Languish.org

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:44:42 PM
But it seems us Brits will have to put up with 4 month* election campaign, that promises to be pretty ugly and nasty in the way it's conducted.

Quote from: Agelastus on January 09, 2015, 03:50:49 PM

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:44:42 PM
But it seems us Brits will have to put up with 4 month* election campaign, that promises to be pretty ugly and nasty in the way it's conducted.

The price of fixed term parliaments; soon may that bill be repealed. :glare:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 09, 2015, 04:00:24 PM
Yesterday CNN showed some footage of Cameron at a joint press conference with Merkele discussing the Paris attack.  That was the first time I had heard Cameron's voice.

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:57:09 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on January 09, 2015, 03:50:49 PM

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:44:42 PM
But it seems us Brits will have to put up with 4 month* election campaign, that promises to be pretty ugly and nasty in the way it's conducted.

The price of fixed term parliaments; soon may that bill be repealed. :glare:

But can't the Lib.Dems bring down this parliament anyway, manufacturing a crisis within the coalition, perhaps over the NHS, may be their only tactic to save more than a handspan of MPs?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 09, 2015, 04:05:39 PM
I can't believe you thought that was a clever thing to say.  :(

Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 09, 2015, 02:59:54 PM

For example it's conventional wisdom on Languish and at large that English people are uncomfortable around strangers. 

Quote from: Agelastus on January 09, 2015, 04:09:17 PM

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:57:09 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on January 09, 2015, 03:50:49 PM

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 03:44:42 PM
But it seems us Brits will have to put up with 4 month* election campaign, that promises to be pretty ugly and nasty in the way it's conducted.

The price of fixed term parliaments; soon may that bill be repealed. :glare:

But can't the Lib.Dems bring down this parliament anyway, manufacturing a crisis within the coalition, perhaps over the NHS, may be their only tactic to save more than a handspan of MPs?

I think four months before they have to fight the election anyway is too late for the LibDems to pull that sort of stunt and hope it gets them back voters; if they were going to do that they should have pulled out a couple of years ago and let the Tories fumble around in a minority government for a while.

....

Quote from: mongers on January 09, 2015, 04:15:29 PM
Maybe they were hoping for a bounce in the polls before now?

QuoteWhat's more important to voters? Coherent policy or the chance to 'send a message'
38 commentsPhilip Cowley 5 February 2015 13:00

What are you doing when you vote? Much of the discussion about elections assumes – implicitly or explicitly – that voters are making a judgement about policies being put forward by the parties; that they would only vote for a party which had policies with which they broadly agreed; and, moreover, that these policies will have to form a vaguely coherent programme, and be realistic and affordable. Even allowing for that fact that we know that many voters don't know the details of the various policies proposed, it is still widely assumed that they would care if they knew.

This is why there is so much discussion of policy proposals as elections approach ('but how will you fund x, Minister?'), and this seems to be especially the case when discussing parties that are beginning to break through and be serious political players: 'You're going to vote for [insert new party here]? Do you know that they support [insert ludicrous idea here]?' This was seen most recently in Natalie Bennett's less-than-assured interview with Andrew Neil, when she seemed unable to articulate or explain some of the Greens' policies, but it is also a standard line when critiquing Ukip.

Ideally who wouldn't want coherent policies? And they might, perhaps, be important to you. But what if they are not to other people? To test this, YouGov ran a simple question for me, asking people to choose between two statements that described possible motivations and expectations when voting. It asked:

Which of these two statements comes closest to describing you:

When I vote in the general election, the party I choose must have coherent policies which they could implement in government.
When I vote in the general election, the party I choose will be about sending a message about the sort of society I want to live in.

The first is the more conventional policy motivation for voting, the second is more symbolic. Of course, many people will want both to be true – to be voting for a coherent set of policies which also sent a message about the sort of society they want – but the question format allows us to see which of these matters more to them.

Broadly speaking, the public split evenly between the two descriptions. Some 45% chose the policy motivation, 44% picked the symbolic, and the rest were unsure.  In other words, people overall were just as likely to see their vote primarily as a symbolic act as one which was about wanting a coherent set of policies.

Women were slightly more likely to select symbolic motivations (45%) over policy (41%), whereas men more were likely to select policy motivations (50%) over symbolic ones (41%).  Middle class (ABC1) respondents were more likely to select policy (51%) over symbolic motivations (41%), whereas working class (C2DE) respondents were more likely to select symbolic motivations (48%) over policy (38%).

But the largest differences were between the ways supporters of the different parties behaved. Conservative voters overwhelmingly selected policy, by 65% to 28%. They are the only party's supporters to select policy over symbolism, and they do so overwhelmingly. Lib Dems split pretty evenly between the two (47% policies versus 49% symbolic). Labour supporters, however, see their vote as more about sending a message (53% symbolic compared to 40% policy).

And then we have Ukip and the Greens.  Both, overwhelmingly, see their vote as being about sending a message, rather than requiring a coherent policy programme. For Ukip voters, the figures were 30% policy, 63% symbolic. For Green voters, it was 32% policy, 64% symbolic. (There weren't enough responses for the SNP, or Plaid, to be analysed separately with any confidence). The net score – that is, the percentage selecting policy minus the percentage selecting the message – for each party is shown in the figure below.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F02%2Fnet.jpg&hash=4439f89539b583737c99e83580cf6f9e40e68418)

This shouldn't be taken to mean that policy doesn't matter to Green or Ukip voters (or indeed, that it is all that most Conservatives care about).  But most Green or Ukip voters clearly see the act of voting differently to the way most Conservatives voters (or indeed many Lib Dem and Labour voters) see it.

In particular, this might help explain why policy attacks on parties like the Greens or Ukip appear less effectual than they might normally be.  Pointing out to a Green or Ukip supporter that the sums don't add up, or that a policy won't work, might not matter much if the policies are less important than just sending a message.

Philip Cowley is Professor of Parliamentary Government at the University of Nottingham, and is co-editor of Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box (published by Biteback).

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 06, 2015, 10:46:34 AM
A Chris Patten loyalist hey? <_<

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 10:50:07 AM
That was a freaking disgrace.

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 11:02:38 AM
It was the 11th hour and the British Empire couldn't even do the right thing in its dying lurch.  Disappointing.  Hong Kong had been a loyal colony for over a century, it was the least they could do for them.

Quote from: Zanza on February 06, 2015, 11:59:55 AM
What happens if there is no viable majority after the general election? Does Cameron stay PM by default?

Quote from: Zanza on February 06, 2015, 11:59:55 AM
What happens if there is no viable majority after the general election? Does Cameron stay PM by default?

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 06, 2015, 12:05:55 PM
No-one knows really. Whoever can win a confidence vote of the Commons will be PM of a minority government.

The issue is that as part of the coalition deal the government passed a law that fixed the length of a Parliamentary term to five years. Under that law Cameron and Miliband will have an opportunity to try and form a coalition. If there isn't a viable one (which looks likely) then they can try and form a minority government - if that's the case I think Miliband has a better chance as the SNP are more likely to back him than Cameron.

