so obsessed with how the Tories are funded?
Something to do with pots and piss?
the whole
AshcroftAfghanistan affair reveals a worrying gap in whatDavid CameronGordo says and what he does. Given that he isgoing toPMin a few weeks time, that strikes me as being a very serious issue.95 Rawnsley on ch4 odds of it not being a complete stitch up I would say at least 100-1
109 - Ashcroft himself is not the real issue: he is just another rich man who wants to get as much as he can for as little as possible. It is the judgement and credibility of our next PM and foreign secretary I am more concerned about
At least David Cameron would probably arm the troops properly.
Its all very well Gordon Brown flying in for a whistle-stop tour of the troops and showing support, but REAL support is shown in giving them the kit they need.
I bet you any money that if DC gets in, one of the first things he’ll do is order Humvies for British troops out there, instead of those stupid ‘Snatch Landrovers’ they drive around in.
David Cameron might be an old Etonian and upper class, but one thing those people always do is look after the armed forces.
How any government can continue to allow British troops to go out on patrol in inadequate vehicles is callous in the extreme.
112.When it comes to buying influence, I think the UNITE union can teach any individual tory a lesson in how it’s down, hell their male leader just got through an all woman shortlist.
southam, If I provide substance I genuinely fear it will rise above your level of political understanding.
I am no lover of Cameron, I think his views on Scotland are an abomination, but I can see positives in what he is trying to achieve for his party and many people in the country.
Whether it is all rhetoric we will find out soon.
97. Not necessarily so. If Lab will loses, then a whole load of the left-of-centre crowd will dump on Brown and his chums like a load of bricks.
Rawnsley will be one of the crowd, though he and others will probably encourage a Lab revival - once they clear out the dross that currently sits on the Front Bench and get themselves a decent and credible leader.
“It is the judgement and credibility of our next PM and foreign secretary I am more concerned about”
But, as we have established, examples of worse judgement and credibility by your favoured party don’t worry you to the same extent.
“….109 - Ashcroft himself is not the real issue: he is just another rich man who wants to get as much as he can for as little as possible….”
Now we are getting to the truth of the matter. You hate the fact he is rich and successful. Says more about you than him I’m afraid.
115.Ok since you can’t find anything wrog with Ashcroft the man, next please explain specifically what David Cameron has done wrong in this whole affair.
110 - I do not like the idea of a Tory government, so it is hardly a huge surprise that I mostly post about that. I don’t think I have ever posted about Clegg. My posts on Brown are usually negative. As PM, I think he is a pile of steaming turd.
103 My view is it reveals nothing of the sort.
114/119 - Priceless. This would be the same Andrew Rawnsley who on PB just two weeks ago was being hailed as brave and incisive. You couldn’t make it up.
120 - No: as you have decided, not as we have established.
121 - What a very silly thing to write and a very poor way to seek to close down an argument.
118 - Fear not, I will try to understand.
126 You’ve said you continue to vote for Labour. It’s quite clear.
125 Not by me he wasn’t
“Wibbler - at a local level you’ll see Toty candidates that haven’t had money from Ashcroft scrambling to tell their local paper, leaving a problem for those that have.”
Just as I predicted earlier in the week. You cannot buy this publicity at local level just before a GE. Thanks Lord Ashcroft and all your Labour and Libdem critics that graced our screens this week. Take a bow. Just remind all those constituencies up and down the country how hard the Conservatives are working to win their vote.
Southam, the Brown comment is too little too late, rather like Brown going to Afghanistan the timing is now off.
You have choice of Brown or Cameron, and you support Brown out of those two. Ergo you are a Brown supporter whether you admit it fully or add that he is a pile of excrement.
I cannot vote SNP where I am allowed to vote, so will vote Tory. That does not make me a Tory supporter, it just means that they are the best of a bad bunch. 4 out of ten, the libs 2 out of ten and brown off the scale. Your issue is you genuinely support labour and fail to accept that they can and on occasions have gone wrong.
SO, you are known by what you write on a board like this. Your total lack of objectivity is more and more apparent. You wrote what was quoted by me. I will leave it to stand by itself.
As for closing down an argument, I don’t want the argument to be closed down. I want the MSM to expend as much effort on the Lab Nom Doms as they did on Ashcroft. I want the MSM to expend as much energy highlighting the fact that Unite have bought the Labour party. Rather than close down the argument I would love to see it expanded.
Liam Fox MP, Shadow Defence secretary
BBC News/Sky News
Mr Fox has attacked the Prime Minister for using the British troops as “props” by visiting Afghanistan amid a row over whether he properly funded the Armed Forces after appearing before the Iraq Inquiry.
“It is quite right any prime minister should thank them [the troops]“, but “some in the Army will be very unhappy at being used as political props today.”
“Gordon Brown’s got form… for using our Armed Forces as political props. Many people will find it very cynical”.
He said Mr Brown had visited troops during the Conservative Party conference in 2007, after he had “bottled” an election.
The Shadow Defence Secretary added he throught Mr Brown’s defence of his actions as Chancellor “is not credible”.
“The Prime Minister was very careful with his words” by saying he had met specific funding requests, while avoiding mentioning that “the budget as a whole had been restricted”, said Mr Fox.
“This meant the Ministry of Defence was unable to order the future equipment they needed,” adding the problem now “is we are playing catchup”.
“When we get this sort of spin on something of this importance… [people will regard it] as cynicism at its worst.”
“This is not the way to treat the Armed Forces.”
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6301/fox_british_troops_being_used_as_political_props.html
122 - Well, for a start he has not sacked Lord Ashcroft as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
How any government can continue to allow British troops to go out on patrol in inadequate vehicles is callous in the extreme.
This Labour government is more likely to equip Labour-voting-benefit-recipients with personalised Humvees than provide Humvees to our troops (who are opposed by millions of Labour voters).
132.Instead of posting about Ashcroft, it would have been easier for him to have simple said “I don’t like David Cameron” everything else is just nonsense.
133 - In other words, you want the media to stop putting the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party under such scrutiny.
125. Q. When have I ever said that Rawnsley was brave and incisive?
Ans. Never.
He makes his living through political commentary and there’s fat wads to be made with insider exposes.
Mind you, any lefty who cares about how disfunctional the Lab movement has become, how it has surrendered itself without a fight to the megalomania of individuals determined to enact their own personal agendas and wants to return to democratic principles and practice, would probably applaud his actions.
135.Why would he sack Ashcroft, since even you cannot find anything wrong with him?
137 - Well, boo hoo. Fancy anyone not agreeing that David Cameron and the Tories are the best thing since sliced bread.
135
“Well, for a start he has not sacked Lord Ashcroft as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.”
And on that you would prefer Brown remain PM?
134 - Liam Fox speaking on behalf of the troops and using them as props there then.
Just sitting at Carrow Road waiting for the kick-off against Yeovil Town….
But this morning I went out canvassing in the key marginal in Great Yarmouth held by Labour’s Tony Wright.
In two hours I did not come across a single voter who would admit to voting Labour. And neither did my 7 colleagues.
There were a few “won’s says” but it doesn’t look good for the Red Team.
The thing that struck me the most was how determined the Tory vote was. And how nobody would admit to wanting to vote Labour.
Hung Parliament? I don’t think so.
Bunnco - your man on the spot
135
If only he appointed him to the Privy Council, then it would be okay.
145.LOL
142 - No I would like to see Brown out of office asap. The only down side to that is that it means the Tories taking over. In the same way, the only downside to the Tories not winning the next election is that Brown will still be PM.
Verulamius thanks very much for the information.
I have just found the legal basis for this in the Income Tax ACT 2007 which is referred to and amended in the 2009 Finance Act. The former says:
Chapter 1 Charges to income tax
4 Income tax an annual tax
(1) Income tax is charged for a year only if an Act so provides.
(2) A year for which income tax is charged is called a “tax year”.
Carlotta might read that act up.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2007/ukpga_20070003_en_3#pt2-ch1-l1g4
133 - In other words, you want the media to stop putting the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party under such scrutiny.
by Southam Observer March 6th, 2010 at 2:58 pm
No, as I thought was fairly easily understood, I want them to be fair, I am quite happy for them to compare and contrast. Do you have a problem with Lab personalities being put under such scrutiny?
off topic, Do assistant referees need weekly eyewear checks? That goal by Brum with the linesman in line as there had just been a corner was a shocker.
Time to interview him to ask what drugs he was on at the time, and send him down to the kiddy under 9 league.
What happens if that was in a World Cup quarter final, the mind boggles how FIFA think there is no need having discussed it in Switzerland today.
I think the English FA should say we are going with the technology and if you guys have your head up your backside in denial then so be it. English FA too big to argue with and today showed once again it was necessary.
149 - Who is the Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party and what has he/she done that would merit the attention now being focused on Lord Ashcroft?
141 Anyone criticizing the Conservatives on Ashcroft whilst remaining silent on the abuses committed by Labour vis-a-vis Mittal/Ecclestone reveals themselves as a vast hypocrite. Government policy was altered as a result of donations made to the Labour party.
Let us not forget that Lord Paul is a huge expenses trougher and claims money for a house he does not even live in.
Don, I told you he does not undertsand, you need to make it really simple.
149.Stop it now, you are making Southam feel like a Downing St secretary.
Are the Tories addressing the Islamic *problem* in the UK under the MSM’s radar?
It’s illuminating clicking on the BBC’s News RSS feed sometimes. The Ashcroft was at the top throughout the week, even though it never troubled the most popular story slot by the site’s own metrics. Today, Brown’s noble visit to Afghanistan is top, his evidence to Chilcott is third from bottom, out of 32 stories
95.ScottP, interestingly, I have seen a trailer for this programme already. And it only showed clips of opposition politicians like Mandelson slagging him off, make of that what you will.
Had family visiting today, my sister summed up the Ashcroft story perfectly. She said that when Labour wheeled out Mandelson of all people to attack him, she thought they were having a laugh and the it couldn’t be anything serious.
Oh, so it’s only Deputy Chairmen that this is unacceptable for. Righto.
149 - Who is the Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party and what has he/she done that would merit the attention now being focused on Lord Ashcroft?
by Southam Observer March 6th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
SO, you are being deliberately obtuse (at least I hope it is deliberate)so there is no point engaging with that pointless comment.
138 ; “133 - In other words, you want the media to stop putting the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party under such scrutiny.”
The media are not putting Aschroft under scrutiny but attempting to settle old scores.
The Daily Express hasn’t said much but it lost a libel action brought by Aschroft.
The Times has also (to the best of my recollection) lost a libel actin and has been highly vocal.
The Independent is currently on the receiving end of a libel actin and has been highly vocal.
The Guardian even resorted this morning to rehashing the details of the current libel action against the Independent in an attempt to wring yet more negative angles on Ashcroft (something which as far I could see from a quick scan of the website even the Indie didn’t do today).
So let’s have no more of this stuff about The Times say this and The Guardian say that. They all have massive axes to grind, grudges to settle and scabs to pick at. They are not fearless seekers after truth.
It is the perfect illustration of Stanley Baldwin’s judgment on the press; “What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages”
159 - I am surprised that you do not think the fact that Lord Ashcroft is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party is relevant to this debate. But perhaps it is just a very difficult thing to argue around.
32 “Saying that less soldiers would die and be injured under a Tory government is a major risk, is it not?”
It is possible that under Conservatives more soldiers would die as new threats emerge.
However, perhaps we can all agree that fewer soldiers would die and be injured because of Defence Cuts
(or lack of political will, support and lack of regard for their lives)
Afterall, while no Labour MP has ever served in the Armed Forces, there are plenty of Conservative MPs that have.
As with all politicians, one has to view everything they do with a certain amount of cynicism. The timing of Brown’s Afghanistan visit os a perfect example.
The Jon Venables arrest is also another prime example. I wonder how long it is since he was taken into custody and whether the announcement of his arrest was timed to counter the expected positive MSM coverage of Caneron speech earlier this week. There was never any real need to make his arrest public at all, at least until they had decided how it was going to be handled.
By releasing the information, Labour now have another few days of media smokescreen coverage up their sleeves, to unleash at a time of their choosing.
If the newspapaers become overly obsessed with attack on BROWN’s under-funding of defence, then an announcement by Jack Straw that Venables will stand trial in open court and release of the details of which he is accused, will take over the front pages for several days.
160 - And of course saying that means you do not have to engage with the points that the newspapers raise. When did Lord Ashcroft sue The Economist?
161 SO, you have gone from obtuse, to stupid. Don’t sink any lower there’s a good chap.
156.A Brown visit to Afghanistan makes the top of the news, but a soldier dying for their country doesn’t anymore.
From BBC frontpage.
“PM visits soldiers in Afghanistan
Gordon Brown visits British troops in Afghanistan amid a growing row over his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry.
James Landale on Afghan trip
Brown’s claims ‘disingenuous’
UK soldier killed in Afghanistan”
They even put their political journalist visiting with Brown above that news.
“Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Avatar’ Sketch Pulled From Oscar Show”
Comedian Ben Stiller would have appeared in the sketch with Cohen “translating” what Cohen was saying in Na’vi, the language developed for the “Avatar” movie.
http://www.wibw.com/nationalnews/headlines/86652917.html
Too bad…
If Islam means a Christian bloke gets 25 years in jail in Pakistan as he touched a Koran without washing his hands then it is more than a problem. These guys have nuclear weapons for goodness sake.
