What do we think of these polling questions?
November 11th, 2009Do they give a fair sense of opinion?
Regulars on PB will know that I generally detest the findings from non-voting intention questions in polls. So much is dependent on how the question are formulated and the order in which there are put.
I am sure that we all recall from that wonderful “Yes Prime Minister” sequence when Sir Humphrey managed to devise two sets of questions on conscription which led to entirely different outcomes.
So what are we to make of the this PoliticsHome polls which suggests that the public is supportive of Mr. Brown in the lettergate row.
These were the questions in the order that they were reported:-
Q1 Do you think that this story and its methods have crossed the line into an inappropriate attack on the Prime Minister, or do you think it is legitimate and valuable journalism?
Q2 Does this story make you more or less want to defend Mr. Brown?
Q3. Does this episode make you think more or less of Gordon Brown?
Q4. Does this episode make you think more or less of The Sun?
Mike Smithson
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Ersto
OT I actually thought the questions were put in a biased way, but then the response to question 4 (80%+ said less) partly debunked my own theory.
Hat trick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First?
Q2 should have been
“Does this story make you more or less want to vote for Mr. Brown/Labour?”
Politicshome arent part of the BPC are they either?
I tend to ignore questions like this and the results they give. I just don’t think they tell us anything and can give a false impression.
HA. That’s a parody, it must be!
5 - Neither are Angus Reid
8 - Erm, I thought Angus Reid have applied.
Looking at the questions asked, its the first question that is very leading, the rest just answer themselves after that.
And that ‘Yes Prime Minister’ scene where Sir Humphrey managed to devise two sets of questions on conscription which led to entirely different outcomes is a classic.
“Does this episode make you think more or less of The Sun?”
So some respondents have changed their opinion from -
“I think it’s an appalling rag.” to “I have placed my neighbour’s copy in the gardener’s toilet.”
- doesn’t suggest a significant shift of opinion.
Perhaps for these sort of polls they should ask half the sample one set of leading questions and the other half another set.
I was in Starbucks today. Despite just having pushed through a major shift to Fairtrade in the middle of the recession its now launching another massive ethical branding. Pay for your goods via a startbucks card for the next 13 months and 5p per tranaction goes to the RED Global Fund. Starbucks in a mainstream brand competing on price with cafe Nero. I’d love to have access to its Focus groups and what on earth they are saying about ” Fairness” and financial values post banking apocalypse.
This is undoubtably what all Browns Tobin Tax stuff is about. It’ll never happen and only 5% of voters will ever have heard of it but ( a) its a dog whistle to the 5% that have ( b) when other voters read a media side bar explaining what James Tobin proposed they’ll like the IDEA however impractical just as they like the idea of there l;ifestyle coffee choice curing AIDS however impractical.
FPT, PfP on Dewsbury. You might be interested to hear that Ladbrokes have fielded a number of rather large cash bets in the shops in the area on Khizar Iqbal to win this seat. I believe he is an ex-Tory councillor who failed to get selected as PPC. 25/1 in to 12/1
FPT 452 - Agree 100% - you have it absolutely right.
More than once at business meetings I have interrupted wordy presentations or perorations with the simple question “What is the problem we are trying to solve, in a single sentence?” and been met with either blank looks, or “You need to understand that…”, or “it isn’t that simple”, which means they don’t know.
If we have to sacrifice the UK’s life’s blood for a meaningful objective then so be it. But to see these continuous processions of coffins through Wootton Bassett for some vague and woolly feel good premise then I find that objectionable, wrong and indefensible. How can we explain to their next of kin exactly what their noble sacrifice was for?
If we can’t look them in the eye and say exactly why they gave the last full measure of devotion then there is something terribly wrong with the war.
Wow, those are pretty leading questions. Humpy would be most pleased with them!
The interesting thing about this poll, leading or not, was how similar the responses of the Lib Dems and Labour supporters were.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the next voting intention poll shows that most people supports Brown versus The Sun. That most people think The Sun’s campaign was in bad taste. And that most people feel sorry for Brown.
And I also wouldn’t be surprised if Labours poll rating drops a couple of percentage points as well!
I always thought that subsidiary questions were not past vote weighted. Does anyone know if any pollster past vote weights them. I seem to recall the D politics questions aren’t>
2 What sort of bias do you mean? I completed the survey and IIRC answered fairly neutrally to Q4 - I know the Sun is a tabloid and does this sort of thing all the time, it has not changed my opinion of it.
Surely the questions were framed to help GB & 80% answering “less” to Q4 isn’t in contradiction to this. Q1 is the worst: anyone might struggle to describe the story as “legitimate and valuable journalism”, personally I think it’s tabloid tittle-tattle only marginally better than the stuff about Jordan and the X-Factor*. This then pushes the reader to agree with what we are given as the antithesis, “crossed the line into an inappropriate attack on the Prime Minister”.
* But I strongly support the Sun’s right to publish it because I believe in free speech.
A totally meaningless series of leading questions. Ignore.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Tom-Wise-Former-Ukip-And-Independent-MEP-Jailed-For-Fraudulent-Expenses/Article/200911215451578?lpos=Politics_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15451578_Tom_Wise%2C_Former_Ukip_And_Independent_MEP%2C_Jailed_For_Fraudulent_Expenses
Go UKIP!
The reaction to this reminds me very much of Nick Griffin’s appearence on Question Time where he was seen to be set up. Brown has been seen to be set up in the same way.
Although the situations are totally different to each other being seen to be the ‘victim’ leads to some degree of sympathy. I don’t believe this will manifest itself in votes though.
I don’t think anyone comes out of this with much credit. Brown shoud have left the lady well alone and not got into an argument with her, the sun has completely overcooked this one and Jacqui should be left to grieve for her son.
Cameron/Clegg need to leave this particular row well alone to be honest.
Hopefully this won’t all snowball into a hung parliament !
13 “Starbucks in a mainstream brand competing on price with cafe Nero.”
Well, if they made it actually taste of coffee, I might drink Starbuck’s rather than Nero’s.
Should Brown learn from Sir Humphrey about the power of leading questions? I was struck in PMQs yesterday by a comment from Andrew Pelling about why doesn’t the PM hold an EU referendum at the same time as a general election.
It may on the face of it seem suicidal, but if he asks a straight “in or out” question (and makes it leading to his favour e.g. John Howard’s 1999 Australian referendum), also stipulating that any result is dependent on post-election approval from the the house then he would stand to divide the Tory party’s election campaign and make EU membership a big election talking point. If the people vote yes then it could see a big boost for Labour and Lib Dems and if the people vote no then the probable new PM Cameron will face an almighty problem over whether to ignore the people’s will in parliament. It may be a desperate long range shot on goal, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Am I crazy? If not how should Brown phrase the EU question to his advantage?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6546957/Brownland—a-strange-country-where-Gordon-Brown-is-still-doing-well.html
…Mr Brown certainly gives the impression of living in a world of his own, in which he is more and more cut off from reality. Each week at Prime Minister’s questions he insists on giving us a guided tour of Brownland, a strange country in which he is still doing wonderfully well…
Lib Dems invariably support the underdog, Tim. In this case, Gordon Brown. By a very long way.
That does not mean that any Lib Dem is going to vote Labour when the general election finally takes place though.
No comfort for you there. Sorry.
Surely that first question should have been split up thus:
Was The Sun right to run a story about a letter with (alleged) misspellings from the Prime Minister to the mother of a soldier?
Was The Sun right to use the journalistic methods they did?
This sets up the framework a bit more. Some may agree with the first and disagree the methods were right etc…
22, what is interesting from that article is the relatively trivial sum involved. There will be a few who have partaken of the trough in Westminster who are feeling a little edgy at his jailing.
25 it does mean there may be more Labour supporters voting Lib Dem
18 - There is sympathy for Brown, however if he cannot even spell a name right how can he run a war…….
The Telegraph front page will not help this view, ‘MOD Pen Pushers get £47 million bonus’. This will not play well when the TA are subject to cuts.
26 Surely in a free society the Sun is right to use whatever legal methods it chooses.
27 I would imagine it is an uncomfortable read for Jacqui Smith.
I answered this questionair, but at the same time Iquestioned Politics Homes way of phrasing the questions and that anyway they were too Yes/No to be of value.
I answered thus:
Q1 I said legitimate jounalism
Q2 I dont want to defend Mr. Brown?
Q3. I think less of Gordon Brown?
Q4. I think less of The Sun?
BJ4BW is going to be back on the agenda,
Gordon Brown pledges new migrant limits
Migrant workers will only fill jobs temporarily in parts of the economy where there are labour shortages, says PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/11/gordon-brown-immigration-migrant-workers
Daily Mail - Here come the girls: Stunning Sarah Brown steals the show as the stars descend on the red carpet for Cosmo Awards
“An array of young, attractive celebrities took to the red carpet for the Cosmo Awards but the gong for best dressed certainly goes to Sarah Brown.
The First Lady dazzled in a revealing sheer floor-length green gown - a far cry from her usual more conservative outfits.
Gordon Brown’s wife has been in the throws of makeover, adding a more youthful appearance to her sometimes drab wardrobe.”
Oh dear,
MoD Pen-Pushers get £47m bonus
http://page.politicshome.com/images/articles/tele_front_nov_12th.jpg
Q1 isn’t ideal because it doesn’t exhaust all possibilities - some might think it’s not an inappropriate attack but not valuable either. But we’ve seen much worse questions and the responses seem pretty emphatic, and tie in with the various vox pops and indeed the reaction on this site, where lots of anti-Brown people said hmm, not so sure about this one.
It would be surprising if it produced a big shift in voting intentions, but I’d expect the next mainstream poll to show a rise in GB’s personal rating.
26.How about ’should Gordon Brown have sent a bereaved mother a mistake riddled letter, or should he have ripped it up and started again’?