Prior to the fixed terms act if all that happened and we still didn't really have a viable government we'd have a snap election (February and October 1974 for example). Under the act Parliament needs a two thirds majority vote to dissolve itself. It seems unlikely that that's attainable given that surely, politically, if one side supports it because they think they'll do better chances are the other side would be opposing it.

Alternately they could get rid of the act, but our constitution isn't such that it would just automatically revert to what we previously had so there'd need to be a replacement of some sort and it seems unlikely that there'd be enough votes in returning to the old system and no-one's proposed an alternative.

Quote from: Jacob on February 06, 2015, 12:27:33 PM

So what you're saying is that Cameron's election act is a shoddy piece of work?

Quote from: Gups on February 06, 2015, 12:59:39 PM

Quote from: Jacob on February 06, 2015, 12:27:33 PM

So what you're saying is that Cameron's election act is a shoddy piece of work?

Not just Shelf. There's pretty much unanimity that it's an awful Act which needs to be repealed/replace asap.

Quick fix. Just repeal the 2/3 majority provision which is a disgustingly unBritish provision no has absolutely no place in our constitution.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 02:47:00 PM
Why did Hong Kongese deserve UK citizenship and other colonial subjects did not?  Hong Kongese were not the only ones to come under an unpleasant regime after being cut loose.

Quote from: Gups on February 06, 2015, 12:59:39 PM

Quote from: Jacob on February 06, 2015, 12:27:33 PM

So what you're saying is that Cameron's election act is a shoddy piece of work?

Not just Shelf. There's pretty much unanimity that it's an awful Act which needs to be repealed/replace asap.

Quick fix. Just repeal the 2/3 majority provision which is a disgustingly unBritish provision no has absolutely no place in our constitution.

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 02:47:49 PM
I guess I missed where I suggested the others didn't.  But more importantly the Hong Kongers asked for it and the others did not.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 04:42:51 PM

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 02:47:49 PM
I guess I missed where I suggested the others didn't.  But more importantly the Hong Kongers asked for it and the others did not.

OK.  So anyone who asked for it should have gotten it, and it would have been a fucking disgrace if they hadn't?

Quote from: The Brain on February 06, 2015, 04:47:18 PM
Why would the UK want large numbers of citizens living in Communist China?

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 04:45:04 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 04:42:51 PM

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 02:47:49 PM
I guess I missed where I suggested the others didn't.  But more importantly the Hong Kongers asked for it and the others did not.

OK.  So anyone who asked for it should have gotten it, and it would have been a fucking disgrace if they hadn't?

Yep.  Same as if we denied people in our territories American citizenship.  But in this case Hong Kong did not vote to join China, there was no anti-British independence movement, or anything that would justify denying them their request.  They were loyal to the British Empire and that loyalty should have been rewarded.

Quote from: mongers on February 06, 2015, 05:23:59 PM
Why so many Americans worship here I don't understand

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 05:25:15 PM

Quote from: mongers on February 06, 2015, 05:23:59 PM
Why so many Americans worship here I don't understand

Languish is a sacred place.  :pope:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 02:47:00 PM
Why did Hong Kongese deserve UK citizenship and other colonial subjects did not?  Hong Kongese were not the only ones to come under an unpleasant regime after being cut loose.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on February 06, 2015, 03:47:56 PM

Quote from: Gups on February 06, 2015, 12:59:39 PM

Quote from: Jacob on February 06, 2015, 12:27:33 PM

So what you're saying is that Cameron's election act is a shoddy piece of work?

Not just Shelf. There's pretty much unanimity that it's an awful Act which needs to be repealed/replace asap.

Quick fix. Just repeal the 2/3 majority provision which is a disgustingly unBritish provision no has absolutely no place in our constitution.

It is so unBritish that I find that I cannot really believe in it. No doubt it will be dispensed with whenever it is convenient.

Quote from: Valmy on February 06, 2015, 11:02:38 AM
It was the 11th hour and the British Empire couldn't even do the right thing in its dying lurch.  Disappointing.  Hong Kong had been a loyal colony for over a century, it was the least they could do for them.

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 06, 2015, 06:24:49 PM
Other colonial subjects had citizenship. That's why West Indian migration in the 40s and 50s was such a big issue. It was very difficult to square the principles of 'Empire' with the unpopularity of tens of thousands of black West Indians arriving.

By the 70s we didn't have many colonies or dependant territories left.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 07:27:40 PM

Any West Indian that requests citizenship gets it?  Still now?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 08:04:36 PM
Did Africans get the same terms as West Indians?

QuoteLib Dem candidate Josh Mason posts crematorium selfie

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbcimg.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F81164000%2Fpng%2F_81164308_joshmasonselfie.png&hash=ba4bd11f6055131e0b252f811b023d8dbd9da332)
Josh Mason uploaded the image to dating app Tinder which shows him in front of the crematorium furnace

A Liberal Democrat candidate has apologised for taking a selfie in front of a crematorium furnace and posting it to a dating app.

The photo, obtained by Political Scrapbook, shows Josh Mason posing at the Kirkleatham Memorial Park and Crematorium near Yearby.

Mr Mason, 26, confirmed to the BBC he took the photo, which was uploaded to dating app Tinder and Facebook.

He will stand as prospective MP for Redcar in May's general election.

Mr Mason, who is deputy leader of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said: "I deeply regret any offence I may have caused".

He declined to be interviewed, but said in a statement: "Being born and bred in Redcar and Cleveland, I imagine that one day, Yearby Crematorium will be my own final destination.

"My visit there was a stark reminder of our shared mortality.

"Indeed, I have already said a last 'goodbye' to a number of family friends and colleagues there.

"Nevertheless, I deeply regret any offence I may have caused."

Mr Mason hopes to replace Redcar's current Lib Dem MP, Ian Swales, who is standing down.

QuoteMisunderstanding the present: Ed Miliband wants to govern a country that doesn't exist
For all their lapses, the Labour leaders of the past had a firmer grasp of reality than their contemporary counterparts.
BY JOHN GRAY PUBLISHED 19 FEBRUARY, 2015 - 12:08

If anything defines Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour Party, it is the belief that British politics has reached an inflexion point like the one that enabled Margaret Thatcher to come to power. He has often expressed admiration for Thatcher's determination to effect radical change and, while having quite different goals, seems to see himself as a conviction politician in a similar mould. At the same time, he is said to believe that Labour can return to government by marshalling its core support. But it is hard to accept that the Labour leader – a formidably clever individual with a highly developed sense of having a distinctive political destiny – has really subscribed to this strategy.

Large-scale socio-economic changes have been eroding traditional voting patterns for many years. Now, with its Scottish bastions crumbling, its support among ethnic minorities weaker, working-class voters in the English north and Wales defecting to Ukip and the Greens posing a mounting challenge on the left that could deny it seats in marginal constituencies, Labour finds that the built-in advantage that it has as a result of the coalition's failure to reform constituency boundaries can't be relied on to make it the single largest party in the Commons.

