Has the SNP discovered the Mandela polling secret?
September 11th, 2009
Is mentioning his name the way to get better results?
In a specially commissioned YouGov poll a few days ago the SNP found that voters in Scotland divided two to one in saying that the affair had enhanced Scotland’s reputation.
Just look at the question however. It read “Do you believe Nelson Mandela’s comments in support for the release of Abdelbaset Ali ohmed Al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds has enhanced or damaged Scotland’s reputation internationally?”
This reminded me of a famous poll of Londoners four and a half years ago commissioned on behalf of the campaign to secure the 2012 Olympic games for the capital. This was the series of questions in the order that they were put:-
“Are you aware that Nelson Mandela recently came out in support of London hosting the 2012 Olympic Games?” YES 60% NO 39%
“To what extent do you agree or disagree with Nelson Mandela’s view that because London is a diverse city, providing a home to hundreds of different nationalities, it would be the best place to hold the Olympic Games.” AGREE 72% DISAGREE 13%
“Would you support or oppose London being chosen as the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games?” SUPPORT 79% OPPOSE 13%
I wonder what both the SNP and the London Olympic polls would have produced without the mention of Nelson Mandela?
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
I’m not really here at all…
The Coast Guard has fired on a “myterious” boat in the Potomac River near the Pentagon…
Is Nelson Mandela right when he says the Tory economic policy risks a double dip recession
PARIS (Reuters) - Governments would jeopardise hopes for recovery if they pulled the plug on economic support policies too soon, the IMF said on Friday, adding to wider calls for prudence in assessing evidence of reviving growth.
Nice to see pollsters maintaing their high standards and refusing to produce push-polls, isn’t it?
R5 Live just now - part 2: ABC reports the Coastguard firing their guns on the Potomac River is a training exercise.
3 that rather depends on the long-term damage of chronic debt on the economic health of the nation tim.
Labour have created a lose-lose position.
5- What a day for a shooting exercise near the Pentagon!
5. Nice bit of planning there! Maybe someone should have checked the scheduling of the exercise with regard to any ’sensitive’ memorial dates?
AP: it was a training exercise!
Yep firing live rounds as Obama drove over the bridge on 9/11…
Jeez.
Nelson Mandela wants to meet Alistair Darling, the man who saved the world economy.
Should he call him Alistair,Mr Darling or Sir.
The story of the recession is still being written. Of all the raft of measures taken during the financial crisis, the most contentious issues remain the fiscal stimulus and quantitative easing, as the Conservatives were strongly opposed to the stimulus and described QE as “a leap in the dark.” PoliticsHome can today confirm that on these issues, opinion is on the move: the political community is starting to concede that both measures have been successful, while the general public remains far more sceptical.
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/have_labours_measures_on_the_economy_worked%3F.html
FPT,425, bilingualism is probably not stable in the long term, because it gives English an open door into Welsh.
From memory, studies into language death show that the greater the percentage of bilinguals, the easier it is for words to enter the threatened language, which in turn makes bilingualism easier for speakers of that language. Once enough words from the dominant language have seeped in, the patterns in them mean that the derivational morphemes follow suit (thus, ex- is now a English prefix). Eventually, once people use the dominant language sufficiently often, they start resorting to it for obscure bits of grammar (can’t remember the 3rd person passive subjunctive, use English grammar) and so the process continues.
In the end, there is little trace left of the original language beyond, just a strong accent and a few unusual constructions. Official pressure by the dominant language isn’t required to achieve this, and even official support for the threatened language can’t hold back the tide.
The French aren’t having much luck keeping English words out of their language. If they can’t, Wales definitely can’t. Oh, the official language may remain pure, but not the spoken language. Indeed, I understand that in both Welsh and Gaelic, the more obscure lentitions are being lost in favour of a more English pattern.
Bilingualism can be stable on the border between two monoglot regions, or where religion is involved, but not for a country like Wales.
of course, it’s not just Wales that has this problem. Projections are that, by the end of the century, every language which currently has under 10 million speakers will be moribund, and those with under 100 million will be threatened - i.e, Italian will be where Welsh is now, and Welsh on life support.
The only languages which will be in good health are the usual suspects: Mandarin Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, English, Arabic, Spanish, and a handful more, barring a major political upset.
Completely off thread but on the rescue of the British journalist hostage in Afghanistan. Do people think the fact he worked for an American News Agency made a difference? I wonder if we would bother rescuing someone who worked for the bbc or any other of OUR news organisations? Was this rescue after being held for only 4 days just an attempt to show the Yanks after all the criticism we’ve had just how tough us Brits can be?
R5 Live just now - part 3: FBI spokesmen says no shots were fired.
6. The IMF is mostly talking about monetary policy measures, which are of much greater significance than the fiscal ones, especially in the case of the UK.
13: Maybe it was a British boat which got into the wrong waters and they just surrendered.
10 Serious question - tim - do you have a day job? If so, how you find the time to post on here so copiously?
I’ve noticed that you’ve started before 0800 for at least three days running and have kept up a regular dialogue into the very late evening/early hours.
I am unemployed and looking after my kitties - I can’t find the time to post as frequently as you do - nevermind reading all the posts in between for context.
Mandela this, Mandela that. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.
Mike, if the SNP is actually selling that poll as evidence of popular support for the release, they’re just plain lying. The question asks about the effect of Mandela’s comments, not the effect of the release itself. Given those two choices, my answer would probably have been “enhanced” also.
17. Has anyone asked Gerry Adams for his opinion on McGrahie ?
14 QE and rates presumably
11
English - the Borg of languages - ‘resistance is futile; you will be assimilated’
Anglo-Saxon follows some poor unsuspecting patois down a dark alley, to emerge later adorned with some fresh linguistic ‘bling’
I do wish judges were as candid as this one…
“A thief made over £150,000 by stealing expensive pairs of trousers from department stores, a court heard today.
Zimbabwean Mandla Ngwenya made the huge sum by leaving stores with trousers on underneath tracksuit bottoms and conning refunds.
A judge at Teesside Crown Court branded him a liar and a devious professional criminal and ordered him to pay the full amount of money back .
Judge Roger Scott said of Ngwenya: ‘He is a proven liar. I don’t believe a word he says. I have in front of me a devious professional criminal. I think very little of him. He’s a grade zero witness.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212797/Trouser-thief-150-000-stealing-strides-claiming-refunds.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0QoE2p4Pj
QE is the equivalent of spending up to your limit on a credit card after you get sacked.
12. Perhaps pacifying the Americans was one of the motives although I think more importantly it was intended to show the Government in a more effective and decisive light regarding Afghanistan to all and sundry. As such I think the journalist could have belonged to any outfit so long as he was a UK Citizen.
Either way it was seemingly an ill-considered, badly implemented (from a political perspective) move by what have become the Laurel and Hardy of the Government (Miliband and Ainsworth). What on earth was Brown thinking leaving those two muppets to make the final decision?
As usual, Yes Minister hits the nail on the head…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yhN1IDLQjo
From a Jersey Blog : “Question for Christie”
Simple question. Bob Brown’s plan is the only plan that can lower property tax bills for the majority of homeowners in the state. Does Chris Christie support this plan?
To refresh everyone’s memory, money collected via the state income tax does not go into the general fund. It is slated only for reducing your property taxes. That’s it. It’s in the state constitution. And it actually would reduce property taxes if the money were divided up and given equally to municipalities on a per student basis. But it’s not done that way. Urban areas, awash in democratic voters, get the lion’s share of the income tax fund. That makes sense for Governor Corzine. Those are the people who voted him in. But it doesn’t make sense for Christie to support that position. He’s a republican and his interest should be in protecting the middle class of this state who are being taxed to death.
Brown’s plan, in his own words:
I would take the state income that is dedicated to only school property tax relief and take that money and distribute it equally per child all over the state of New Jersey, which would reduce your school property taxes by 50 percent.
That’s the way it’s done in Michigan and it works fine there. It would work fine here.
http://www.carlstadt-today.com/php/wordpress/?p=84
440 (Prev Thread). Certainly Mr & Mrs Healey were enamoured of the name Austin.
Austin Healey
Austin Healey
A well-known anti-abortion activist protesting in front of a school in Michigan has been shot dead by multiple gunshots:
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2009/09/antiabortion_activist_shot_in.html
It’s only laziness that stops people from learning English.
15 - the last time a British boat went up the Potomac, the White house got burned. Its understandable they’re trigger happy.
30. If at had been a helicopter we could be sure it wasn’t one of ours.
FPT meurig
Languages dead and alive should of course be the object of academic study. Isn’t that why Prince Charles attended Prifysgol Aberystwyth?
It is using dead languages to provide directions to live motorists that is courting trouble.
The trouble with over-immersion in folk-lore and nationalism is that the fanatical lose their sense of reality and proportion.
Wasn’t it Vladimir Stasov, the Russian nationalist behind the “mighty handful” of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin etc, who became so convinced of the beauty and power of the elephant that he claimed the animal to be indigenous to Russia.
The Scots attempt to adopt the ‘beautiful game’ as their own has met with similar incredulity. The Welsh are doing better with Rugby Football.
Oh dear - so 11m adults need to undergo CRB checks so that kiddy fiddlers can be stopped from giving lifts…
“More than 4,000 paedophiles, rapists and burglars have been let off with just a caution or warning, a police force has admitted.
Cambridgeshire police issued 4,256 criminals with a caution, reprimand or final warning in 2008, including 1485 for serious offences involving ’sexual or violent’ crimes.
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.
Children’s charity Kidscape described the statistics as ‘deeply disturbing’.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212764/Thousands-paedophiles-rapists-let-caution.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0QoG4EhNS
One for the Socialist Numpty Crew to stick in their little pipes and smoke:
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/no_change_since_the_summer_outright_tory_election_victory_expected.html
LABOUR LABOUR LABOUR OUT OUT OUT
Irish Ref.
Irish Times : “Speculation mounts over Irish businessman and Libertas founder Declan Ganley to launch a fresh campaign against the second Lisbon Treaty referendum”
The Tuam-based businessman is described by the Wall Street Journal as the man the Brussels establishment blamed most for the last Lisbon No vote. “He was one of the driving forces behind the No campaign the last time around, and he’s back to do it again,” it said.
In the interview, Mr Ganley said: “The Irish people had a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. They voted no. A higher percentage of the electorate voted no than voted for Barack Obama in the United States of America. No one’s suggesting he should run for re-election next month”.
He also claimed Ireland was “almost literally being held hostage, with a gun pointed to our head, and being told, if you don’t sign this thing, unspecified bad things will happen. But what they’re asking us to do is to sell out the rest of the people of Europe.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0911/breaking59.htm
32
The Welsh have annexed Warwickshire?
30 It can’t be Gordon Brown on the Potomac. He’s otherwise occupied up $hit Creek, having just lost his means of propulsion.
13- CNN was the source of the erroneous report. Bad as this is, it isn’t quite as bad as when they were moments away from declaring on air that President George H.W. Bush was dead, when in fact he was just sick (the incident where he passed out in Japan and was taken to a hospital).
28 — Killing someone in utero or ex utero makes apparently no difference for some of them.
25
Brilliant.
33 - Plato - The headline reads
Thousands of paedophiles and rapists let off with caution
Right underneath it says
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.
FFS
33 - And of course theres an obvious reason for these figures as you should have known
Deputy Chief Constable, John Feavyour said: “Of course the statistics look shocking - because they are bare figures being viewed in isolation.
“What they don’t tell anyone, and what we have to be very careful about when going into any detail, is the circumstances behind many of the sexual offences in particular.
“They involve victims and offenders who are both under the legal age for sexual activity. For example, a girl under 16 cannot legally give consent for sexual intercourse. That means that if two 15-year-olds have sex by mutual consent, there is an offence of rape.
“All of these sorts of facts are carefully considered by police and prosecutors in consultation with the victim and parents or guardians.
“Clearly, no-one wants to impose the potential trauma of a court appearance on young people who will probably never offend in the same way again, and have already learned their lesson.
39- It’s a new innnovation: very very late term abortion.
33 Plato. You will enjoy this John Humphrey interview from The Today Programme this morning. Humphries was on fire.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8249000/8249906.stm
By the end you have to feel sorry for the guy.
21, not just English. Consider the minor languages around China, some of which are so heavily sinicised, little trace remains of their origin. English is just the current champion. It’s probably not much consolation to the victims that it adorns itself with trophies looted from them.
Ultimately, the point of languages is to communicate. In today’s world, where we can all aspire to a billion-strong audience, there are strong centripetal pressures, reducing the number of languages, as has been the trend since farming began. Conversely, once a language stops being used for routine communication, there’s nothing save inertia preventing it splintering into mutually incomprehensible dialects - another milestone on the road to the graveyard.
36. Owain Glyndwr wanted to annexe quite a few English counties in his plans for a ‘greater Wales’.
33 Stats are one thing, but it is the individual story that is involved. That is where the investigating and prosecuting agencies are involved and on what basis decisions are made.
Do not jump to conclusions, that is usually the fault of the tabloid press, and as a result the public do not have a full understanding about what is going on and more importantly why.
I would say 9 times out of ten they get the decision right. Nothing is ever 100%.
Look at the innocent who have been hung.
1 in 2 believe Afghan war not making UK safer
By Craig Woodhouse, Press Association
Friday, 11 September 2009
Almost half the country believes the war in Afghanistan is doing nothing to reduce the threat of terrorism on Britain’s streets, according to a poll out today.
On the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, 49 per cent of people interviewed in a Populus survey for ITV News said military operations in Afghanistan were not reducing the terror threat in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/1-in-2-believe-afghan-war-not-making-uk-safer-1785768.html
[41,42] - Very true tim, and yet there are still thousands of “criminals” who have been either “let off” with a warning, or pressured into accepting one rather than face court (where it might turn out there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict).
There is a bit of a problem with the overuse of official cautions by the police, and this ties into the fixed penalty notices brought in by Labour, where you effectively have extrajudicial punishment. Not a good trend.