Hospitals and schools would be transformed into John Lewis-style partnerships under radical plans that could form a central plank of Labour’s general election manifesto.
Public sector bodies, which would also include leisure centres, housing organisations and social care providers, would be allowed to take control of their own affairs if staff and users voted in favour
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/11/labour-manifesto-public-services-sector
27 - How is Wise’s cases different from David Wilshires?
33 - How can we have 8 Million “economically inactive” and 2.5 Million unemployed without having amongst them people with “catering, supply teaching or some skilled medical and engineering” skills.
Is this because the entire government training focus is wrong?
35 - This is the article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6546899/Ministry-of-Defence-officials-paid-47-million-in-bonuses.html
The Mail going with the same story but claims the bonuses are £300 million.
35 - Here is the story,
The figure, which covers just the first seven months of the current financial year, has been revealed as the Government faces charges of failing to provide British troops with adequate support and equipment on the front line in Afghanistan.
Additional bonus payments for the rest of year could take the total above the £53 million paid out to MoD officials in 2008/09.
There are 85,000 civil servants at the MoD, one for every two active troops
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6546899/Ministry-of-Defence-officials-paid-47-million-in-bonuses.html
34 - I’m sorry, but Sarah Brown does not look ’stunning’ in any way, shape or form. Well dressed certainly, but that’s it.
36.”It would be surprising if it produced a big shift in voting intentions, but I’d expect the next mainstream poll to show a rise in GB’s personal rating.”
Why?
39, do tell.
30 John L - yes, but the questions aren’t whether the Sun was free to act as it did but whether the people being polled approved. There are plenty of things that are legal but which most people would disapprove of. And it’s the more important thing for political purposes - we aren’t asking voters for a legal opinion but for how they feel about it. The main effect, quite possibly, will be to make future Sun attacks on Brown less effective - people will say, ‘Oh, there they go again, yawn.’
42 - 200k per life lost as a bonus. If that 200k has been spent on equipment for the 236 instead………..
33. Unless they’re from Europe, in which case there’s nothing Brown or anyone else can do about it.
41 - Hmm, £50 mill, £300 mill, that is some difference (even by the hyperbole of the Daily Rant). £300 mill isn’t something like the total bonuses paid out since Afghanistan war started or something is it?
34 “The First Lady dazzled in a revealing sheer floor-length green gown ….”
Was Michelle there ?
36 I know people are often irrational, but it is quite bizarre for people to think more of GB because the Sun has done something questionable. Personally I think that if GB is going to write personal letters to the bereaved (which is much to his credit) he ought to bloody well learn to write properly, and as ChristinaD points out, take a bit of care over it.
So surely it is quite reasonable to believe both that the Sun overstepped the mark, and that GB has been shown to be lacking. Surely both thoughts are independent of each other.
FPT
******* BETTING POST *******
(Sort Of)
Although I haven’t counted, I suspect that antifrank and I have comfortably more constituency bets than the other four punters included in the listing. This is not because we are more in favour of supporting Bookies’ charitable causes. Rather it is because we have entered into more combination bets, that is to say we’ve actually been MORE cautiously by betting on the two most favoured parties in a particular seat, where because of the disparity at the time between the various bookies odds, this appeared to provide the opportunity a “near certain profit margin of around 25%-30%”(famous last words I know,the case in point at Brighton Pavilion clearly demonstrates, where I’ve backed the Tories and Labour, but not the Greens, probably my one serious mistake, although I still have time to repair the damage if necessary).
This form of betting does not show up in the table as the compiler, Scott P, picked the party on which I had staked the most money, i.e. the favourite, but NOT the other lesser backed bet.
In most cases I had no great conviction (or concern) over who the ultimate winning party might be, I was simply betting on the margin. A somewhat similar position is my book on tomorrow’s by-election at Glasgow NE, where I’m broadly break-even if the SNP should win which they won’t, but I win circa £100 should Labour hold the seat, which they will for sure.
Don’t try looking for these combination opportunities any more, they simply aren’t there since I and a few other others on PB squeezed the value out of them.
I’ve invested around £1,000 on around 20 such seats, if they all come in I win around £275, if 2 go down my profit would be halved, if four go I break even, if 6 go down I gulp! In reality, because I have backed BOTH favourities, its unlikely more than a couple will lose if that, but I remain nervous about the Greens in Brighton I confess and I may need to neutralise that one.
I would really like Mike to run a thread asking PBers to nominate their ONE most confident bet on a particular constituency, preferably because of their particular knowledge and/or on account of special factors.
Perhaps I may kick this off with my own selection for the Tories to gain Dewsbury, no great surprise this one I admit and the best odds are only 4/7 or 0.57/1 with Ladbrokes that’s not a bad return however over 6 months.
My reasons are picking this constituency, which I know well are:
1 Very substantial pro-Tory boundary changes - Baxter gives it to the Tories by 6%.
2) My knowledge of the excellent Tory candidate, Simon Reevell who I’ve met several times (remember that name).
3) Problems encountered by the Labour candidate, Shalid Malik, as regards his expenses although he seems to have been largely cleared.
4) A large potential BNP vote on account of the very large immigrant population.
To point up the value of this bet, Dewsbury is No.97 in the list of Target seats the Tories must win to achieve an overall majority. In other words, were their gains to stop with Dewsbury they would win a total of just under 300 seats, considerably fewer than the 326 seats required to win the mos sdlender of overall majorities and out of sight of the forecasts of the Tories winning a more comfortable 50+ majority. Yet just consider the odds, those for them gaining a simple overall majority are only 1/3 or 0.33/1, barely half those of the Tories winning Dewsbury…. think about it.
Good luck if you follow me in!
44 - Christina, because most people on the available evidence think the affair showed him in a better light than they’d expected - willing to struggle through handwritten condolence letters despite practical difficulties, where they probably expected a mailmerge if they thought he’d write at all.
Since when has Sarah Brown been the first lady??
Hello folks.
Am new to this site. Am just getting into political betting.
Am thinking of buying my dad The Political Punter for xmas. Is it any good?
Also for the record my dad is on a hung parliment at 3/1.
Nick, what are the practical difficulties? Does Gordon have very poor eyesight as his friends claim? Not bad eyesight as he claims? Or perfectly normal eyesight as his surgeon claims? Someone is lying who is it?
54 Zelig Crosby?
Mandelson is clearly returning to his black is white spin days. He says that the BBC’s impartiality is threatened by the Tories “deal” with the Sun(not that Gordo is the worst PM ever or anything). The fact that the BBC has a complete left wing bias anybody dispute this just look at Marr, Robinson, Landale not to mention O’Donoghue, and endlessly watching rent a quote Stephen Pound, Michael White, Muckguire, Macshane etc abusing the Licence fee to protect their and the BBC’s vested interests is a real example of bias.
Also Given the fact that Mandleson schmoozed the Sun for 15 years why does anybody give him a platform (ok I know the BBC and the guardian durr!!).
It is time the Tories got on the case about Mandleson, he should on a daily basis be called a liar as everyone knows that is what he is. Equally the BBC’s “impartiality” should be questioned and scrutinised as often as possible. The only way to stop the deceit is to constantly shine a light on it.
46.”The main effect, quite possibly, will be to make future Sun attacks on Brown less effective - people will say, ‘Oh, there they go again, yawn.’”
NickP, be interesting to see if this Labour strategy against the Sun works or not.
Benedict Brogan - Spare me the pity for Gordon Brown
“Mr Brown spent much of the past 15 years or so sucking up to the Sun. He helped it lay in to Tony Blair and whichever hapless Tory leader happened to be in its sights. He used it ruthlessly to do in potential rivals. If you ride the tiger…”
53 - What about the lies he told? He lied to the women in question and he lied to the media. But then we expect that I suppose, so you are probably right.
Im surprised labour are going to ‘legitimise’ the immigration debate. They successfully muted the tories for the past 4 years. Even the revelation about labours immigration motives was not pushed strongly by the tories. But tomorrow brown will finally give cameron his voice for immigration. Once again this is a battle brown and labour cannot win, and whilst it is aimed at gaining back bnp votes, itll actually allow cameron to do the same, and offer something far more appealling.
42 Would like to point out that that’s only £500 per head and, as the Treasury has been pushing departments to agree “recyclable” non-consolidated bonus payments rather than pay rises, could be a substantial portion of an annual pay review. The story seems to simply be an argument for not paying civil servants.
The fact that less than 60% of staff will be getting bonuses could show that the MOD is developing a welcome appetite for actually targeting bonuses to the best performers. In the past it would have been 95%.
53.Nick, does it make anymore fit to be in charge of the UK right now?
I agree with John@51 “So surely it is quite reasonable to believe both that the Sun overstepped the mark, and that GB has been shown to be lacking. Surely both thoughts are independent of each other.”
I think that the BBC report ladling the sympathy on as thickly as it could last night, actually pushed Brown into a Thatcher leaving Downing Street moment.
FPT, reply for TIm only
Sorry but I’ve been out this evening so no reply to your question re. schools.
There’s no policy as far as I know. FYI it will not surprise you to know I was privately educated.
Well, I think this has been asked before but I think it’s still relevant. Suppose a lot of people do feel sorry for the Prime Minister. It’s possible. A lot of people think he really meant well however poor the execution, so that’s not totally invalid.
It begs the question: Do people want a Prime Minister they find piteous?
54 zelig - Yes, The Political Punter will make a very good Xmas present if your dad is interested in political betting. It’s an excellent introduction and a good read.
CastIronLiar upto his usual tricks:
“Critics accuse David Cameron of making ‘empty gestures’ over Co-ops”
“In the two years since he launched the Conservative Co-operative Movement to much fanfare, critics say the organisation has done little more than publish a pamphlet on setting up mutually owned grocery stores.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6913310.ece
63 - Thanks George.
I presumed that you were only because those Conservative candidates who were state educated tend to put it on their websites.