As for wahabiism and the house of Saud do not get me started.
Giving a woman recently 300 lashes and 18 months in jail when she claimed harassment to authorities sums up their approach to equality.
There are probably many aspects in islam which are fair and reasonable.
I know judaism better, having been kicked out of my jewish girlfriend’s house at the time when dad who i had avoided for some months found out I was not of the same faith. (At 11 at night, at his house after a few beers.)
But in islam it seems worse, the law and respect of other religions, and even allowing others to show their religion, are an area it fails dismally.
I think the lack of tolerance to homosexuals is appalling. Mandy would not last a week in Karachi without a sword in the khyber pass.
162 - Defence cuts work in many ways. You could, for example, cut certain items that would then lead an enemy to undertake an attack - as happened in 1982 with the Falklands.
149. Deputy Leader is Harriet Harman and GB himself admitted that she had broken the rules (law?) on accepting illegal donations during the leadership election.
Whereas Ashcroft doesn’t seem to have broken any rules SFAICS.
165 - That is a very poor effort I am afraid. More Jim Davison than Oscar Wilde.
Casual observer, I specifically said that had the troops been equipped to the standard of foreign troops with superior equipment they would have stood a better chance.
That would be hard to argue with.
One lot uses a “jeep” that does not blow up in bits when an IED hits it, the other one does.
170. “Whereas Ashcroft doesn’t seem to have broken any rules SFAICS.”
Only his word.
SO, today could be your MalcolmG day. The day everybody got to see the real you.
Something for you to mull over perhaps?
170 - Of course, if Lord Ashcroft were deputy leader of the Conservative party that would make all this even more serious.
Don, I just knew he would struggle with the word obtuse……
76 timmo were you canvassing for the Lib Dems?
173. Tripe. Unless you are suggesting that the two rulings this weeks were made by Ashcroft glove-puppets.
174 - I think everyone on here knows that I am no fan of David Cameron and the Tories.
Drove by a Tory poster in Aston in Birmingham last night. Not fertile Tory ground I would have thought. Have also been received regular correspondence from the three Tory councillors for Erdington.
169 Yes, cuts forced by a profligate Labour government.
Are you really going with the conspiracy theory that Thatcher wanted the argentines to invade the Falklands.
It explains a lot if you really think that.
176 - It gets worse
173 no he hasn’t.
Dear Lord, are people STILL rambling on about Ashcroft?
Log off the computer and go for a nice walk. Get some perspective folks.
Glorious Leader in Tesco Magazine
http://www.tesco.com/todayattesco/lifestyle_and_fashion/celeb_1003_gordon_brown.shtml
Mike where you live are many Lib/Dems going to vote Labour?
As 40% would like Cameron over Brown as leader, I think there is more chance of them voting Tory, than the old Libs voting Labour.
He doesn’t use his children for props
178. “Unless you are suggesting that the two rulings this weeks were made by Ashcroft glove-puppets.”
Explain? As far as I can see, the Electoral Commission ruling had nothing to do with whether he had broken his word?
181 - No, I am not saying that. I would have thought it was the last thing that she wanted. But the cuts she authorised emboldened the Argentine regime.
Southam Observer, the basis of the distinction that you are suggesting - that only UK-domiciled individuals could hold a party office - would seem to represent indirect racial discrimination. Or is your objection something different?
185.wibbler, tears for Piers, and now Fiona at home with the Brown’s? Do the Browns have any friends that can not be called onto to interview them or provide a nice vehicle for a puff article?
189 Yes, cuts forced on her by a financially incontinent labour government.
What I don’t get is that you know this is the case but it ignored. If you don’t take all the facts into account in an argument then saying it is your opinion doesn’t make it a valid argument. This was Blair’s tactic in Iraq, basically “I believe I am right despite all evidence to the contrary and thats that” doesn’t make you right.
190 - If you hold party or elected office you should be completely transparent about your tax status, that is what I am saying.
190. “Southam Observer, the basis of the distinction that you are suggesting - that only UK-domiciled individuals could hold a party office - would seem to represent indirect racial discrimination.”
How? Is a residential requirement for participation in local elections “indirect racial discrimination”?
What you’re describing is only discrimination against people who have already eaten a cake, and want to consume it again.
My family will never be props….. Yet another porkie from the king of today.
191 ChristinaD
I am going to shop at Asda instead for the next month in protest at that article.
192 - Are you saying Mrs T had no say in the matter? That there was literally no other options open to her? Come off it. There are always choices to be made and she made a bad one.
196.wibbler,
Well we now know why the Brown’s were so fond of the GMTV sofa of a morning.
“Glorious Leader in Tesco Magazine”
It’s suddenly dawned on me. Our glorious leader does in fact look like a leader - of the USSR!
193.Or perhaps declare loans you’ve received, that might impact on the mortgage you’ve applied for, especially if you are heading a Department investigating a company connected with the man who gave you the loan….But Lord Mandelson is a man of principle, not worthy of Southam’s attention.
You really don’t observe much Southam.
188. This isn’t about his ‘word’.
Nobody in their right mind ever accepts the word of anyone involved in politics, this is about rules and possibly breaches of the law - something Lab were certain they could use to nail Ashcroft to the woodwork.
But he hasn’t broken any rules, so now they whine about ‘his word’ when, given all the brou-haha about domiciled, long-term residency and the rest, nobody seems certain what ‘his word’ actually entailed. And until any 10 year-old documentation making clear exactly what he agreed to, with his signature on the bottom is released, then I’m afraid you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Nick Clegg has given his strongest hint yet that he will join forces with David Cameron if the election results in a hung Parliament, by saying that his predecessors were “left at the altar” by Labour.
The Liberal Democrat leader revealed Paddy Ashdown recently warned him “Just don’t go anywhere near them again”, referring to the way Tony Blair flagged up the prospect of a Lib-Lab pact in the run-up to the 1997 election, only to renege on any deal following victory.
Previously tight-lipped when discussing future coalitions with Labour or the Conservatives, Mr Clegg used uncharacteristically colourful language to decry the way Labour behaved towards his party in 1997.
“I’ve looked very carefully at my predecessors,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Look at how Ming got led up the garden path. Look at the way Paddy was left at the altar. I’ve spoken to people. Paddy is vociferous about it. He says, ‘Just don’t go anywhere near them again. It might have made sense then, but don’t [do it].’”
He added: “It was a conspiracy of Blair’s mendacity and Brown’s obduracy.”
The narrowing of the Tory lead over Labour has reignited speculation that the election, expected on 6 May, could result in a hung Parliament, with Mr Clegg lined up as a possible king-maker.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk…r-1891763.html
I do not think the Lib/Dems will go with Brown, NOTE this posting was a few weeks ago.Sunday, 7 February 2010
160. Baldwin was quoting Kipling…but I do enjoy the riposte ‘There goes the tarts’ vote!’
I think the issue with Cameron/Ashcroft is we are being asked to ‘VOTE FOR CHANGE’….when in fact some aspects of it look suspiciously similar…..’They all do it’ is not a defence if your promise is ‘Change’
190 antifrank - so Tory policy on sitting in the legislature is “indirect racial discrimination”.
‘Domicile’ has got nothing to do with race - and a lot to do with tax. Ashcroft’s ‘Domicile of Origin’ is the UK (he was born here, of a British father). He later acquired a ‘Domicile of Choice’ in Belize….because ‘Belize is where his heart is’…..
This is Fiona Phillips who declared her eternal love for Alan Johnson at the Labour party conference, for God’s sakes.
Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.
188 What I want to know is why there were different rules for Ashcroft being given a seat in the HoL and for Lord Paul. Why did Ashcroft have to give assurances that Paul never had to? Surely the system is flawed is one person has to give assurances the other doesn’t have to give.
Also Ashcroft never said he would be permanently domiciled for tax purposes in the UK. At the end of all of this, he pays UK taxes on UK income, doesn’t claim expenses and is willing to become fully domiciled if the Tories win in May. The same cannot be said of Lord Paul who has said he will give up his peerage after the next election because he cares more about money than the state of this country.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7205976/Lord-Paul-considers-quitting-Lords-over-tax-exile-rules.html
Anybody read this? I wonder if Toenails typed it one-handed:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2010/03/who_would_have.html
This has probably already been posted, but I think today’s article by Matthew Parris has the best analysis I’ve read for some time of why the Tories aren’t doing better:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7051875.ece
“Perhaps it’s irrelevant whether Steve or Andy should be in charge, whether the two Georges should knock heads together, or whether Dave should drink more tea with the Tory parliamentary infantry. Perhaps all this fretting is a consequence, not a cause. Perhaps the cause is the electorate. Perhaps they’re just not up for it. [...]
From the Luddite public service trades unions, to the nervous lower middle classes, to the smugly well-heeled Centre Left, there’s a state of denial in our politics this spring. [...]
Gordon Brown has become our 2 + 2 = 5 Prime Minister. We know it isn’t true, his Chancellor knows it isn’t true, and what Mr Brown knows is anybody’s guess. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work within the mayfly time frame of an oncoming general election. If it does, democracy will have been used as a means of abdicating responsibility; an abdication, in the end, of democracy itself. Our fate will be turned over to unelected international bankers, as surely as Greek voters will find that Berlin and Brussels, not Athens, are where their future is settled. “
200. “This isn’t about his ‘word’.
Nobody in their right mind ever accepts the word of anyone involved in politics, this is about rules and possibly breaches of the law”
If this was never about his word, why was he ever called on to give such an undertaking?
Bob if you sin up to post on Lib/Dem sites you will get the, !!!!
Anyone got any tips for ridding oneself of an annoying pen pal?
I keep getting letters, almost weekly now, from a chap called Nick from London (seems to live in the Cowley St area), railing about bent politicians, bankers’ excesses, NHS cutbacks, the nasty Tory Party which won’t offer real change, the useless Gordon Brown (in fact, every letter seems to enclose a leaflet with a picture of Gordon with his head in his hands). Now he seems obsessed with horse racing, every letter or leaflet going on about two horse races (I’m not into racing, but surely you want to see a few more runners than that?) and how only the apparently heavily backed “Lib Dem” runner can beat the Labour favourite.
I’d just got used to spotting the yellow borders on his leaflets and letters and sticking them straight into the bin. Now he’s changed his colour scheme to turquoise or blue to try and catch me out.
He seems a very irritating chap, with a really bad hairdo as well. How can I make him get lost?
by Bob Sykes March 6th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
john, The article from early Feb is totally out of date as the libs and labour have had secret talks on forming a coalition recently. Clegg and the gang could not stop themselves.
207. You will need to be able to prove exactly what this ‘undertaking’ was.
Can you?
197 Seriously you believe Thatcher provoked the Falklands conflict, Suppose she had lost which she very nearly did. If you believe this then frankly you are a bit daft.
207.Have you any evidence to doubt his word? Or are you just smearing?
Good luck with those 20 seats the snp are going to take.
204 - Lord Ashcroft is Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. It is awfully good of him to say that he will start paying UK tax on all his earnings if they win the next election.
If this was never about his word, why was he ever called on to give such an undertaking?
by James Kelly March 6th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
That question has already been asked. Why was he singled out?
James, His word is as vague as the deals on expenses, probably done on a handshake as they all do it that way.
O/T now worked my way through the second episode of Edge of Darkness. Looks really good.
Quite amazed at the number of familiar faces popping up. I couldn’t quite place for a split second who Craven’s daughter’s boyfriend was - Captain Darling.
Am alternating it with Monarch of the Glen (just LOVE the music from that show) to avoid burn in on my plasma. Something of a contrast.
209, during the Lisbon nonsense Clegg was being led by his party. The same may be true regarding the prospect of a coalition with Labour.
If he goes into a debate and attacks the Opposition, not the Government, it’ll strongly reinforce the Vote Yellow Get Brown theme, and drive away anti-Labour floating voters.
211 - Re: Falklands, don’t forget, Lord Carrington resigned over what he considered his mistake.
200 b. The letter to Hague is in the public domain. In it he said he would become a ‘permanent resident’. A reasonable interpretation of this is ‘domiciled’ (see this week’s Economist).
In subsequent discussion with the HoL Scrutiny Ctte this was finessed to ‘long term’ - to which the Conservatives and HoL Scrutiny agreed - this could be ‘domiciled’ or ‘non-domiciled’. Hague also wrote saying Ashcroft would be paying ‘millions in tax’ - as a resident it is possible he has, though being non-dom means he will have paid less than if he were dom.
Ashcroft has fulfilled his commitments.
The charge against Hague and Cameron is that they have not been ‘transparent’ (unlike Labour - Lord Paul has been an ‘out’ non-dom), and that they have handled the whole mess poorly.
SO you do know the history between The Times and Ashcroft, don’t you?
These leading articles seem to me to be carefully vetted poison pen revenge from a sore loser. Certain ‘political’ correspondents on that paper are also still sore from where they fell off their high horse.
210. And are you suggesting there was no undertaking? I’d suggest that’s what you’d have to establish to back up your contention that his ‘word’ is literally an irrelevance here.