This might partly explain the anger aimed at the incumbent:
The median New Jersey household saw its income drop by the largest amount of any state when comparing the last two years to the previous two, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The census released an annual report examining income, poverty and health insurance on Thursday. New Jersey’s median income fell from an inflation-adjusted $71,284 in 2005-06 to $64,070 in 2007-08, according to the report. In comparison, the national median fell $50, from $51,283 to $51,233.
The state fell to the fifth-highest median income, behind New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut and Alaska, according to report. Over a three-year period, from 2006 to 2008, New Jersey had remained second highest, after New Hampshire.
Other findings:
— The percentage of New Jersey residents below the federal poverty level is 9.2 percent, seventh-lowest in the country. The portion of residents rises to 21.9 percent below twice the poverty level, or $44,100 for a family of four.
— The number of New Jerseyans who are uninsured is 1.2 million, or 14.1 percent of the state’s population. This level was 26th-lowest of the 47 states with large enough statistical samples.
http://www.njbiz.com/article.asp?aID=79161
50- Philippe, this story also does not bode well for Corzine, unless Congress steps in to extend unemployment benefit eligibility:
“Unemployment insurance benefits will dry up for an estimated 33,000 New Jerseyans Friday, and the state estimates another 3,500 to 4,000 will receive final checks each week through the end of the year as residents exhaust their benefits. Help for the unemployed now rests with Congress, where pending legislation would extend benefits, likely for another 13 weeks.”
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/thousands_of_nj_residents_to_l.html
On topic, it’s strange (or maybe not) that the SNP included this question in their survey but omitted the standard Westminster voting intention question.
52. Again its a relief that there are no signs here that the pollsters are twisting their approach in order to produce the results that those who commission their polls want to see.
33 - Plato - The headline reads
Thousands of paedophiles and rapists let off with caution
Right underneath it says
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.
FFS
by tim September 11th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
“Cambridgeshire police issued 4,256 criminals with a caution, reprimand or final warning in 2008, including 1485 for serious offences involving ’sexual or violent’ crimes.
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.”
And? 11m peeps will undergo a CRB check despite the fact that out of 4256 cautions/reprimands/final warnings only 10 included sexual offences against children. So let’s assume that Cambridgeshire is a representative place for kiddy fiddlers that’s 10x sexual offences x 43 police forces for E&W = 430.
430/11m = vanishingly small offender rate
Off topic
Courtesy of Guido’s blog, a new word has entered the English language ‘Psycholops’
Any suggestions for a wiki entry would be appreciated?
42 tim
A Deputy Chief Constable concludes that once two underage teenagers have had consensual sex, they “have already learned their lesson”. Are such activities now part of the National Curriculum?
Apologies for the late response to this but I have only just spotted it.
FPT 461. Meurig
Oh, jsfl, like HustLlama I’ve no interest in getting into that debate. But just for info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/wales_politics/8137877.stm
Of course I can understand why, conveniently, you would want to avoid discussing the financial consequences but really putting up what Hain has said is about as inconsequential as you could possibly get.
Given the current political situation, Labour’s record of false and disingenuous promises and Hains own dubious financial dealings, I couldn’t care less what he said as chances are it will turn out that Labour would implement the complete opposite and secondly they likely won’t have a chance to implement it anyway.
LABOUR LABOUR LABOUR - OUT OUT OUT
42 - Defining people who are under 16 having consensual sex as kiddy fiddlers is not particularly helpful, I wouldn’t have thought.
51–Ouch!
So we shall very well expect a strong anti-Corzine fervour, probably much stronger that any GOTV operation supported by Unions thugs.
What I’m doing now is getting rid of my Corzine positions with a loss of about 50 cents for each contract, and backing McDonnell winning in VA for a potential profit of 3,2$ each contracts.
Clegg Clegg Clegg = Egg Egg Egg
Nick Clegg is an egg!!!
EZIOOOOOOO!!!
61. Ezio Auditore da Firenze September 11th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Certainly a rotten one!
54 - Having re read your post its even worse that I first thought.
And? 11m peeps will undergo a CRB check despite the fact that out of 4256 cautions/reprimands/final warnings only 10 included sexual offences against children. So let’s assume that Cambridgeshire is a representative place for kiddy fiddlers that’s 10x sexual offences x 43 police forces for E&W = 430.
430/11m = vanishingly small offender rate
You seem to be assuming that there are no offences by adults agianst under 16s, just under 16s having sex who are in fact the totality of “kiddy fiddlers”
You appear to have referenced yourself.
And if those under 16 have had consensual sex, fine - that just makes the stats even more lobsided against 11m adults.
can you imagine neil kinnock on COCAINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ezio, you are so gay. And self-obsessed. Go love yourself alone. Please.
62 You’re weird.
Paedo-Geddon!
64 - You are making no sense at all.
What stats are you talking about.You haven’t included any stats for child abuse, just those under 16 who were given a caution
Pleas don’t take the Mail seriously on crime or medical stories.
67. Jonathan September 11th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Stop being so uptight! I know your party is going to get a good hammering but try and lighten up a bit!
You will end up like Simon Heffer otherwise! Do you really want to be shitting bricks?
69. tim September 11th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Tim you really are a poor excuse for a Labour supporter. You support terrorism, anything other than the national interest and now you are an advocate of protecting nonces.
Tim = Nonce defence league.
Is anyone else getting fed up with the endless ‘World doesn’t take Britan seriously anymore’ articles that have been popping up all over the place? The latest is from Trevor Kavanagh in the Spectator. What’s really annoying is that when they say ‘world’ they really mean ‘America’. I’m not sure which section of American opinion we’re dealing with - let me guess, Republicans? - but why do we take these anti-British bigots seriously?
I’m not convinced it’s all down to the Lockerbie release. I suspect it goes back further and let me try and give my own rather speculative explanation. America is in a bad way. Mired in debt, fighting unwinnable wars and with healthcare costs rapidly running out of control. Rather than take responsibility for their failings, it would be easier to just blame the Brits. ‘Everything would be okay in Iraq if it weren’t for those useless Brits in the South. Everything would be okay in Afghanistan if it wasn’t for the British being a military joke.’ It’s also a way of deflecting attention from their own role in the global financial meltdown. Many Americans don’t seem to do self-criticism.
I wonder if there is a strong correlation between this anti-British bigotry and oppostion to Obama’s healthcare reform plans. As if it is somehow our fault that Obama wants to provide free healthcare. And finally I do wish journalists would stop going on about how ‘obsessed’ the British are with the ‘Special Relationship’. It is of interest only to our politicians who want to make a fortune in America after they retire. The average person in the street doesn’t care.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/5317216/the-new-politics-of-decline.thtml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article6816407.ece
70 I am not sure obsessing about Nick Clegg equates to be light and not uptight. What is there about Nick Clegg to give a toss about one way or the other?
But if I am going to end up shitting bricks, on your head be it.
73. No thank you - But your Mark Oaten and i claim £10!
Jonathan = Pervert!
73 -
55. I was going to suggest something like:
Is a member of a primordial race of politicians, with an obsolete, myopic and extremely destructive political ideology that suffer from severe mental disturbance?
However, I have since discovered that Psycholops is a character in some X-Men related production:
http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/xconmen/jsiex.html
74 Do I sense a wall growing between us?
63 No.
““Cambridgeshire police issued 4,256 criminals with a caution, reprimand or final warning in 2008, including 1485 for serious offences involving ’sexual or violent’ crimes.
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.”
And? 11m peeps will undergo a CRB check despite the fact that out of 4256 cautions/reprimands/final warnings only 10 included sexual offences against children. So let’s assume that Cambridgeshire is a representative place for kiddy fiddlers that’s 10x sexual offences x 43 police forces for E&W = 430.
430/11m = vanishingly small offender rate”
So if you remove under 16yrs old consensual sex [three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13], that equals 10 incidents x 43 police forces = 430…minus the consensual bit of 30% = the other 7 crimes x 43 = 301.
301/11m = a very very small number
71 - Its not a nonce story, its Plato spouting noncesense getting herself very confused.
73.
“What is there about Nick Clegg to give a toss about one way or the other?”
Ask Nunky Dunky?
79 Do share your alternative viewpoint on how CRB checking 11m people will make a naked-eye difference to child protection?
78 - God help us this is getting worse.
I can’t follow the logic at all, let alone the bit that assumes all the under age sex for which cautions were given involved under thirteen year olds.
Did it not even cross your mind that two fifteen year olds could be cautioned.
Can someone sort this confusion out for her I’ve got to go out.
Come on Lads and Ladettes, we’re not even past lagershed yet.
“…Was this rescue after being held for only 4 days just an attempt to show the Yanks after all the criticism we’ve had just how tough us Brits can be?….”
I suspect the real reason was simple. They went because they knew where he was. The hardest part of these operations is surely to know where the captives are being held. If they had let them be moved it is very likely they would not have got a good fix on the new location. No great conspiracy, just simple tactics. Do you seriously think if the location of the captives in Iraq had been confirmed the forces would have held off until the most politically expedient time?
From Iain Dales ‘Is Brown Bonkers?’ thread
82 tim
You and your part have to go out.
Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once.
82: It’s not difficult tim…
The number of cautions for people convicted of child-crime offences is very low in Cambridge…ie 10 or 3.
Now scale that up to several hundred for the whole country.
Now..11m people (paying £60 a time I beleive) have to go through CRB checks. Do you think that is reasonable or not, or if it will make any difference given that the time, resources and money could be spend protecting children in different ways?
60- Philippe, if online betting on politics is ever legalized in the U.S., I will ask you for a tutorial on how it works! I am not yet sure about either race, but my feelings are net positive on both.
86 correction part = party
87: Actually i’ve just looked it up…its £26 admin fee.
72. Is anyone else getting fed up with the endless ‘World doesn’t take Britan seriously anymore’ articles that have been popping up all over the place?
No I’m getting fed up with this dumb, incompetent British Government (that makes Laurel & Hardy, Frank Spencer and Mr Bean look like political giants) constantly embarrassing this country with their pathetic attempts at governing resulting in other countries not taking us seriously (Libya have just led us a merry dance and likely will continue to). If Labour hadn’t made us a laughing-stock then no one could point the finger…….
Trying to lay this at the U.S.A’s door is daft IMO. They don’t need to make us the patsy, we already are. Brown and co don’t need any help and the US and others must be grateful that they have been so obliging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpN_TOP9hg8
84- New York Times executive editor attempts to justify that it was right and proper for a reporter from his outfit to go into harm’s way against official advice and then expect soldiers and civilians to die to save him so he could live to write more anti-military columns:
“Times executive editor Bill Keller said on Thursday he had seen “no evidence” that reporter Stephen Farrell’s visit to the site of a NATO air strike in northern Kunduz province was “reckless or irresponsible.”
“It was an important story — a report of scores of dead innocents at a very sensitive period in the politics of Afghanistan — that could not be verified by phone calls or the Afghan rumor mill. “It called out for on-the-scene reporting if possible.”
Farrell and Munadi were the second team from The New York Times to be kidnapped in Afghanistan in less than a year. Their abduction highlighted growing insecurity in the once relatively peaceful north of the country.”
(story cannot be linked)
90. £26 x £11 million x average of 2 checks per person (remember you need one for the footie club, one for netball etc etc)= half a billion in stealth tax.
O/T
Anyone notice Jack W has been quiet of late
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8250756.stm
Anyone who thinks this sort of voodoo polling gives any insight into what Scots think needs their head examined. What next ‘Did you know that Nick Griffin would vote for David Cameron, does that make you more or less likely to watch the telly tubbies?’
From a partisan point of view I’m glad the nats are throwing away their money on silly questions.
72 - Has there ever been a time when miserable right wing journalists did not write articles about Britain being in decline? It’s part of what they do. And their miserable, backard-looking readers lap it up. Interestingly Kavanagh states that Blair had a chance to make Britain great again in 1997, which kind of implies he does not think we were great before then. Which in turn rather negates the idea that it is all New Labour’s fault.
92. S&S. Any chance that the New York Times might get sued by the Afghan families?
Mike, others
Are we getting any polls tonight or tomorrow night ?
We must be due an ICM very soon ?
87 Where does it stop? Babysitters, Godparents? Nice law - everyone’s guilty by default.
87. The stats are for cautions, not the total number of offences, which is presumably higher.
91 - What happened to the murderers of WPC Yvonne Fletcher?
92 - Is there any evidence that the NYT reporter expected to be freed?
82 http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sexual_offences_unlawful_sexual_intercourse/
“Did it not even cross your mind that two fifteen year olds could be cautioned.”
Underage girls don’t appear to be capable of rape so ‘both’ parties can’t be charged.
Stars, YOU, of all people, would have a lot of fun betting on US politics, and international as well!
***
Meanwhile:
—->WSJ : GOP Bets Attacks on Obama Will Tip Virginia Race
LEESBURG, Va., — “If hope and change is [that] you’re unemployed and you can’t pay your mortgage, than you’re probably not going to vote for the guy who brought the hope and change, or his party,” says the 44-year-old Mr. Nicholson [manager of a local winery].
…->Strategists in both parties use Virginia to gauge the national electorate, because the state’s racial, age and gender profile, as well as its moderate political views, generally mirror those of the nation. Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama got nearly 53% of the vote nationwide and 52.6% in Virginia.
…Mr. McDonnell, a former Virginia attorney general and state lawmaker, has pounded his Democratic opponent [Mr. Deeds] as a disciple of Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats, and built a lead of 10 to 12 percentage points in most polls. A Survey USA poll released Sept. 3 found that 13% of last year’s Obama voters planned to vote for Mr. McDonnell.
…Mr. Deeds hasn’t had an easy road. He had to pull off a come-from-behind win in the primary and bring in more experienced campaign staff. And he continues to struggle to present a defining issue that resonates broadly with voters — this week, his message seemed to be education overhaul. The lack of a clear image has left him vulnerable to Mr. McDonnell’s accusation that he is in lockstep with Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats.
Mr. Deeds faces another obstacle: history. In every Virginia gubernatorial election since 1977, the party that won the presidency the previous year went on to lose the governor’s race.