They seem to think a private education turns off voters.
53 Maybe so, but we all know the only reason Brown writes letters is that people being polled over the last ten years have said they like hand written letters. So Brown is as usual calculating to get a good story. Now the fact that his handwriting is awful is a sympathy story that I see you are pushing for all its worth. However partial sightedness does not excuse the mispelling of names and that indicates that he was slap dash about the whole thing, and given his record on the armed forces the most likely reason for that is because the whole exercise is meaningless PR to him.
49 - Daily Rant is total bonuses since start of war. Yet again Afganistan will takeover Brown’s attempt to move on to immigration. Another relaunch stalling?
Dairy Milk going fairtrade in the middle of a recession is astonishing in its self. However surely the TV adverts are surely some of the most remarakable to appear on British TV. Happy African workers who actually look like both africans and workers not highly stylised ciphers like the ones of the “rthical” Deivine brand. In a country thats 92% white? anm just elected two BNP MEPs? fighting a war?
What are these peoples focus groups telling them about fairness?
52 PfP - Great idea about proposing one bet each, especially since many of the bets we’ve placed in the past are no longer available at attractive odds.
On Dewsbury, there is the complicating factor of whether Khizar Iqbal will split the potential Conservative vote. (See Shadsy’s post at 14). I have no local knowledge, so I don’t know if this is a big issue or not.
34 She looks as though she’s half way through the Dance of the Seven Veils and will eventually reveal a rather tatty old pettycoat
65. Ok, thanks for the reply. I will order it off Amazon.
Reguarding the Lettergate row i think Brown has gained public sympathy because he meant well, but not support because he is incompetent.
The Sun newspaper was out of order in the way they behaved.
For the first time I can remember McDonalds is actually really pushing/ explaining to customers what the Ronald McDonalds Childrens Chairity actually does. Glossy leaflets in stores with a commitment to put 30m quid in.
77 – The picture of Sarah Brown is fine, not ’stunning’ but not bad at all for a woman of her age. In my humble opinion of course.
62 John Lilburne
“The fact that less than 60% of staff will be getting bonuses could show that the MOD is developing a welcome appetite for actually targeting bonuses to the best performers. In the past it would have been 95%.”
So let me get this straight. You are approving of a system in which some (but only some) public servants are part of the bonus culture?
In Defence/Aggression, the only people who actually achieve results are those who kill/neutralise more of the enemy, or save more of their own side.
The logical conclusion is that those who risk their lives and achieve these aims should get bonuses. Those who simply provide support services should get no bonus.
78 I don’t read the Sun and haven’t been following the story that closely, apart from listening to the reaction to it. I would be interested in your thoughts about what was “out of order” about it.
80 too much cleavage on show IMHO… from the wife of the Prime Minister.
70 Gabble - Since you’re trawling the news websites, you might like to look at the very perceptive article linked to by Plato at 27:
“Watching this dour Prime Minister engaged in his lonely defensive battle to avert the disintegration of Brownland, one has the feeling that his real need is to stop his whole mental universe from collapsing. The Labour benches gaze on in dismay as their leader continues in defiance of all evidence to the contrary to proclaim his own infallibility.”
58. Hello Zelig.
Yes, the Political Punter’s a very good introduction to political betting and has a lot of sound advice about betting more generally.
I don’t think your Dad has a great bet at 3/1 for a hung parliament but it’s far from a loser yet - there’s still nearly six months before polling day.
83 It really does make him sound like Kim Jong-il
FPT “452 - Siddique Khan trained in Afghanistan didn’t he?”
You have to be very careful when politicians, and even the police, claim a plot has a link to a particular country. The impression given is that that country is where all the planning, training and command took place, when in reality the link may mean no more than a member of a group visited the country.
Hypothetically if you had a complex multi-year plot involving a dozen terrorists and one member had spent a month in Afghanistan undergoing some fairly generic half-arsed training does that plot become an Afghan plot? I would say no, but that is typical of the degree of linkage that seems to have occurred in many of the large scale plots. One guy goes to the country, becomes radicalised, comes home and recruits others and then the planning and training are carried out in the targeted country. So be wary about statistics that say 75% of terrorists plots have a link to Pakistan or Afghanistan, it doesn’t necessarily mean as much as it may appear to.
FWIW the recent UK airlines plot seems to have mainly been carried out in the UK, 9/11 was Germany and then the US, Bojinka in the Phillipines, the US embassy bombings in Somalia, Tanzania and Kenya. What do they have in common? The training, planning and preparation occurred close to the targets. Terrorists want local knowledge, people who fit in, short lines of communication, and simple logistics just as would any military commander.
O/T
Here’s some more proof of Labour’s “Immigration for Votes” scam. This is not only a New Labour policy but Old Labour
http://www.realnews-online.com/rn0181.htm
This Brown on immigration story is just laughable. I would be interested to see if the BBC treat it in the same sceptical way that they treated Cameron on Poverty, I seriously doubt it. At the end of the day most people know anything Labour say is meaningless spin, they have had 12 years of proof.
37. Is Sarah Brown the only woman the Daily Mail has ever had a good word for? They’re so much harsher on every other woman, just for having roots or a pimple or a bit of cellulite. She’s like Our Lady of Paul Dacre.
FPT 437 there are some very odd people in UKIP. I know they had trouble vetting the 2004 MEPs for crooks but the 2009 bunch of MEPs needed a sanity check.
Not sure about the sex of some of their Leadership candidates.
http://tinyurl.com/ygmd3tw
88 diane it helps if you are best friends with Dacre’s wife.
82 It was purely an exercise to cause scandal, sell papers and the main aim of kicking Brown when he is already down. That is my opinion. I am refering to the taped telephone conversation.
Longish post caught in spam trap I think.
is hyndburn labour?!
Lab will hold copeland…
Sarah Brown is a frankly ropey PR woman, but she is the only positive thing that the Labour spin doctors get away with without too much indepth questioning, hence why they keep playing the card.
81 Huh? I’m not talking about “the bonus culture”, we are not talking about City fat cats getting multiples of their salaries. we are talking about civil servants getting an average of £500 each as a non-consolidated bonus as part of their annual pay review. If someone on say £30K gets say a 2% pay award plus say £1000 bonus for reasonable performance, that doesn’t exactly sound outrageous to me.
If 40% don’t get bonuses, I was simply saying that at least they seem to be in some way performance-related.
You are assuming that support staff have no impact on how many of the enemy are killed (an objective we seem to have lost sight of) or how many of our boys are saved, which is just not true. And although I have never worked on the reward of combat soldiers, I suspect you might actually reward them in different ways to civilian administrators so the two are not directly comparable.
For most people in the civil service, the “bonus” is relatively small and is no more than part of a combined cost of living and performance/incremental increase. Yes there are top civil servants with apparently guaranteed bonuses - where I used to work some of the senior managers used to get 15% for running their departments into the ground - and I do question why in my new job I got a 7% incremental rise 2 weeks after joining as it serves no purpose at all - but articles such as these, and your attitude, seems to be that civil servants should be expected to work for free.
91 - zelig, why do you think Brown is already down.?
82 MTF My first thought as well but its a much better dress she has hired this time than she usually does, the jacket/skirt combo often emphasises her hips.
88 Her time will come from the Harpies of Femail, it always does. I expeccct SamCam will be the new Michelle O/Carla B for a while but similarly will get the “what is she wearing” treatment.
peterboro looking like at proper football club at the moment
98 a = at
94,she gets away with it,could samantha cameron do the same or will dave get it in the neck,he’s using his family.
83. Richard Nabavi
I’ve argued before that Brown needs to show more humility and I think we’re beginning to see that. Not just this week but in recent weeks he has attempted to perform with a little more light and shade, not always successfully. However, what it shows is that he is getting good advice and trying to put it into practice.
He’s a decent and talented man. If others can help him to present this ‘truth’, he will be a formidable opponent at the next GE.
(0.05% swing = hung parliament)
102 ‘he will be a formidable opponent at the next GE.’
HaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaH
96 Lots of reasons that all add up to him fighting a losing battle. I think he is a decent bloke. But not a good Prime Minister.
Regarding the BJ4BW that Brown is going to announce (again) if there are no jobs maybe the BJ refers to its original meaning? A new Govt benefit from the state?
102
:lol: 
get out of here.
The government has suffered another defeat in the Lords over a so-called “free speech” defence to a new law on homophobic hatred.
Peers voted by 179 to 135 to keep the defence - despite justice minister Lord Bach pointing out MPs had voted to overturn it on four occasions.
It is one of several government defeats in the Lords on its wide-ranging Coroner’s and Justice Bill.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8355979.stm
**wipes a tear of laughter from the corner of his eye**
Priceless, Gabble.
Gabble:
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!
Sky also pushing the “can’t have an election before the budget” line
A very senior Conservative tells me he has put his Tory troops on alert for a general election on March 25 next year.
He believes there’s a 30 per cent chance of an election on that day, rather than on the widely predicted date of May 6, 2010.
I’m sceptical. A bit of propaganda to wind up Labour? Possibly.
http://blogs.news.sky.com/boultonandco/Post:02b4a260-c544-4544-9d81-605837cea8a1
96 John Lilburne
“that civil servants should be expected to work for free.”
No - just work for their salary. Why should someone get a bonus for doing their job well (or at all)? The “bonus culture” doesn’t just apply to city fat-cats. It applies in any system where individuals get extra cash for doing what they are paid to do anyway. Most workers don’t get that - why are civil servants different?
” He’s a decent and talented man”
Nobody doubts that he tries to be decent, he just fails miserably at it. He totally lacks empathy and human warmth. As for talent, the only discernible talent he has is spending other peoples money in order to extend his period in power, not a talent that is much respected by the population at large.
Did anyone else hear the amusing statement regarding failed drugs tests in jail earlier? Apparently, according to the spokesperson, the number of prisoners taking drugs is LOWER than the number of failed tests because of multiple failures.