213.He pays tax on all UK earnings now, do try and keep up. The proposition is that he pays UK tax on profits which have already been taxed in another country.
People who are not domiciled in the UK are disproportionately likely to be of, for example, non-white English origin. Perhaps some of those on the left frothing about Lord Ashcroft might care to reflect on whether they really wish to restrict diversity in political party appointments in this way. Even the manager of the England football team seems able to do his job while being of foreign extraction. I imagine that Fabio Capello has exactly the same tax status as Lord Ashcroft.
john, The article from early Feb is totally out of date as the libs and labour have had secret talks on forming a coalition recently. Clegg and the gang could not stop themselves.
by redcliffe62 March 6th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
So I posted something that we know is true, and this new story is from a mate at the pub !!!!
213 So why hasn’t Lord Paul (a member or the Privy Council) given the same assurance that he would become domiciled in the UK for tax purposes if Labour won the election? Surely he should make clear tat he supports this country and his party like Ashcroft has.
One rule for us another for everyone else. This is exactly what we have come to expect from Labour.
This is tedious, at least the dog is pleased, she is about to get a walk. See you all on the next thread. Bye.
210 - William Hague unequivocally stated that Ashcroft’s undertaking wuld cost him tens of millions of pounds. Ashcroft never sought to put Hague right on that - at least not publicly. And Hague never sought to correct that statement, even though he has known Lord Ashcoft’s real tax status for a few months now.
219, if he’s resident then he’s fulfilled his promise.
Furthermore, why are you annoyed Ashcroft is a non-dom but not bothered that Lord Paul is?
Ad for Labour transparency, why did the FoI regarding Ashcroft, submitted by a Labour MP I think, succeed whereas the FoI regarding the Cabinet minutes for the Iraq discussion were suppressed by the Justice [ha] Secretary?
212. “Have you any evidence to doubt his word? Or are you just smearing?
Good luck with those 20 seats the snp are going to take.”
Ah, Chris, always such a delight. What, you mean like your smear when you claimed that the SNP had somehow reneged on a pledge to hold a referendum at a time when they weren’t actually in power? That would take some beating.
223 - Fabio Capello is not Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
john, read the whole thread, it is in the media, oborne spilt the beans.
228 - Lord Paul is not Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party and has been completely open about his tax status.
221. Unfortunately (for you) I am not suggesting there was no undertaking.
But there are undertakings and then there are undertakings - it depends how specific one wants to be, how much one is willing to have one’s hands tied.
And then there are the verbal ‘understandings’ that usually accompany such undertakings - well, as Sam Goldwyn once observed “Verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”
IMO Ashcroft is much too smart not to have left himself wriggle-room. He’d be a fool not to, the Tory party is, after all, only of minor consideration to someone in his position.
229.They weren’t in power because their proposals failed to win over Scots then, as I’m sure it will now. Like I said, I don’t follow local politics, but I watched Mr Salmond earlier and he seemed convinced 20 seats was the realistic ambition. So we now have the measure on whether the snp will have had a ‘good’ election in Northern Britain.
225. Max - because, at that time, Ashcroft was spending a lot of time outside the UK - so the Scrutiny Panel (not the Labour Govt) asked ‘why make him a Peer if he’s never here’. That is where the commitment to become a ‘permanent resident’ came from.
You are also being ungenerous to Ashcroft - he has not attached any conditionality to becoming Dom - he has said that he foresees sitting in the Lords for some considerable time - allowing you to draw the inference that he will become dom when the ban on non-doms goes through.
Presumably the question was not asked of Lord Paul because he’d lived in London for 30 years when enobled.
230, nor a privy councillor. Nor a cactus arsonist.
Anyway, I’m off to do something interesting rather than listening to more whinging lefties crying about something nobody gives a damn about.
232.People should read that post, the next time they contrast favvourably Southam with tim.
206 — Precisely.
Yet the Brits are not a people who’ll reject self-responsibility, aren’t they?!
That’s one of the reason I’m still confident in a Tory Overall Maj. Punters shall not underestimate the sagacity of the British people., methinks.
230 - to any sane person, Fabio Capello holds a far more important job. What is the significance that you attach to a private party appointment? The Conservative party is not yet a branch of the state (thank goodness).
234. “I don’t follow local politics”
In that case, leave it to the - if I may say - experts, and stop making - if I may say - such a complete piffling fool of yourself on the subject.
237 - Oh Chris, that moral high horse is very high and it hurts when you fall off. Ask David Cameron.
240.Wise words, I trust you’ll be following your own advice.
Fat chance.
<NEVER MIND ABOUT ASHCROFT, LOOK WHAT A DISASTER MRS KELLNER IS
Who earns more, Hillary Clinton or Baroness Nobody? Cathy Ashton… even though she’s the laughing stock of the EU
By ANDREW PIERCE
Last updated at 2:14 AM on 06th March 2010
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To Britain’s humiliation, the woman no one had ever heard of when she was made EU Foreign Minister is an even greater disaster than her critics feared. But on £328,000 a year, why should SHE worry?
When money doesn’t talk: EU High Representative Baroness Ashton is the highest-paid female politician in the world
Here’s a teaser for students of modern politics. Who do you think is the highest-paid female politician in the world? Hillary Clinton, perhaps? Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany? Heaven forbid, could it even be the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman?
No to all three. The answer is an obscure Labour quangocrat, recently enshrined as the EU’s first High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. For these duties, Baroness Ashton is rewarded with a salary package of £328,000.
That is more than Gordon Brown, or President Sarkozy of France. Indeed, it is more even than the £260,000 salary of Barack Obama, the most powerful man on Earth. This, even though she has never once stood for elected office.
Yet after only 100 days in the job as the EU’s top diplomat, the consensus on 53-year-old Cathy Ashton is that she is also one of the worst politicians on the international stage.
There have been so many gaffes in such a short space of time that there are now serious questions over whether she can survive to the end of the year - let alone until 2014, when her lucrative contract is due to expire. The biggest grouping of MEPs, the centre-right European People’s Party, is already talking openly about forcing her out.
Yesterday, it emerged that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had written to her giving her blunt advice on how to do the job properly. The leak could not have been more damaging, as Miliband was actually the EU’s first choice for the job but he rejected it.
A friend of Miliband denied that the letter - warning that Baroness Ashton risked losing a Brussels power struggle over the size of her vast civil service empire - was trying to undermine her. ‘David thought it was helpful to put down a few points,’ he said.
Yet despite the Foreign Secretary’s protestations, the intervention is being taken as a clear indication of British concern over Baroness Ashton’s incompetence and lack of authority.
She was given the job after a classic EU stitch-up with the 27 heads of government, even though she is pretty clueless about foreign affairs and can barely string a sentence together in French.
A league of her own: Baroness Ashton’s salary of £328,000 is greater than that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Supporters of Gordon Brown are adamant he put her forward only because the European Commission wanted women candidates.
But why, then, would the Commission have tried to headhunt Miliband for the job? And why did Downing Street block both Lord Mandelson and Geoff Hoon, the former Europe minister, who were also keen on the post?
Is the real reason that, while Brown could not possibly have let Milliband and Mandelson go, he wouldn’t miss a non-entity like Ashton? Her gender, her Left-wing beliefs and an unwillingness to rock the boat also suited the Commission. And since she was such a political minnow, it was presumed there was also no prospect of her upstaging the EU’s leaders.
Family affair: EU Foreign Ministers pose for a picture following the first work session of the Informal Meeting of EU Foreign Ministers at the Viana Palace in Cordoba, southern Spain this year (Baroness Ashton, centre, front)
As one leading MEP puts it: ‘Last year, she was unknown in Britain. Today, she is unknown all over Europe.’
Yet the peer, who is planning to use an appearance at the European Parliament next week to confront her critics, can take comfort from the fact she is riding the gravy train for all it’s worth.
Her basic pay of £250,000 is double that of her U.S. counterpart, Hillary Clinton (who’s on £124,000). And on top of that, Lady Ashton is entitled to a raft of benefits including a £38,000 yearly accommodation allowance, £10,000 annual entertainment budget, two chauffeurs, and thousands of pounds more in allowances.
Last year, she was unknown in Britain. Today, she is unknown all over Europe
If - and it is a very big if - she survives her five-year term, there will be a gold-plated £64,000 pension and a £464,000 golden handshake.
The personal benefits are only the beginning of the cost to the taxpayer of Baroness Ashton’s new empire. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will be lavished on a new Brussels HQ.
But that is small change compared with the estimated £43billion cost of the 5,000-strong team of civil servants in the newly formed European External Action Service, which has been set up to serve her.
The unelected and unaccountable European Commission has thrown money at Baroness Ashton in a desperate attempt to make the appointment work. But still her name barely resonates in Brussels despite serving as EU Trade Commissioner for more than 12 months before she took the new post.
In fact, she is so anonymous that security guards reportedly asked for her ID when she tried to enter the EU building during the summit of the 27 leaders which appointed her.
While there was talk of attracting heavy hitters who could ’stop the traffic’ in capitals such as Washington and Tokyo, in Lady Ashton the EU has a politician who would ’struggle to hail a cab’, according to the latest joke at Brussels.
What’s more, after 100 days in office, Baroness Ashton has had to deny reports that she refuses to take phone calls after 8pm and always returns to Britain on Fridays to be with her family.
Baroness Ashton even earns more than Barack Obama , the most powerful man on Earth, who is on £260,000
The most serious blunder was her absence at last week’s meeting in Majorca of EU defence ministers and Nato officials. It was their first joint meeting since she became head of European security policy.
While Anders Fogh-Rasmussen, the Nato chief, was there, Lady Ashton conspicuously went instead to Kiev to attend the inauguration of the new pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich.
It was a serious mistake and underlined the widespread misgivings about putting someone in charge of security policy who had been treasurer of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the Eighties and was recorded by MI5 as a ‘communist sympathiser’. She was publicly chided by French, Dutch and Spanish defence ministers for failing to attend the meeting.
Then there was her decision to visit her husband and five children and stepchildren at home in St Albans, Hertfordshire, on the day that Hillary Clinton arrived in Haiti to see the earthquake relief effort.
It was only this week, two months after the disaster which claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people, that Lady Ashton finally made it to Port-au-Prince to see how the £380million of EU aid is being spent.
The Left-leaning French newspaper Liberation expressed outrage at Lady Ashton’s priorities. ‘It smacks of amateurism, even incompetence,’ the paper wrote.
In her first public meeting with MEPs as High Representative, she underlined her inexperience. ‘This is brand new. I inherited a blank piece of paper and at the moment I have written one or two small things on it,’ she said.
Another embarrassing admission of her ignorance of her brief came when asked what she thought of calls for the EU to replace the UK and France in the United Nations Security Council. To gasps, she replied: ‘I don’t know.’ The issue had ‘not even crossed over into my thinking’, she said. ‘You’ve caught me out.’
But then her promotion owed nothing to her political stature but was all about the rise of politically correct mediocrities from Labour’s bloated £90billion quangocracy.
Only ten years ago, Cathy Ashton was an unknown running Hertfordshire Health Authority and the National Council for One-Parent Families. It was Tony Blair who plucked her from obscurity in 1999 when he made her a working peer.
She had been introduced to the Labour high command by her husband, Peter Kellner, a founder of the influential YouGov polling organisation.
After being appointed to a few middle-ranking ministerial posts, even Labour loyalists were astonished when she became Leader of the House of Lords in 2007 with a seat at the Cabinet.
Ashton is more suited to run a parish council than a major European institution
Having never faced any voters, it is little surprise her main achievement - apart from winning Politician Of The Year in 2006 from gay rights group Stonewall - was to steer through the Lisbon Treaty, which created her current job, without allowing British voters a say in a referendum as the three main parties had promised.
While few peers actively disliked her, one fellow Labour baroness said: ‘She has no grounding in politics, came from nowhere, and has never been elected to anything.
‘She is more suited to run a parish council than a major European institution.’
In a cutting aside, the peer added that Baroness Ashton ‘wears terrible clothes. She looks like she shops at Oxfam’.
Barred from her job by Gordon Brown, Lord Mandelson has not even attempted to conceal his disdain. A friend of Mandelson said: ‘He is not a fan, I know. She’s been awful. And they know it at Downing Street, but Gordon isn’t interested as he has more important things to worry about.’
Asked whether he believed that some of the criticism of Lady Ashton was sexist, he said: ‘I’m sorry, but appearances are important. She does not exactly do a good painting, does she?’
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had written to Baroness Ashton giving her blunt advice on how to do the job properly
A lone voice of support has come from Margaret Beckett, who as Britain’s first woman Foreign Secretary was regularly criticised over her dress sense. ‘Cathy has not been exposed to the personal nastiness you can get in politics,’ she said.
‘The House of Lords, where Cathy came from, is a far more sheltered environment than the Commons. But she is a tough, no-nonsense woman so will deal with this. She has to.’
But Stephen Booth, from Open Europe think-tank, said: ‘No one in the UK voted for the creation of an EU Foreign Minister and no one across the EU has ever voted for Catherine Ashton. She is a complete lightweight.’
While the Conservative Party leadership has refrained from public criticism, the Right-wing European People’s Party (EPP) is threatening to move against her.