“Voters in Virginia tend to take on the mission of the founding fathers, who believed in balance. Apparently this thing has become an iron law. It’s just fascinating,” said political science Prof. Larry J. Sabato at the University of Virginia. “It really does give McDonnell a major boost. While this thesis controversy helps Deeds, that can’t counteract this movement away from Obama.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125263413914201927.html
97- I would love to see it but, as much as I detest the NYT and the individuals who constitute the organization, the ultimate fault rests with those who are responsible for the decision to try to free him through force in the first place.
92 - Shock as journalist does his job. Person on internet mildly annoyed.
Good spot, Mike. Perhaps we could form one of those obscure organisations that used to flourish in England (the Flat Earth Society was just one of many) - the League Against Push Polls. The Twitter operation to mess up a Daily Express push poll which Martin Coxall advertised here was a wonderful example - they managed to rig a vote of 98% in favour of “allowing gypsies to jump NHS queues”.
Meanwhile, Will Straw launching another left-wing blog site:
http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=f9ea871b5195913897f596ba7&id=27895663d3&e=bb84cf117e
BTW, last night’s by-elections were generally poor for the small parties (Greens and BNP in particular) - the post-Euro surge ebbing?
105 - Surely the ultimate fault lies with those who kidnapped him in the first place.
105. Surely the ‘bad guys’ are the ones who kidnapped him?
101. Southam - What’s your point?
Apparently if it’s okay in the UK, it’s okay in Russia:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/11/vladimir-putin-president-joint-decision
“Was there any competition in 2007? No. Then we won’t have this in 2012,” Putin said. Smiling broadly, he added: “We will agree because we are people of one stamp. We will take all these things into account and then decide.”
His comments raise the prospect that the Putin era – which began in 2000 – could extend for at least another decade. Under Russia’s new constitution the next president is entitled to stay in power for two more six-year terms, raising the prospect that Putin could still be in the Kremlin in 2024 – aged 72.
Speaking to the Valdai Club, a group of foreign and Russian experts, Putin dismissed concern about a democratic deficit by saying that Britain might learn something from the Russian system. “When a good friend of mine [Tony Blair] retired, Gordon Brown automatically became prime minister. Did the people of Great Britain participate in this?” he asked.
“There was a change of leaders in the country. They just decided. In my country my turn expired. I suggested Dmitry Medvedev because I thought he was the right person to be leader of the country. I was right.”
87 - Slackbladder.
Lord, now there’s two confused herdsters.
The figure of 10 is the number of cautions given to under 16 year olds who were having consensual sex.
96 I guess it falls apart, no-one can agree on what great actually means. If great means a totally independent and old school power. Then Britain hasn’t been great since long before WW2.
If great means being particularly economically advanced or talented in important areas then we’ve been great consistently all along. The areas have changed over the decades perhaps, but you can always point to some British enterprise (social, arts, tech, education or business) leading the way.
108 - Why blame terrorists when you get a chance to bash the evil NYT?!?
107 - Last night’s results were just local results in the case of the Green party. I wouldnt read anything more into it.
112. Beggars the question - who reported the crime ?
“.91 - What happened to the murderers of WPC Yvonne Fletcher?
by Southam Observer September 11th, 2009 at 5:17 pm..”
Didn’t realise they ever identified the killers of the WPC. Perhaps you could give us the names?
91 - That Libya has led us a merry dance for decades.
90 Trying to work out from what’s been published what the process is. It appears that anyone who fits the profile (visits schools, offers lifts, volunteers more than once a month - calendar or consecutive weeks?) must register with the ISA. For people who will be in a paid capacity there is a fee of £64, volunteers don’t have to pay. The individual has to do this and gets a registration with codes so that he/she can advise any organisation concerned and they with the data provided can check with the ISA.
Is there a fee levied on the organisation for checking that the person is registered?
Apparently in case of a household taking in an exchange student only the person nominated as responsible needs an ISA registration, no other adults in household nor visitors regular or otherwise do. So presume same applies to parents offering lifts - the driver will need ISA registration but an adult travelling with, but not actually giving the lift will not?
This is additional to and not a replacement for the CRB check which will still be required for employment in specified cases, and which requires a separate check by each organisation concerned.
Can I just put in a word of support for the Daily Mail?
One of the many blessings of living over here is that I can happily read the paper, including sports pages, listen to sports talk radio, or watch the sports networks on TV, knowing that I will read or hear nothing whatever about either of the Beckhams - or for that matter any of the ‘famous for being famous’ celebrities who inhabit the British press for leaving some night club rather the worse for wear in the wee small hours, pairing / splitting up, or going on vacation somewhere warm.
But then on here someone will link to a story in the Mail, and on the sidebar will be story after story of this sort, so I can have a few moments illicit pleasure reading stuff about people I’ve never heard of before returning to the more mundane happenings of the real world, or what passes for it.
116 - No, but they knew exactly where they were.
111. “Vladimir Putin signals plan to reclaim old job as Russian president”
Wow, I bet nobody saw that coming. Medvedev’s probably just glad he didn’t have any funny cups of tea.
103 Plato
tim has had to pop out to make a cup of tea for Gordon and check that he is taking his medication.
113 - True. In Kavanagh’s eyes Britain is not great because the things he wants to happen here have not happened.
116. They’ve been freed on compassionate release.
“The figure of 10 is the number of cautions given to under 16 year olds who were having consensual sex.
by tim September 11th, 2009 at 5:26 pm”
cf
“The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, include 10 sexual offences against children, including three of rape where the victim was under the age of 13.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212764/Thousands-paedophiles-rapists-let-caution.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0QoeMmlQx ”
Good work, as usual, timmy!
108. If someone enters the cage of a tiger ignoring the signs saying ‘Dangerous - do not enter’ and get bitten - who’s fault is that? The tiger or the moron who ignored the sign?
It seems to me that in such cases those who ignore sound advice must take individual responsibility for their actions (despite the rights or wrongs of others). I’m not saying others are not also to blame but Farrell should be slammed for this. He has no excuse.
108/109- The kidnappers are responsible for the kidnapping, not for the terrible decision to go in blasting away when others were trying to secure the release without bloodshed. When the politicians got involved, they took on their own responsibility for the rescue.
114- I didn’t absolve the terrorists of blame; the NYT’s shameful behavior and the terrorists’ culpability for the kidnapping are separate issues from the question of who is to blame for the botched rescue operation.
113. I’m sorry, but what are our great achievements in social, arts, tech, education or business?
Social - no, we’re anti-social.
Arts - forget it.
tech - maybe, but what are we doing with all our great scientific work?
education - aside from an impressive tiny elite, we’re nothing much.
business - are you aware of our productivity levels? The French do more in their 35hr week than we manage with the longest working hours in Europe.
112 So tim - as per my earlier enquiry - do you have a day job? And if so, how do you manage such a prolific posting rate?
And since when were the stats from Cambs police for sexual offence cautions etc only given for under 16yr olds as you state?
I didn’t see that in the FOI response. The report says:
“Criminals aged 11-17 can be issued with a reprimand and then a final warning, which will remain on their record for two years or until they turn 18. A caution can only be given to a person over 18.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212764/Thousands-paedophiles-rapists-let-caution.html#ixzz0QoeCrnTr
SO,
Couple of points.
Knowing where someone is does not constitute a case against them. Were the police supposed to arrest every person in the Embassy and charge them all?
I believe, but do not know for a fact that all the people in the Embassy were covered by Diplomatic immunity and so could not be prosecuted anyway.
So, what is your point? The cases have no similarity. In one case nobody was and probably could not be convicted for. The other someone was convicted and jailed for.
Seth O. Logue
Maybe someone should open a book about tim’s identity.
tim: would you be ready to reveal who you are after the GE?
That could be fun! I have no clue, but would love to watch this race raging on!
125 - Read post 42
122.
Be careful what you say on the subject! My comment got moderated just for saying he Is bonkers, pathetic. Then again my names not Tim or Gabble etc
117. So? That doesn’t in anyway excuse the current bunch of incompetents it just suggests we need a better quality of politicians and have done so for quite a significant time.
127 - You said the “ultimate fault” lies with the people who took the decision to free the bloke by force. My view is that the people most to blame were the kidnappers. We will have to disagree.
121. true, but it’s the comment on the lack of electing our PM and the inference we docilely accepted the situation that’s most depressing.
“When a good friend of mine [Tony Blair] retired, Gordon Brown automatically became prime minister. Did the people of Great Britain participate in this?”
126 - Journalist to military person: “I see you have been accused of killing numerous innocent civillians again, I am going to investigate.” Military person: “No, it is too dangerous, you cannot.” Journalist: “Righty ho, good point, better do what you say.”
Risking their own lives to uncover the truth about events such as the one being investigated in this case is a genuine public service that journalists and newspapers like teh NYT should be applauded for.
133 - I agree completely. I just wish there were some somewhere.
136 - I think you’ll find that the real problem is that it is the New York Times.
138 - For some posters, clearly.
107 NPMP
Perhaps we could form one of those obscure organisations that used to flourish in England?
Shall we call it the Labour Party?
“…126 - Journalist to military person: “I see you have been accused of killing numerous innocent civillians again, I am going to investigate.” Military person: “No, it is too dangerous, you cannot.” Journalist: “Righty ho, good point, better do what you say.”….”
Or what about, “righty ho, good point, here is a signed disclaimer saying if captured I do not require any state assistance thanks.”
128 - I think you need a lie down old chap.
What’s in 42 seems to imply that no adults were given cautions for sexual offences against children. If that’s the point you’re making, hence just making the point that the story itself is rubbish, then I agree.
It seemed that you were picking a fight with Plato for her thinking that the 11m CRB checks would be excessive given only 10 cautions for sexual offences children, when, in fact, if no adults were given cautions for sexual offences against children, she is even more right (but the Mail still wrong)
136. If Farrell is dumb enough to stick his head in the tiger’s mouth all it says to me is that he is stupid and that should never be applauded.
Basically, they should have left him there to receive whatever the fates decided for him.
132 Isn’t it a shame that two under 16s can’t be cautioned as per your earlier post…as one is female and falls outside the law?
“Did it not even cross your mind that two fifteen year olds could be cautioned.
Can someone sort this confusion out for her I’ve got to go out.
by tim September 11th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
missed a word…
It seemed that you were picking a fight with Plato for her thinking that the 11m CRB checks would be excessive given only 10 cautions for sexual offences against children, when, in fact, if no adults were given cautions for sexual offences against children, she is even more right (but the Mail still wrong)
136- The only problem with your argument is that the officials were proved right, and the NYT got itself into the very trouble about which it was warned and chose to ignore. Your suggestion that the officials involved were merely trying to cover up wrongdoing rather than giving what turned out to be accurate advice is contemptible. The reporter willingly took on the risk and should have had to live with it.
with ref to all the discussion about the true identity of tim. This is a video of him and exposes the tragedy of a life spent in front of a computer 22hrs a day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_9MCIzKyUk
142. I haven’t taken my medication yet but I can assure you I don’t need to lie down! And I’m certainly not old.
147 - Is there any suggestion anywhere that the reporter or the NYT expected him to be freed by the military?
Are you seriously suggesting that reporters should always do as authorities advise?
149 - Take it quickly and if you are on the young side see someone about getting some more.
148 - The irony is, of course, that you are posting and Tim is not.
147 - Oh dear, the point wasnt that it was not a dangerous venture, just that it is a healthy thing for our democracy that some journalists are not put off investigating such killings by those dangers. Those who went to investigate that incident ARE living with the consequences (or died from them in the case of the man who was killed).
As a mental exercise just for you try to imagine how you would feel if it was a Fox TV journalist.
153
When you say ‘the man who was killed’ you are of course referring to the soldier who has needlessly lost his life???
Number 10 press office just said:
“The Prime Minister met today with senior trade union representatives. It was a constructive and wide-ranging discussion which focussed on continuing to get Britain out of recession and creating a positive vision for a strong Britain in the future.
“They agreed that pulling the plug on the economy at a time of recession would put the recovery at risk. It was also agreed that jobs will be top of the agenda in the coming months.
“While the Prime Minister made it clear that there will be tough choices on public spending in future years, he reiterated his strong commitment to the role of public services and manufacturing in Britain’s future growth.”
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2009/09/the-balti-summit-at-chequers.html
104- One interesting similarity this year in New Jersey and Virginia is that the Democratic candidates in both races are going very personal and very negative, while the GOP candidates are trying to push more on issues. This is a good leading indicator of where things are heading, both on politics and issues, in the U.S. (at least at the state level, Dems avoiding issues while GOP pouncing on them; Dems trying to turn races into personal mudslinging matches). If the Dems can win either race, it will be by virtue of making voters fixate more on the mudslinging than the issues.
Earlier I postulated that the rescue may have been expalined by the fact that the reporter was working for an American newspaper. I doubted that we’d bother to rescue someone working on one of our own newspapers.
But could it be because it was the NYT. The Labour elite is obsessed with East Coast liberals (one of its great failings) and saw the opportunity for some brownie points. Just look at Brown holidaying on Cape Cod and his idolising of those devious scoundrels, the Kennedys as exemplified by his awarding of an honourary knighthood to Ted.
157. Didn’t think Gordo went to Cape Cod to be near the Kennedy boys
156 - If true, maybe the Republicans have cottoned on to the fact that sometimes mud-slinging does not work.
Has anyone on here got an email from the Labour Party? I signed up ages ago and zip so far…
re 47 with this government you need to look no further than the 11 million + innocent who are presumed to be child molesters.
“.148 - The irony is, of course, that you are posting and Tim is not.
by Southam Observer September 11th, 2009 at 5:56 pm…”
and the difference is, I am just about to leave for work. Whereas tim will be back soon to resume his work. That is the real irony.
157 - Yes, that’ll be it.
153. And what about the translator? Did Farrell fully avail him of the warnings he received?
162 - I see
157- The idea of innocents and heroes giving their lives for somebody who knowingly took the risk upon himself without the approval or consent of anyone but himself and his own organization is sickening.