That had me shouting at the car radio. It wasn’t even laughable.
91 “It was purely an exercise to cause scandal, sell papers and the main aim of kicking Brown when he is already down. That is my opinion. I am referring to the taped telephone conversation.”
So you regard the story and the publication of the letter as legitimate then? I probably agree with you that the recording of the phone call was sharp practice… but all’s fair in love and war. If Gordon doesn’t want people to stop calling him a tw@, he should stop behaving like one. Simples.
Causing scandal, selling newspaper and kicking people when they are down is called “tabloid journalism”. Politicians don’t complain when they do it to someone else, they should put up with it when it happens to them.
The truth is that this is yet another (relatively minor) episode showing that Brown is completely not up to the job. I loathe and detest Blair, he is a smarmy unprincipled “chump” who does not even have a passing relationship with truthfulness - but at least he always gave the impression that he was up to the job, could lead the country and represent us on the world stage, and run some sort of government. I would think much more highly of Brown if, a year or so into office, he had acknowledged what everyone else knows to be true - that he is completely unsuited to the job of Prime Minister - and stepped down. Instead he is prepared to run the country into the ground in order to try to prove to himself his is the Great Leader.
102 Gabble
The job of being PM of this country is not a voyage of self-discovery. Would it be too much to ask that the Labour party vote in a leader who is at least half-way to being a decent person?
I’ll be surprised if this gets through the spam trap…
The following data is taken from Google in May and November this year. It shows the suggested searches after typing: Gordon Brown is a
The significant findings are that searchers consider GB less of an idiot bastard, but more a (sic) idiot criminal. Prick is up sharply too, and traitor makes its first appearance.
Gordon Brown is a 31-May-09
Gordon Brown is a moron 73,000
Gordon Brown is an idiot 338,000
Gordon Brown is a prick 25,800
Gordon Brown is a liar 140,000
Gordon Brown is a bastard 136,000
Gordon Brown is a fool 162,000
Gordon Brown is a idiot 425,000
Gordon Brown is a criminal 342,000
Gordon Brown is a clown 146,000
Gordon Brown is a 10-Nov-09
Gordon Brown is a prick 34,800
Gordon Brown is an idiot 304,000
Gordon Brown is a liar 193,000
Gordon Brown is a bastard 118,000
Gordon Brown is a moron 81,800
Gordon Brown is a idiot 551,000
Gordon Brown is a clown 158,000
Gordon Brown is a criminal 1,110,000
Gordon Brown is a traitor 64,700
Gordon Brown is a fool 258,000
Sorry Gordon. You just can’t do anything right at the moment.
114 oops, caught between two sentence constructions.
“If Gordon doesn’t want people calling him a tw@, he should stop behaving like one. Simples.”
Of course.
We hate labour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
102, 104 He is not a remotely decent bloke, the years of cowardly attacking Blair, the cowardly bottled election, the 10p tax, Macbride, and on and on. It wouldn’t be so bad if he were competent, but he is both a nasty piece of work and a complete idiot that has wrecked our futures because of his total arrogance.
labour wont win carlisle either….
119 update con wont win carlisle……….
102 - Yeah like a few cheesy grins are going to make Joe Public glad that he destroyed pensions and savings, make all military families glad he cut back on equipment programmes, make every driver glad that road tax is over 200 quid and that fuel is almost 5 quid a gallon, make low earners deleriously happy when Brown abolished the 10p tax rate, made everyone happy when he backtracked on a Lisbon referendum etc etc etc.
Humility my arse.
You sound like a gambler betting his last dollar and hoping for a big fat jackpot. Unfortunately your hero Brown is a big fat crackpot.
The letter of condolence was a disgrace, rushed, sloppy, ill-considered and disrespectful. The grieving mother was right to call him on it.
If the man can’t be trusted to do something as basic as this, then I pity him or at least I would if he wasn’t such a duplicitous liar and an utterly useless PM.
Benedict Brogan at his Telegraph blog - Guess which department offers a ‘Better letter masterclass’ as part of ‘Correspondence month’?
“Thank you to the eagle-eyed reader who sent me this snap taken earlier this week of a poster on display in Peter Mandelson’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, where “November is correspondence month”. I wonder if anyone from No10 attended Lord Davies’ event yesterday, or whether there is a “Correspondence Champion” in Downing Street who might hold a “Better letter masterclass” to teach the PM that “Reputation matters – prompt quality replies to people who write to us enhance our reputation”.”
120 or dagenham or morley/outwood…
” It applies in any system where individuals get extra cash for doing what they are paid to do anyway. Most workers don’t get that - why are civil servants different?”
The point of bonuses in the Civil Service as elsewhere is not to pay people extra for doing their job. It is to motivate individuals to go beyond what they are paid to do and provide increased benefit to the company/country. If you are in a job that you cannot provide increased benefit, a production line that runs at a fixed pace for example you would expect to receive your salary no more no less. If you worked at a production line that ran at a variable speed and you produced more than the others around you, you would expect to receive a bonus, what is the problem with that?
I agree with ChristinaD at 11. The first question is very leading, setting the tone for the remainder. I’d also suggest that the use of the word ‘defend’ in Q2 is also suggestive that the correct emotional response is towards defending Brown. If the questioners wanted a neutral question, it should probably have been worded more like “Does this story change how you feel towards Mr Brown and, if so, how?’
122,I would pity him,but then I think behind the false smile,this man is a nasty piece of work.
111 Well, you’ve missed my explanation. The “bonus” is part of the annual pay review. I am sure that private sector workers expect one of those, at least when the company has done well and so have they. I accept that they might be less common in times of recession.
For years, the Treasury has been pushing government departments to stop automatic incremental and inflationary increases, to make them performance related, and make part of them non-consolidated bonuses.
So if good civil servants get rewarded with a pay rise and a (small) bonus, so what? Don’t good private sector workers get rewarded too?
You need to look at the whole remuneration package to see if the civil servant is getting unfairly rewarded compared with a private sector comparison. Taking an average bonus of £500 per head and making it out to be particularly egregious is just blowing it out of all proportion.
125. That’s not necessarily how the bonus scheme works.
In the private sector, Pay for Performance allows 2 people doing nominally the same job to be on different pay rates based on their perceived productivity.
Bonuses can then be based on group performance; as long as the business unit makes its numbers, every person in the bonus scheme gets the bonus, which will typically be a percentage of their salary
Another great tear-jerking effort from our own Nick Palmer earlier on I see, with poor old Gordon ’struggling’ through his hand written letters despite all his terrible handicaps, desperate to do the right thing…trying to make him sound like George VI bravely stammering his way through the King’s Speech.
Reality check Nick - Brown is an unpleasant man who leads a thoroughly nasty and unprincipled party. And that isn’t just my opinion.
125 Although I would argue that the size of bonus on offer is generally too small to motivate people to do anything, and the performance management system is often regareded as so flawed that the whole process of discriminating on performance has the overall effect of demotivating people.
I am not sure you can really argue anything more than equity - it is right to reward your better employees more.
129, I don’t get the point you are trying to make. I have outlined how the civil service bonus scheme works which is the scheme in question. You have outlined another, totally different scheme that has no relevence to the discussion, what’s your point?
128
The point is, Brown was prepared to cut the TA budget whilst paying these bonuses. The MOD is seriosly overmanned, doesnt do its job properly and wastes vast amounts of money on procurement.
It may not be a totally fair comparison, but its all about perception.. oh and lets not forget the billions spent on the MOD building either
102. One look at my prospective pension tells me that there is nothing decent about him at all.
Oh Dear, it looks like Labour has been calling favours in to smear Cameron. The Independent has a front page asking if Cameron & Murdoch have done a deal. Have they not learnt from smeargate, this will back fire as usual, this could be the thing which starts the Murdoch v Labour war.
75. RN
“On Dewsbury, there is the complicating factor of whether Khizar Iqbal will split the potential Conservative vote. (See Shadsy’s post at 14). I have no local knowledge, so I don’t know if this is a big issue or not.”
Dewsbury is rather a split constituency - 3 wards in the town of Dewsbury itself and 3 ‘rural’ wards to the south of the town.
Dewsbury town is a place where Asian politics is played and where the BNP are strong in the council estates (this is Karen Matthews country), the rural wards though are now becoming Conservative strongholds. It is these rural wards where the Conservatives need to get their vote and being 98% white areas Shahid Malik will be to their eyes the unacceptable face of Asian politicians.
Now enter Khizar Iqbal, a Conservative councillor in Dewsbury South with a big personal vote. Who will he take votes from at a general election? Asian voters in Dewsbury who would have otherwise voted for the Asian Malik but now have an alternative Asian candidate who is respected and local and not an outsider and sleezy. Or white voters in the rural wards who would otherwise have voted for the Conservative but now see two Asian names on the ballot paper.
129 For that to work it helps if you have profit centres and groups of people doing similar work whose contribution to profit can be measured and differentially rewarded.
Big “processing” parts of the civil service have the latter, but policy-making departments often don’t, and don’t have profit centres either - or have very few staff with any sort of direct financial impact.
114. I agree with most of what you say. Am no fan of Blair, Brown or Labour. Brown is incompetent. I will be glad to see the back of them.
My point earlier was that Brown has gained public sympathy from the way he has being treated by The Sun. The bloke meant well. I dont believe in the phrase ”all’s fair in love and war”. I believe in fair play.
102 I’ve never really thought Gordon Brown was really a decent man since his behaviour to Blair, when following a family crisis (one that a decent man, especially one who had lost a child, would recognise as above politics) and a health scare organised his coterie organised to push to get Blair to go before the 2005 election. The destruction of some peoples careers, the dirty tricks and briefings, the characters closest to him, the sulks and perhaps most telling the treatment meeted out to junior staff including typists, those are not the features of a decent man.
Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a good PM - Churchill was a bully, ill mannered and pulled up on it by his wife, I’ve no doubt we have had quite a few personally unlikeable and not very decent PMs who had successful careers.
On Afghanistan, recently Brown and the BBC seem to have set up a dividing line where they try to explain that pulling out would be bad in order to “educate” the public. As always with Brown and his allies it is a false dividing line. I am willing to bet that the majority view in this country is that we would support the war if we knew exactly what the strategic plan is, and if someone gave a credible plan to create a viable state within 5 years then the British Public would accept troop losses even at the current level. However all the British people see at the minute is Obama and Brown clueless about what to do and therefore they rightly see pulling out as the best option.
It appalls me that Brown has created this fake dividing line and worse that the BBC are reinforcing it.
Mandlebum must:
a, have cleaned up his act completely since the last time he got fired for corruption and meetings with Russians such as Derispaka who have huge aluminion interests when Mandlebum’s th Euro Trade Commissioner are total coincidence
b, have Schillings/Carter F@ck laying injunctions all over Fleet Street to surpress any stories about him
c, reckon his heavy Russki mates (see a) are so scary that no one will spill the beans on his life
d, have forgotton that NI have deep sourced files on everyone in public life
to be actually saying what he’s saying about the good old Current Bun.
Minister of Truth he may be, but he simply won’t survive 6 months of exposure
135 - I wasn’t joking when I wrote this this morning.
“Can we move on from the Sun v Brown”
Afraid not old boy, today has been designated as the day Cameron is revealed as the mastermind behind the Sun’s infamous story, by Thursday Thatcher will be in the frame.
118. voreas
Brown has certainly been arrogant and misguided in the past. I think we have seen, at long last, that he can/will change.
He oversaw the longest ever period of moderate growth this country has seen and has shallowed, shortened and moderated the current recession.
Cameron, by contrast, has spent his entire adult life, to date, in PR, with all that accompanies it. He looked out of his depth today. His face was very, very red.
131. As a civil servant I totally agree. My obviously badly explained point was that people who work harder deserve to be recognised. Generally speaking that recognition will be financial. What you say about the bonuses paid in the civil service being potentially demotivating is true, but I knew the package when I signed up and my personality leads me to seek secure employment above highly paid employment so I am happy enough.
Front pages
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-Papers—The-Newspaper-Front-Pages-Thursday-November-12-2009/Media-Gallery/200911215451829?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15451829_The_Papers_-_The_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Thursday%2C_November_12%2C_2009
The order and style of questioning doesn’t matter. Gordon for once has beaten ‘The Sun’
I think people are impressed that Gord turns out a handwritten letter for each fatality no matter how badly written it is, and at the moment despite obviously being very a very busy man he having to churn out quite a few letters. Did Maggie write a letter for each fatality in the Falklands ?
In this case The Sun have screwed up in their attempt to discredit GB, who has won a rare PR coup. They don’t like losing so I am sure that there will further ‘revelations’ tomorrow but they are digging a bigger hole for themselves.
it’s war,how low can the mirror newspaper go.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/The-Papers—The-Newspaper-Front-Pages-Thursday-November-12-2009/Media-Gallery/200911215451829?lpos=UK_News_Left_Promo_Region_0&lid=GALLERY_15451829_The_Papers_-_The_Newspaper_Front_Pages_Thursday%2C_November_12%2C_2009
Sarah Brown wears her skirts waaay too short - she just doesn’t have the legs and she’s too old. Sorry to be blunt, but with people who are so mistaken in thinking they can wear such totally unsuitable clothes, one has to be blunt.
133 I am prepared to agree with you on all those. The money spent on Main Building, in particular, seems to have been pissed up against the wall with nothing but contempt for the taxpayer and the serving soldier.
But the answer is to re-engineer, make redundancies, learn about priorities, project management and procurement… it’s got nothing to do with how the existing civil servants are paid, apart from the ones at the top who are presumably currently paid loadsamoney to f*** things up, and then get cushy jobs with defence contractors when they retire.
gabble, there’s nothing quite as insulting as damming with faint praise, this is a classic example of it, well done.
” He oversaw the longest ever period of moderate growth this country has seen and has shallowed, shortened and moderated the current recession.”
138 I think we will have to agree to disagree. In my opinion Brown always calculates and the hand written letters were a calculation that combined with the authentic scruffy handwriting made excellent PR. The misspelt words and many previous similar acts though say to me that it was a meaningless PR stunt, and he couldn’t careless one way or another about who he was writing to.
149
As I say its all about perception, an overmanned MOD being paid bonuses whilst Brown wants to cut the TA budget. it stinks and adds to the narrative about this Govt’s priorities.
132. I didn’t realise you were explicitly describing the Civil Service scheme, which if I understand correctly you are suggesting only gives bonuses for individual effort above and beyond.
What extra effort did the MoD staff put in to justify their bonuses?
My point was that in some bonus schemes, the reward is for group performance, not individual effort, and it seemed plausible to me that the Civil Service might be operating such a scheme.
143 Gabble
First we are not out of recession yet so don’t start talking about it as if its over.
Second, Gordon Browns Golden Rules were that for a growing economy, over a complete economic cycle, debt should not exceed 40% GDP and the defecit should not be above 3%. Our current debt is way above 40% and the defecit is estimated at 12% for the end of the year.
If Gordon Brown was right in 1997 about the importance of keeping to these rules to ensure a stable economy, then surely in 2009 having broken them spectacularly we’re in big trouble?
Mirror headline:
“How low Cam you go”
“Tory’s Armistice Day ‘photo shoot’”
What’s that about?
I hope it’s not just that Cameron has had some photos taken whilst paying his respects. Nothing wrong with that - doesn’t deserve front-page shocker-type presentation.
147 - Nice front page from The Mirror.
I’m guessing 1m is within sight.
146. I have read that Margaret Thatcher actually started the policy of writing to the relatives of those killed in action in the Ralklands.
150. d(too)
‘Faint praise’ it may be but the tories have never managed it.
I think mandy and brown should tread carefully around the sun… im pretty sure theyve been briefing the sun ‘off the record’ for years. Maybe its time for the sun to start going through its achives and publishing these ‘private conversations’.
155 – The Daily Mirror has photos of David Cameron on its front page and calls it a publicity stunt by Cameron.
Go figure.
How can you turn laying a wreath into a ‘publicity stunt’? I would like to know how the Mirror explains that one !
The daily mirror should be shot down for they front page on david cameron,this is a disgrace.
re 102 He’s a decent and talented man.
Gabble it’s the way you tell ‘em, and the reason why I’m now wiping tea off my monitor.
What bets that’s a Mirror/Nulabour photographer being photographed by a Mirror photographer?
150. don, too.
At least he’s moved on from a demonstrable falsehood to an inherently unprovable assertion.
Scott, I don’t know what the individuals involved did to get their bonuses and neither do you.
I got my annual bonus of 580 pounds for identifying that my department wanted to send 26 people to courses at a location which required an overnight stay followed by a full days training and associated travel/accommodation costs. I volunteered to learn the content of the course to a standard where I could teach it locally. This saved the department a considerable sum of money. I think that may well have been worth the 580 quid, what’s your opinion?
After Gordo soundly thrashed Khaooomooooreeeosnfhgtiurlfmcwq at PMQs, I’m surprised to see this as the lead story on the Times website
Gordon Brown accused over one in five young out of work
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article6912350.ece
Maybe it has something to do with Labour declaring war on NI?
153 No, in the MOD we are told that just under 60% of people get a bonus, so it is probably (at quite a low level, 2-3% of salary) for those of “above average” performance, and I’d guess a higher level for a much smaller percentage, the “above and beyond” people.
157. If she did all 256 or so personal letters in the eight or so weeks of that conflict then respect to her.
Clearly The Mirror has a contract with the Labour Party and are out to smear Cameron as their part of the deal.
I hope Labour supporters will denounce this use of Armistice Day to attack Cameron with the same vigour they have recently denounced The Sun.
143 I know you feel you have to write this rubbish gabs but really, you are just being silly Brown has left us in a worse state than Labour left us in 1979. it is that bad. The Growth was a mirage. What worries me at this point is the stagflation we are going to get from the quantitative easing that in turn I am sure will lose us our triple A status and therefore make it even harder to pay back the debt.
Brown is not a decent man and he frankly couldn’t care less about anyone but himself.
As for Cameron didn’t watch it, but having a red face versus Brown long litany of minuses, I will go for the red face any day.
141. The problem is that everybody already thinks that Mandelson is corrupt and sexually deviant*, and yet he’s Secretary Minster Lord High God Emperor of Dune. What are they going to say about him that could possibly topple him? It would have to be wonderfully awful.
* by sexually deviant I don’t mean gay, I mean “gay in a way that allows endless prurient speculation about his sexual activities.” I haven’t seen people so gloriously grossed out by the idea of where a cock has been since Bill Clinton graced us with his presence.
I hope the bbc put the same passion in on the criticism they gave the sun to the mirror,this left wing labour supporting newspaper should be torn to pieces for they disgraceful front page on cameron.
166. don. If nobody else in your department got 580 quid for nothing, I agree.
re 143 Gabble what’s a red face got to do with the price of fish?
So the reason why we’ve got the 6th worse recession out of the G7 and the longest is all down to Brown’s stunning and brilliant leadership of the economy, is it?
1446 Tub of Lard - yes Mrs T did, as did Major and Blair.
170 I will continue my even-handed approach to tabloid journalism… I will make my own mind up about the story, and support the Mirror’s right to publish what it damn well likes.
166 don(the other one)
If that’s what the MoD civil servants are getting as a “bonus” then I have no problem with people getting a cut of the savings that they suggest (I wish that had been available to me!)
However, if that were the case I’d have supposed someone to have scooped the jackpot by devising a method of cutting the MoD down to a relatively small number of people.