The official spokesman for Joseph Daul, the French chairman of the EPP, said: ‘We expect a lot from the position of High Representative. So far, she has not met that level of expectation. We are not trying to destroy her but want an improvement in her work.’
Challenged whether they would remove her, the spokesman said: ‘It’s not right to assume she is there for five years. She can be removed. Something must change.’
Indeed, one thing already has. Normally, EU commissioners have a spokesman and a press officer, but Lady Ashton is bolstered by a media team of five, including a deputy spokesman and a media strategy coordinator.
This weekend, her PR team will be working to try to restore her tarnished image. They certainly have their work cut out - particularly since everyone knows that she was Britain’s fourth choice for the post.
A science-fiction fan, Lady Ashton has a life-size Dalek in the front room of her home in St Albans. It was a gift from her husband. She could be forgiven, as she looks back on the debris of her first 100 days, for wishing he had bought her a Tardis instead.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255840/How-Cathy-Ashton-laughing-stock-EU.html#ixzz0hPcLbpVz
232 Lord Paul is a member of the Labour Party, on the Privy Council and has exactly the same tax status as Lord Ashcroft. Ashcroft has given his party a vote of confidence by promising to become domiciled in the UK for tax purposes should they win. Lord Paul is hesitating and will probably relinquish his place in the HoL regardless of who wins the election. Paul is declaring tat a few million pounds in taxes is too high a price to pay to serve this country.
So again, is it one rule for Labour and another rule for everyone else?
If it isn’t then please explain is Ashcroft subject to a different set of rules than Lord Paul.
228. Yes, Ashcroft has fulfilled his (confidential) promise to the HoL Scrutiny Ctte.
However, he has left Hague to dangle in the wind for 10 years by not being explicit about his domicile, which might be read as in conflict with Hague’s public pronouncements.
Ashcroft has played a canny hand, but I doubt part of the job description of the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party is to make the Shadow Foreign Secretary look a fool….
239 - As far as I am aware, Fabio Capello does not aspire to govern the United Kingdom. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I believe that the Conservative Party does have that aspiration. That strikes me as a crucial difference.
William Hague unequivocally stated that Ashcroft’s undertaking wuld cost him tens of millions of pounds.
by Southam Observer March 6th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
How do you know it hasn’t?
You don’t, but secure in the knowledge that no-one does you and the other smearers see it as a good tactic. Dishonest, but good.
242.Your moral compass is all over the shop. You are seriously posting about the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. McBride, Mandelson not to mention 3 labour MPs who face criminal charges for heavens sake man.
Get some perspective.
424. “Wise words, I trust you’ll be following your own advice.”
Absolutely, I recall making no comment whatever on the topic of the Bedford mayoral race a few months ago.
“Fat chance.”
Is that like the sort of chance Lord Ashcroft had to have his cake and eat it?
Just went to the Guardian site online and stuck in Lord Ashcroft’s name. About 50 articles in the last week alone, that is bordering on an obsession.
BIG YAWN - ASHCROFT AGAIN!
Change the record ffs, bye !
6 - “More importantly, Cameron has started firing again. His speech this morning was very good.
And Brown’s Afghanistan trip will really hurt him if the cynicism charge sticks - which it easily could, and definitely should.”
Yes, I was very impressed with his speech this morning. Absolutely nailed Labour on spending for a start.
Sky this morning were openly taking the p*ss out of Gordo the clown for this shallow stunt, they also said he was running away from the generals in the Uk who were less than impressed with him yesterday.
Nice of him to remind everyone what a shallow manipulative chump he really is. Tears for Piers? Forgotten.
Anyone got any good tips? Preferably better than Cloudy Lane in the Donny race
Having a bet is infinitely preferable to discussing Lord bloody Ashcroft.
250. “About 50 articles in the last week alone, that is bordering on an obsession.”
So all they need to do is quadruple it and they’ll be getting dangerously close to rivalling the Mail on ‘asylum seekers’, ‘house prices’, ‘Diana’ and ‘cellulite’.
Yes, Ashcroft has fulfilled his (confidential) promise to the HoL Scrutiny Ctte.
However, he has left Hague to dangle in the wind for 10 years by not being explicit about his domicile, which might be read as in conflict with Hague’s public pronouncements.
by CarlottaVance March 6th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Now is it me or is this downright crackers as an argument. How can he have left Hague dangling when he met his commitments and Hague has always said he was assured he had.
I don’t ever remember Hague getting into tax law in regard residency. Perhaps you could give me a reference?
No, I thought not.
So you can’t get Hague or Ashcroft using the truth so there is only one option left, isn’t there? And you are desperate enough to use it.
You are making yourself look as ridiculous as MandyPandy now.
244 - As far as I am aware Lord Paul is not the Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party and has never been anything other than completely transparent about his tax status.
Ashcroft. Oh my god. Ashcroft. Again.
STOP BANGING ON ABOUT THIS TEDIOUS BOLLOCKS YOU DRIBBLING LEFTY BABOONS.
Even the Guardian has abandoned this hopeless cause, as it watched its sales plunge to 3 a day, and two of them to Gabble.
ASHCROFT IS BORING. NO ONE CARES.
Next.
84 - I have never claimed to be anything other than left of centre with a deep suspicion and dislike of the Tories. I am hoping that once they are in office they will surprise me and, if they do, I hope I am broad minded enough to admit it.
by Southam Observer March 6th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
You do not sound the type of Guy that could do that !!!!
249.I thought the only reason you didn’t comment was because you were being beguiled by, let me see…ah yes quote “the knowing looks of Diane Abbott” But 20 seats is the snp thought on this election, so I’ll just wait and see, it’s not a majority of seats of course, but it’ll keep Mr Salmond in his nice office for a bit longer.
What is the point of having a cake, especially if you have made enough money by your own efforts to purchase the ingrediants, if not to eat it?
244. When Lord Paul was enobled he’d been based in London for 30 years - so presumably they didn’t think it necessary to ask him if he lived here ‘permanently’. When Lord Ashcroft was first nominated he spent little time in the UK - so how could he attend the Lords? Hence the request that he commit to live here - which he made, and has honoured, but via a form of words (in the public domain) that left his domicile status opaque.
Its nothing to do with ‘one law for Labour, another for the Tories’ and everything to do with ‘do you live here or not?’
And again, AFAIK, Ashcroft has NOT attached any conditionality (Tory win) on becoming domiciled - he’s implied he’ll do it when it becomes law.
255 - If you refer to Peter Mandelson as MandyPandy I am not sure you are in the best position to tell people they are making themselves look ridiculous.
30 - glad to hear that tim, I raise you Brown and Balls just for starters.
Game over
246 Neither does ashcroft
255 – “Now is it me or is this downright crackers as an argument”
Its just desperation – once Ashcroft was cleared by the EC, the story fell apart. Some just find it more difficult to let go.
243
And Gordon abandoned the campaign for a financial post for a Briton to get an EU Foriegn Ministership.
Turns out he doesn’t even care that she’s going down the Suwannee
257 - Move along, nothing to see here, no fuss, no nonsense, everything is tickety boo.
Re: 243… Cathy Ashton Cathy Ashton Cathy Ashton Cathy Ashton.
256 Clear about his tax status as a non-dom (which I think is fine, really. It’s the double standards and hypocrisy of Labour supporters I hate). The same status as Lord Ashcroft. If anything Lord Paul, as a member of the Privy Council, has a much larger say in policy despite being a non-dom.
259. “I thought the only reason you didn’t comment was because you were being beguiled by, let me see…ah yes quote “the knowing looks of Diane Abbott”
No, there was no knowing look about the Bedford mayoralty. Just the one indicating that, along with Portillo, she agreed with what Andrew Neil was saying about Cameron’s poor treatment of people - which was based, incidentally, on his own observations in TV studios, not on gossip he’d heard.
“What is the point of having a cake, especially if you have made enough money by your own efforts to purchase the ingrediants, if not to eat it?”
Oh dear. Is anyone else man or woman enough to take on the task of trying to explain to Chris the meaning of the expression ‘have your cake and eat it’ - I fear it could take some time.
260 so why is paul a nondom?
Liam Fox accusing people of using the toops is interesting.
Could this be the same Liam Fox who, when found claiming £5k per year phone bills, dating back to long before his stint as defence spokeam, claImed the bills were due to his “troop visits”?
I just saw a comment on another blog which repeated that Einstein quote that ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
Are the 32% of the electorate who propose to vote Labour therefore insane under Einstein’s definition?
Or are we all bonkers in bothering to even think about it?
268 - Lord Paul is not Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party. As one privy councillor among hundreds he has no say in the formulation of policy.
266. If you really really believe that Ashcroft is the dominant issue facing all of British politics, worthy of seven days of front page headlines, and endless discussion on TV, and ceaseless ranting by lefties, by all means carry on.
I think you will find you are at the very end of diminishing returns, the flogged horse is not only dead it is decomposing, and the longer you continue the more likely you are to look obsessive, hypocritical, cranky and just deranged to an electorate which would quite like to hear ideas about how you intend to save the country, rather than accusations about how some VAT was maybe not paid by some obscure Tory Lord in the Turks and Caicos five years ago, perhaps.
As I said, do please carry on.
266.Three Labour MPs are on criminal charges. An advisor working in Brown’s office was caught attempting to smear in a most despicable way the partners of tories. A senior unelected Cabinet Minister takes a loan from a colleague but doesn’t declare it, then his department investigates a company owned by that same colleague.
You really need to open your eyes you cyclops.
270 - Presumably for the same reason as Lord Ashcroft.
260 - Tories support the proposal to make a law barring non-doms from sitting in Parliament, Ashcroft says he will remain in HoL if the Tories win, ergo Ashcroft will become domiciled in the UK for tax purposes.
272. How about the 31% of the electorate who seemed to honestly want a FIFTH Tory term in 1997?
243
I haven’t yet seen any actual serious criticisms of Ashton. All we have are smears from Mandelson and some of the other EU countries jockeying for power.
270 - Because he was not born in the UK (unlike Ashcroft) but is a ‘long term resident’ (like Ashcroft).
When Lord Paul was enobled he’d been based in London for 30 years - so presumably they didn’t think it necessary to ask him if he lived here ‘permanently’.
by CarlottaVance March 6th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
After all that time he is still a non-dom. How much tax has he avoided in all that time? And he must have been a non-dom when he joined the Lords. So why was he not asked for the same assurances as Ashcroft?
Errrrr, that is really a difficult question, let me think.
Liam Fox accusing people of using the toops is interesting.
Could this be the same Liam Fox who, when found claiming £5k per year phone bills, dating back to long before his stint as defence spokeam, claImed the bills were due to his “troop visits”?
by tim March 6th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Tim can you give us the dates?
Oddly enough I was wandering along a road near my local MP’s (Labour) constituency office (its opposite a mates house) and there were two bill boards up from the Tory party within 200m of it. As a solid Labour area I was very surprised.
I do get some Tory literature these days too, which never used to happen whilst the local Labour initiatives are illegally using Daleks and the odd planted story in the local paper.
206- This election may prove to have eerie parallels with another recent national election, i.e., the Hungarian national election in 2006. Hungary was then facing fiscal disaster but the governing socialists managed to hide the damning data and convince everyone that things were under control until they had been safely re-elected, after which the scope of the disaster couldn’t be covered up anymore. Sure, the Hungarian socialists have been about as popular as herpes ever since, but they did grab another four years in power that couldn’t be taken away from them. If the Tories run the austerity campaign they seem intent on, they’re playing right into the Labour strategy.
Strangely enough, the current socialist Hungarian prime minister is named Gordon. Unlike the Labour Party of the UK, though, he’s not the socialists’ candidate for next month’s national elections. Instead, they’re running an even more inauspiciously named prospective national leader, a gentleman named Attila.
46 - ” Brown’s trip to the battle zone is very good politics, though. It not only makes him look brave and statesmanlike,”
oh dear stars.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Brown doesn’t do brave, thats obvious for all to see.
As for statesmanlike, what you mean blaming everybody else and being missing whenever a real decision had to be made?
He is a dangerous, dysfunctional clown who should never have been handed the premiership.
Oh, and that was my last post on the subject. It is over now, Iraq/Afghanistan/defence spending are going to dominate the next week or so. ‘Ashcroft-gate’ is over. If Labour can’t see how hypocritical they are being voters will punish them for it…
276 So why did ashcroft have conditions and paul didn’t?
274 - That’s a pretty poor effort SeanT. We are discussing the issue on an internet message board and I am not in government. I am not sure it is fair to call the Time and the Economist lefty rags or lefty in any conceivable way. They are concerned that the next PM of htis country is completely untrobled by the quesiornable behavious of the man he appointed to be Deputy Chairman of the party he leads. If Cameron shows such questionable judgement, that is not a good sign for for the future. You don’t care because you hate lefties. Others are not as visceral as you.
If supermarkets were run by Labour…
More for less is not some pie-in-the-sky political promise. It’s something that businesses up and down the country do day-in, day-out. They think: how can I deliver more for my customers while reducing my costs? Imagine if they took the Labour approach, believing that every reduction in spending and costs was automatically a calamity for their customers.