But Miliband's leadership isn't based on psephological calculation of this kind. He is convinced, with Thatcher-like certainty, that Britain is ready for a fundamental shift in direction. Speaking to Jason Cowley in 2012, he declared: "For me it's a centre-left moment because people think there's something unfair and unjust about our society. You've got to bring the vested interests to heel; you've got to change the way the economy works."

In Thatcher's case, the belief that Britain was ready for radical change reflected a palpable sense of national emergency, epitomised in the industrial conflicts of the mid-1970s, the IMF bailout of 1976 and the "Winter of Discontent". For some today, the 1970s may represent the high point of British social democracy, a pre­lapsarian golden age that Thatcher wantonly destroyed; but at the time there was widespread acceptance that the postwar settlement was no longer viable. Few in mainstream politics or her party were prepared for Thatcher's assault on the existing order. In academia, much of which was engrossed in introverted controversies over ephemeral orthodoxies such as postmodernism and structuralism, her policies came as a bolt from the blue. Even so, an expectation of impending upheaval was in the air.

It is easily forgotten that the 1970s were a time when sections of the political class were gripped by an apocalyptic sense of foreboding. James Callaghan may have scoffed at talk of crisis but the left was possessed by fantasies of building socialism behind the walls of a siege economy, while on the fringes of the right there was wild talk of a communist takeover and counter-coups. There is no comparable sense of national crisis at present. Many may resent the excessive rewards still being doled out in the financial sector; some may believe (as I do) that the marketisation of public services has gone too far and should be rolled back. A few may suspect that the financial crisis is far from over and the global economy is entering another dangerous phase. But there is no sense that the British brand of capitalism faces a crisis of its own. The conditions that allowed a shift of regime to occur in 1979 simply don't exist today.

The belief that large numbers of voters are yearning for a major alteration in Britain's political economy – a rejigged version of socialism, or some hypothetical variety of "non-predatory" capitalism – is a delusion that could be fatal for Labour as a party of government. Miliband is misreading British society in ways not altogether dissimilar to those that hobbled Labour in the 1980s and allowed the Conservatives to rule for nearly two decades. It is still imaginable that Labour could emerge in May with enough seats to cobble together a minority government with the support of the SNP, whatever remains of the Liberal Democrats and one or two Greens. It is inconceivable that such a government could endure and bring about anything like the transformation of which the Labour leader dreams.

Thatcher's rise should serve as a warning to Miliband, not an inspiration. Her emergence as Tory leader was a mirror image of the rejection by Labour of Barbara Castle's white paper In Place of Strife (1969) – a far-sighted programme of reform that could have removed one of the prime sources of conflict that brought Thatcher to power. If Castle's proposals had been implemented, Thatcher's rise would not have been possible. As it was, they were shelved by Labour and Castle remained, along with Denis Healey, one of the great leaders it never had. When it adopted the unelectable Michael Foot as leader in 1980 and split in 1981, Labour sealed its fate, with the SDP ensuring that Thatcher's tenure in Downing Street went largely unopposed.

Thatcher's rise was a chapter of accidents. If she had not been selected for Finchley in 1958, reportedly as a result of an electoral fraud committed without her knowledge, in what the outgoing Conservative MP is said to have described as a choice between "a bloody Jew and a bloody woman"; if potential rivals for the party leadership such as Edward du Cann and Keith Joseph had not, in one way or another, ruled themselves out; if her leadership campaign had not been ruthlessly managed by the wartime escaper and arch-intriguer Airey Neave, Thatcher would not have become prime minister. Again, if the Falklands war had turned out badly – as might easily have happened – she would not have survived opposition from within her party as long as she did. But overarching all these contingencies, the precondition of Thatcher's success was Labour's continuing failure.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstatesman.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2F2015%252B07%2520Milibandcrop.jpg&hash=44d807bc5fc62d76e0d017e2d3b65634f9448284)
Ed Miliband, photographed for the New Statesman by Kate Peters in 2012

Miliband likes to think that he can achieve something similar to Thatcher's regime shift – this time towards a more collectivist political economy. But no such turn can command popular support. Thatcher's vision of society is often described as backward-looking and in some respects it was: the country of her imagination was an ideal version of Britain in the 1950s, a cohesive society based on strong institutions. Ironically, that country was a creation of the Labour settlement that she was bent on dismantling. In the economy she achieved most of her objectives. The power of the unions was curbed, moribund industries were phased out and a more entrepreneurial business culture developed. In social terms the effect of her policies was the opposite of what she had intended. British society became more individualistic but at the same time markedly less bourgeois. The world of solid families and prudent savers to which she harked back was blown away by the choice-driven, debt-based consumer capitalism that she unleashed. She declared that the object of her economic policies was to change the soul of the country. They did – but not in the way she wanted.

The dutiful middle class that Thatcher celebrated is obsolete in a society ruled by an ethos of want-satisfaction and self-realisation. Many other factors contributed to this metamorphosis, not least the erosion of working-class communities by rapid economic change, which was also driven by advancing globalisation. But Thatcher's policies were crucial. Through their unforeseen impact on social values, they helped obliterate the society she aimed to re-create.

The forces that thwarted Thatcher's dream of restoring 1950s Britain pose an insuperable obstacle to Miliband's project. The raffish capitalism that prevails today is Thatcher's offspring. It is also an economic system that most voters have come to accept. Post-Thatcher Britain is in some ways more divided than the society it replaced. Certainly it displays larger inequalities of income and wealth. At the same time, it is less fixed in its hierarchies and notably less ready to defer to authority. An economy whose emblematic institutions are Primark and Poundland may look rather seedy in the eyes of high-minded moralists. But what reason is there for supposing that voters today will bow to the disapproving frown of any elite?

For the old guard in the party, Thatcher's sin was not so much that she was a grocer's daughter but that she refused to emulate its faux-patrician attitudes. Thatcher destroyed the culture of deference in Britain.

For many today, the sniffy view of Britain emanating from the bourgeois enclave of Hampstead, north London, looks decidedly patronising. It's not that Miliband despises the world that the majority of people inhabit. He just can't enter into it. This isn't only his problem, of course.

Labour risks an acute form of the voter alienation that affects all the mainstream parties. It is like other parties in drawing its leaders from a narrow and privileged social stratum: the metropolitan professional classes who can afford to live in good catchment areas or send their children to be educated privately and then support them through years of unpaid internships and think-tank positions. But the rise of this political class is a special vulnerability for a party that claims it speaks for working people. Labour's problem is that it has only one Alan Johnson. Soon it will have none.

Contrary to Miliband's Blairite critics, there is no way forward in trying to re­occupy the middle ground. In a time when mainstream politicians are objects of disgust and contempt, the middle ground (if it exists) is no longer a safe place to be. Voters want something different – hence the rise in support for parties of protest. There is a common view that the party system will quickly revert to normalcy, as it did following the upheavals and fragmentation of the 1970s. But if Scotland is in the process of hiving off to form its own political system in a more radically devolved Union, this is an unlikely scenario. Even if the SNP fails to make a breakthrough at Westminster as large as many are expecting, the Scottish Labour contingent is going to be much reduced. With small parties taking larger numbers of seats, coalitions will be hard to hold together. Unsteady minority governments could be the norm for some time. Yet it is not difficult to envision circumstances in which the Conservatives adapt best to this changed political landscape.