My original point (while it may not have been clearly put) was that the squaddies doing the real fighting don’t get a bonus for what they do “over and beyond”.
I don’t think the Mirror front page is disgraceful, It is just risible.
157, 176 Northern Ireland as well ?
110. I have a feeling where March 25th is coming from is that this is the day Browns looking at to visit the Queen and disolve Parliament.
173 Won’t get a peep. Anyway off to bed.
Looking at the Mirror front page, you have to wonder if a Labour supporting newspaper playing tit for tat with the Sun is going to help those in the government who were gunning for the Sun this week.
Sometimes it better not to highlight your often almost obsessional and lengthy campaign to discredit the leader of the opposition when the Labour strategists are trying to undermine the Sun for having the temerity to print a story that was handed to them by an understandable angry bereaved mother.
could we be about to see a public backlash against the media in favour of the politians??
Indeed, the mirror story is perfect for cameron, he’s stayed out of the lettergate story, and has now been dragged into it by a labour paper for similar reasons to gordon. Just as labour was on top, theyve come crashing down
141 - If Murdoch was not happy with his papers critique of Brown & Labour he may now tell them to ratchet it up another gear.
‘d, have forgotton that NI have deep sourced files on everyone in public life’
I would be very worried if I was Mandy/Labour, those files of supressed stories published week after week would be toxic to Labour.
179,what uproar would we have got if the sun had done the same front page has the mirror but with mr brown ?
Odd from the Mirror having condemned the Sun for its similar behaviour.
I think the aim is clearly to link Cameron to the Sun story. It’s going to backfire horribly on Labour.
178 “However, if that were the case I’d have supposed someone to have scooped the jackpot by devising a method of cutting the MoD down to a relatively small number of people.”
Don’t be silly. Senior managers in all walks of life tend to get paid by the size of their “command”. This is particularly true in the public sector where there are few competing measurements such as profitability. Not only would cutting staff make your average MOD manager’s willy smaller, it will undermine any future arguments he may have for aggrandising his own salary and bonus arrangements.
183 - Especially when The Mirror sells less than half the number of copies.
It’s like opening fire on a battleship with a cruiser and then complaining when you get sunk.
180 No idea - the MoD guidance says PM writes to family of members of the armed forces killed on active service, SoS to those who die outside operational areas. Margaret Thatcher started it with Falklands war so probably the answer is yes.
Buckingham Palace and Prince Philip also write, and I tend to agree with Simon Jenkins that it would have been better had it stayed there and politicians not got involved. Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown were as politicians divisive figures, the Head of State is above party politics.
187,depends on how the media report it(if at all)the bbc did a good PR job for mr brown against the sun.
I hate to imagine how dirty the GE is going to be, if this week, so far, is anything to go by (and we are probably still at gentle warm-up pace). Definitely think I shall book myself a month abroad.
Hmm, reading through the posts above, I see that people who were generally sympathetic to Brown at first over the letter of condolence debacle are now much cooler. Understandable: Brown and Labour have squandered that public good will by trying to use the issue to attack on The Sun and Cameron as well as create an atmosphere of Brown martyr worship. Regrettable but predictable.
189.David, I think that Mirror front page and headline just sunk two days of Labour attacks on the Sun newspaper in spectacular style.
194 - Nah. The BBC won’t attack The Mirror. Betcha.
But come the revolution…
If the Mirror story turns out to be as pathetic and pointless as it seems on first impression, I hope Brown condemns it outright.
There have been far too many crude attempts to turn the sadness and grief people naturally feel for the fallen, into politically motivated attacks.
195,I thought the guardian was the bbc favorite read.
14,75 Shadsy & Richard, in Dewsbury the Reevell team view Iqbal as nothing more than a side show, who won’t win more than a couple of thousand votes, probably less, but then [insert Mandy Rice-Davis quote here]. It is also being said that Iqbal will win a number of votes from Labour’s Malik, which would never have gone to Reevell, thereby assisting the formal candidate. What I can report from my own knowledge, is that the said Reevell is working terrifically hard and has been ever since he was shoe-horned into the constituency last Spring - he certainly won’t fail through lack of effort. That’s what Eton, the Guards and the Bar instil into you!
Have I missed something from the Mirror’s story? ” Leader of the Opposition has picture taken performing civic duty” ?
The country isn’t in the mood for this kind of nonsense. It didn’t buy the Brown/Sun thing and they won’t buy that.
193.Starky, good point, that Mirror front page combined with the Indy etc is looking a tad like a carefully crafted and cynical ploy aiming to drag Cameron into the Labour spat with the Sun. That doesn’t quite fit in with the narrative that some of our political luvvies in the news studio’s have been feeding us the last 24 hours.
188 John Lilburne
That was exactly my point. So just how beneficial is the system of bonuses in the Civil Service? “You’ve increased your Department by 8 staff with no increase in workload. Here’s 5 grand.”?
194 Whoever sanctioned The Mirrors front page is a complete fool. I’m looking forward to all out warfare between the red tops. News International last reported a profit of £290M versus Trinity Mirrors loss of £73M. I wonder who can survive a price war the longest?
re 183 we just need to remember that the Mirror has form in printing faked photos on its front page.
gabble, we don’t often (never) agree, but that is a decent post, well said.
195.David, totally agree. The BBC would not cover this story.
189 David Roe
Do you have your front page for the Scottish Edition yet?
I am being a bit controversial here but I have been in hospital for the past two weeks and during that time I befriended an 88 year old man ( he was a naval engineer) who had been involved with the Normandy landings. He lost most of his close comrades in the first two weeks of that canpaign
His opinion is that the whole Remembrance thing has become too much of a circus and should be toned down to the basics (i.e remembering those who died for us) and that the parades, reinactments and fly pasts should be abolished.
202 - I’m going to be (shockingly) fair. Trinity Mirror is hindered by the devastating decline of the local press. This is something that News Int is not affected by.
Having said that. A paper that once sold about 5/6million copies now sells about 1.3.
206 - SuBo in stalker terror. The English paper is also carrying that but on page 3.
No, it’s not that bad.
**needs mind wipe**
196. Well said Denis.
All of this is an indication of how dirty this general election is going to be. Without doubt this will be the dirtiest, nastiest election in modern British history - The gloves are gonna be off big time.
The Mirror is little more than a Friday Ad, and is only kept going because its title has something of a venerable past. I can’t remember the last time any of its scoops were of national interest, although the scandal caused by its faking photos of British soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners was well publicized.
209 David Roe
Bit tail between the legs!
Nothing on Glasgow NE?
Er……. what is the Mirror’s story ? David Cameron lays wreath is as far as I have got.
This is the Mirrors on line presence, it’s not difficult to work out why it is tanking. Crap design and layout, terrible “stories” just all round dire looks like it was knocked together by a sixth former.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/
Would Nick Palmer like to condemn the Mirror for its front page about Cameron as he has the Sun for its coverage of Brown?
I see M and S have launched their Christmas campaign and its entirely negative and defensive. I fear this tells us more about the state of the economy that Kings upbeat statements today. ” It wouldn’t be Christmas without M and S.” suggests that there sales figures are telling them quite a few people will be having a Christmas without M and S particularly those that trade up at Christmas. The stars they have used are all comforting oldies and they have subverted the ” christmas ” sin motif from cost to calories. So by pushing cheap chocolates they are making the chocolate the seasonal indulgance rather than the price because they know we are all skint.
Looks grim to me.
TOL, best guess is that they are hinting that his laying of a wreath is a “photo op” as evidenced by the photographer in the shot as well as Camereon. Bit thin if that is the case.
213 Seth
He’s probably busy writing headlines for all possibilities - including “Fewer voters at polling stations than candidates - the postal election.”
just been to the maguire blog,love the comment from don in the comments
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/maguire/2009/11/the-sun-shines-on-brown.html#comments
218,don that’s not you posting on the maguire blog,is it
Smeato’s last message to the people before the by-election.
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/papercolumnists/smeato/2725614/Politics-needs-an-MP-whos-not-in-the-loop.html
He sounds like he’s had a hard time of it judging by his columns since he announced he’d stand. I’d be surprised if he wanted to go through this again.
217 Yellow Submarine
The Sun and The Mirror both are written by total morons for other total morons to read.
Nothing else needs to be said on the matter.
Jonno, sadly must admit ’twas me. Can’t stand the odious little prick who only seems to own one shirt and one jacket, so never let the chance of a little Kevin baiting pass by.
Mirror story could be about these photos on Flickr. Received them via Facebook:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25129269@N06/
225
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/has-cameron-done-a-deal-with-murdoch-1819010.html
…Tom Newton Dunn, newly appointed as The Sun’s political editor, is another Old Etonian. His father, Bill, used to be a Tory MEP, but defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2000…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/has-cameron-done-a-deal-with-murdoch-1819010.html
Tom Newton Dunn, newly appointed as The Sun’s political editor, is another Old Etonian. His father, Bill, used to be a Tory MEP, but defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2000…
Maybe the Mirror should ask how this photo was taken?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/downingstreet/4095597920/
Yellow Submarine
You posted a very interesting anecdotal yesturday about what some Labour canvassers were telling you in a seat that Labour won in 1983.
Is it possible for you to say which constituency it was?
Whats more, all of those labour blogs and politians are going to have to defend cameron, otherwise theyll seem two-faced.
229 (Correction)
Maybe somebody should ask the Mirror how this photo was taken?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/downingstreet/4095597920/
I would guess it wouldn’t look very different from their front page, other than a different man standing there.
Oracle, sorry, but I am going to have to post that link on toilets blog.
O/T I’ve just returned from a screening of the film ‘Harry Brown’. A shocking indictment of the breakdown in society caused by successive governments. Not for the faint hearted, but very good. It does leave you wondering if there’s any hope for some at the very bottom of the ladder.
Would also say if we are going to get in the minute arguments of politicians and “official” photo-streams on flickr, we pay for Gordo’s one, Cameron / Tories pay their own.