Think of the advertising. Good food costs more at Sainsburys. Not ‘Every little helps; from Tesco, but “Every little Hurts”. Businesses are constantly looking for creative ways to get more bang for their buck. Reforming work practices. Buying wholesale when they can. Eradicating duplication. Innovating new delivery systems. Cutting out waste. We need to bring that business sense and imagination to government.”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5822058/cameron-gets-his-message-spoton.thtml
59 - “That would require the ‘Dear Leader’ to share the stage with someone else.
Even a non-entity like Ainsworth might draw the eye of the voter away from the magnificence that is ‘The Son of The Manse’.
The electorate must realise that it is Gordon from whom all blessings flow…”
Yep, what sort of leader wants to take all the credit and never accept any of the blame?
Apart from Brown that is.
277 Where has Ashcroft said he would stay in the HoL only if the Tories win?
The legislation is currently going through parliament - what Ashcroft has said is that he expected to be “sitting in the Lords for many years to come”, suggesting he intended to give up his non-dom status - who ever wins.
Lord Paul on the other hand, may step down
Those who think that the Ashcroft story has gone away are expecting Hague to be doing TV interviews soon?
288. They are concerned that the
nextPM of this country is completely untroubled by the questionable behaviour of the man he appointed to be DeputyGordo appointed Mandelson.
Game Over.
269.I don’t think Andrew Neill ever alleged that Cameron physically assaulted staff - or anyone else - that was the ‘evidence’ you gave to support your claim that between Brown & Cameron it would six of one and half a dozen of another in terms of bullying.
As for your comments about cake, please don’t be so sour, I thought deep fried mars bars were the thing to have in your neck of the woods?
243 Weathercock is derogatory about Cathy Ashton, saying ” Only ten years ago, Cathy Ashton was an unknown running Hertfordshire Health Authority and the National Council for One-Parent Families.”
Weathercock seems to think that it is more important to be well known than doing a job running a health authority and an organisation with the aim promoting the welfare of lone parents and their children by helping to overcome poverty, isolation and social exclusion.
I hope Weathercock is not responsible for recruitment anywhere.
Dr Fox claimed £5,137 for 2007-08; £5,191 for 2006-07;
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Dec 2005 to Now
£3,102 for 2005-06; and £5,141 for 2004-05, which works out at an average of more than £4,600 a year or nearly £90 a week.
Party Chairman, Nov 2003 – May 2005
Shadow Foreign Secretary, May 2005 - Dec 2005
Here you are Tim, whats your problem?
Well seeing as he’s a “dead man walking” and has been since PMQ’s where he was going to be skewered by Hattie it had better be soon to prove your theory tim.
I bet he’s quaking in his boots, like Coulson was.
280 Oh, thats ok then, the foreigner doesn’t have to pay tax but enjoys all the benefits of being in the UK and is a member of the privy council, but for the guy born in the UK it is a problem.
Right and that is ok, how exactly?
294. “I don’t think Andrew Neill ever alleged that Cameron physically assaulted staff”
Neither do I - if I had thought that, i would have said so, rather than what I did say.
“As for your comments about cake, please don’t be so sour, I thought deep fried mars bars were the thing to have in your neck of the woods?”
Not sourness at all, just weariness at the prospect of spending the next five hours repeatedly trying and failing to explain the concept that ‘have your cake and eat it’ is a play on words that implies consuming the same cake more than once.
281 Witan - because its got everything to do with ‘where you live’ (UK or not, Paul, yes, Ashcroft, at the time, not a lot) and ‘transparency’ - Paul has been an ‘out’ non-dom all the time, Ascroft was a closet non-dom, and let Hague burble his way through TV interviews for a decade….
288 the economist has always been left of centre, don’t know about Time.
It does seem labour unelected pollies have a propensity for being useless. If they were any good they would have risen by merit or achievement.
Cameron said Gordon Brown had failed to reform public services, saying the Prime Minister was to reform what “Tiger Woods was to marital fidelity”.
He cited £10 million in tax credits paid to dead people, £240,000 spent on Brazilian dancing by Department for International Development and £12,000 for branded golf balls by a Government agency as examples of Labour’s wasteful spending.
Turning to the new offices of Children’s Secretary Ed Balls’s department, which include a massage room and contemplation suite, Cameron said: “I know things can be bad in meetings with Gordon Brown, but is it really that bad?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/election_2010/article7052388.ece
298 - “If home is where the heart is, then Belize is my home.”
http://www.lordashcroft.com/belize/index.html
304. If only following one’s heart was always so financially advantageous.
John - Thanks
As you can see from what you posted Fox’s claims fell at precisely the time he took a job that enabled him to use the troops as an excuse for his claims
Guess the Florida time warp means that this was seen by very few: sorry if I am repeating myself but I was fascinated.
So who is Donal Blaney?
Conservative activist, embarrassment to the Tory party, friend of John Redwood and David Davis.
**Writing openly on his own website, Blaney, a Kent-based solicitor, has argued that “humiliation or psychological interrogation techniques are, in my view, not a problem … Waterboarding doesn’t do the prisoner any permanent physical harm although he may be reluctant to shower or use a flannel again in the future when/if he is freed.”** The Guardian
Just the kind of man that haunts the NuConservative Party and who will be under the spotlight in the coming weeks.
With an awful government that needs turfing out of office quickly, is it any wonder that so many voters are a little hesitant when the Tory Party is using Blaney to train some of its candidates?
God Save us from the lunatic Blaneys of this world.
301 - I am afraid that is just not true.
The Conservatives believe that the prime minister has deliberately timed his visit to Afghanistan for the day after his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry.
They say he is using the armed forces as props to divert attention from his evidence that is still being criticised by former Army chiefs.
This is something that the prime minister and his aides fiercely deny, insisting that the timing of his evidence and this trip were organised separately, and they reject any claim that either the prime minister was attempting to divert attention or achieve some kind of electoral gain.
The problem is that the prime minister has some form.
In October 2007 he announced the reduction in the number of troops in Iraq during the middle of the Conservative party conference - something that was widely seen as an attempt to crowd out the Tories’ policy announcements.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8553312.stm
304 Good reasoned argument, that is why the public are lapping it up.
301- The Economist may be left of center but they do have interesting and insightful commentary; they’re not tediously predictable lockstep loons like the Guardian.
southam, Should Lord Paul claim expenses bearing in mind he avoids paying tax?
308 Yes it is
311. “The Economist may be left of center but they do have interesting and insightful commentary; they’re not tediously predictable lockstep loons like the Guardian.”
But even the Economist have got a long way to go before they reach the peerless standards of open-mindedness exhibited by Fox News.
If only those nasty lefties would stop going on about Ashcroft (and Hague/Cameron’s handling of it) we could get back to the undoubtedly greater failings of the current govt. Look here’s more left wing bile:
In The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/7377056/Lord-Ashcrofts-game-is-David-Camerons-shame.html
And the FT:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dba69af2-28be-11df-b86f-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
And Pravda:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255348/William-Hague-pressure-Lord-Ashcrofts-Belize-tax-dodge.html
Just as well there’s nothing to it….move along….nothing to see…
NON DOMS DO PAY TAX REVELATION!
Non Doms pay tax on income in their domiciled country and pay UK tax on their income in the UK, including tax on any income remitted from overseas to the UK.
315 heffer = anti cameron
the FT = labour rag
daily mail = Dacre editor = Browns friend.
Ashcroft is perceived by lefties as the man who is about to bring about the downfall of their nirvana (that idealogical paradise that we’ve lived through this past 13 years). Worse still, they suspect that he has achieved this through MONEY, that wretched cause of all evil. No wonder they’re so p*ssed off.
Sadly they miss the point completely. The country at large no longer share their view of paradise, and they are about to eject the perpetrators of our downfall. Ashcroft is merely a whipping boy.
Lefties will continue to scream his name as they descend into oblivion, but it won’t make a jot of difference.
This is the most boring thread ever and I’m stuck working at home. This is supposed to be my entertainment!
During his visit, Mr Brown announced 150 extra British police trainers and £18m for metal detectors to counter IED (improvised explosive device) attacks.
He also said there will be an announcement in the Commons of a £100m programme to replace the much-criticised ‘Snatch’ Land Rovers.
Use of the lightly-defended vehicles has been blamed for more than 30 troop deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The new British-built vehicles, which Downing Street sources say offer world-leading armour, should arrive in Afghanistan by late 2011
The visit is likely to be the Prime Minister’s last such trip to Afghanistan before the general election, but aides dismissed suggestions that it was a stunt
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Browns-Surprise-Visit-To-Afghanistan-As-Row-Over-Army-Funding-Escalates/Article/201003115568395?f=rss
Hi Southam Observer and Tim what do you have to say about post 303.
West Ham losing home to Bolton 0-2 !!!!!
carlotta vance, you have cut and pasted 3 stories in a comment, at least 1 more than makes you a party troll. to do that you have to prepare what you want as an answr and therefore what to say in advance, by going through all papers and picking the bits you want. which makes you a semi professional. even southam does not do that.
319. “This is supposed to be my entertainment!”
Now I see where you’ve been going wrong David. This is the masochists’ zone, online scrabble is thatta way…
http://www.quadplex.com/
Anything from the twits yet guys?
John - Thanks
As you can see from what you posted Fox’s claims fell at precisely the time he took a job that enabled him to use the troops as an excuse for his claims
by tim March 6th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
You better read it again, he spent that much as well before he got that job. I do not see much of an increase our a 5 year period.
318 Yeah, but its quite funny watching them dancing on a pinhead to explain why Ashcroft is so different from the Labour non doms and mandlesohn. Apparently it is because he is the deputy chairman of the conservative party who makes emperor palpatine look as weak as a kitten in comparrison.
When is this episode of Huis Clos coming to an end ?
Earlier in the speech, echoing the party’s election slogan, Vote for Change, he said that Wales needed to see a change at Westminster even more than “anywhere else in Britain”.
He criticised Welsh Secretary Peter Hain for comparing Wales with Rwanda.
“I’ve been to Rwanda and it’s a beautiful place. But what does it say about this government - and these ministers - when they compare Wales to the 17th poorest country on the planet?” he said.
“When the scale of their ambitions for Wales do not seem to go beyond a country that in the last 20years has been ravaged by war and genocide?”
He claimed that Wales had been “let down” by Labour and that there was now “not just a border” separating Wales and the rest of the UK but “a prosperity gap.”
Mr Cameron added: “There is only one word for what Labour have done in Wales this last decade: Failure.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8552974.stm
If Brown had said I could have done better but I heard the message I am doing it now, then he might hav ehad some credibility.
There is no admittance of mistakes, in my view he is defective in that regard and as such he really is a nasty piece of work.
The head “turd” of labour, to use southam’s description of his glorious leader.
john - precisely the point.
Fox used the troops as a handy excuse.
redcliffe62
You can’t go saying people are trolls just cause they can look up articles
328. “I’ve been to Rwanda and it’s a beautiful place.”
That’s Dave’s disclaimer to try to prevent a Boris/Papua New Guinea moment. But is it enough?
Well, if we have had enough Ashcroft bashing, perhaps we can look at the latest piece of lunacy from Nick Clegg
Head teachers have been asked to “raise their game” as part of a £2.5bn funding deal proposed by the Liberal Democrats.
Party leader Nick Clegg called on schools to reinvent the curriculum, raise results and close the attainment between rich and poor.
How exactly do schools reinvent the curriculum? Does that mean each school can choose what they teach? Latin instead of French. French instead of English. Religious studies instead of science? Surfing the web instead of history.
Genius!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8552961.stm
320. “The new British-built vehicles, which Downing Street sources say offer world-leading armour, should arrive in Afghanistan by late 2011″
Ten years after troops first arrived. It is truly shameful.
Maybe one step too far, but three articles in a comment suggests massive preparation and having gone through a lot more articles than that just to come up with the comment.
And that is not the aim, to have party members sending multiple written quotes from the media back and forth to each other.
We want to hear the thoughts of the bloggers.
But I accept your views. I think.
331. - Thank you.
Perhaps redcliffe62 has not heard of ‘Google’ News Search?
Its easy to use, and remarkably easy to find stories about this ‘non-story’. And almost all of them critical..
…but I forget, The Economist, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are of no consequence in shaping the news agenda…nothing to see…move along.
..judgement of next Prime Minister not anyone’s business, nothing to worry about…
Hmmm just seen the sky footage of brown in Afghanistan all shots of brown with senior officers or with afgan troops none with the squadies says it all.
332
“That’s Dave’s disclaimer to try to prevent a Boris/Papua New Guinea moment. But is it enough?”
James, the Tories probably know alot more about Rwanda than you do.
“Andrew Mitchell, the Shadow International Development Secretary, will lead a group of around 100 volunteers in Rwanda for the third year of Project Umubano.
The group will depart this weekend, with some travelling to Sierra Leone as the Project branches into new countries.”
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2009/07/Conservative_volunteers_travel_to_Rwanda_for_Project_Umubano.aspx
carlotta, I read the papers I just do not regurgitate them.
I think what Ashcroft did was wrong, but 200 comments ago I added they are all at it.
When labour “supporters” accept they are ALSO culpable, probably equally, I will stop seeing them as party appartchiks.
It always sems to be tories are wrong and frankly it shows a lack of an ability to see two sides of an argument.