Labour will have a future in these new conditions only if it has something new to say. The trouble with Miliband is that he cannot speak a language that voters understand. His instinctive bent is towards a type of academic discourse that has zero popular appeal. If thinkers of the left in the 1970s were absorbed in the fantasy politics of academic Marxism, Miliband is captivated by abstruse fancies such as "predistribution" – the theory, developed by an academic at Yale, according to which inequality can be prevented by changes in the economy, so that old-fashioned redistribution won't be necessary. Does anyone expect an intellectual conceit of this kind to resonate in the supermarket or the pub?

For all their lapses, the Labour leaders of an older generation had a more reliable sense of reality. It is impossible to imagine Harold Wilson or James Callaghan turning for intellectual succour to a writer such as Thomas Piketty, who has been feted by Miliband's inner circle. These old Labour warhorses would spot at once the hole at the heart of Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century: no agency is identified that could counteract the built-in tendency to inequality that the book diagnoses.

In this regard, Piketty illustrates a disabling weakness of centre-left thinking at the present time. Whether they take their cue from legalistic philosophies of justice and rights or Marxian theories rejigged with the paraphernalia of contemporary econo­mics, the bien-pensants who are Labour's leading lights today proceed on the basis that analysis and argument can in themselves have a political effect.

Miliband can hardly be unaware of the gap between how he thinks of politics and how ordinary voters live. But the upshot is speeches such as the one he gave at the Labour conference in September 2014, a dire threnody to togetherness that could have come straight from Armando Iannucci's The Thick of It.

What was most significant in the speech, however, was what it left out. As many have pointed out, there was no mention of immigration or the deficit. No less significantly, Europe featured only as an occasion for vacuous pieties on the need for reform. Considered in the context of Miliband's project of a new political economy, it is a telling omission. British capitalism has many ugly blemishes. But where is the European model that the left has lauded for its superior moral attributes?

The social market economy has been shredded by the austerity programmes that have become integral to the European project. The eurozone is now a failing neoliberal construction, with levels of economic dereliction and long-term unemployment in many countries (including France) that far exceed anything to be found in Anglo-Saxon economies.

Moreover, European governance is clearly unreformable. The Byzantine system of transnational agencies operating in the shadow of a German imperial veto has allowed a programme of quantitative easing (QE) to be launched by the ECB. But with the interest rate already so low, QE in the eurozone at the present time will have less impact than the programmes that staved off depression in the US and the UK. Europe can do little on the fiscal front, since it does not have a fiscal union or anything that resembles an effective government and never will. In the absence of economic growth, deflation will tighten its grip and economic activity will be stunted across much of the continent. At the same time, politics will become more extreme, volatile and polarised.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstatesman.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2F181672810.jpg&hash=96043c7b0343d2b3d1d444d2337894af614276f3)
Ed Miliband at the 2013 Labour Party conference. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Not so long ago, there was a centre-left tradition of Euroscepticism, which included figures such as Peter Shore, Bryan Gould, Austin Mitchell (and, for that matter, Hugh Gaitskell). Miliband is parroting the delusional consensus of the past few years: the belief that Britain's long-term future is inevitably in ever closer union with a united Europe.

His unwillingness to commit to a referendum (except under ill-defined conditions in which more power passes to European institutions) may be partly pragmatic in rationale: he does not want to be bogged down in the European question in the event of minority Labour rule. But there is a deeper reason for this stance. Along with the rest of his party, Miliband believes that the future lies with ever more supranational forms of government. To stand aside from this movement would be to place Britain "on the wrong side of history". There is no factual basis for this piece of progressive wisdom. If Syriza's victory in Greece does not fracture the eurozone, coming elections in other countries will. Podemos could enter government in Spain and the anti-euro Five Star Movement will grow stronger in Italy, while in France Marine Le Pen will edge closer to the Élysée Palace. Everything points to the European project being derailed by the rising power of parties of the radical left and right.

Plainly, the right is better prepared than Labour to respond to ongoing disintegration in Europe. Yet the beneficiary won't necessarily be David Cameron. A nimble-footed but essentially insignificant figure, he is as committed as Miliband to an impossible programme of European reform. Others are tooling up to take advantage of the political opportunities the European situation is creating. While Boris Johnson is reinventing himself as a One-Nation Tory, Theresa May is morphing from the scourge of "the nasty party" to a steely defender of public order.

Like Miliband, Cameron may be able to form a government if he can put together enough support from small parties – in his case, the Ulster Unionists and Ukip. But given how intensely he is disliked in his own party, it is hard to see the Tory leader lasting for long in such precarious circumstances and any successor is bound to be more Eurosceptic. The analogy often made between Labour's divisions in the 1980s and Tory splits on Europe is misplaced. There is no pro-European faction left in the Conservative Party, only a number of more or less radical versions of Euroscepticism, with Cameron increasingly isolated in his determination to keep Britain inside the EU.

An outcome in May that favours Miliband will make Brexit more probable. Whatever Nigel Farage may believe, British voters are not desperate to be out of Europe. The halfway house that Britain has inhabited – in the EU but outside the euro – has proved perfectly tolerable. An in-out referendum in 2016 or 2017 would most likely produce a vote in favour of remaining semi-detached. Voters will not opt to leave until they are persuaded that the status quo has ceased to be viable – and they are not yet convinced. But held against a background of a worsened situation in Europe by a Tory government with a new and more Eurosceptic leader, a later referendum could well take Britain out. In this respect, it is the Conservatives who are on "the right side of history".

Miliband has waxed on vaguely about a new type of economy. He has had little definite to say on the large issues that confront the UK. No doubt he wants to avoid hostages to fortune. But his silence comes at a cost in uncertainty. If Labour emerges as the largest party in May, he faces the likelihood of needing the support of an expanded SNP presence at Westminster. How will he respond if the price of SNP support is the closure of the Trident base at Faslane – the one demand that Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have made clear is not negotiable?

There may be arguments for downgrading or decommissioning Britain's nuclear deterrent. With the principal threats coming from terrorism and cyber attacks, it is questionable how much this costly relic of the cold war contributes to national security. Yet is it sensible for the question to be decided as part of a deal to shore up a short-lived minority government?

Ed Miliband's project amounts to a ragbag of populist measures. Energy price controls were probably never workable. Following the fall of the oil price, Labour has quietly dropped them, but they illustrate the unreality of Miliband's thinking. The British economy can't be managed as if the rest of the world didn't matter. Tinkering about with utility charges that are largely set by global market forces is as absurd as the left's idea of building socialism behind a wall of protectionism was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Politics after the election is likely to be fraught and financial markets hate uncertainty. What would they make of a government that relied on the support of a party, the SNP, which, if it had prevailed in the Scottish referendum, would now be presiding over a fiscally failed state? Whatever the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 may say, a run on the pound would bring a Miliband administration to an end long before the appointed term had been completed.