This is rather fun
http://fountain.blogspot.com/2009/09/undisputed-world-champion.html
158. No, but it’s very clear that is where Brown’s political instincts lie. He LOVES East Coast Democrats. His idol - as he has admitted - is Bobby Kennedy. I bet he would be very excited at the thought of a positive editorial about himself in the NYT.
136 Neil
If Michael Yon had been kidnapped when embedded with British troops in Helmand, would our attitude to mounting a special services operation to release him have been different?.
I suspect most people on this blog value the contribution Yon has made to the exposure of truth on the battlefield. The same is probably true of the soldiers in the units where he was embedded, pace any MoD view of his role.
Stephen Farrell’s mission was different. The military made a mistake which caused 90, mainly civilian, deaths. Two journalists arrived on a one-off mission to investigate and report the truth. My guess is that the local forces would have been less supportive in these circumstances.
However, it matters not whether the public or the military support the specific role of the journalist. A decision would be taken in both instances to use military resources to secure a release.
Local soldiers and special forces would have obeyed their orders accordingly. In the first example eagerly and in the latter reluctantly.
Should Clegg call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan?
Absolutely. Yes he should.
129 - Plato.
Have we cleared up your confusion now?
119.”But then on here someone will link to a story in the Mail, and on the sidebar will be story after story of this sort, so I can have a few moments illicit pleasure reading stuff about people I’ve never heard of before returning to the more mundane happenings of the real world, or what passes for it.”
TimB, I do that too with the Mail online. I don’t buy gossip mags, but I do enjoy reading it in the mail.
Yes Clegg should but he wont
SO, tim is now back at work and I am leaving for work, night.
171 And what makes you think that?
“112 So tim - as per my earlier enquiry - do you have a day job? And if so, how do you manage such a prolific posting rate?
And since when were the stats from Cambs police for sexual offence cautions etc only given for under 16yr olds as you state?
I didn’t see that in the FOI response. The report says:
“Criminals aged 11-17 can be issued with a reprimand and then a final warning, which will remain on their record for two years or until they turn 18. A caution can only be given to a person over 18.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1212764/Thousands-paedophiles-rapists-let-caution.html#ixzz0QoeCrnTr
by Plato September 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm ”
Tsk.
And as a Labour voter during 97-2005, it’d be tricky to label me as a ‘herd’ member.
Shame, eh?
Norwegian election
“Four new opinion polls published
on Friday ahead of Norway’s parliamentary election on Sept. 14
were evenly split over whether the centre-left government will
retain its majority or lose it to the opposition.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSLB50668520090911
Shallow Dave in deep water over yacht.
What a surprise, it seems Dave didn’t do his research properly on the Hull Yacht nonsense.
Robin Knox Johnston is going after him claim ing Dave is ill briefed and inviting him up to see the boat, which Johnston claims is part of a scheme which has a remarkably low re offending re offending rate and saves the state money.
176. ‘Hull Yacht nonsense’ - I haven’t heard of this. Has Dave been spotted lapping it up on a luxury yacht off the coast of Hull?
Who said Tim had just popped out to get his briefing from the bunker?
Have a cigar.
Anthony Wells has commenced his pre-conference (General Election) round up:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2246
174 - No idea what you are rambling about now I’m afraid.
Read post 42.
But you do seem to have stopped the total nonsense about child abuse in Cambridgeshire that you were spouting at the start.
Use the Daily Mail for cat litter.
171 tim
Do tell us. How was Gordon? Things looking up?
Norwegian election - turnout
“As many as than 622,000 Norwegians have already casted votes in the run-up to Norway’s parliamentary election, reports Regjeringen.no on Sept. 11. This is nearly triple the amount of advance and absentee voting compared to the last election in 2005.”
http://blog.norway.com/2009/09/11/latest-norwegian-election-opinion-polls/
168- The theory seems plausible given what we know about Brown.
Stay with me on this PBers.
Recently I bought on download some new software from Adobe (InDesign 4 - very good) but had trouble understanding how to pay for it. Up popped a box saying ‘would you like some help via our live assistant?’ and within a second or two I was deep in text conversation with an operator. ‘Craig’ was helpful, very patient and accurate, if occasionally prone to use an unusual turn of phrase, and not exactly - how shall I put this - inspired. I mean every point I made had to be confirmed even when it seemed a bit obvious (I want to pay in £ Stirling led to the reply ‘are you saying you want to pay in £ Stirling?’)
It was not until about the fourth reply that I suddenly twigged ‘Craig’ was in fact a computer programme.
How clever, computer artificial intelligence is finally getting good enough to fool me for a few moments.
And this is the bit that is relevant to PB.com.
Because then I just thought - ‘Tim’.
176. Frank
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/health/NHS-Sailing-academy-hits-waves/article-874646-detail/article.html
19 It’s only laziness that stops people from learning English.
Yes, but I would put it this way.
It is primarily people who are lazy about learning English, that stops people from learning English.
Lets us face it. What is more motivating, actually getting, or doing IT, or reading about getting, or doing IT?
There are many that replace the former, with spending far to much time performing the latter.
What is better, ie more fun. Being a rich business man, film star, or football player, drugs/arms-dealer/gangster, or being the accountant for same?
We all have differing things that motivate our beings. Those usually being things which we individually believe we are good at. which also the things that come most easily to us.
We can’t all be rocket scientist, writers, or academics, and most would not want to be. Which is just as good. Many of us are far too thick, or dis and/or uninterested in being so anyway.
The wannabe non-working classes that predominate political discourse seem to think that they are somehow important or indeed listened to by the greater unwashed. The truth is they don’t listen. This because they already know life is a bitch, which is sucking the establishments cock, not ever theirs, by their own personal experiences.
The people at the top, think we are all ( working, lower-middle, middle, upper-middle, or indeed most upper-class ) as unwittingly stupid, as we are all infinitely expendable. Which is extremely unwittingly stupid, whether we took the time to read, and write the Queens English properly, or not.
The elites are ONLY interested in issues concerning other elites, sporting or otherwise. The rest of us, are only valuable as milch cows, and other assorted varieties of voting booth/cannon fodder.
182- I hope Jan from Norway will give us his promised pre-election overview.
Re 184. Is this the NHS’s first moves in taking over either the DWP or the Royal Navy I wonder?
168 / 183 - Sweet jesus.
189 Does he get Brown excited too? i thought that was Blair?
184 - Glad to see you’ve updated yourself Marcus.
The Marcus that only managed a 0.1% rise in the Tory share of the vote in Torbay 2005 needed a revamp.
Was it the lowest absolute number of votes for a Torbay Tory?
186 John Galt
How did you get here? You should be back inside. Gordon is missing you. Take my arm and we’ll go and have a cup of tea. Alright?
knox johnston is a businessman with a huge vested interest in talking up the social utility of yachting. he is also rather stupid, as we can all see from his “inviting cameron to see the boat”. wtf is that supposed to achieve? is dc meant to say ooh, i was dead against it, but now that i see it has self-tailing winches and twin spinnaker poles i am completely converted”? and i am afraid that your parroting of the invitation without noticing its imbecility makes you look rather stupid too.
And another thing: humour is not your forte. trust me on this. “Shallow Dave in deep water over yacht” is as cutting as that hilarious jest about ken clarke being the “shadow shadow chancellor of the exchequer” which GB trotted out a dozen times before retiring it. in fact the lameness is so uncannily similar that i am now convinced that both “jokes” are the handiwork of some anonymous Reichsfunmeister in the Downing Street bunker.
193 - How about.
Cutter Dave in shallow fop yacht chop.
Evening all,
Interesting political development here tonight. Ian Parsley (no not that one!) who was the Alliance Party’s candidate in the Euros has defected to the NI Conservatives. This is easily the most high profile defection they’ve ever had. It also raises the prospect that he could be the agreed Con/UUP candidate in North Down if as expected, the sitting MP Lady Hermon either stands down or runs as an independent.
Any chance of a betting market for North Down? It is certain to be an extremely tight contest!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2009/09/ian-parsley-joins-the-conservatives.html#comment-6a00d83451b31c69e20120a5bada83970c
Oh dear - so you ignore all of points raised.
“#174 - No idea what you are rambling about now I’m afraid.
Read post 42.
But you do seem to have stopped the total nonsense about child abuse in Cambridgeshire that you were spouting at the start.
Use the Daily Mail for cat litter.
by tim September 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Floating PB readers will be convinced
More anti-fascist and rightwing protestors going head to head, in Harrow this time. [Incidentally, I suspect both terms are inaccurate but there we are].
Saw it on Sky just now. Looked like there were hundreds of them, separated by rozzers outside a mosque.
Harrow looking a bit powder keg this evening wit a fascist/anti-fascist face-off brewing
Re the Yacht
Whilst it does obviously get some kids off the street for a while, I find it hard to see how the existence of this yacht is going to get these kids a job? After all have I missed the governments drive to increase the number of professional yachting crew jobs in this country?
And apart from the obvious of being a generally healthy pastime, WTF has keeping the unemployed off the streets got to do with the NHS (except perhaps that they had a spare £ 400k sloshing about in their coffers)?
193 Timbot thats a repetitite post, You have said that before and it holds as little water as the last time you said it. I wouldnt go about spouting stats given that you cant even manage a bit of simpleton division.
202 - Have I said it before?
You monitor all my posts so perhaps you could tell me.
Did he answer whether he got the lowest number of Tory votes in the history of Torbay.
203 And in only a few minutes, tim will have been on shift for 12hrs.
In the words of Roy Castle - ‘that’s dedication’…
204. Plato - Do you think he might be breaching the EU directive on working hours?
200 Dyed
“Harrow looking a bit powder keg this evening with a fascist/fascist face-off brewing”
I’ve corrected your mistake.
203 tim
Thanks to Craig you’ll be getting your answer in the post. I will be set in Adobe Garamond Pro and printed on two sides in a three face tent-fold. Watch the letterbox tomorrow morning.
201 - I, like Dave know little about the yacht.
I know the NHS was only a part funder, about 25%.
Knox Johnston made some claim about reoffending rates, but I, like Dave don’t know the facts.
203
No I don’t Tim, I ignore most of them, but I usually challenge you on your smears. I can spot them a mile off. Its in the ether you know. There’s bound to be several every day.
I see the Brothers revenue is taking a hit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/11/union-membership-decline
206, yes, I rather dislike the ‘anti-fascist protestor’ tag. Need to see more but to me it looked like two gangs of ruffians as opposed to a circle of pure and innocent defenders of democracy against the serried ranks of neo-nazi lunatics.
204. Plato
“And in only a few minutes, tim will have been on shift for 12hrs.”
That’s nothing to what he makes the Poles on his farm work.
How has the harvest been this year tim?
What are you suggesting? Surely not that Gordon may have enjoyed holidaying of the US’s #1 gay hotspot Provincetown?
204 - I must admit Plato, your sub Daily Mail performance this afternoon did make me think I might actually have been dragooned into teaching a remedial life long learning course by Mandelsons brain waves.
OT Whatever you think of Donal Blaney - this is a silly Harriet stance
http://donalblaney.blogspot.com/2009/09/harriet-airbrushes-out-maggie.html
208 Maybe, Tim, people are just thinking that £500k from Hull NHS Trust might be better off spent on something like, let’s hazard a guess, healthcare.
208 tim
The problem with the Hull yacht is not Dave viewing it, but the local MP boarding it. Marine salvage is expensive.
206 thanks!
214 - Perhaps its in response to the revelation that the Iron Curtain Lady wanted to keep the Berlin Wall up.
213 Reply to any of my queries when you have a moment.
214, hmm. Moronic woman has moronic opinion, methinks. Reminds me of lolcat memes.
“Harricat hates men and Tories.”
I think Ive had enough of Timbot for one day.. off to watch some Rugby League
210 Morris Dancer. I think a rather cool symbiosis exists between the Islamo Fascists and their girly cheerleaders on the one hand and the far-right Neo Nazis.
They love each other to bits really, as one side lends credibility to the other.
My preference is for the Islamo Fascists.They have the tastier cheerleaders.
“Perhaps its in response to the revelation that the Iron Curtain Lady wanted to keep the Berlin Wall up.”
That would surely make here a hero among Labour politicians.
Has anyone going to have a guess at what the next poll numbers will be, we may see one this weekend. Nb. YouGov were questioning earlier this week ?
Tim keep up the good work, you’re doing a sterling job convincing the floating voters.
re 215 well of course come next year all NHS Trusts will be spending millions getting their staff put on the idiotic vetting and barring database. Perhaps tim thinks that’s a sensible use of NHS funds as well.
From the BBC
“Brazil has come out of recession after its economy grew in the April-to-June quarter.
The largest economy in Latin America expanded by 1.9% in the second quarter from the previous three months.
Data also showed Sweden emerged from recession on Friday, a sign that economies are starting to recover from the global economic downturn.”
I hope the Brazilians and Swedes know that they have Alistair Darling to thank.
226
Yes, but it’s only millions. What do a few millions matter?
206 - See conversation last night about the lack of understanding of the term socialism and replace the term with fascism…
Watch out,Eagles ! You’ll have Marcus Wood correcting your spelling.See post 186.
What a man- http://bit.ly/IlktF.
226 - Aren’t the staff who work with children already checked?
230 - There’s nothing wrong with my spelling, It’s just different to everyone elses.
232 tim
According to URW, just spell-checked.
208. Which still begs the question about what certain people in the NHS think they are doing spending taxpayers money on matters that seemingly are nothing to do them (and therefore have little expertise in deciding whether it was appropriate expenditure)?
If Knox Johnston is concerned about reoffending rates then he should take it up with the Home Office/ Justice Department not the NHS or are the NHS making a move on them as well?
re 232 oh come on tim I had counted on you having some intelligence.
1. it’s not just children, it’s vulnerable adults as well, and I wouldn’t have thought you could be more vulnerable than when you’re ill in hospital.
2. it’s additional - you have to have this new check AND be CRB checked as well.
It’s complete delusional nonsense from your government which won’t be content until it’s got its tabs on everyone.
I do love how the BBC has decided they’re rightwing demonstrators. Perhaps they might like to check and see where the BNP get their support from.
Silly me. I was trying somewhat obliquely to make the point that the future MP for Torbay was in fact barely literate.