Southam, still waiting to hear if Lord Paul should claim expenses in the Lords as he has for many years even though he avoids tax? Carlotta, feel free to join in this one.
Powerful interview with bereaved parent of dead soldier on BBC News. Not that it will impress some well known people on this site, of course.
338. Project Umubano
Oh dear, that sounds a lot like a right wing training camp, probably funded by Ashcroft money !!!!
(c.f. Blaney above…)
341. …cont
That The Guardian would chose to use their front page and a whole subsequent news page to attempt to have a dig at the Young Britons’ Foundation shows the organisation is working.The lazy article assembled from a few blog posts, some stock photos and a sprinkle of Hannanphobia is some fantastic free press for YBF. TB understands that on the back of this article alone the 10 grand was donated earlier today to continue to the fight against the leftist establishment.
You can tell a non-story as soon as you hit the quote from John Prescott.
http://tinyurl.com/ydw8qa3
341 Scott P
Hah, don’t go looking too hard, otherwise you will find Ashcrofts name involved!! He calls it charity but we know better of course….
340 - why, is the parent being a bit of a ’shit’?
The conservatives also have a project in Bosnia.
It is pennance for the genocides which happened at the time of the appeased Hurd’s time in office.
338. “James, the Tories probably know alot more about Rwanda than you do.”
Are the Tories some kind of gestalt? If one of them has expertise on something, it follows that they all do? It’s an imaginative answer to Cameron’s lack of experience, I’ll concede that.
Bosnia ? Batten down the hatches, lads, it’ll soon be time for Latvia 1940.
343. JonathanD. Sshh!! Not everyone who reads this blog has been cleared by party central to join the New (Ashcroft) World Order.
Oops!
I can’t say I’m a Guardianista because I also read the Telegraph and NY Times (Herald Tribune actually). Guardianwise, there’s a wonderful article today by Marina Hyde concerning the Ashcroft phenomenon. The lady can write.
Speaking as a conservative, there are many Tories about—some on this very site—with whom I share many values: self-sufficiency, independence and application, for instance. But Hyde’s article resonates for me with the very strong gut feeling that until we rid ourselves of the wretched class structure from the top on down, with its implicit separation of rank and merit, then I could never support the Tories. Playing games can be fun, but this is disgusting.
347. It’s the Tories’ conduct in the War of the Spanish Succession that must really upset the public.
345. Why are you so utterly odious?
The Bosnian project, Project Maja was based around helping to build houses for returning refugees who fled Srebrenica. Sounds like thoroughly good work to me that I don’t see any other British party doing. Certainly not the oh so alturistic Labour party.
339 redcliffe62 - to be clear, I think Labour’s handling of ‘cash for access’, ‘cash for favours’ (Ecclestone) and ‘cash for honours’ disgraceful.
I also think the whole non-dom thing a complete racket.
But with a bit of luck, Labour are on their way out.
So what does concern me is the judgement of potentially the next Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary - and ‘Labour are just as bad’ (and very arguably much worse) is no defence whatsoever.
I don’t want Labour - I want ‘change’ - and the Ashcroft business reeks of ‘more of the same’.
And don’t get me started on Lib Dem hypocrisy….
The whole whinge about ‘Ashcroft money’ has struck me as ‘Please sir! They’re smarter than us sir! That’s not fair sir!’
But now, through inept handling of the Ashcroft domicile story, the Tories conspire to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I despair.
ScottP posted this quote from Sky News above:
“During his visit, Mr Brown announced 150 extra British police trainers and £18m for metal detectors to counter IED (improvised explosive device) attacks.”
Why, oh why, do Brown and the Labour party always quote the money they are spending? What does £18m on metal detecors actually mean in terms of dtecting IEDs?
A quick look on google shows that metal detectors can be bought for about twenty quid a throw. So are we buying 900,000 of the things (that is about 1 detector for ever 25 Afghan citizens or 9 for every UK serviceman/woman if they are for use by our troops)? On its own the figure is meaningless.
It is like Brown’s we spent £90m on armoured vehicles. That is a lot of money, but was it enough? Was it too much? Who knows? Brown and Labour seem to only measure sucess by inputs not outcomes.
Ashcroft has said that he will become domiciled whatever the outcome of the election. http://waugh.standard.co.uk/2010/03/lord-ashcrofts-non-dom-pledge-it-isnt-conditional.html
340
But as ex-Tory MP, and now Conservative columnist Matthew Parris puts it:-
Soldiers are risking death for reasons other than military victory. They have signed up for these risks. They are being paid to take them. It is what they want to do. Many of them find satisfaction, even excitement, in fighting. As a matter of fact, recruitment to the Armed Forces is going well. That it is up 25 per cent at present may be not “despite” (as the commentary supposes) but because of publicity about danger. As Prince Edward was unwise enough to admit, “Hey — you could die doing this!” is to many men a recommendation.
Every death, of course, as the Prime Minister likes to remind Parliament at Prime Minister’s Questions each Wednesday, is a personal tragedy. And it is true that in the first nine years of this century we have lost many hundreds of service personnel, killed in action.
We have also lost a comparable number of employees in the farming and construction industries — about 90 last year, also killed, if you will, in action. But we do not define these trades in terms of death or sacrifice; we do not count the coffins; they do not come to one place. Viewed over the last half century and in coolly statistical terms, a young person’s decision to sign up for the Armed Forces has not invited a greater career risk of death or serious injury than the decision to sign up for a career in railway lineside track maintenance.
Sorry a typo. I meant 90 for every service man or woman in Afghanistan not 9.
349
Speaking as a socialist, there are many socialists about, some on this very site, with whom I share many values who have a very strong gut feeling that until we rid ourselves of the wretched class structure from the top down, then I could never support New Labour.
357:
New Labour disgusts me to on the whole.
carlotta, i understand you better now, not a troll but a real person. so apologies if i pressed the wrong button. whereas with southam i have still to be convinced.
Totally O/T.
Whilst at the Tory Spring Forum last weekend, a very knowledgeable and interesting person from CCHQ said something I’ve been pondering since.
When talking about all of the individual constituency markets he said that “There won’t be any surprises”.
Is that true? Were there any real surprises last time? I know there weren’t betting markets on every seat to test against, but were Manchester Withington and Solihull, for example, quite predictable “shocks”?
352. CarlottaVance
“the Ashcroft business reeks of ‘more of the same’. “
What does that mean?
Tories appoint highly successful businessman to run their election campaign? Good.
Tories nominate highly successful businessman to the Lords, who claims no expenses? Sounds OK so far.
Tory party vice-chairman donates to charity and honours war heroes? No problem with that.
What exactly has Ashcroft done wrong, and in what what way is that “more of the same”?
Ta.
355
Labour party activist on website says having legs blown off is part of soldiers job. Are you sure you are still on message coldstone ?
Er, not CCHQ, obviously. Conservative Central Office or whatever it’s called now.
The Economist left-of-centre? What planet are you on? It’s avowedly free market.
Shadsy.
Interesting question. Did he mean surprise to CCHQ (who expect to take some seats) or to Ladbrokes (who might have their odds wrong)?
http://order-order.com/2010/03/02/billionaire-expense-claims-compared/
http://order-order.com/tag/donorgate/
http://order-order.com/2010/02/15/gordons-billionaire-donor-pension-steel/
Nice bloke?
345-Tim
Thats a disgraceful thing to say.
I know that people like John Reid went to Bosnia in the early 90s met with Mladic Milosevic and et and said and did sweet FA.
In fact i gather Mr Reid particularly enjoyed the local grape when he was out there.
You know f**k all you ingnorant twat
364. “The Economist left-of-centre? What planet are you on? It’s avowedly free market.”
Yes, I was wondering about that all along.
364 Also undeniably keynesian.
353 HurstLlama
It’s an odd strategy by Labour. Not as simple as measuring by input though. They measure success by other peoples’ outcomes. Their contribution is limited to borrowing the money to input.
£62
I think Mr Matthew Parris’s peice is very good and very well balanced.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6953923.ece
It happens to be a regrettable fact, that being killed and wounded is part of a soldiers job, certainly that of an infantry man.
Just as there are coalminers who die in mines, or fisherman who drown etc. its tragic, but it will happen.
In Aden in 1966, I met an old schoolfriend who was then serving in 45 commando RM, (family tradition) I asked him how he was finding it, he loved it, or as he put it to me, (these are his words not mine) ‘What! getting paid to shoot w*gs, best job in the world’
There’ll be a few, (more than a few) in Afghanistan, who’ll share his attitude. Guys who join elite fighting units have a tendency to be a little on the, ‘hard’ side y’know.
368, 369 I once heard Chris Huhne, not less, explain that the Economist could only really be understood in terms of geography - the further away from London its subject matter happens to be, then the more (small L) liberal it is …..but the closer it gets to St James’s, the more right wing and authoritarian it becomes.
360. As somebody in a roughly similar position as your source, I would say it depends on who it will be a surprise to. For instance, how many people who don’t follow these things would, at this stage, think Sunderland Central might fall? Not many I imagine.
365. Scott, I think he meant to all of us who spend a lot of time analysing things at that level. I don’t think he meant that every seat will go exactly as expected. For instance, if the LDs win Worcestershire West, that will almost certainly be a seat that bucks the national trend and will be quite unusual, but it’s been flagged up as one that might behave that way already.
369. Yes, and also undeniably monetarist too. Because the vast majority of modern economists accept the neoclassical synthesis, which is free market neoclassical economics with slight modifications to take account of some of Keynes’ very valid insights into the theory of money. That does not make it socialist-leaning.
374. Shadsy. Thanks
‘In Aden in 1966, I met an old schoolfriend who was then serving in 45 commando RM, (family tradition) I asked him how he was finding it, he loved it, or as he put it to me, (these are his words not mine) ‘What! getting paid to shoot w*gs, best job in the world’
From the tenor of your anecdote it is clear that you regard soldiers as rather sh*tty people who deserve what they get, coldstone.
373. Kratz. No, and there will be plenty in the media who will describe such results as huge shocks, when they will be nothing of the sort to you and most PB readers.
When the SNP won Glasgow East, the media treated it like a 1/100 shot had been beaten, although they had been favourites for much of the campaign.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/
by Peter Hoskin
“Just a quick post to encourage CoffeeHousers to read David Cameron’s speech to his party’s Welsh conference today. It’s not just the clearest, and most sensible, exposition of the Tories’ economic message that I’ve come across so far – it’s also the finest overall speech that I can remember Cameron giving for some time. Plenty of hard-hitting passages, both attacking Labour’s record and – crucially – setting out a positive alternative.”
This is why GB went to Afghanistan to keep Cameron off the News of any kind.
368. The Economist is traditionally both free-market and left-of-centre. I believe it’s called Liberalism. Unfortunately the paper has drifted quite strongly to the right since (I think) the 1960s and has become more stridently anti-statist; but remember that it backed Labour in 2001 (and maybe 2005? I can’t remember) and Obama in 2008.
378 I suppose the question is, who will be surprised? Or who will not be surprised. Maybe he was trying to wind you up a bit, Shadsy - but you know that if your prices are good across all of the seats, depending on the money staked, then you too, of all people, are not going to be surprised.
342 - The Guardian and the Mirror are both from the MacBride School of Journalism, but the Guardian uses slightly longer words.
355 I’m not sure when the quote ends, I’m guessing at the end of the first paragraph…
If you are writing the rest then it just goes to show how much contempt rank and file Labour members show the armed forces. If you are equating farming and agriculture with risking life and limb for Queen and Country then you need you head examined.
I really hope tim, Gabble et al come and disassociate themselves from this type of comment as it shows utter contempt for our boys putting themselves in the line of fire because of this government and their futile agenda.
381. AC. Yes, that’s my point, I suppose. Will the market be surprised? Will any party that goes off at 25/1 or bigger on the day actually win? Are there examples of runners who might have been that big (had there been a betting market) winning seats before? Difficult to say, I suppose.
380. By “left of centre” I guess you mean “socially liberal”. Combined with being pro-market that makes for a classically liberal or libertarian position, generally considered centre-right.
I hardly think choosing Obama over a McCain-Palin ticket makes it left wing. It also backed the Tories in 1997 and, staggeringly, Bush in 2000.
375 see 380 It has backed Labour in recent times therefore it makes it a labour rag as far as I am concerned.
384
I guess his assumption is that the canvassing / market research of the parties has got so sophisticated that in conjunction with an efficient betting market the state of play in each constituency is well known.
At some point we may no longer need expensive elections; just some canvassing returns, a demographic profile and a probalistic model or two.
388 For all that, though, there will (statistically speaking!) be a few seats that change hands because of some “under the radar” work by one party which takes their opponents unawares. There will be (very few) local surprises (Leeds NW, Solihull, Withington etc) but overall there will not be a significant number sufficient to cause Shadsy any sleepless nights.
Good evening all and I see our left wing friends remain obsessed with Baron Ashcroft KCMG. So lets look at the circumstances surrounding his elevation since our leftie friends conveniently ignore it.