When Miliband compares himself with Thatcher, he reveals an impressive degree of self-belief. He also shows a lack of understanding of British politics over the past thirty years. There may be a regime shift afoot in Britain but, if so, it is a second act in the one that began in 1979. Now, as then, it is Labour's failure that is pivotal. A few years hence, as he contemplates the British scene from the distant sanctuary of Harvard or Yale, Ed Miliband may come to understand how he opened the way to another era of Conservative rule.

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 06, 2015, 06:24:49 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 06, 2015, 02:47:00 PM
Why did Hong Kongese deserve UK citizenship and other colonial subjects did not?  Hong Kongese were not the only ones to come under an unpleasant regime after being cut loose.

Other colonial subjects had citizenship. That's why West Indian migration in the 40s and 50s was such a big issue. It was very difficult to square the principles of 'Empire' with the unpopularity of tens of thousands of black West Indians arriving.

By the 70s we didn't have many colonies or dependant territories left.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 22, 2015, 03:36:54 PM
What is Miliband's ethnicity?

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 22, 2015, 07:46:54 PM
Why'd you ask? Out of interest.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on February 22, 2015, 07:22:21 PM
:weep:

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on February 23, 2015, 02:56:31 AM
UKIP will target Labour seats in the North where the Tories are toxic, after coming second in this GE, they then try and take them in the next.

QuoteHas Ed Miliband got what it takes to be prime minister?
Ridiculed by the right, despaired of by the left, the Labour leader faces the fight of his life. Can he win it? Simon Hattenstone joins him on the election campaign trail to hear about family rifts, his vision for Britain and bacon sandwiches
Simon Hattenstone
Haverstock school, north London, 84 days to go
Haverstock is a stark, modernist building facing Chalk Farm tube station. While David Cameron's alma mater is Eton, this inner-city comprehensive is Ed Miliband's; he's returning today to talk to students and announce his plans for education under a Labour government. Haverstock is a warm, caring school, in which more than 60 languages are spoken.

I'm looking forward to seeing Miliband talking to students, but when I arrive, the hall is full of adult Labour supporters, TV cameras and journalists, a tiny corner allocated to pupils. There is something slightly diminished about Miliband as he walks on to the stage. The wave is small and apologetic, his hand barely rising above waist-level. He talks competently, telling the crowd what they want to hear – that unlike the Tories, Labour will not cut spending per pupil in real terms. But when he takes questions from the audience, there is a new confidence – he's warm and funny, relaxed.

The gathered media aren't interested in his rose-tinted memories. They want to know about tax dodgers. The previous day in the Commons, Miliband had accused former Conservative party treasurer Lord Fink of tax avoidance and talked about "dodgy" donors. Lord Fink had responded by saying he would sue Miliband if he used the word dodgy again without parliamentary privilege.

"Do you think it's dodgy to do what's called in the trade a deed of variation, to leave your house to your children? That, too, avoids tax," asks the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson.

The audience boo at the question. They're here to talk about education, and they know exactly what Robinson is referring to: years ago, Miliband's mother gave her two sons a stake in the family home. But on the off-chance they don't, Miliband explains. "You probably know this is a question directed at me personally. It's something my mother did 20 years ago, a decision she made. Let me just say this – I paid tax as a result of that transaction and have avoided no tax. No doubt the Conservative party wants to smear mud, but to be frank it's not going to work."

Miliband takes other questions, but there's only one thing on everyone's mind.

"ITV, Carl Dinnen. Do you think tax avoidance is dodgy? Do you think people shouldn't avoid tax in any way?"

"Sophy Ridge, Sky News. Could we just be clear that you now don't believe Lord Fink's tax affairs are dodgy?"

"Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News. I want you to define for us this word dodgy."

"Boo!" shout the audience. "Ridiculous! What a silly question!"

Miliband tells the audience to be patient. "It is the media's job to ask questions of politicians. It's right that they do. It's part of what we value about our country."

I talk to a couple of Miliband's former teachers, standing towards the front of the room. Kate Myers taught him integrated humanities when he was 11 and 12. "He was delightful," she says. "Funny, witty clever." Did he stand out as a future leader? "Oh no. He was interested, he wrote well and had interesting views, but he didn't stick out as exceptional."

Chris Dunne, who taught him English A-level, agrees. "I never trust anybody who says they always saw it. With Churchill, they thought he was a dunce, didn't they? But I do remember a very personable, intelligent, inquiring young man. And that's how he strikes me now – as a thoughtful politician who seems to be avoiding a lot of the Punch and Judy of politics. He's trying to represent the country with well-thought-out views and policies, which don't always sound as burningly radical as people might like, but he seems to be being true to himself. He's always made it clear he's not going to be a dazzling performer."

Dunne remembers a boy who was always looking to learn. "I'm very interested in politics myself. I used to ring the radio station LBC, and there was a guy called Brian Hayes who ran these fantastic phone-ins. You only gave your first name, so I'd be 'Chris from Hackney'. One day in class, Ed said to me, 'Was it you I heard on the radio the other night?' and I said yeah. He asked, 'How d'you get on to that?' and I said, 'Well, you just phone in, and you might have to keep phoning, and you've got to be interesting and prepared to defend yourself, because Brian Hayes will eat you alive if you don't.' And sure enough, a couple of weeks later, I was doing some marking, had the radio turned on, and there's Ed talking to Brian."

It turns out to be another typical Miliband day. It's rare someone doesn't roll out an image of the opposition leader slack-jawed, startle-eyed. If there's nothing new, there are always those alarming pictures of him doing battle with a bacon butty. Meanwhile, those on the left say he hasn't the courage of his convictions. Today, Miliband has made a popular pledge on education spending, taken a stance against tax avoidance – and been proved right, when Lord Fink backs down after telling a journalist that "everybody" avoids tax. And yet the next day's Daily Mail splash is "Red Ed The Tax Avoider".

Lincoln, 78 days to go
I am sitting on a train at King's Cross station in London, looking out the window. It's leaving any minute, and Miliband's team aren't here yet. Do they always leave it this late? I see a small group strolling along, a tall, handsome man at the centre. I do a double take. It's Ed Miliband. He looks so different from the man I'm used to seeing on TV, the one with the unfortunate facial expressions. He even looks different from the Miliband I saw at Haverstock – taller, easier in his skin.

They board a different carriage, and his spin doctor Bob Roberts gives me a ring: Miliband would like to meet. He greets me warmly, as if we are old friends. He wants to know what I've been up to, who I've been interviewing, who's going to be the next editor of the Guardian. I tell him that we met once before, years ago – he was sitting next to me at a Hay festival dinner for Al Gore, on his climate change tour. "Really?" he asks. No, he doesn't remember and doesn't pretend to. He's got a bad cold and sounds more adenoidal than ever. (His squashed boxer's nose is the result of a 2011 operation for sleep apnoea, not, as is often said, to cure his nasal voice.) Two things strike me from our brief encounter. First, this is a man who can't act, and acting can be a great gift for a politician. Second, there is a winning boyishness to him – he's serious, intense, guileless.