I don’t suppose it matters after twelve years of Labour Government.
236 - Have you got a link to that info, I’d like to read it.
236 - Speaking as someone who works in the legal field, “Vulnerable Adults” is becoming an ever expanding list.
In our line of work, vulnerable adults has been updated to include women who are getting a divorce, or are recently divorced.
There are many more already on the list who can be considered vulnerable.
But he won’t be.
And never will be.
239 - Tim. Here you go, read it all, especialy section 5
Employers should familiarise themselves with the additional new requirements under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (2006) and the launch of the Vetting & Barring Scheme which comes into force from 12 October 2009 and will apply to individuals working or volunteering with children and vulnerable adults where they have frequent, intensive or overnight access to these vulnerable groups. The new scheme will be phased gradually over a five year period.
http://www.nhsemployers.org/RecruitmentAndRetention/Employment-checks/Employment-Check-Standards/Pages/Employment-Check-Standards.aspx
240
before I go….
Labour MP’s with majorities less than 10k are very vunerable
tim - “213 Reply to any of my queries when you have a moment.”
238 URW
I think numeracy skills are more highly valued by MPs these days.
re 239 tim what you mean your giant database doesn’t give you links to stories which cast the government in a poor light?
I’ll let you have some advice recently sent out by the rowing governing body - and no doubt lots of other as well.
“the ISA registration will not replace CRB checks”
“ISA registration will not replace the need to renew CRB checks on a 3 yearly basis”
18. “Mike, if the SNP is actually selling that poll as evidence of popular support for the release, they’re just plain lying.”
To which there’s a simple answer - they’re not. They didn’t need to do that because there was a direct (and very neutrally-worded) question about the release itself which showed an exactly even split - I think it was 45% in favour and 45% against. On the Mandela part, they simply accurately reported the poll results on the basis of the question asked.
“The question asks about the effect of Mandela’s comments, not the effect of the release itself. Given those two choices, my answer would probably have been ‘enhanced’ also.”
Now who’s lying?
Incidentally, if you think the Mandela question was dodgy, you should have seen the private poll YouGov carried out for Archie Stirling’s “Scottish Voice” party a couple of years ago!
247 Red Meteor
I think you need to set out the questions in sequence to prove your case. The ‘Yes Minister’ link at post 25 [JohnKellett] is directly relevant to the debate.
243 - MTF, Love it.
And tim if you click on that link in 242, you’ll note
It is important to note that the new scheme does not mean an automatic barring of all individuals who may have a criminal conviction. The ISA will only bar people who are identified as posing an obvious risk, it is therefore essential that where there is a current mandated requirement in the NHS to carry out a CRB check, these should continue to be obtained to ascertain that the individual does not have a criminal conviction that may deem them unsuitable to work in the position being offered.
246 - Your post at 236 should be compared to this.
The ISA will only bar people who are identified as posing an obvious risk, it is therefore essential that where there is a current mandated requirement in the NHS to carry out a CRB check, these should continue to be obtained to ascertain that the individual does not have a criminal conviction that may deem them unsuitable to work in the position being offered.
Members of staff who are already working within regulated activity will have their registrations phased in over a period of five years.
245 Seth O Logue. So glad you brought that up in connection with Marcus Wood.
His numeracy skills fall short of even his attempts at literacy and his betting skills fall even shorter.
This blowhard tried bluffing the entire forum with his comic assertion and ‘willingness’ to bet that the Liberal Democrats would not get above 32 Seats come next GE.
He accused the entire forum of cowardice.Mike Smithson challenged this halfwit and then I offered him a bet of £10,000 or any part with odds thrown in.
Nothing beats the spectacle of a know-nothing in full retreat.
I suppose it is a little unfair to expect a prospective Tory MP to know much about political betting.
243. But is there anyone who would want to ‘fiddle’ with them?
Hull yacht nonsense ? ! !
Well thats it for Dave then - the elections lost. Kaput.
And its tim wot dunnit.
PS is no one going to tell us what else goes on in Cape Cod then?
250/1 Snap.
I’ve asked a couple of times this week if any readers have seen emails from Labour recently [I haven't despite being registered at LabourHome].
Here’s the latest from CCHQ
“The seasons might be changing but this Groundhog Day Government certainly isn’t. Labour came back from their summer holidays promising a fresh approach - more honesty and more realism about the state of the public finances. But after all the spin the most striking thing about Alistair Darling’s speech was what he didn’t say. He still couldn’t bring himself to utter the word ‘cuts’ and there were no new commitments to reduce spending.
What’s more he didn’t address the fundamental inconsistency in Labour’s argument. He says he’ll reduce the deficit once the recession is over, yet his own forecasts expect growth to resume at the end of this year. So why on earth are they still planning to increase spending next year by £30 billion? Simple - there’s a general election around the corner and for Labour, doing the right thing lost out long ago to political calculation.
On the same day I gave a speech that showed our approach is the exact opposite. I was honest about the scale of the challenge, and that cuts have to be made. I said we had to start dealing with the debt as soon as possible, and that the extra £30 billion is simply too much. I also set out new commitments to reduce spending by cutting the cost of politics. The whole pampered, profligate apparatus of modern politics has got to be trimmed back. The chauffeur-driven cars, the subsidised food, the public affairs consultants, Ministers’ pay, even the number of MPs - all have to be cut.
People say this is a stunt. When the deficit is £175 billion, saving £120 million isn’t going to make a massive difference. I know that. But this isn’t just about the money - it’s the message it sends out. This country is in a debt crisis. We must all now come together, play our part, carry our burden and pay our fair share. And that starts at the very top - with politicians cutting the cost of politics.”
re 251 tim so dim
Then yes, as you post, people are going to have to be CRB checked and ISR registered. It will cost each individual hospital Trust hundreds of thousands of pounds.
2005 Torbay did indeed see the lowest ever number of votes for a Tory candidate
Chris A, hope you dont mind me asking, do you work in the NHS?
248. Seth - “I think you need to set out the questions in sequence to prove your case. The ‘Yes Minister’ link at post 25 [JohnKellett] is directly relevant to the debate.”
The first question asked on Lockerbie (before that was only straightforward voting intention questions) was as follows -
Do you think the Scottish Justice Secretary was right or wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds?
Right 45%
Wrong 45%
http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/SNP_lockerbie-04Sept.pdf
The Mandela question came afterwards. I really don’t see how those findings can be credibly questioned, except on the normal grounds of sampling error. I haven’t checked the Yes, Minister clip yet so I might come back and respond to that if it seems relevant!
All this discussion about Labour’s latest expensive bureaucratic nonsense about checking up on innocent people reminded me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29JewlGsYxs&feature=related
Was it fiction or a way of leaking Labour’s long term vision?
256
I’m signed up for all the main parties emails. Labour send out by far the fewest.
Mein name ist Ezio.
I am your Gawwwwwwwwwwd!!!!
Lembit Opik = Curly Watts
On topic - Salmond = FULL OF WIN
Irish Ref.
The Economist : “the governing parties have yet to begin any major campaigning”
The government’s attention has recently been diverted from the referendum by growing and increasingly vehement criticism of its proposal to support the financial system by establishing a National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to buy large quantities of non-performing loans from the country’s main banks. The controversy threatens the stability of the two-party coalition and although some last-minute amendments to the legislation are expected,
——->>>there is a risk that the NAMA issue could cause the government to collapse.
… Despite the government’s belief that another rejection would have grave consequences for Ireland’s position in the EU, the governing parties have yet to begin any major campaigning, with most cabinet members having taken holidays during August and early September.
…the Irish economy is now suffering the sharpest downturn of any of the established (15) members of the EU and its banking system is receiving extensive liquidity support from the European Central Bank (ECB), without which it would likely have collapsed. Many voters are unlikely to wish to cast their vote in a manner that would cause great uncertainty with regard to the country’s position in the EU at a time when it is suffering unprecedented economic turmoil. This factor alone is, on balance, likely to swing the vote in favour of advocates.
Moreover, in order to bolster the chances that voters will change their minds and support the treaty on second asking, the government has secured a commitment that member states will retain their right to nominate one member of the European Commission at all times (rather than on a rotating basis as was originally envisaged). It has also received a number of declarations from the other members, which explicitly recognise Ireland’s sole right to determine such matters as corporation tax, military co-operation and abortion—issues that opponents of the treaty had claimed would be affected if Ireland voted in favour. A “yes” vote would restore Ireland’s position and influence, whereas a “no” vote would generate a real crisis for the EU. Ireland would be sidelined in the bloc and could even face pressure from some other members to move to a form of associate membership.
—->On balance, the Economist Intelligence Unit believes that the treaty will be accepted in October, but such an outcome is by no means assured.
http://ow.ly/15ODYQ
252 URW
I have only been kicking around here for a couple of months, but I have heard much worse. I think if I had been ensconced in Torbay for the past few months, I might have extrapolated the SW England June results to form a similar view.
Now if I was betting I might have made further enquiries. Amongst Tories, I would have asked Sean Fear for English prospects and Easterross for the Scottish equivalents. I guess they would have put me right.
Still I have yet to see a plausible argument for a post 50 seat tally at the next GE. Yes, incumbency is a factor but there will be substantial LD losses to the Tories. Will Lab/Lib marginals return the difference? I am yet to be convinced.
Oh dear - http://www.politicshome.com/UploadedFiles/Videos/Thumbnails/VideoThumbnail_8f3f63fb-6d39-4646-bf4a-446439db88ab.JPG
Carswell sticks the boot in http://www.talkcarswell.com/
257 - Total cost to the NHS estimated at £84 Million.
Are you opposed to it on cost grounds?
267 Still waiting for a reply…
267
Is this going to be one of your 84 million? that’s peanuts.
266
That’s a good blog by Carswell, but the same can be said of many tory backbenchers.
265 Seth O Logue. At the time the LDs were looking a lot worse than they are now, but even so, 32 Seats was outrageous.
As a point of interest and of advertising, I am currently attempting to BUY LD Seats at 50.0 on the Betfair Party Seats Line.
You could well be correct however in your assertion that I might lose that particular bet.
268 - Reply to which post, most of them have been nonsense.
267
Timbotsimpleton If the NHS cost 84 million there wouldnt be a problem would there?
Rugby league about to start.. laters.
266 - “Having promoted loyal automatons who regurgitate their lines with Hazel-Blears-like devotion”
Does carswell visit PB.com?
265– Sean Fear and Easterross inputs are indeed invaluable.
Mr. Fear helped us a lot betting on the London Maroyal Election.
And Mr. Easterross’ inputs convinced me and a few others to bet on the SNP at fantastic odds last summer, on that by-election which name I’m forgettin’ (it’s late, here).
260 Red Meteor
Thanks. I remember that question was posted earlier, I think, by Stuart Dickson. I jumped on him on the issue of whether the question differentiated between release to Scotland and release to Libya. I assumed it didn’t then found that the preamble stated Libya as the destination.
I still don’t like the question but it is not as biased as those quoted at the top of the thread. All in all, a little push rather than a heavy shove.
I have now exhausted my factual knowledge, so I would be interested in Mike S’s comments.
273 - I’d thought there was cross part consensus on NHS workers, am I mistaken?
Sigh Polly..
“Listening to Lib Dem MP Evan Harris’s warm response to Cruddas’s speech was a good reminder of how nothing much separates the two parties. The spread within Labour from, say, Peter Mandelson to Jon Cruddas is far wider than the divide between the official policies of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. The differences within the Liberal Democrats may be narrower than within Labour. On many issues, the Lib Dems’ manifesto will be more radical than Labour’s at the next election.
All that divides the parties is an electoral system that prevents them working together – and the small local disputes Labour people have with idiosyncratic Liberal councillors who don’t always reflect head office policy. But years of fighting each other in the trenches of local government has to end. Bad examples, like Camden, where Lib Dems have worked with Conservatives to form a bad administration are no excuse for not rethinking the relationship altogether at the top.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/11/jon-cruddas-polly-toynbee
tim
Plato made the reasonable observation that you post your first comment very early in the morning, then keep up a steady diatribe till late. Plato, and the rest of us, wonder how you do it. Do you have a job? Does work let you sit on the net all day? Are you paid to post here?
276
Tim The cost of the NHS isnt 84 million. DOH!
The GE debate seems to have moved a little closer to being a three horse race (rather than two horses and a cardboard cut-out)……
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/11/gordon-brown-tv-debate-cameron
278 - No I’m not paid to post here and yes I have a job.
278 - He is such a valuable agent that I’m absolutely certain that he reports directly to David Cameron alone.
tim
There you go, that’s all Plato was asking and you could have answered her, as you answered me, without resort to the insults.
I take it from your answer your job affords lots of time to sit on the net spouting?
280, Clegg will love the extra publicity but it is not without risk, particularly as he’s an earnest, holier-than-thou man with a fixation on the number 30 and a default setting of mindless outrage.
129 - tims posting rate is unbelievable. Mike once posted on here how many posts tim had made, the number was very high.
I would love Mike to remind us all of when tim joined and how many posts he has made.
Might be worth organising a sweepstake, how many posts has tim made since joining this site
277. How nostalgic of the Guardian’s ‘Norwegian Blue’. It almost sounds as if she has reached stage three (bargaining) of the five stages of grief.
285 - I forgot to add that this is not the only site that tim posts at.
He really is a busy boy.
283 - Sorry, I thought she was referring to the many confused questions she posed following her misreading of the Daily Mail article she posted.
284. Indeed and he does also run the risk of being swatted by the Great Clunking Fist who has surprisingly managed to squash him once or twice in PMQ’s.
277
Difficult to disagree with her,particularly if someone like Cruddas gets elected leader,Labour’s policies would be presumably as left wing as the Lib Dems.
What’s the purpose of two left wing parties remaining as seperate entities other than pride?
282. Tim, the spy who came in from the cold.
289, once or twice, although that’s usually due to weak questions from Clegg rather than Brownian brilliance.
I suspect Clegg will do moderately better than Brown and worse than Cameron. I must confess to nerves though. Cameron should be very good, but I do worry how he’ll perform.