From 1997 Tony Blair set out to flood the House of Lords with new Labour peers. There had been a convention prior to then that when new “Working peers” as opposed to general peers were appointed, the government would appoint e.g. 7, the main opposition 5 and the LibDems 2, thereby maintaining the balance among Life Peers. Blair claimed that the fact most Hereditaries were perceived to be Tories meant he had to even up the sides. He completely ignored the fact that most Tory peers did not seek the annual invitation to Parliament so most could not simply
Good evening all and I see our left wing friends remain obsessed with Baron Ashcroft KCMG. So lets look at the circumstances surrounding his elevation since our leftie friends conveniently ignore it.
From 1997 Tony Blair set out to flood the House of Lords with new Labour peers. There had been a convention prior to then that when new “Working peers” as opposed to general peers were appointed, the government would appoint e.g. 7, the main opposition 5 and the LibDems 2, thereby maintaining the balance among Life Peers. Blair claimed that the fact most Hereditaries were perceived to be Tories meant he had to even up the sides. He completely ignored the fact that most Tory peers did not seek the annual invitation to Parliament so most could not simply
361 Nice narrative. Why has it completely failed to communicate? Lefty plot? Or incompetence? ‘More of the same’ - a singular lack to live up to the promised ‘transparency’ that Cameron keeps talking about. If his Shadow Foreign Secretary cannot be transparent with him, might we not entertain doubts about how ‘transparent’ Cameron will be with us?
380
Given their unquestioning support for the EU I really think you are pushing it to claim the Economist is ‘anti-statist’.
As I rarely read British newspapers [if I do its never the paper version - too expensive] I wondered if one of the posters on here would be kind enough to break down the general political party allegience of the major organs of the British press for me.
When I was a youngster [Daily Herald days] it was so easy to do.
Genuine request for help.
i was in a public meeting recently with a helicopter pilot who was in Afghanistan. He put up a slide of Gordon Brown getting off his helicopter to indicate one of his jobs was carrying VIPs. He then said ‘this is the part of the job we hate’ to general laughter in the audience. Fortunately Lord Drayson had just left the room…
shadsy I wouldn’t take it too seriously if I were you. Not because the person was trying to spin to you or mislead you, but because it is the sort of comment you hear a lot around election time.
As others have said it depends on the metal declension of the speaker: party surprise, personal surprise, psephological surprise……..
And would the person be really in know anyway? All parties keep their real predictions close to their chests, believe me. He would have to be at the very top table to know real expectations.
Cashcroft…lose will to live…yawn.
243 Methinks Mandy still wants the Euro foreign minister job.
393. The Economist clearly supports the EU, but I’d hardly say their position is “unquestioning”. They regularly run critical pieces.
383 – Max, the entire post provided by Coldstone @55 is faithfully reproduced from the Matthew Parris article linked below.
Coldstone is guilty of failing to adequately apply ‘quotation marks’ which of course justifies a minor flogging – but nothing more imho.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6953923.ece
In the Loop is on tomorrow night, and it’s on BBC HD too if you have it.
392. Carlotta. Thanks for the reply
‘More of the same’ - a singular lack to live up to the promised ‘transparency’ that Cameron keeps talking about.
So, the charge is that the tax status of Lord Ashcroft was not revealed 10 years ago.
And the fact that it has now been revealed, and Cameron has said he will be transparent in future is an argument against him?
Hmmm. We didn’t do it 10 years ago. We have now. We will in the future.
Better not give them a chance in case they’re lying, eh?
“But as ex-Tory MP, and now Conservative columnist Matthew Parris puts it:-”
Coldstone’s introduction to the quotation indicates that he fully supports it.
387 - I think you grossly overestimate quite how sophisticated party techniques are today. As ever, some local parties will have too little data, patchy data, poor quality data and blind optimism. There will be surprises - not 25/1 surprises but some winners who are far from being favourites.
402 – Fr, that may well be the case, however, the allegation was that the comments made after the first paragraph were those of Coldstone.
They were not.
403, I hope there are surprises at the Oscars. I’ve put literally hundreds of pence on one Roger tip (outsider, as he stated, MUlligan, and) and one from Mr. Magnan (Inglorius Basterds[sp]). If both come in I’ll make literally tens of pounds
“might we not entertain doubts about how ‘transparent’ Cameron will be with us?”
Carlotta, so what are your conclusions from all this?
Cameron is shifty?
Labour should be swept back in with a majority of 200?
We need a tax system like Scandinavia with all able to see everyone’s tax returns?
The Tory proposals on transparency in public contracts and spending look more interesting to me than the legal donations of 1 man that did not result in the change of any government policy.
Coldstone then went on to say this,
‘In Aden in 1966, I met an old schoolfriend who was then serving in 45 commando RM, (family tradition) I asked him how he was finding it, he loved it, or as he put it to me, (these are his words not mine) ‘What! getting paid to shoot w*gs, best job in the world’
391 contd as my PC sent the posting sorry.
So most Hereditary Peers could not simply turn up and vote at will.
Blair created uproar by appointing excessive numbers of Labour Peers, many of whom had questionable levels of service to the nation but of course now we know many had given Labour huge sums of money as someone narrated the other day.
The Lords Appointment Committee at the time was chaired by Lord Thomson of Monifeith, the ex Labour MP, SDP defector turned LibDem peer.
It is quite clear from the comments Lady Thomson was alleging her late husband had made there was an attitude that Michael Ashcroft was not “one of us” so they rejected him and then even though Blair had already sanctioned the appointment of many peers who would have included a fair number of non-doms, an entirely artificial restriction was placed on Michael AShcroft becoming a Peer.
He gave an assurance which we now know was agreed with the most senior civil servant in Chancery and the Tory Chief Whip. If other people thought he had given other assurances, tough. He gave and complied with the only assurance which mattered, the one given to Chancery.
Of course thereafter we now know that Labour merrily continued to nominate non-doms for Peerages which were simply nodded through.
Lord Paul had been nominated by the Leader of the Opposition and the then PRime Minister John Major did not seek to question the nomination of a Labour Working Peer, unlike Blair.
So we have Michael Ashcroft, one of around 500 Life Peers sitting on the opposition benches while people like Lord Paul, Lord Sainsbury and Lord Drayson, all major donors to Labour were either sitting in Government or had access to the Prime Minister.
Lord AShcroft does not have an automatic right to an audience with the Head of State. However as a member of the Privy Council, Lord Paul does. Indeed when Gordon Brown asks the Queen to convene a regular meeting of the Privy Council, Lord Paul may very well be attending for all we know.
Lord Ashcroft is one of several Deputy or Vice-chairmen of the Conservative Party. It is an unpaid, voluntary position.
In that capacity he has brought to the Tory party’s candidate board his acumen as a businessman.
We keep hearing about the AShcroft money in the marginals. Actually the money is not Lord Ashcrofts. It is money from central funding. It is called Ashcroft money because Lord Ashcroft chairs the group which decides which candidates have made a suitable case for receiving some of this money. He has instilled into conservative candidate campaigns a business approach to fighting a marginal seat. That is the real threat to Labour. He is making candidates push themselves and their voluntary helpers to campaign as effectively as possible. In some cases candidates have literally lost several stones in weight because they are having to work so hard.
Now I seem to remember that in the old days when Labour’s friends in the Trade Unions had far greater memberships and donated far greater sums to candidates, many Labour candidates actually stood as e.g. Labour and Cooperative Candidates or were known as TGWU sponsored candidates, NUM sponsored candidates. What earned them such sobriques? Was it because they had been dock workers or miners? Maybe in the case of some of the old Labour types but the young guns? We know John PRescott had been a seaman so it would hardly be surprising for him to be supported by his union financially but when did Tony Blair or Gordon Brown work at the coalface? When did Peter Mandelson work on an assembly line or in a steel plant.
Never is the answer but did it stop them taking money from those trade unions? No of course not. What did the unions get in return? Well at least with Harold Wilson we know they got beer and sandwiches in No 10. However only a very niaive person would believe that the unions have received nothing in return for decades of funding Labour candidates.
There is a simple solution which I believe David Cameron will introduce. A cap on ALL political donations. A maximum of £50,000 per year from any source would be perfect. The Tories can fight an election without big donors like Michael Ashcroft but could Labour ever fight an election without Trade Union millions?
408
The Unions will get round that by saying its individual donations lumped together. The only way to stop the monetary power of the unions is to disallow them collecting the political levy and leave it to individuals to make their own donations separately from the Union contributions..
408
“there is a simple solution which I believe David Cameron will introduce. A cap on ALL political donations. A maximum of £50,000 per year from any source would be perfect.”
I hope he does do this. I would be tempted to add from individuals only-no more companies or other organisations.
On the question of “expected” wins, I noticed this comment regarding Edinburgh South West
Face it the Tories are never going to win a seat containing Wester Hailes and the Gorgie/sighthill corridor.
by tres March 6th, 2010 at 11:01 am
On the face of it, if the stereotypical demographic of those areas vote in a stereotypical fashion, the statement has some merit, but in terms of predicting the result it’s about as useful as the statement
“London will never elect a Tory Mayor”…
“could Labour ever fight an election without Trade Union millions”
And could the unions themselves afford to donate anything, in the absence of their government funded ‘modernisation fund’.
412, mwahahaha!
A policy that’s good for democracy *and* shafts union dinosaurs and the Labour Party?
That’s like inventing a beer that makes you grow a sixpack.
413. MD. “That’s like inventing a beer that makes you grow a sixpack.”
Why is that not on your list of engineering achievements?
Perhaps the MD manifesto could be expanded to include a peerage for the first subject to bring you such a brew?
That’s like inventing a beer that makes you grow a sixpack.
WHAT IS IT WITH THE ASHCROFT OBSESSION ON HERE?
FFS CHANGE THE RECORD!
I HAVE STAYED AWAY FOR NEARLY TWO WEEKS BUT ITS STILL GOING ON
386 - Socrates, I didn’t know about the 1997 and 2000 endorsements, but you make a good point. However, The Economist was founded (by Joseph Wilson) in support of the Anti-Corn Law League, and was closely associated with Liberal politics, which led it into a relatively Keynesian posture between the late 1920s and the 1960s. I’m not even sure that it endorsed the Tories in 1964.
414, hey, I’ve genetically engineered land-walking, air- and water-breathing highly intelligent enormo-haddock, led the way with space cannon research and am the country’s foremost medieval siege engine enthusiast and owner of the solar death ray. You can’t expect me to do *everything*!
414, btw, I have adopted (by which I, of course, mean stolen) your peerage idea. It is now in my manifesto, which I shall reproduce here:
“Morris Dancer Manifesto -
All attractive women aged 16-28 to wear mandatory school uniforms.
Less sleaze, lower expenses for MPs. The members of the list to be fired into space from some sort of giant artillery piece.
The reversion to proper imperial measurements, for weights, distance, fluid measures and money.
Mr/Mrs/Miss to be the typical form of address instead of first names.
Supporting Manchester United to be a criminal offence.
People who stop suddenly or dawdle on pavements, or who walk several abreast, will be loaded into a trebuchet and fired into the Channel.
Fat persons will be obliged by law to purchase as many train, plane or theatre seats as necessary to contain their blubber. Failure to do this is rude and will result in them being fired from a reinforced trebuchet into the North Sea.
Any individual or organisation responsible for ridiculous levels of mollycoddling of the general public or specific individuals will be slapped about the face with a haddock, in public.
The construction of a fleet of 4-6 Death Stars.
A peerage to the man who invents beer that makes you grow a sixpack.”
174. Don ( the plonker one) , what a horrible little pipsqueak you are. You were obviously bullied at school and now think you can get your own back online. What made you bring me into the topic you sewer rat. Think yourself lucky it is online and not in person , but in that event you would not be such a smart mouth.
Keep your bile to yourself saddo.
Sky News
NOTW ICM
Tory 40
Lab 31
Lib Dem ??
421 Lib Dems 18
Cameron bounce back.. Sky
keep flogging Ashcroft, ti’s doing the world of good.
Sky C40 L31 sorry missed the rest
421, cheers, Mr. Somewhere.
Sounds approximately right, to me.
394. From what I can tell (from a complete outsider):
Times/Sun–Tory by diktat
Telegraph–Tory
Daily Mail–rightist-Tory in spirit, Dacre likes Brown for not wearing fake suntan like Blair
Mirror–Labour
Guardian–Labour-y, “social democratic”
Independent–?? possibly “Cameroon”
401 ScottP - so the Conservatives have handled the communication of this as consummate professionals? Or were bounced into a shambles by an FOI request?
406 JonathanD ‘Lord make me chaste…but not yet!. The problem is not the Ashcroft domicile question - but the complete failure to confront, then manage the issue. Wonder what the first question at William Hague’s next Press Conference will be? In the run up to a GE ffs….
410 JonathanD - agree completely
That’s another Brown bounce come and gone then!
Presumably then the YouGov will be in the Sunday Times as NOTW has the ICM?
419 With your policies, you’ll be president of San Marcos in no time at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkYfmRwryQo&feature=related
419
Typical bloody manifesto! Long on aspiration, pathetically weak on detail.
“some sort of giant artillery piece”
And exactly which sort? You don’t get my vote with this kind of sloppy thinking!
421. LOL! I wonder if the Tories will want to keep the Ashcroft row rumbling on as it seems to be boosting their poll ratings?!