232,oracle,Iain dale did the sky paper review and said that cameron has a photographer with him just like mr brown.
Witan, can’t make out what the Mirror story is about, so I’ll reserve judgment.
Meanwhile, by-election addicts can get an 11-minute dose here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2009/nov/11/glasgow-north-east-byelection
Unfortunately it’s barely worth watching IMO - basically 40 seconds or so of each candidate answering whatever pops into the reporter’s head and a few random vox pops. The candidates all do a reasonablhy competent job with no obvious gaffes.
236 - Must be a miserable photographer then.. Oh, I see.
eddie barnes in the scotsman has written a brilliant article as to why the people of glasgow north east have no hope or belief in ANY politician, and why only 25% will turn out today. even that is astonishing. the flats shown are a place devoid of hope, and i doubt somewhere that any party has bothered to canvass too much.
this is what the election should have been about, how do we help people now the country has the chance to be focussed on the problems in one of the most deprived areas in europe, let alone scotland or britain.
not always impressed by eddie, he does not hide his anti snp bias too well, and makes the sun and the mirror look like amateurs in comparison, but this really is up there as a social commentary and needs to be read.
this is not anti any party, they are all to blame, to a greater or lesser degree.
PfP
I’m much impressed by your Con win Dewsbury vs Con majority reasoning.
I’ve looked at a few other seats and there are others where the Conservatives are almost certain to win if they get an overall majority and may do so even if they don’t.
Keighley 1/2 Hills
I think there’s a better chance of a Conservative win here than in Dewsbury:
Popular MP Anne Cryer standing down.
Effect of HBOS and B&B collapses plus general Yorkshire recession.
Elections dominated locally by Conservatives and Labour without the minor parties of Dewsbury.
Much bigger local election leads for the Conservatives:
2006
Keighley 4.6%
Dewsbury 1.6%
2007
Keighley 19.6%
Dewsbury 2.2%
2008
Keighley 19.5%
Dewsbury 12.6%
Leicestershire NW is another seat that the Conservatives will definately win if they get an overall majority and Ladbrokes and Hills have it at 2/5.
Bolton W and Bolton NE probably apply too.
234. I’ve heard this is supposed to be a very powerful piece of film-making. I wonder if Michael Caine might earn a best actor award at the Baftas/Oscars?
Looking forward to getting The Mirror when we have a copy to see if there is any remote excuse for the front page.
i should add #234 that my comment relates to your harry brown comments.
I see Argos is using that ghastly Christmas song about a Soldier wishing he was at home for Christmas - which is very, very clever if you think about it. I wonder who owns the rights to it? A charity cover would raise millions and make a star of someone or perhaps sprinkle fairy dust on a flagging career.
It would also be an interesting political phenomenon to have a Charity Christmas Number One about soldiers returning from war….
Leave you night owls to it, night all.
Don’t they teach anything in school anymore?
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2725660/Firework-rocket-blew-off-my-finger.html
230. Its one you have tipped to go Tory !
247. I missed this comment. What were the Labour activists telling you?
241 It’s the first feature for the Director. He took part in a very interesting Q&A with the Producer afterwards - it’s a real eye opener. Violent, and plain nasty in parts but for a reason. I enjoyed it, but it gets pretty horrific. Michael Caine does a top job too - I don’t think the film would have happened if he hadn’t taken the part.
249. Did you ever see Eden Lake? Does it go as OTT as that?
“David Cameron accused of exploiting Armistice Day for ‘photo shoot’”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/11/12/david-cameron-accused-of-exploiting-armistice-day-for-photo-shoot-115875-21815032
240 Great stuff Richard - I picked up your post just as I was closing down the laptop to go to bed. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow and let you know what I think.
Goodnight all.
247. YS
Do you mean in my comment to PfP?
ie Keighley or Dewsbury or Leics NW or Bolton W or Bolton NE?
The Conservatives won all of them in 1983.
“He oversaw the longest ever period of moderate growth this country has seen and has shallowed, shortened and moderated the current recession”
The current recession is the worst since the Great Depression. The current budget deficit is the worst since WWII.
And you think that’s something to give him credit for?
Do you actually believe the rubbish you post, or do you just do it to wind people up?
239 redcliffe, I got the impression the film will kick off a fairly heated debate about the breakdown in society, the failure to help and defend the elderly and uncontrollable feral youth. There’s been quite a bit of press for it this week. It sounds as if the Eddie Barnes article taps into this discussion quite nicely.
253. The anecdote came from Copeland
250 I’ve never seen Eden Lake; what’s it about?
251.
Mirror Story -
Cameron was photographed in the garden BEFORE the service.
Brown was photographed and filmed in the garden AFTER the service.
Only differance is that the Mirror claims Brown photograoher stayed a “respectful” 30m back.
What a load of nonsense.
251.The Sun was approached with the story of the letter, the Mirror seems to have a full time team combing every aspect of Cameron’s life. That is an obsession. They follow him and film on his bike, someone even went through his bins to check nappies.
258 Oh geez.
Don’t they use pictures on The Mirror website? The story doesn’t really work in text form only.
Is this why The Mirror website isn’t really at the races?
257. Extremely violent film about a gang of feral youths terrorising a a couple of leftie do-gooders who eventually are forced to become vigalante child killers on order to survive. Its VERY violent and gets increasingly OTT as it goes on. The final minutes are shocking though.
259 - Don’t forget they just happened to be there when his bike got nicked and magically managed to recover it a few days later. What are the chances of that in London?
Has my browser gone mad or have they repeated most of the paragraphs?
That’s Labour’s “The Sun is a Tory stooge” attack shot to ribbons then.
I must apologize for my thread long rambling about corporate social responsibility - Although I see since I last went ages ago that KFC has done a UNICEF tie up and Subway has dropped all its dieting stuff and is collecting for the Horn of Africa - I was going to try and build to a crescendo with a ” Memo to Clegg ” but it hasn’t quite worked out that way.
I’m just genuinely facinated that so many big brands are going way beyond standard Green wash at the moment to try and soften their images. All in philanthropic terms when according to maslows heirarchy of needs - or at least a paraphrasing of it - then people in a chronic recession should be looking to hearth and home.
I just can’t help wonder what their focus groups are telling them about big bussiness and wether it has an impact on contemporary politics ?
258.
What we need now is for the country’s Prime Minister to stand up and condemn this kind of behaviour, in all circumstances.
Remembrance Day was hi-jacked by The Sun and now The Mirror are trying to hi-jack Armistice Day.
In the end, we are all diminished.
If The Mirror attacks are going to be as bad as this I say keep ‘em coming
262 Sounds grim! Harry Brown certainly isn’t a lefty do gooder, just an old ex-soldier who gets his own back for good reason. There’s a lot of realistic violence, but not of the OTT SAW horror type.
265.David, the Mirror has been running this vendetta against Cameron since he became Conservative leader, no one bats an eyelid or reports on it. Everything goes into meltdown and people get hysterical about a Sun campaign against Brown because they published a perfectly valid story that lasted all of two days.
I always thought the nappie story was the worst stunt they ever pulled on Cameron.
Another silly idea: all nurses will be forced to have degrees
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6913368.ece
267 - Gabble, the Mirror’s front page story is rather pathetic, Gordon Brown should not even acknowledge it, let alone condemn it.
258 Politician in posed photograph shocker. They all do it - what’s the problem? Cameron was wandering around looking at the memorials, and the photographer appears to have staged a shot. Not that different to the Browns various snaps. The Mirror are pretty desperate and pathetic if this is the game going they’re going to continue to play.
271. Its not far off that now. This announcement is just the terminus of a long process. Its too big a topic to start at this hour but i have worked as a Nursing Assistant under Nurse supervision. The problem is that as Nursing has become better paid, better recognised and better qualified the NA role hasn’t kept up. The gap has widened and its this gap that some of the more practical care aspects have fallen into.
YS
Thanks, much appreciated, I thought it might be a Cumbria constituency from a previous description you gave.
Very interesting then that the BNP are picking up votes there, its a 99% white constituency and I suspect it hasn’t even had many recent Eastern Europeans either.
If Copeland is very close either way you’re looking at a Conservative majority of over 50 seats.
272. SimonStClare
It is pathetic but to describe someone as ‘low’ for paying their respects to the dead is beyond the pale.
Politicians should not allow themselves to be dragged into the gutter by ‘friendly’ journalists. It devalues them and the whole political discourse.
It’s wrong - Brown should condemn it.
267 Gabble
Mr Cameron had clearly been instructed on how to behave and moved briskly from pose to pose, often bending down to read the names on crosses as he was snapped.
If only Brown had been clearly instructed on how to behave, “this kind of behaviour” would never have happened.
The less said by any Prime Minister - current or future - the better.
275. I don’t have them to hand but check the council wide BNP vote for 2007 elections. Also the Kells and Sandwith CCC by Election result last December. Also of course Griffins “Banned” visit to sellafeid this week. You are quite right about the demographics, there is no obvious explanation for it.
YS
Never feel the need to apologise for rambling here.
Your posts are always interesting and thought provoking whatever the subject.
270: ‘…no one bats an eyelid or reports on it…’
Yes, The Mirror just gives a bit of political porn to shoulder-swivelling, hare-eyed, Tory-loathing obsessives. And that constituency probably makes up about one twentieth of its readership - the rest just buy it for the TV guide and the crossword. No serious politician should waste their breath on it.
276 – Gabble, the Mirror is, was and always will be the lowest tabloid to wrap up chips in. It would be foolish for a PM to start condemning it now, where would it end?
To acknowledge it would lift it from the gutter, best ignored.
What nonsense.
In his speech today, Mr Brown will say the door is being closed to non-EU hospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship’s officers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227050/Well-stem-rising-tide-migration-PM-finally-promises-action–starting-curb-doctors.html#ixzz0WbWsyyQI
Gabble
It is not wrong.