Bah! Saints not on the telly or the interwebthingy
Tim you said you were not paid to post here. That may be true in specific terms.. Are you a paid official of the Labour Party, a spad or ex spad or involved in anything that one would recognise as a political office?
288
Specific questions = ignored or impuned the validity of my query.
tim = Labour win
260. Of course that poll question was skewed as well, by the inclusion of the expression ‘on compassionate grounds’
277- Maybe Polly’s dream will come true after the next general election when the few remaining Labour MP’s seek to rediscover relevance by joining the official opposition party, the Lib Dems.
Tim
Will you disclose your identity after the GE if we say please?
256. Plato September 11th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Yes there are alot of people angry about the public finances. What puzzles me sometimes are folk who say all politicians are as bad as each other but dont seem to see that Labour has firstly been the worst (Look at the state of the economy), expenses and their whole approach.
I was chatting to one of my neighbours the other day and they say they have lived in their house for years but other people who dont live their keep appearing on the electoral register for that house! Makes you wonder doesn’t it!
278 – Toynbee’s latest offerings make quite interesting reading.
“Labour must listen to Jon Cruddas’s appeal to ditch its tribalism and build a centre-left consensus that includes Lib Dems”
She appears resigned to the fact that Labour has blown it and their only chance of avoiding a wipeout at the next G.E. is to get the Lib Dems on board.
Perhaps OGH might consider this as the bases for a possible thread?
URW 252. I stand by my view that the Lib Dems will lose half their seats.
Being unwilling to wave a bigger wad than you over the issue does not invalidate my opinion.
I presume betting is your skill, because making a coherant political argument clearly isn’t.
297 NuLiberals anyone ?
300. I can imagine Polly’s dream - a party uniting all the posh, hypocritical, self-important, and soi-disant ‘intellectual’ middle class bores who currently divide between Labour and the Lib Dems.
Guaranteed to crash and burn at an election
302 Getting NuL points….
300- But, dear Polly, why would the Lib Dems want to save Labour’s bacon? What’s in it for them? Instead, they might want to exploit Labour’s weakness to build their own party…
295. “Of course that poll question was skewed as well, by the inclusion of the expression ‘on compassionate grounds’”
Skewed by including a point of factual accuracy? You’re much better than I am at spotting these fiendish tricks. Of course in the eyes of many here it’s also hopelessly skewed by not being worded as follows -
“Do you think Nit Twit Kenny MacAskill’s ludicrous decision to set free a filthy mass-murderer who probably isn’t really ill anyway, and has only served eleven and a half days in prison for each person he slaughtered, was right or wrong?”
305. Now there, S&S, you are quite wrong. With regard to Labour it’s always ‘fatal attraction’ for the Lib Dems. And they always end up bubbling away in the pan at the end…
298- I’d love to hear if anybody has any SERIOUS suggestions as to tim’s identity. I’d say he could just as likely be a rank-and-file Labour party devotee as some highly-placed operative.
300, 303, 305
Indeed what Polly is suggesting is a return to two party politics, making the usual mistake of thinking everyone who votes LD would automaticaly go LabDem. Yet for LDs, PR and the multi-party coalitions it represents, are something of a founding principle.
Polly needs to find another way and the LDs want to avoid that trap or face extinction.
308 I suspect he is a LD activist hoping to drum up the ‘nasty Labour’ vote.
So what do you think of this Logo?
It doesn’t growl for me!
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/09/european-conservatives-and-reformists-unveil-new-logo.html
301
You’ll look a bit sick, if the Libdems, ‘Do’ lose half of their seats, but Torbay isn’t one of ‘em.
How does the Mayor of Torbay feel, not being selected for Totnes after years-n-years hard work for the party, but beaten in the primary by some, ‘Jennie come lately’ pleased?
271 URW
There are others much better qualified to comment on your bet than I.
However, a factor I didn’t mention is that I am old enough to have sat through many election nights to see LD (and prior incarnations) perform better than expectations. My untutored view is that this is less the incumbency and/or local organisation factors and more the additional publicity of a GE campaign together with a mopping up of last minute don’t knows.
There remains the question whether a resurgent Tory party combined with the almost universal expectation this being a change election will allow the LDs to gain in this way. The LDs put a mighty effort into Norwich without moving a feather. Maybe they are better ’sitting out’ this election and then mount a comeback as Tory protest votes kick in next term.
310- Wow, that would be mischievous!
311, not enough prominence for the lion.
311 It could be worse…Office for Government Commerce…
http://blog-imgs-21.fc2.com/l/o/v/loveandhatelondon/ogc-rotated.gif
302 - The Lab Dumbs?
312 coldstone
More leonine than assinine.
315. I think it’s OK. Anything connected with the European ‘parliament’ is bound to be a bit dubious - this is much better than some I have seen.
316, referral denied for me.
I did like it when Labour changed the name of the DTI only to discover as the sign was being put up that the acronym was PENIS.
317 no the “Tim Dumbs”.
320 - The Department for Productivity, Energy, Innovation and Skills. You got to love it.
320 Seems like a DTI/OGC meme!
To kill all speculation dead, I have it on unimpeachable authority that tim is the Architectural Correspondent of the magazine “World Soccer”.
Massively off topic, one of our clients went into administration last month. They owe us money, and the administrators have sent us a letter, which we received today.
This is the name of the Insolvency partner
http://www.bwc-solutions.com/partner_details/cv_david.htm
I have to say that Marcus Wood deserves more respect than he is presently getting on here.
It takes a special ability to get less votes than Rupert Allason got in the nadir of 1997.
A remarkable achievement.
Respect Marcus.
306 Red Meteor
Are you in Bangkok?
re 326. OK Tim - you’ve made that point many times. No more please because you become very tedious.
325 - I notice he’s moved from Insolvency Practitioner to Business Recovery Partner.
is that like going from Binman to Waste Disposal Operative.
326 - That’s only because UKIP/Referendum party didn’t stand against Rupert Allason.
327. Seth - “Are you in Bangkok?”
No, I’m in North Lanarkshire, which is only marginally less thrilling. Am I missing some kind of SeanT-inspired in-joke here? I haven’t been around for a few days so something might be going over my head.
330 - Yes they did.
Although I’m not sure if I’m allowed to respond.
331. Ah, scrap that question, Seth - I finally got the joke at the second attempt!
331 - You should go to Bangkok next June. I understand most scots dont have anything on/planned next June.
326
I would like to say, we should all appreciate Marcus walking amongst us. We should also ensure that if he does get elected, his doggie bag, (now Dave is going to put all MP’s on rations)overfloweth.
Remember my advice Marcus, get a good spot in the shelter of Hungerford Bridge to rattle the tin. ‘MP with wife-n-kids to support’ Living on 65k is it worth it Marcus?
Tim = David ‘LOL’ Lammy?
325 That is what you would get if you gave the gloriously inept Gordon the pearl-handled revolver….
re 312. We are going to see the same in Bedford on Monday night when the Tories have their “open primary” for the mayoral candidate. One thing’s for certain - it ain’t going to go to an old trustie who has served for years on the council.
321. On the question of the name for a merged Lab
our Party and the Liberal DemocRats Party?Why not Lab Rats?
332 - Probably wise you dont respond. OGH, his blog, his rules.
331. “something might be going over my head”
If that is the case you certainly aint bangkok!
Bless Polly!
I still have several cases of nose pegs left over from 2005 that I thought I’d never shift. But if she’s right could the Libs form an orderly queue. Only 2 Euros each
337 - That’s brilliant.
341 Ping-pong balls??
334
re 271. The Lib Dem seat total is going to be a hard call. They are going to shed quite a few seats to the Tories but it’s hard working out how many Labour ones they will pick up. I think a total of 50+ is just about OK.
Can we stop talking about Bangkok, It brings back bad memories for me.
Tim is absolutely right - my vote was one of the lowest Tory votes in the Torbay Constituency history, but he is of course telling only half the story. The MP was elected with the lowest number of votes ever for the constituency as well.
I think a very low turnout has that effect.
I hope we get a Scottish opinion poll in the next few days. I want to see if OGH’s 90minute nationalists theory holds up.
340 - True.
Something under the stairs in UKIP?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8251609.stm
336 - Bastard.
He’d get into the Wiggins Pub Quiz Team
348. “I think a very low turnout has that effect.”
I wish someone had told the Tories that in the 1990s when they went on ad nauseum about John Major securing “a record popular vote” in 1992. In fact they were still going on about it ten years later. I believe a very high turnout, plus an increased population size, tends to have that effect.
351. And what point are you trying to make?
349. “I hope we get a Scottish opinion poll in the next few days. I want to see if OGH’s 90minute nationalists theory holds up.”
I must have missed that article. The whole 1978 thing is a complete myth of course - the political tide had turned before the World Cup started.
Professor James Kellas always used to speculate that the fact that Scotland has it’s own football league and national team was bad for nationalism, because it allowed people to challenge their identity into sport rather than politics (in contrast to Catalonia, for instance). That was also Jim Sillars’ point when he came out with the ninety-minutes’ nationalists line (nothing to do with the SNP suffering when the football team does).
I personally think the Kellas theory is wrong, but it’s intriguing.
The Lab-Rats,
(Wipes keyboard down with a damp cloth)
352. “And what point are you trying to make?”
Eh…the point I made, I suppose. What question are you trying to ask?
353. Small correction - for ‘challenge’ read ‘channel’.
353 - It’s based on this theory
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2006/11/27/will-labour-be-saved-by-the-90-minute-nationalists/
re 353. The 90 minute nationalist thesis, as I understand it, is that the SNP prospers when Scotland’s sporting performances are poor.
Why is everyone so obsessed with Tim?
348 - The truly amazing statistic regarding Torbay is that the Conservative vote in 2005 was half what it was in 1979, and the total votes cast for the Tory in 2005 were less than the Tory majority in 1979.
358. The 90 minute nationalist thesis, as I understand it, is that the SNP prospers when Scotland’s sporting performances are poor.
Mike, the ‘ninety-minute nationalist’ phrase was coined by Jim Sillars after he lost Govan in 1992. The point he was making was different - it was that Scots channel their national identity into football rather than (more constructively, in his view) politics.
But having read your article that The Screaming Eagle linked to, I think you’ve got a point (if I understood it correctly) - I think if England did well at the World Cup next year the SNP might benefit marginally, because there could be a backlash to having it all shoved down people’s throats by the ‘British’ media.
Re the LibDems prospects, although the local elections looked like a disaster for them because of the big gains from them by the Conservatives in the LibDem West Country stronghold in total it wasn’t too bad as there were pockets of LibDem successes elsewhere.
On a constituency basis the changes would have been:
Con gain from LibDem - 11
St Ives
Cambourne
Truro
St Austell
Cornwall SE
Devon N
Newton Abbott
Taunton
Somerton
Cheltenham
Oxford W
Lab gain from LibDem - 1
Oxford E
LibDem gain from Con - 5
Eastbourne
Chelmsford
St Albans
Worcestershire W
Harborough
LibDem gain from Lab - 4
Watford
Northampton N
Ashfield
Burnley
Of course local elections are not general elections and the LibDems will not make some of these gains next year, on the other hand they might not lose of these seats either and others that didn’t notionally ‘change hands’ might do so.
Still I would say that anyone expecting heavy LibDem losses is likely to be wrong, I would say 50-55 is most likely.
357/8
Voting SNP = Caledonian Viagra.
Anthony Wells is doing a round up of where we are on the run up to the conferences:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/2246
357/8
Voting SNP = Caledonian Vi#gra.
361 - The Election will be before the World Cup.
If Murray were to win the Aussie and the French, plus the English Rugby Blood Brothers lose badly to Scotland, there may be an effect
355. Population growth is irrelevent if people can’t be persuaded to vote and turnout is just an indication of how much the population is motivated. Neither of which detracts from Major’s achievement of recording the highest vote tally of any Prime Minister, in fact given that both suggesting the electorate were highly motivated it actually adds to the achievement of winning particularly considering the situation 2 years before.
After all, Blair didn’t come that close to the tally in 1997 and the population has grown further since.
Only Attlee and Churchill (both in 1951), McMillan (1959) and Thatcher (twice - 1979 & 1987) have come within 500k of Major’s tally.
There’s a small flaw to all these ‘world cup having an effect on election theories,’ the world cup is AFTER the election and probably before the club season finishes.
358. Mike. Do you give the Lib Dems a chance of winning Wells?
359 because he is so transparently spiteful, and so bad at it. A heady mix of pity and revulsion.
367. Ah, but the World Cup is before the 2011 election!
370
Come now Red Meteor, the world cup is a long time before that election.
362 - Pleased to see Eastbourne on that list.
So based on the 90mins nationalist theory. The best way for the Scots Nats to win an independence referendum, is to hold it straight after their football or rugby teams have been pounded like a dockside hooker by England!
371. Hmmm. 1966 is an even longer time ago, but you’d never believe it if you listened to a Clive Tyldesley commentary.
369
You mean…. a Class 1 shit.
362. another richard September 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
So you think the LD will hold Solihull???!!!! Gain harborough (Nearly 4,000 majority), Worstershire West and Chelmsford.
Interesting your name is Richard! You dont happen to be married to someone called Lorely do you?!!!
I think your predictions for LD are way too optimistic. LD are not going to save seats in an election like the one coming campainging on dog shit, local railways and post offices!
You might get some people who supported LD before still voting for that but any real swing voter is likely to put that sort of crap far down the list of priorities of why they change votes. I think when the election comes itself the LD are going to have alot of trouble even holding onto LD voters who pretty solidly backed them in the past if the spector of More Labour comes up.
re 368. I have no idea about Wells.
373 - I’d imagine that Nick Griffins nightmare is a multi racial English Team managed by an immigrant pounding the Germans.
375 - Don’t say things like that about Tim. He’s key to a Tory landslide
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2009/09/10/what-does-this-say-about-the-brown-cameron-battle/#comment-1209608
re 376. You are the guy who is predicting that Clegg will lose in Sheffield Hallam where the Tories have lost ALL their council seats.
That says a lot about your judgement.