300. james , you are wasting your time , Chris is a moron , no chance he will post anything sensible, best to treat him with the contempt he deserves.
I can here tim and gabble right now…’but but ashcroft, what about ashcroft, this story is so important, why wont people listen to me waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh’
Brown had his chance. People saw the ashcroft story for what it was, saw the plunging pound for what it was, and saw the brown chilcot display for what it was. Cameron has finally got his message together and its clear and coherent now.
Hallelujah - at last an ICM poll - or any poll for that matter, other than a YouGov.
432 Storm - Makes perfect sense. The Snow Plot and Bullygate seemed to help Labour.
431, aren’t you a Scottish Nationalist? Of course I won’t get your vote, I’m a unionist.
Hmm. Maybe I add something anti-Argentine to my manifesto. Oh, and Obama and Clinton are going on the last, treacherous weasels.
432, isn’t it almost identical to the last ICM?
433 malcolmG
Agreed. Those consumed by hatred are usually incapable of coherent thought.
Browns big mistake was to go to Afghanistan today.
He performed well at Chilcot but that will not be remembered.
The cynical electioneering will be.
431. Look, you have to be reasonable, we cant possibly commit ourselves to design concepts right now, we need to look at the books first.
Labour shouldve got the hint that ashcroft wasnt doing them any justice when no tories came out to debate the issue. They just sat back and let lab and lib make fools of themselves.
That’s the last lingering chance of an April election out of the window.
Is there enough time for another Brown bounce before June?
419. Morris Dancer, you would get my vote for point 5 alone. Though as a liberal I’m disinclined to use criminal sanction, and would instead prefer the revenue-raising alternative of a 100% ad valorem tax on all Manchester United season tickets, replica strips, and player sales.
437 The last ICM was just before the series of lowish polls and had it 37-30
I guess the big relief is the 40 score and the gap here for the Tories…
Sky also report John Major launching an attack on Brown tomorrow again for using the troops as props
It seems to me the Lib Dems have been polling very poorly recently. They seem to suffer when Labour manages to close the gap?
427. Carlotta. “401 so the Conservatives have handled the communication of this as consummate professionals? Or were bounced into a shambles by an FOI request? “
If the Conservatives problem is something that wasn’t done 10 years ago, I am struggling to see just how much better they could have played the hand they hold now.
If Lord Ashcroft had been outed as a non-dom at the time, they would have taken a political hit then (which they didn’t want), and would have avoided one now. If you offered them that chance today, I am sure they would jump at it.
As far as I can tell, the position remains that the “same old tories” line in effect looks to punish Cameron in the future for something done or not done by Hague in the past.
Tories 40%?
“Sweet are the uses of adversity”.
437. I thought the last ICM had the blues below 40%?
Please correct me if I’m wrong!
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5822428/sir-john-major-accuses-brown-of-conduct-profoundly-unbecoming-of-a-prime-minister.thtml
439. OMG is Brown single handedly trying to disprove:
“History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history”
We are in a fever as to whether or not the PM is going to call an election, the Conservatives are in trouble, and to try and steal some good publicity the PM is making a trip to a foreign warzone.
Gordon doesnt have an interview with Andrew Marr tomorrow does he?
417- It’s interesting to note that, in the presidential endorsements the Economist has made going back to 1980, they have never endorsed the candidate of the party that controls the White House:
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12499760
It seems that the only thing they consistently endorse is “change” (at least in American politics)!
Hmmmm I thought it was only GB who ranted and raved.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/7386873/One-more-wobble-and-the-games-over.html
“WHAT IS IT WITH THE ASHCROFT OBSESSION ON HERE?”
Calm down dear! Just enjoy the spectacle of frustrated spluttering lefties crying in despair. Surely you don’t want them to die in peace?
426 Sorry Diane but no.
Sun–Tory by diktat
Telegraph–Tory with added Mary riddell
Daily Mail–rightist-Tory in spirit, Dacre likes Brown for not wearing fake suntan like Blair and dislikes cameron
Times - fairrly neutral - despises ashcroft
Mirror–Labour
Guardian–Labour-y, “social democratic”
Independent–?? Mirrory
416. wayne, see you in two weeks
447 Scott P “I am struggling to see just how much better they could have played the hand they hold now”
They could have avoided holding that hand in the first place by confronting Ashcroft about his domicile and getting it out well clear of an election. But they didn’t, they let it drift until weeks before a GE. How could they have managed it worse? Let it come out in the full campaign, I guess….but apart from that….
Baxtered this poll gives a Tory majority of 4.
419 MD who wants a cheapo Life Peerage. To hell with sitting in the legislature. A proper Peerage is what we want. As a military thinking chap it would be a Viscountcy. Since Jack W and I are Scots we of course would be granted Earldoms of some county that no-one can get to because the roads are all crap north of Perth.
So the Tories may be edging back to the crucial 40. Can we expect a YouGov lead of 2-5% then following an adjustment of Tories -6 and Labour + 6 and LibDems -10 because YouGov underscore the LibDems and dont seem that bothered about it. (About the only sensible thing in their policy mind you- sorry wibbler, YS etc)
Clearly Labour would be at 25% but as there are 35,000 Labour voters just waiting to cast their votes for you know who in Broxtowe, that will have boosted Labour’s total hugely.
438. Oldnat , there are a good few odious characters on here, majority are decent but those few are nasty pieces of work. They would not be so smart if it was person to person.
458. In reality you missed a ZERO.
457, it’s a really fascinating story, except that the general public couldn’t give a damn.
So Labours fixation with Ashcroft has sent the Tories back up to 40% with the UK’s most accurate pollster?
Here’s a tip to lefties - Change the subject - NOW!
459, I never specified whether it was a life peerage or a proper one.
I’d be inclined to bring the hereditary peers who’ve been forced out for careerist cronies back.
I only post rarely these days from the seclusion of southern Spain - to remind the flaky doubters as I have done several times now - trust DC he knows what he is about and will win.
458 Do you think the battle royal in Antrim North will help the UUP/Cons in other seats by pinning down huge numbers of DUP activists and of course other resources in the battle with TUV.
457 Carlotta had you hoped to be Baroness Ashcroft in an earlier life and he spurned your advances or something? You do seem obsessed about the Noble Lord dear girl. We all agree both William Hague and David Cameron should have put this to bed long ago but they didnt so hey ho we are where we are.
ICM poll article:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/749206/Exclusive-ICM-poll-in-the-News-of-the-World-shows-Tories-lead-by-9-pts.html
463 - don’ encourage then GIN, they haven’t yet realised that the voters want to hear about policies and not Ashcroft.
434 ryans “People saw the ashcroft story for what it was, saw the plunging pound for what it was, and saw the brown chilcot display for what it was”
I’d wait to find out when the fieldwork was before drawing conclusions…..(which would be very brave, in any case…)
Tables also available:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00097/2010_mar_notw_poll_b_97459a.pdf
Fieldwork: ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1005 adults aged 18+ by telephone on 3-4th March 2010. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.
Further to this statement
Face it the Tories are never going to win a seat containing Wester Hailes and the Gorgie/sighthill corridor.
by tres March 6th, 2010 at 11:01 am
I have just been informed by someone with a greater historical perspective than me that in fact Wester Hailes did elect a Tory.
In 1979, the results were
Conservative 17684
Labour 16486
There were 600 Tory votes from Wester Hailes. If they had voted Labour…
Whilst the toplines look better than earlier, this is interesting:
“They now have a lead on just five issues and Labour is ahead on four - but there is not much between them on most topics. On the critical question of who would best cut crime, the Tories were 21 per cent ahead but now lead by just nine.
On dealing with the recession they were 15 points ahead but Labour now only trails by 2.
And voters now think Labour has the best policies to tackle the environment, terrorism, set taxes and win the Afghan war.
The Tories have only increased their leads on immigration and modernising the NHS. ”
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/749206/Exclusive-ICM-poll-in-the-News-of-the-World-shows-Tories-lead-by-9-pts.html
Lets have a long debate about Ashcroft !!!
Has anybody got a for the ICM poll
Punter that’s a real possibility. The DUP are facing attacks on each flank by TUV and the CUs. Yokel is due to give his NI predictions soon, I think the CUs could gain 2-3 seats and North Antrim will be a very close result either way!
If the latest poll finally convinces people that Ashcroft has run out of steam, I think it an appropriate moment to post this
http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2010/03/chris-huhne-hypocrite.html
All those bananas don’t seem to be doing Gordo much good! If he isn’t careful he will start to make Two Shags look thin…
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/06/article-1255930-08989169000005DC-304_468×301.jpg
From ukpolling report
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/
Interestng NotW are reporting it as still in Hung Parliament territory. Subtle bit of boosting the Tory core?
460 Malcolm I have to say that if I found myself in a spot of bother I would know that you and Oldnat would be there to support me as long as that spot of bother didnt involve one of Eck’s stormtroopers
Do we have to wait until 10pm to get tonight’s YouGov or could someone do us a favour and twit it.
Its going to be June 3rd for the GE i promise you all.
And its going to be the longest 3 months of your lives. And it will probably stay wintery cold and below zero right up to June 2nd aswell.
I really really wish i was rich. I would be out of the country until June thats for sure. This waiting is a grave injustice.
480. Its when polls like this come in that the whole “Hung Parliament” narrative gets absurd. I don’t care what number Labour poll, if the Tories get to 40% they get an outright majority.
481 Easterross
Of course we’d be there for you - now that we know that putting sugar on your porridge was but a foul calumny by the forces of Beelzebub!
I presume no muesli got north of Perth this weekend?
Is the Yougov in the Times ?
Did ICM find any shy Labour voters?
Mike - See 468/471 for article and tables.
480 JonathanD - UKPR’s calculator makes it 6 seats short.
On weightings:
Con: 193 -> 194
Lab: 261 -> 224
LibDem: 87 ->128
Looks fairly standard for ICM.
“I wondered if one of the posters on here would be kind enough to break down the general political party allegience of the major organs of the British press for me.”
Mirror: pro-labour, anti-tory, pro-McDoom
Guardian/Independent: pro-labour (except over Iraq), anti-tory, anti McDoom
Most of the rest of the papers: anti-labour, anti-Cameroon
Sun: anti-labour, trying to be pro-cameroon but struggling
BBC: anti-tory, anti-labour over Iraq
Sky: anti-tory
ITN: pro-tory (relatively speaking)
imo
This is probably what the real state of play is out in the country.
One thing caught my eye from the detailed tables and it may mor may not be significant - others will know much better than me - but 25% of the original 1,005 people questioned either did not know how they were going to vote or would not say. However, a lot more people were prepared to give opinions on which parties had the best policies in the different areas ICM asked about. That indicates to me - though I might be completely wrong - that a lot of those don’t knows probably do know, but are not prepared to say.
Re the determined Ashcroft haters and its lack of impact on the polls - I am minded to recommend to them a (modified) famous quote, with apologies to the ghost of Lyndon B Johnson:
“Did you ever think that making a speech on Ashcroft is a lot like p*ssing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.”
325 - “Anything from the twits yet guys?”
not much from tim but southam been getting hysterical again
More on weightings from Anthony Wells:
“For methodology geeks, ICM’s topline adjustment for “the spiral of silence” – the re-allocation of don’t knows according to which party they voted for at the last election – increased the Conservative lead in this poll. Before the re-allocation the topline figures would have been CON 40%, LAB 32%, LDEM 18%. For many years now this adjustment has tended to help Labour, with “shy Tories” long since replaced by “Bashful Blairites”. I very much doubt this means anything – it’s probably just a freak occurance – so please don’t get all excited about the return of shy Tories (at least, not yet!) but nevertheless it’s interesting to see it again. Ironically, without the topline adjustment the Conservative lead in the previous ICM poll would have been 9 points, so would have fallen in this poll.”
New thread now up.
There are two possible explanations of the ICM poll figures. Either some of the political stories of the week really have moved the figures, as some posters have already suggested with their usual enthusiasm and ingenuity, or most of the YouGov polls of the last fortnight have been rubbish because their new, untried weighting methods are seriously flawed.
Occam’s Razor makes the second more likely than the first.
338 - “Hmmm just seen the sky footage of brown in Afghanistan all shots of brown with senior officers or with afgan troops none with the squadies says it all.”
I thought that too.
Looking at some of the people in shot they can barely bring themselves to look at him
Wonder if any vehicles got named cyclops on this visit.
412.“could Labour ever fight an election without Trade Union millions””
ZNL has been funded by foreign billionaires. If they’d just been funded by the unions we wouldn’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan.
imo
496.You Gov tracker av this week 38,32,17.If you accept that You Gov compared to other pollsters is generous to Labour and underestimates Lib dems and Cons then you would expect something like this result.
Still a bit diisaponting for the Lib dems but they have bben out of the headlines for sometime.
310
‘310.The Conservatives believe that the prime minister has deliberately timed his visit to Afghanistan for the day after his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry.’
What other conclusion can be drawn,I wonder which idiot advised him to go on the trip,they were obviously not around when a similar stunt was made by Brown in 2007 during the Tory conference and backfired so spectaculary.
In terms of Chilcot its Brown’s word against an almost endless list of senior military people and a former Defence minister,game set and match.