Why does the Queen and almost all the available members of theRoyal Family, the leaders of all military services and political parties etc etc etc attend the Remembrance Day rites at the Cenotaph?
Because they are they to represent the State and its constituent parts.
Why are the TV channels and Press allowed to film and photograph the ceremony?
To communicate the representative role of the participants to the widest possible public.
Why do political leaders have their own photographers in attendance at certain private events rather than give open invitations to the paparazzi?
So the right balance of privacy and communication can be achieved.
None of this is is anyway sinister or extraordinary.
The Mirror are just trying to fight back against The Sun. Their efforts fail because they have no underlying story of public interest. That is shameful.
Sensational : The world really is running out of oil.
‘Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency
This proves just how hopeless current economic policies are. It means the current inflationary Keynesian policies are pure economic suicide.
The entire economics establishment was humiliated last month over badly wrong predictions that we were out of recession in the third quarter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8321970.stm
A prediction made here in April 2009 was proven right. All QE has done is pump inflation into the economy, without in any way stimulating growth. When growth does reappear it will happen in spite of QE, not because of it.
Crash No 2 will follow Bubble No 2.
We need to come to terms with the end of ‘cheap energy’ and therefore accept the end of ever higher standards of living. There will be an orderly contraction of consumption and spending, even under sensible economic policies.
However we don’t have them.
Instead we have the economic ‘nutcase brigade’ in charge of our central banks/finance ministries, who are bent upon global hyper-inflation, as they print money to push up consumption, fully aware that the contraction of supply is inevitable (more expensive energy means more expensive everything, which means less of everything).
It is an iron law of economics that increased consumption occurs at the cost of decreased saving (and therefore investment).
So all the central banks are doing is fooling the public into spending their own savings (through debt/inflation) and therefore making themselves much poorer than they would otherwise have been in the long-run. It is pure economic insanity.
It seems all of the monetarists of the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s have been mysteriously replaced by extremist Keynesian nutcases, reminiscent of scenes depicted in ‘Invasion of the Body Snatcher’s’.
Keynes was proven wrong. The Great Depression did not occur because of a contraction of the US spending/demand, itself caused by a contraction of the money supply (its maximum fall at the height of the Great Depression was only 3%!). The Great Depression occurred because of supply side problems that require new economic theories to explain. It remains unsolved. The Great Depression was triggered by excessive lending which created a ‘structurally unstable’ economy. This is the answer. Fundamentals are affected by excessive debt creation which distorts the free-market in favour of inflationary assets, and relatively non-inflationary assets (savings & investment falls, while consumption rises) eventually leading to collapse as standards of living must fall (investment was too low to sustain them).
My own analysis is that the current recession was in no way comparable to the Great Depression, and the investment banking community deliberately exaggerated comparisons in order to steal billions in taxpayer bailouts. The main negligent banks could have failed without any significant impact on the economy (the over-expanded banking sector was itself a cause of the recession, contraction/bankruptcies would therefore pull us out recession).
You can’t spend your way out of a recession caused by structural fundamentals. What you can however do is spend your way into a longer, repeating recession.
Lending and loans fool people into thinking that they are getting free money/consumption, when in reality they are spending their savings (impoverishing their retirement). Increasing the money supply causes inflation, which reduces the value of all savings. There is no such thing as ‘free money’.
Why newspaper and media journalists continue to claim the need for increased lending (to consumers!), house price inflation or consumer spending, I do not know.
If productivity is falling, consumption must fall.
It was said by Herodotus that hubris is the source of all human folly. We are at a moment where our economy will face the consequences of arrogant denial, deception and debt.
We can postpone the inevitable only at the price of a much greater punishment.
170 - dream on - Labour are the nasty party after all
282 - Hold, that isn’t those the sort of immigrants we need / want, highly skilled highly educated one?
283. Seth O. Logue
It’s wrong to describe Cameron as ‘low’ just because he was paying his respects to the dead.
Brown should condemn it.
Night.
The BNP got 3250 votes (13.4%) in Copeland constituency in the June local elections.
They have done well in other 99% white constituencies but generally those are adjacent to large non-white areas such as Leicester or Bradford.
Copeland though is a 99% white area surrounded by other 99% white areas.
286 (correction)
282 - Hold, aren’t those the sort of immigrants we need / want, highly skilled highly educated one?
282 Plato
That’s awful.
I want more ospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship’s officers coming to this country.
This government’s solution to tackle immigration is to cut down on skilled workers. Madness.
What muppets. How about cutting down on unskilled people who can’t speak English, who come here to marry someone, sight unseen, from the middle of some rural hellhole in Pakistan?
277. SOL.
I can just imagine the laughter that will emanate from Cammeron when he reads that over his breakfast in the morning.
Correction
‘Fundamentals are affected by excessive debt creation which distorts the free-market in favour of inflationary assets, and against non-inflationary assets (savings & investment falls, while consumption rises), eventually leading to collapse as standards of living must fall (investment was too low to sustain them).’
FFS, definitely bed time, correction again,
282 - Hold on, aren’t those the sort of immigrants we need / want, highly skilled highly educated ones?
I really can’t work out what planet Gordo and current government are on!
It makes the goings on in The Thick of It look sensible and rational! Wooden toys, yes, big announcement, cut down on those plastic Chinese made toys, go for good British wooden toys.
Right, the BNP are hoovering up some of the WWC vote, the Tories are seen as tougher on this issue, policy ideas, come on, policy ideas.
Right we are going to ban all the clever well educated types from coming to Britain is they come from outside the EU (while still allowing unskilled uneducated ones in and having no control over immigrations from EU countries). Great, lets get out there and sell it.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s demand for cash threatens England’s 2018 World Cup bid
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/international/article6913259.ece
290. Britain has one of the highest rates of university attendance in the world producing record amounts of UNEMPLOYED ‘hospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship’s officers’.
Britain does not have a shortage of skilled labour. It never has.
Most of the vacancies the consumption driven economoy generates are actually ‘unskilled’. The over-qualified find themselves having to choose unskilled work. Meanwhile the unskilled are being paid to stay unemployed as per the benefits/housing system derided by Frank Field as insane. It has to be abolished, and skilled workers have to get used to doing unskilled work.
All immigration is a scam that only a fool would fall for.
We have far too many people with skills the economy does not need.
295 - The Times are going really big on this World Cup story, that is the third article in 2 days on it, bashing Labour lacky in charge and Gordo.
287 Gabble
Yes, your are right, it is wrong to “describe Cameron as ‘low’ just because he was paying his respects to the dead.”
I would add that it is not David Cameron, the person, that is paying his respects but David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party. It is not personal but representative grief and respect.
I am not sure that Brown should condemn the Mirror’s article though. A dignified silence from all the politicians would be better.
Night. May thy angels sing thee to thy sleep.
291 LondonStatto
I am not sure the Camerons would allow a copy of the Mirror on their breakfast table. It would clash with the over-Aga wine rack which so troubles tim’s sense of decorum.
Got The Mirror in front of me. The inside spread is just cringeworthy. They have little arrows pointing at ‘his personal photographer’
It’s hilarious.
oldnat
Is it -12°C in Glasgow, with driving snow and a chill factor of -25°C?
299. SOL.
Good point. After all, the Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country.
The trouble with that quote is that it would make Cameron a Grauniad reader (read by people who think they ought to run the country…)
301 Seth
I’m 20 miles south of Glasgow. Temperature 45 F (I’m old fashioned), little wind.
However, heavy rain is forecast for the West of Scotland from mid-afternoon.
You’ve probably heard the old joke - If you can’t see Arran, its raining. If you can see it, it’s going to rain.
A bedtime Tory PPB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOPUsTV_uwk&feature=player_embedded
Night all.
SeanT What is most striking about this list is just how many constituencies are totally bloody mystifying in their whererabouts.
Indeed half of them are to me a total nullity. And I have to guess their political complexion just from the sound of the name.
I have a similar thought process. If a town or area is included in a constituency name, I am much more likely to know where it is. If I need to find out about somewhere I’m not familiar with, I want to know which constituency it’s in, so that I can have a better idea of where it is.
Morley and Outwood.
Ooh - I know that one. It used to be “Leeds South and”.
—————
Meanwhile, a few more ideas of what my PB.com name might have been if I had decided to have an anonymous name instead of my “real” name:
The Modestly Bombastic Centipede
The Indescribably Unrealistic Hippopotamus
The Sublimely Elongated Bubblegum
The Autocratic Vanilla Paradigm
The Unimaginably Cantankerous Kangaroo
An Antelope Called Hilda
The Putrid Purple Pickpocket
The Regurgitated Elephant of Paraguay
The Naughtiest Rabbit of Byzantium
The Jackbooted Centenarian of Pluto
The Incredulously Gargantuan Jellyfish of Luxembourg
The Lugubriously Hallucinogenic Rattlesnake
Twenty Seven Million Simultaneous Frogspawn Sausages of Gobbledygook
The Plankton At The End Of The Universe
The Silly Lizard of Heidelberg
The Rotten Penguin Who Stole My Elbow
Hiding Inside A Cardboard Box
The Fanatically Mediocre Caterpillar
mr loony, looking at your possible names i do believe by your last moniker “the fantastically mediocre caterpillar” that you might actually be wendy alexander?
“Hold, that isn’t those the sort of immigrants we need / want, highly skilled highly educated one?”
Which “we”?
The desired Zanu left population end-game is something like:
10% “good” white Guardianistas,
50% non-white tamely voting Guardianista,
40% “bad” white non-Guardianistas,
with the triumphant Guardianistas using their position of permanent one-party rule to bash the bad white people for not being anti-white enough (aka racist).
There’s major flaws in the theory and as America is much further along in the process than us then if you watch what’s happening there it will increasingly become plain what those flaws are.