In Lincoln, a local party worker drives us to a youth centre and on the way we talk about his father, the Marxist academic Ralph Miliband. Ralph died when Ed was 24, and he's a subject that comes up again and again over the next couple of weeks. His father has been much misunderstood, Miliband says. He was a utopian, an idealist, but in practice anti almost everything: nothing lived up to his ideals. "His politics were complex. He was never a member of the Communist party. He certainly wasn't a Stalinist. He was always pretty sceptical of the Soviet Union. He went there in the 60s and came back shocked because there were no coffee shops." As far as Ralph was concerned, any self-respecting revolution should start in a coffee shop, so the Soviet Union was ruled out as a template for change.

Ralph had an on-off relationship with the Labour party. He would join, then leave. In the early 60s, he was a member of a splinter group called Victory For Socialism. He briefly considered standing as a Labour MP, before quitting again. Even though his father spent most of his life at odds with the party, Miliband says, he would always vote Labour and often canvassed for them.

Miliband, 45, remembers a home that was often full of radicals – South African anti-apartheid campaigners, Tony Benn, Tariq Ali – and yet he says Ralph was not an outgoing man. "My dad loved his family dearly. He wasn't a particularly sociable person. He was quite... fixed in his views." Miliband grins. "He took his views and where you stood on the political spectrum incredibly seriously." His mother Marion was very different. "My mum was warm, patient, selfless." He corrects himself. "Is warm, patient and selfless. I'd say her politics are more grounded in the here and now."

At home, they often discussed politics. "My dad was pretty generous to us, his family, in political disagreement." Again Miliband smiles. "I wouldn't say he was the most generous person in political disagreement with other people." He made an exception for his children? "Yes." If you weren't his son, what would your father have thought of your politics? "I think he'd understand the compromises, but he wouldn't have agreed with lots of things."

Today Miliband is hosting the latest in a series of People's Question Times, an informal Q&A session with voters in marginal seats. He prefers a mix of political backgrounds – it makes for a livelier atmosphere – but the audience at the Lincoln Showroom is mainly Labour. This is a marginal seat that his party lost to the Tories at the last election. Again, Miliband gives an apologetic little wave as he walks in. "Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. Can I just say, it's great to be here in Lincoln. I had a shot of pool downstairs and managed to pot the blue, which I thought was actually a good symbol for the future. The 10-year-old I was playing with looked slightly surprised when I took the cue away from him!" There is polite laughter.

"I invited you here not because you're supporters," he tells the audience. "In fact, you might have been invited because you're not supporters. You know, you can watch me and David Cameron shout at each other at prime minister's questions once a week. It's not very enlightening. PMQs puts people off politics because no questions are answered. If I don't answer your questions here, pull me up on it."

This election is about different visions, he explains. Cameron believes the wealth created at the top of society will trickle down to everyone else. Miliband believes that's been tried and failed. "I think people see a recovery that might be working in the City of London, that hasn't reached most kitchen tables. I believe everybody is a wealth creator in this country." He won't make promises he can't keep, just to get into office, he says. "That is the old way of doing things. Dare I say it, the Nick Clegg way of doing things." The audience are now lapping it up.

He takes three questions and answers them together; by the end of the session, he's taking half a dozen at a time. "Good question, Julie." "I'm really glad you asked about that, David." "You run the food bank, do you, Trevor?" "I thought you spoke incredibly well, Heber."

A young woman asks a question that turns into more of a statement. "My name is Zoe, I'm on income support, I've got a little child of four, I've got other kids. Why should we vote for you when it is all broken promises? You've got a house, you've got a car, you've been to college, I'm trying to do all these things, but I can't." This gets to the heart of what the sceptics think of Miliband, and about politicians in general: they've had it easy – how can anyone relate to them?

Miliband explains what brought him to the Labour party. "The reason I'm in politics is because my parents were refugees from the Nazis. If you'd said to my grandparents that I would be standing here today, as leader of the Labour party, they probably wouldn't know what that meant, and they wouldn't believe it. My parents always said, 'Don't believe people who tell you politics don't make a difference' because for them it was a matter of life and death. My mum lost her dad during the Holocaust. My dad came here in 1940 and was separated from his mum and his sister."

He reminds the audience of the importance of voting. "Don't just think, well, he seems like a nice chap, let's hope he wins, let's see what happens in 78 days' time – because this is one of the most important constituencies for the future of the country. People, not politicians, change the world."

Downstairs, Miliband is desperate for a game of pool. One of his team corners a teenager. "Would you like a game with Ed Miliband?"

"No, not really," says the boy.

Miliband laughs, and is undeterred. A young woman is happy to oblige and they play a few shots, both potting balls.

***

It turns out Miliband is obsessed with pool and snooker. On the train back to London, I tell him I ghost-wrote two books for snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan. Miliband's eyes are on stalks. "Really?" he says. He wants to know everything: how often does he practise, is he friends with Jimmy White? "I watched the famous 1985 final with Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis. My dad let me stay up late. He loved snooker, too. I was desperate for Dennis Taylor to win because I thought Steve Davis was boring. It was terrible how he was called Steve 'Interesting' Davis, wasn't it?"

How would he describe his younger self? "Serious. I wasn't a rebel, clearly. My dad was 46 when I was born, and I have this pet theory about having an older parent. You don't rebel if you've got older parents. I think I had a sense of my dad's vulnerability. He had a heart attack when I was three. It's paradoxical because he was also a very strong person, a dominant person." Did he scare you? "No! I wouldn't put it that way. He was a presence."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F3%2F4%2F1425469706922%2Fd26c3601-35af-447c-9c5d-c05c2753f49d-620x421.jpeg&hash=89610b208683f64ad5679ffd55ea4a310e4d917d)
Ed and David with their father Ralph in 1976. Photograph: Courtesy of David Miliband
Although Ralph and Marion were not observant Jews, they were defined by their early life as Jews. It was always there in the background, never articulated. "They didn't talk about the Holocaust. My mum didn't talk about what happened to her." Why? "Too painful. Too painful."

Can he talk to his mother about it now? "Yes, I have talked to her a bit. I went to Yad Vashem [Israel's official Holocaust memorial] last year and got more detail about what happened to her dad, and I've talked to her about that." What did happen? "He died in terrible circumstances, in a labour camp in Germany in a small town, on 17 January 1945, just before the end of the war. We didn't know that until six months ago."

His parents wanted their two sons to go to a local state school, and Miliband admits he found the transition from primary school to Haverstock hard. He was relatively swotty, into computer games, a Rubik's cube expert. But he says it was the making of him – he was forced to get on with all sorts of people. Was he ever beaten up? "Not really." He grins. "I famously had a fight which appeared in the papers – with a guy called Kevin Mustafa." In a 2011 Mail on Sunday article, Mustafa alleged Miliband "called me a Turkish bastard so I hit him" after they'd had an argument. Was Miliband a good fighter? "No!" he says, as if the answer is obvious. "But I didn't come out too badly. I think it was honours even."

Once again, a good day ends on a negative note. Miliband got a warm reception at the youth centre, but now it's reported that Ant and Dec have withdrawn their support, saying they don't know what the Labour party stands for any more. (This is a slightly bogus U-turn: Ant voted Tory in the last election.) Declan Donnelly says of Miliband, "I'm not sure I could picture him as prime minister." Meanwhile, Noel Gallagher has described Labour as a "fucking waste of time".