374
Ha, no England Fan I know pays any attention to Clive Titsley, who rarely has his nose out of Alex Ferguson’s rectum. And 66 isn’t going to be swinging elections is it.
378 - You just know Nick Griffin will put his foot in it over the multi racialness of the England team.
377 - Eastbourne?
The Tories biggest problem at the next election is not so much Tory activists/members/candidates taking the election as a tory victory in the bag but the electorate as a whole. There seems to be a real perception forming that the Tories cannot loose - in reality every vote counts especially when you are up against ZanuLabour………..
Hopefully in a campaign this will fire people up but you can never be too sure.
382 - I’m looking forward to it very much.
The decline in the NF vote in France started when Le Pen did the same.
Not at Presidential level but the first signs were following France 1998 at local level.
Lillian Thuram, most articulate ever footballer off the pitch and in anyones World 11 on it.
376. Martin Day
I don’t like to get into personal abuse but you’re an idiot.
I wasn’t making any prediction just giving a list of constituencies that notionally changed hands at the local elections.
At which if I may point there were none in Solihull.
As I got into an argument with a LibDem ramper about Wells last night and also seem to upset you when I mention actual results I’ll assume I’m getting things about right.
As you seem convinced that the LibDems are heading for electoral disaster why don’t you put some money where your keyboard is?
I believe you can get 4/1 on a Conservative gain at Sheffield Hallam.
Martin, as much as it pains me, as an ex resident of Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg and the lib dems are here to stay. The demographics of the seat are totally different to when Sir Irvine Patnick was last elected in 1992.
384
“in reality every vote counts especially when you are up against ZanuLabour”
And if you are voting for ZNL then every vote apparently counts three or four times.
Can any of the Lib Demmers on here tell me who would become leader of the Lib Dems after the next election.
Lib Dems reduced to around 25MP’s, Chris Huhne loses his seat at Eastleigh. (An unlikely, as I expect lots of Labour voters to lend him their votes)
And Nick Clegg resigns as leader, due to the poor performance. Who do we think will become leader?
387. Except,of course, if the boundaries are changed to equalize the size of the seat. Sheffield Hallam was one of the smallest 100 seats in 2005 IIRC and from what I have read there are only minor changes this time around (1 ward out, 1 ward in).
390 - Sadly the rest of Sheffield is still classed at the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire.
Interestingly, I think the Tories may well win some seats slightly ooop north of Sheffield.
389
Polly Toynbee?
382 - Here’s how to handle a Griffin objection to the team
We are Frenchmen says Thuram, as Le Pen bemoans number of black players
Lilian Thuram, France’s most capped player, last night hit back at suggestions by Jean-Marie Le Pen that there were too many “players of colour” in the national side, denouncing the National Front leader as being ignorant of the make-up of his country’s society.
The 34-year-old Juventus centre-half won his 118th cap against Spain on Tuesday and, hailing from the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, is one of 16 non-whites in France’s 23-man squad. He and his team-mates learned of Le Pen’s comments immediately prior to the second-round match in Hanover, which Les Bleus won 3-1, with the 2007 French presidential candidate having reheated his criticisms of the 1998 side - which he denounced as “artificial” - by arguing it was not reflective of French society.
Le Pen, who was runner-up to Jacques Chirac in the 2002 presidential elections having beaten the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin to the second round, had insisted that France “cannot recognise itself in the national side” and that “maybe the coach exaggerated the proportion of players of colour and should have been a bit more careful”.
“What can I say about Monsieur Le Pen?” said Thuram ruefully. “Clearly, he is unaware that there are Frenchmen who are black, Frenchmen who are white, Frenchmen who are brown. I think that reflects particularly badly on a man who has aspirations to be president of France but yet clearly doesn’t know anything about French history or society.
“That’s pretty serious. He’s the type of person who’d turn on the television and see the American basketball team and wonder: ‘Hold on, there are black people playing for America? What’s going on?’
“When we take to the field, we do so as Frenchmen. All of us. When people were celebrating our win, they were celebrating us as Frenchmen, not black men or white men. It doesn’t matter if we’re black or not, because we’re French. I’ve just got one thing to say to Jean Marie Le Pen. The French team are all very, very proud to be French. If he’s got a problem with us, that’s down to him but we are proud to represent this country. So Vive la France, but the true France. Not the France that he wants.”
That brought a round of applause from the assembled media, with Thuram equally baffled by Le Pen’s criticism that some of the players, and primarily the World Cup-winning goalkeeper Fabien Barthez, are failing to sing La Marseillaise. “Whether you sing it or not doesn’t make you any more or less French,” he said. “Maybe we should invite Monsieur Le Pen to celebrate our next victory with us. Then he’d see that we are fiercely proud to be French and he might change his mind. Actually, he’s got too much to lose by changing his mind, hasn’t he?”
re 389. Clegg will stay almost whatever the outcome. He’ll have a good campaign.
387 TSE
You haven’t taken into account Martin doing the poster campaign and Jeremy Clarkson standing.
Nailed on Tory gain IMHO
394 - Thanks for that Mike
391. However, that’s not to say that the boundary changes might not encroach south(west)wards where there is one possible Con seat this time?
Either way the boundary changes may make Cleggy’s life more uncomfortable. It’s even possible Hallam (like any seat) could disappear (although far less likely with a party leader in it)?
Anything’s possible after all……
another richard September 11th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Not at all i dont give a flying shit what you or mike think of me or my “judgement”.
I have never met either of you - I will never meet either of you. I really dont care. If you want to say the LD will gain all 6oo odd seats thats your perogative.
Mike gets it wrong more than he cares to admit - so what? He has dodgy judgement sometimes - Its called human nature.
I might get it wrong, does it matter? Of course not! So mike says i have bad judgement - ok i have bad judgement!
But it takes more of a man to admit that than one to critise another when the critic is far from perfect, when the critis is taken in by bullshit from his own party that is blindingly obvious, when the critic says one thing and then another.
Crikey some of you lot take yourselves way too seriously.
Relax a bit! Breath in gently - Breath out gently!
I’ll leave you tight arses to sweat it out with each other! You may enjoy your company but i dont.
Another Richard at 362. A slightly vague analysis, not everyone had local elections (Torbay included) so we are off your radar.
Lib Dem losses: for two or three weeks now we have been canvassing our worst polling districts - deeply ‘against’ areas of the Bay where the Lib Dems rely on tactical Labour support to hold the seat.
I don’t think Lib Dem calculations accurately account for their potential seat losses because their core voters - Lib Dems- whilst not exactly wild with enthusiasm about Clegg- are a pretty loyal lot and have usually a good local MP to support, we have found a lot of waverers and a few switchers but Sanders own vote will hold up here, I am sure.
But all the detailed polling says that throughout the South West Lib Dems core support accounts for less than half the votes they get.
Labour supporters are just not that bothered about keeping the Tories out like they were, we are getting relentless ‘don’t care, won’t vote; you are all the same,’ answers from voters but none of the ‘anyone but you’ answers we did get at the last election. LD’s in Tory seats cannot decide what strategy they need to motivate these voters and they haven’t come up with anything at all compelling so far = in Torbay or anywhere else that I have seen.
That is why they will lose seats back to us, not because of LD losses but a lack of TV.
So they will lose to us and are pinning hopes on making gaisn from Labour in the North, but all recent by-election evidence says flaky labour votes in vulnerable Labour seats have got the habit of Bypassing Nick and going direct to Dave.
LD’s made breathtaking gains on the lack of unprecedented Tory unpopularity in the 1990’s - there is no history of LD making similar gains against Labour since Cameron came on the scene - and no evidence of it beginning.
That is why I believe that the LD’s will fail to mitigate their Tory losses.
394. I wonder what the Lib Dem seat expectations will be come the election?
397 - Yes it’s possible. I hope it happens.
There’s nothing like greasing the wheels for ones future
Hutton in talks with EDF:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6831562.ece
399. Marcus Wood September 11th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Indeed i think you are right.
I am off now.
378 - tim, do you do much other than post on here and research attack lines??
All that time and effort, for nothing.
Is it just me, I find that very amusing?
404. Just doing his job
391. Eagles
“Sadly the rest of Sheffield is still classed at the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire.”
There isn’t a Sheffield constituency (or anywhere else in Yorkshire) where every councillor is still Labour.
“Interestingly, I think the Tories may well win some seats slightly ooop north of Sheffield.”
Watch out for Penistone & Stocksbridge, Rother Valley and Don Valley. Opendoor immigration, recession and demographic change are demolishing Labour’s position in these areas.
I have a world exclusive preview of Labour’s election campaign. By chance an email advertising a speech that Peter Mandelson will be giving on Monday has fallen into my inbox. Its title is a humdinger. Coming soon to a billboard near you:
Progressive state reformers v ideological state retrenchers
Well, which would you vote for?
http://johnrentoul.independentminds.livejournal.com/157302.html
406 - Those are the seats I think may well go.
My own view of events is clouded by the fact that lots of my labour supporting friends who have gone on strike recently, have been shocked by the success of the BNP, are considering voting Labour at the next election purely to stop the BNP doing well.
408 - Please note, that’s the Labour’s former middle class voters, rather than the WWC
407 Labour had better order wider billboards!
407. Well, which would you vote for?
The non-statist alternative……
410 C
If they speak nicely to Marcus Wood, he may be able to reset it to two lines in Adobe InDesign.
So Mandelson is saying what we are all thinking
Progressive state reformers = Conservatives
ideological state retrenchers = Labour
410
Wont make any difference. Hardly anyone will understand what it means or who is allegedly which.
Night all
411 jsfl
You would have to turn it into an equation first.
407 - No matter what Labour call themselves, every tory leaflet, billboard, ppb will all have the same meme
“A picture of Gordon, with the words “5 more years?”
re 410 Labour has no money to book any bill-boards.
417. Mike, that was before they
squeezedhad lunch with the unions…Interestingly enough the current Electoral Calculus projection for Sheffield Hallam shows Clegg winning but on a much reduced majority (how reasonable that is considering Clegg is leader of the LD’s etc is dubious):
LD = 18554
Con = 17144
Lab = 3889
Other = 4955
Now if it did turn out something like that and the constiuency is subsequently ‘equalized’ (increasing the electorate by perhaps 8-10 thousand) it could make for interesting times for Cleggy in the future.
417 – Things have been tight for Labour since the market in Ls & Ks dried up?
good night all
Did anyone else watch Derren Brown’s ‘explanation’ for predicting the Lottery numbers. What absolute bollocks!
415. ?
399. marcus wood
Well you have by best wishes for next year and I hope you win.
The list I gave earlier was merely to show that the result overall for the LibDems wasn’t too bad but because of the concentration of losses in the West Country it seemed they had suffered a disaster.
Aside from their notional ‘gains’ there were strong LibDem performances in Westmoreland, Chippenham, Eastleigh, Winchester, Cambridge and Colchester.
The sorts of areas where the Conservatives would win if the LibDems are to lose half their seats.
As to LibDem gains from Labour in northern England they will happen with good chances in Ashfield, Burnley, Sheffield C, Bradford E, Hull N, Manchester Gorton and Newcastle N for example. Sadly the Cameron project has failed in the urban trendy areas around the country so the Conservatives have made no progress in many of the northern cities.
These though will be dwarfed by the number of Conservative gains from Labour in northern England, some of which will be in surprising places.
Thats it for me.
Toodle Pip!
423 jsfl
Progressive
statereformers = ideologicalstateretrenchers278 Methinks Ms Toynbee has just destroyed any chance of the LibDems making big progress at the next GE:
“All that divides the parties is an electoral system that prevents them working together – and the small local disputes Labour people have with idiosyncratic Liberal councillors who don’t always reflect head office policy. But years of fighting each other in the trenches of local government has to end. Bad examples, like Camden, where Lib Dems have worked with Conservatives to form a bad administration are no excuse for not rethinking the relationship altogether at the top.”
In other words, vote LibDem, get five more years of Labour.
409. Eagles
Middle class Labour voters though tend to be concentrated in the urban constituencies where their challenger is the LibDems.
There’s very few Conservative targets in northern England where Labour’s vote isn’t WWC - Bradford W, Leeds NE.
422. I thought it was pure class! Of course, part of Derren Brown’s agenda is publicly debunking seemingly plausible psychic theories, so I presume this was an attempt to make people think about those issues (combined with showmanship/chasing high ratings of course). The detailed explanation at the end of how he could have fixed the lottery was ingenious and very funny.
OK, a late night quiz.
What would be the appropriate sentence for a gang which did this?
[The victim] was tied up and burnt with the hairdryer, cigarettes and an iron in a five-hour ordeal. The court heard [he] was so badly injured it was impossible for paramedics to determine his race.
…
The judge said “The victim of these offences was so savagely beaten that people who knew him didn’t even recognise him. It was savage and inhumane. The thing that must have been unbearable was the use of the hairdryer, the marks of which were burnt into his skin.”
[The victim] was then driven to a remote country lane where he was told he would be buried. But he managed to escape and stumbled into a football club’s social evening screaming for help. [He] also suffered fractured cheekbones, a broken nose and a broken rib during his ordeal.”
Sensitive souls might prefer not to know the answer, in which case I recommend not clicking on this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/8251548.stm
The strong-minded might like to compare the sentences with the likely sentence Gary McKinnon faces for assisting the US military in improving their computer security.
Libya.. and the SAS
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/6176808/SAS-trains-Libyan-troops.html
422. Yes, at no point did he ‘predict’ the lottery numbers. He repeated the winning numbers very shortly after they were revealed, which is not the same thing.
419. jsfl
Sheffield Hallam has already been increased in size by the Boundary Commission.
In any case increasing it further would only bring more LibDem voters into it. The demographics are also against the Conservatives there - more and more public sector workers while those in the private sector move out to new developments along the motorways.
The rather amazing fact is that at the last local elections the Conservatives came closer to wining Bolsover than Sheffield Hallam. Perhaps Martin Day should start a ‘Clarkson for Bolsover’ campaign, it would actually make more sense than his current obsession
Clegg’s got a seat for life unless the LibDems make a total mess of running the council.