Preston, Pendle and Burnley, 76 days to go
We're on the 8.30am train to Preston. Miliband is visiting BAE Systems in the morning, doing a People's Question Time in the afternoon in Pendle, and then a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) event at Burnley football club. "Have you heard from Ronnie?" he asks as soon as he sees me. I'm sorry, I say, he's not been in touch. I explain that O'Sullivan is not very interested in politics. Miliband sounds disappointed.

One of the things you hear repeatedly about Miliband is that he has no side. After his O-levels, Miliband spent a summer working for Tony Benn. His daughter, the writer Melissa Benn, remembers her father talking affectionately about his young assistant. "I would hear about Edward, as he was called then, in very positive and respectful and tender terms. He's not a player in the way a lot of political people are. I think he's given a very hard time. I think we'll look back, a bit like people look back at the way my father was treated in the 1970s and 1980s, and be a little bit ashamed." Diane Abbott, who stood against both Milibands for the party leadership, calls Ed "a genuinely nice and principled person".

At BAE, a journalist tells Miliband that an opposition leader has never won when polling as badly as he is. "We should let the polls take care of themselves," he replies. "I'm really enjoying my chance to be able to take my case to the people, and in the end the people are the boss." Another journalist asks if he's seen the latest poll on Britain's most hated brands. "Yes, I have," Miliband says with a huge grin. "We've beaten Marmite. I think that's a great achievement. Ukip number 1, Tories number 2, Marmite number 3. And Labour number 5."

On a walk around the factory, I ask Alan Quinn, a skilled fitter at BAE and Labour councillor for Prestwich, why he thinks Miliband attracts so much hostility. "Because he stands up to vested interests," he says, instantly. "He stopped a war in Syria, and he doesn't get the credit for that. He stood up to Murdoch over phone hacking, and obviously Murdoch wants revenge for that, because he didn't get control over BSkyB. He stood up to the energy companies over the cartel they run. And he's now standing up to the people who don't pay their fair share of tax. If Ed Miliband is that useless, why do the press spend so much time vilifying him? I think they see him as a threat, as a man who will stand up for the ordinary people." In 2011, Miliband became the first political leader to call for an independent review of newspaper regulation and practices, after News International admitted it had failed to conduct full investigations into phone hacking. In July that year he sought cross-party support for a motion that would postpone any deal on BSkyB until the criminal investigation into the News Of The World hacking scandal was complete; a day later, Murdoch withdrew his bid for BSkyB.

Despite the polls, Miliband seems to be gaining confidence. Even the wave is becoming more assertive, the hand moving from waist to head height. At the People's Question Time in Pendle, an elderly man called Roland makes a short, powerful speech about the sacrifices made for the right to vote and says he's worried for the future of the NHS. "How old are you, Roland, if you don't mind me asking?" Miliband says.

"Eighty-nine," he says.

"Eighty-nine. I think that deserves a round of applause."

A man called Michael says he doesn't need a microphone and bawls his question in broadest Lancashire. "£170m worth of cuts are coming out of the social care budget. I wrote to my MP, and I got a letter back today and he's blamed you." Everybody laughs.

"Thank you, Michael," Miliband says, "and you're right – you didn't need a microphone." This gets a laugh, too.

Here in Pendle, immigration is a big issue. "I just want you to imagine you own a cafe and this cafe seats 40 people," says a man who identifies with Ukip. "If you get 60 people walking through your door, where d'you put them 60 people? If we have 60 million people in Britain, our NHS and education system can just about cope – but if we open the doors and let another few million in, what's going to happen?" There are a few claps.

"Good question," Miliband says. "Look, I need to say a few things to you about immigration. I am the son of immigrants. I think immigration has had benefits for this country. Lots of people caring for the NHS have come here from different countries. You've got people healing the sick, looking after the old, helping babies to be born, and the NHS wouldn't be standing up if it wasn't for all the people coming from other countries." There is a huge round of applause.

A young woman called Sophie tells Miliband how she left school with three good A-levels, suffered paralysing depression, became anorexic and suicidal. She has seen six GPs, has been discharged by all and is in desperate need of help.

"Sophie, it's incredibly brave of you to talk about this. Mental health services are the poor relation of the health service in general, and mental health services for young people are the poor relation of mental health services. No wonder you're faced with the problems you are. Can I talk to you later?"

A couple of hours later, Miliband is at Turf Moor, home of Burnley football club, for the BAME meeting. Everyone wants a selfie and it's a proper scrummage as they line up for a photograph. Miliband says a few words about why it's important for Labour to win this election. "If the Conservatives get in, Cameron wants to reduce public spending to 1930s levels, before we had the NHS."

"God forbid!" shouts a woman in the crowd.

***

On the train home that night, Miliband seems exhausted and upset. "I was talking to that girl, Sophie. Terrible," he says. "To have such a sense of hopelessness, bleakness. Awful."

What's the hardest thing about campaigning? "Stamina is a challenge. Now, I actually relish the 16-hour days. Not seeing my family is probably the hardest thing." He takes out his phone and shows me photographs of his two boys, Daniel and Sam, five and four respectively. "Daniel did say yesterday, 'You're always on the phone.' That's what I worry about. I don't want to be an absent dad. That's a challenge in this job, and it's a challenge if I'm prime minister."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F3%2F4%2F1425469051869%2F4850d54c-98b4-4b34-8a54-be87f3886f6d-620x379.jpeg&hash=6c9bd72421cf90063facab5de52c91b56ded6ac5)
The Milibands' Christmas card: Ed, Daniel, Sam and Justine. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
I ask if there was a particular event that politicised him as a boy. "I suppose the first political event I was conscious of was Ruth First, my parents' friend, who was killed by a letter bomb." First was a leading figure in the anti-apartheid movement, alongside her husband Joe Slovo; she was assassinated by the South African police in 1982. Miliband was 12 at the time. "If you have somebody you meet in your parents' living room and then they get murdered, you think, Christ! These are big things people are fighting for."

Miliband studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University (dropping the philosophy in his second year), became president of the junior common room and led a campaign against rent increases, and still didn't know what to do with his life. He worked briefly as a TV researcher, on A Week In Politics. "When I was in journalism, I thought to myself, I feel a bit uncomfortable here. I feel like a partisan. I should therefore go and work in politics."

He became a researcher for Harriet Harman, who was shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, then Gordon Brown's special adviser. In 2005, he won the safe seat of Doncaster North and joined his brother in the cabinet, becoming secretary of state for energy and climate change. Ed's particular skill lay in his ability to bridge No 10 and No 11: Brown would send him to talk to Blair's team when hostilities were at their peak. Miliband was regarded as the only one among Brown's expletive-fuelled staff who could talk human; he became known as "the ambassador from Planet Fuck".

Then Brown stood down, and Ed announced he was running against his brother for the leadership. After the internecine feud between Brown and Blair, this was the last thing most Labourites wanted. There was talk of fratricide, and comparisons were made with Cain and Abel. Ed won by a tiny margin, 1.3%, and thanks to the union vote. (David won the vote among Labour party members and MPs, and led until the fourth and final round.) There was a big falling out, particularly between their partners, who didn't talk for a time.