429. I appreciate Derren Brown’s agenda - I loved his other series like The System, but here it seemed a deliberate attempt to take the piss out of the viewer - that’s not a good move.
Obviously it’s a trick, but to say days in advance you’ll reveal all, and then clearly don’t is deception worthy of Gordon Brown.
433. another richard September 11th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Sounds like your obsessed with what you think my Obsession might be! I will let you into a secret - I do it to wind LD up! It is very effective. 
Oh yes - your richard from UK polling report IIRC! Maybe i was wrong with calling you Mr Burt - Instead you are Mr Allen! You have no sense of humour.
Yes of course the Mandela question was a “push” question but the key findings in the survey were that on a straight yes no to release of Megrahi it was a tie and on the political questions the SNP are now well ahead once again.
Also given the disgraceful portrayal by the media (even the BBC whose coverage has been hopelessly biased) of USA opinion as if it were “international” opinion then I think the Nats were quite right to get the maximum benefit from Mandela’s endorsement which is in any case much more reflective of a world view.
Finally the key points from all the polls are that the NATS are supported by older, brighter and voting members of the public on the Megrahi decision and generally.
If MORI polled Scotland on “certain to votes” what would they find?
re 267 tim of course I’m bloody opposed to it on cost grounds, and civil liberty grounds, and utility grounds. It will not stop one child being molested and make suspects of almost a quarter of the adult population, to go along the the child quarter of the population which Labour already have on another of their iniquitous databases.
I have no faith that despite their condemnatory remarks today that the Tories will do anything to stop it when they win the election.
Tomorrow’s papers..
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-Papers—National-Newspaper-Front-Pages-On-Saturday-September-12-2009/Media-Gallery/200909215380269?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15380269_The_Papers_-_National_Newspaper_Front_Pages_On_Saturday_September_12%2C_2009
Screaming Eagles yes I do.
435. Martin Day
I have a very good sense of humour but it wears thin if someone keeps telling the same ‘joke’.
As for winding up LibDems with it as far as I can see the people you are winding up most are Conservative supporters including if you remember someone who was a Conservative candidate in Chesterfield this year.
So how about a ‘Clarkson for Bolsover’ campaign Martin for a little variety?
As for Solihull I would rate Conservative chances there at about 60% which is IIRC about what shadsy has placed the odds at.
435 Another richard may or may not have a sense of humour but you simply have no sense , Martin - not real name - Day .
441. Mark Senior September 11th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
I am in good company because you have no idea.
‘Ben Dover for Bolsover’
443. MD
Not that did make me laugh.
443 - What?? the Actor with a very big part Ben Dover?
Are we getting some clarity on the Tories move into Northern Ireland?
The defection of one of Alliance Party of Northern Ireland’s rising stars (a relative term) Ian Parsley to the Conservatives has led to speculation that he will be one of the new flag bearers and perhaps the man to take up the cudgel in North Down for the Westminster seat, where he’s a local councillor with good support.
The question is under what circumstances will he be taking up the cudgel, as the replacement for Sylvia Hermon or as her Offcial Conservative/UU competitor next year?
The Tories are working to a clear plan in NI as a centre right but non sectarian related party and genuinely look to mean business. What it will mean for the Ulster Unionists though is another story. If the UU can somehow keep its unionist base but lose whats left of its sectarian tag it could once again be a decent force but it could be that the Tory link will eat it up.
FPT
“Should Clegg call for a withdrawal from Afghanistan?”
I think it’s too late. The moment has passed and it will just be seen as trying to gain votes from people who are engaged with the issue and will question the LibDem’s commitment to changing their stance. It may win some votes but most will feel they are being taken for granted.
On Iraq they played it cute until the very last moment when they had to tale a position (Ming Campbell even endorsed the dodgy dossier in Parliament).
The media will also be less kind to them for such a volte face and continually challenge them on it.
444. another richard September 11th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
It was a cheap crack!
438. The Telegraph - SAS trains Libyan troops
“The SAS has been ordered by the Government to train Libyan special forces despite the country having armed the IRA, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/6176808/SAS-trains-Libyan-troops.html
446. But NI is the most subsidised part of the UK, and so should be a prime target for public spending cuts made by an incoming Conservative government?
438 - I posted that earlier.. just unbelievable, no wonder the SAS aren’t happy.
451. Oops, I see your post now.
Unbelievable is right.
452 - no need for the oops
.. still discussing it here. I expect more of these Libya stories will come out over time. It makes me wonder just how low we are expected to go for these trade deals.
437 - I think its a shame it doesn’t apply to the Priesthood and can’t be backdated.
Whether this is the right approach at stopping child abuse I’m genuinely not sure.
Of course you are right that there is no real difference between the parties.
450.It’ll simply be cut in same percentage line with other parts of the UK, the result being it’ll still be the heaviest subsidised region.
452 - I’d presume the SAS is trainin Pakistani troops as well.
A good news story if they are training Libyans to fight violent Islamism.
Saudi Arabia soon, we must hope.
Red Meteor - “353.349. “I hope we get a Scottish opinion poll in the next few days. I want to see if OGH’s 90minute nationalists theory holds up.”
I must have missed that article. The whole 1978 thing is a complete myth of course - the political tide had turned before the World Cup started.”
Correct, as this chart of Systems 3 polls in the 1970s shows.
http://www.alba.org.uk/images/monthly76.gif
The SNP started losing votes and going in a downward track in about October 1977. Scotland went out the World Cup in June 1978.
And if high expectations BEFORE the World Cup would have had a positive effect on the SNP vote how come they suffered their worst by-election result in modern times the day before the World Cup started? And with a high profile candidate like Margo Macdonald?
The football analogy is just pure rubbish. I suspect it’s the same as the mythology of Labour in 1970.
456. Well actually no they wont be according to the offcial statement which says they are training infantry.
This of course is absolute bull from Whitehall. There is in fact no requirement at this time for this special forces training related to isdlamic fundamentalists in Libya bearing in mind the Libyans have shown themselves perfectly capable of taking on what they’d see as terrorist threats in their own borders. Gaddafi hasnt been there for such a long time without a good security apparatus. The SAS training up some commandos is going to make no difference to that.
The biggest training issue for a country like Libya now is the ground level operations of their military, which ostensibly the MTT’s are there doing. Training infantry in infantry skills including counter insugency most likely. To the best of my knowledge I’m not aware of a major ongoing insurgency in Libya that is crippling the country. There have been a number of incidents but in reality no more than we are getting day in and day out in NI at the moment something I’m sure the government is so concerned about they’ll be spending good money beefing up the police here..I stand corrected, they are getting rid of about 500 of them shortly whilst we have republicans doing armed roadblocks, planting large bombs and forcing people from their homes…all within the last two weeks.
To do any training on ground level techniques in counter insurgency simply didnt need an SAS team. The government has completely missed the symbolism of such a move when it could applied suitable training without the SAS. All it had to do was emply some private contractors to do it like its done before.
As it happens, both the Saudis and Pakistanis have effective special forces units who do some sterling work and dont need the SAS at this stage to help either of them.
Polly @ CIF, again.
Warning..! Some PBers may find the site of a desperate Labour hack, wailing in impotent fury distressing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/11/cameron-economy-tax-and-spend
457. I suppose they have 80-minute nationalists in Wales?
My only link between politics and Scottish football is that, remembering the 1982 Coatbridge and Airdrie by-election, canvassing during Scotland matches was counter-productive.
454 tim
Whether this is the right approach at stopping child abuse I’m genuinely not sure.
I haven’t looked in detail at this scheme, but I can make some comments on retail financial transactions
You need to identify the individual
You need to authenticate the scheme
You need to authorise the transaction
Say you were allowing your child to travel to an weekend camping event in a minibus driven by a volunteer driver:
1. You need to know that the driver is who he and she says they are (identification)
2. You need to know that he or she has been vetted by a legimate authority and that the evidence of the postive vetting produced is genuine and verifiable (authentication)
3. You need to know that the journey being taken at the time it is taken is with the people involved is valid and safe (authorisation)
Without all three of the above you do not have a secure system.
In most financial systems, transaction authorisation is the main systems burden. It is by nature inefficient. 100% of transactions are authorised to enable a bank to decline, say, 5%.
Now banks do an audit of their systemic credit and fraud losses and they find that 90% of losses are incurred on pre-authorised, pre-authenticated and pre-identified transactions. That is the problem.
Banks can factor their average losses into their consumer pricing.
When it comes to protecting children a banking cost-benefit approach is not acceptable. What I am saying is that it is highly likely that, say, 90% of child abuse relating to exposed events will be committed by individuals whose identity is known, who can evidence subscription to a protection scheme and whose participation in the event has been duly authorised. On top of this there will be cases of false identity, counterfeit authentication and immproper authorisation. These cases will get the news coverage but it is the false acceptances that, statistically, account for the major share of abuses.
I am not saying the scheme won’t work as I have not done the research or know enough facts to determine this. However, I have set out why I am sceptical and identified the approach I would take to analysing the scheme.
Hope this is of interest.
456. I also forgot to mention that the main Islamic findamentalist group in Libya has sought to distance itself from the idea that its al Qaeda surrogate.
I would also venture to suggest that this government should focus on pulling its finger out in dealing with some of the problem in its own approach, like not shutting down a major link man for said group whilst he happily ran about the UK and ask itself whether this same group was covertly encouraged by UK Intelligence to kill Gaddafi.
The latter is of course unproven but the former is fact.
459. Have they stopped allowing comments to Polly’s articles?
They were the fun part!
459. Perhaps there should be a special tax on people who write such nonsense for publication. It could be made retrospective and apply to the proceeds moved offshorefrom such activity. It may also be that such people are a danger to society and should be forced to go on awareness courses. They should have to get an authorisation efore they are allowed to attend events where the general public are present.
463 – Gin, CIF refrain for a couple of hour from publishing the comments on Polly’s Saturday offerings, can’t think why
464 – I’d rather see the Guardian wasting their money on Potty than allocating to somewhere it could be more damaging to the country.
464. poor old Polly would end up in the Workhouse….
463 - sometimes there’s a delay ..
I expect this particular article will attract one or two 
With reference to her earlier musings re Lab / LIb love in.. I see from her wiki page..
“Polly Toynbee and her first husband Peter Jenkins were supporters of the Social Democratic Party breakaway from Labour in 1981 – both signing the Limehouse Declaration. Toynbee stood for the party at the 1983 General Election in Lewisham East, garnering 9351 votes (22%). She later became something of a rarity in refusing to support the subsequent merger of the SDP with the Liberals (to form the Liberal Democrats), reacting instead by moving back towards Labour when the rump SDP collapsed.”
And what does she care really? Her Tuscan villa no doubt awaits her retirement, as perhpas a few of her readers do, and Italian IHT is extremely low.
The wiki page is worht a read.. she chops and changes as the wind blows..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Toynbee
458 SimonStClare
“early signs suggest public opinion is shifting to the view that Labour’s fiscal stimulus worked.
Public opinion? Where is the evidence, Polly?
467 - The Wiki entry for ‘Champagne Socialist’ has a photo of Polly arm in arm with Rogerdamus.
No write up, just the photo.
On Polly’s call for a Lib-Lab pact, I maintain my belief that such a thing will cause significant Tory gains from LD, as “time for a change” voters have a single candidate in each constituency around which to rally.
http://notnews.today.com/2009/09/11/crb-checks-expanded-to-entire-uk-population/
468 - Did you catch Polly’s last sentence…. “But Labour walks in an orchard of low-hanging fruit with its eyes tight shut, failing to take the chances on offer”
That’s odd, I could have sworn Gordon picked an old fruit to rescue his ratings?
“The level of unemployment is unacceptably high,” National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said Friday. “And will, by all forecasts, remain unacceptably high for a number of years.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27052.html#ixzz0QqU3rsnA
This is the biggest political issue in the U.S.; not health care, not the environment, not even taxes. If unemployment remains high for “a number of years,” Obama and his party are in big trouble. That is why he needs to be seen as doing everything possible to address this one issue, ASAP (and maybe even fixing it).
472. S&S.
Interesting article.
Is there a headline unemployment statistic which is a benchmark for “the economy is buggered” in the same way that “three million unemployed is” over here?
Does Mandela speak Cornish?
422. That Derren Brown programme was rubbish. I didn’t believe any of it. The “explanation” which he gave did not explain it at all; it suffered from the same basic flaw as the original programme on Wednesday, and was nothing to do with whatever the real explanation is.
260. Do you think the Scottish Justice Secretary was right or wrong to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds?
Right 45%
Wrong 45%
What a bad question! I could legitimately answer both ways to that question. (a) Yes, he was right to release him (although it was for the wrong reason); or (b) No, he was wrong to use compassionate grounds to release him (he should have been released because he is innocent). What is a normal person, who hasn’t been warned by PB about the subtlety of opinion poll questions, supposed to do when faced with a double-question like that?
475. John, they key words were at the end - “if anyone ever asks me how I predicted the lottery, I’ll say it was just a trick“. That, I presume, was his way of giving the game away and signalling that the explanation the programme had given was a piece of mischief.
476. I can hardly think of a better question. I don’t think there’s anyone who would have seriously taken the question to mean either of your options - people who don’t read PB probably aren’t subtle enough to have thought of those theoretical inferences! Indeed option (a) wouldn’t even make literal sense, because to answer ‘right’ to the question you’d have to accept that both the release and the reasons were justified.
473- Not really, but hitting 10% will be a shock to the country. It won’t “seem” normal until it’s back under 7%, IMHO.
478
What tosh. It is a perfectly straight question. Certainly compared to the BBC/ICM attempt which “forgot” to remind people that Megrahi was being released because he is terminally ill!
Two weeks ago when I was back in Glasgow I predicted that the polls would show a)support for Macaskill and b) a restored SNP lead. Both of these things have happened.
The Nat position is strenghtened by the fact that older, thoughtful and, above all, voting members of the public support the Megrahi decision and more generally Salmond/Sturgeon in large numbers.
THE NEXT SCOTTISH POLLS WILL CONFIRM THAT TREND - ANOTHER PREDICTION.