Melissa Benn tells me it was a fight that needed to be had within Labour – not so much between Browns and Blairites as between New Labour and newer Labour; the fact that it was between two brothers is irrelevant. "I saw it as an expression of an important argument, and I've been amazed by the number of people with their biblical references and dark Freudian ideas. If there had been a different result, it would be seen as a minor footnote in the dramatisation of a particular argument within the Labour party. If David had won, Ed would probably be sitting in his cabinet. But it could not have been a more dramatic result in terms of the human dynamic – a narrow gap, with the younger brother beating the older brother. That's imprinted on people's minds now, isn't it?"

Scarlett MccGwire, who worked with Ed when he was first elected leader, tells me: "He won and suddenly there was hatred. I don't think he'd ever come across that – waves of hatred from the Labour party, from the David fans. The media were furious and said, you've got the wrong brother. You could feel the viciousness. The atmosphere that day in Manchester was terrible. I got shouted at by very senior journalists for being an Ed person."

Was it worth the backlash? "Yes, I encouraged him to stand. Their politics are really, really different. Ed's big thing is how to solve inequality. We would be bombing Syria if David was leader. "

Many of David's followers believe Labour would be romping home today if he was leader. They argue he is more polished, respected and mature. Some of Ed's shadow cabinet think the same way: a few months ago, there was an attempted coup when Alan Johnson was reportedly approached by Blair loyalists Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell to replace Miliband. Johnson wasn't interested.

Others think David Miliband would have proved electoral poison, tarnished by his stint as foreign secretary. "I think he would be in a difficult position now, with all the stuff coming out over the CIA and extraordinary rendition," Diane Abbott says. As for his comparative polish, she doesn't buy that, either. She reminds me of the time David was ridiculed for being photographed grinning inanely with a banana. "People forget how uncomfortable he could be. The banana skin."

Is social gaucheness a particular Miliband trait? "No," she says. "It's so easy to find an unflattering angle. This social unease is just a trope of the rightwing press."

The battle of the brothers remains the elephant in the room. Over the course of two weeks with Miliband, there has been no mention of David. I consider bringing him up now but, as so often, it's not the right moment. Miliband wants light relief at the end of a long day. He starts talking about the great television comedies. Not The Nine O'Clock News was a big one for him. Do I like Larry David? I do. "What happened to series nine? They said they were going to do a ninth series of Curb Your Enthusiasm." What was the greatest TV comedy ever? I tell him I loved The Larry Sanders Show. "Yes, it was great," he says. "But the greatest?"

Is he a little bit geeky? He doesn't like that word. A bit of an anorak, then? Even worse, he says.

I tell him I have a theory. We, the public, hate alpha-male politicians, but we don't trust them when they aren't alpha males. Is this a problem for him? "Look, you can disagree without being disagreeable. I'm quoting Obama, actually. I often disagree, but I don't take delight in being disagreeable. That's probably where I am like my mum."

The thing he says he's learned most since becoming leader is to be himself. It took him a while. Even his team says this: that he was too willing to be moulded into something he clearly wasn't. Were the bacon sarnie photographs an example? "No!" he says, suddenly exasperated. "I like bacon effing sarnies. I think eating one on camera was clearly a mistake." Was he trying to convey his secular non-Jewishness? "Nooooooo! I was about to start a long day, and I was hungry."

What has been the lowest point in his leadership? "I'm not sure there is a standout." Forgetting to mention the deficit in his autumn conference speech? "Well, quite rightly I kicked myself. But I'm pretty resilient. Kipling was right about triumph and disaster, and the gap between the two being very narrow. The times I have felt less enthusiastic is when I feel, 'Is that actually what you believe?' You've got to do what you believe. That's my lodestar. The people who succeed in politics are the people who believe things. Someone once said to me, Cameron has strong views loosely held, and I think that's a good description." Have his own convictions come gradually? "No, I've always had them. I think they're clearer now because I'm a mature politician."

Accountability, he insists, is all all important in a politician, and he has been astonished by Cameron's unwillingness to defend his record in the televised debates. "If he was really convinced this is an election about leadership, why is Cameron desperate to avoid the leadership debates with me? Desperate. It doesn't add up, does it? Why wouldn't he be proposing five debates with me? Of course, he knows they are not going to be good for him."

I ask him what achievement he is most proud of. "My family. I'm incredibly proud I'm married to Justine and incredibly proud of Daniel and Sam. It's the most important thing I've done." And as leader? "Standing up to the strong. It's really easy to stand up to the weak. It's quite hard to stand up to Rupert Murdoch because it's not what's been done." Did it scare him? "No. I think I knew the day before it would never be the same again. There would be a set of implications."

It's late evening, and Miliband's team seems demob happy. We're in standard class, as usual, and a couple of people walk up and ask if they can take selfies. Soon, there's a stream of visitors. Miliband's advisers stand to allow them to sit next to Miliband and chat. There's Legho from Nigeria and her four lovely children, the hairdresser travelling with her family, the minted man who's worried about the mansion tax, three English academics who are doing a bit of freelance counter-terrorism work for the Home Office, the clinical psychologist. "I'm also a sex therapist – that's the fun part of my job," she says. Miliband is curious. "Why would that be the fun part?" Before long there's a party atmosphere. If Ed Miliband could fight the election on Britain's trains, he'd be home and dry.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F3%2F4%2F1425471380904%2F8d8a2e35-7aa0-470d-b324-802d9fd8d66f-680x1020.jpeg&hash=cfde19b8f5ab9e906eb46f356e5b6559ea15a814)
'I like bacon effing sarnies, and I was hungry. I think eating one on camera was a mistake.' Photograph: Ben Cawthra/Rex
Battersea Arts Centre, London, 72 days to go
Miliband is addressing the great and the good of the arts world: there's film director Stephen Frears, novelist Hanif Kureishi, sculptor Anish Kapoor, artistic director Jude Kelly. He is joined on stage by his old boss, now shadow culture secretary, Harriet Harman. Miliband points out how few speeches there have been about the arts from prime ministers or leaders of the opposition. "In my research, I did find one from Tony Blair and one by Jim Hacker from Yes, Prime Minister." Pause. "He ended up closing down the National Theatre and getting rid of Radio 3. I'm not planning to follow in his footsteps."

It's a strong speech – fluent, funny, pressing the right buttons. Miliband talks about re-establishing the importance of the arts in education, its contribution to industry, the right of children to be creative. Then it's time for questions. "And the difficult questions will be answered by Harriet Harman! Why don't I have a first go, then get Harriet to say what I should have said?"

Afterwards, the audience is served wine. Miliband stands, chats, and abstains. One friend of his told me that when he went round for dinner, they were served wine from a half-drunk bottle that looked as if it had been opened months ago. At one point, I suggest to his team that Miliband and I go to the pub for a drink. "A cup of tea, maybe," they say. Nigel Farage he is not.

Stephen Frears is chatting to the curator Norman Rosenthal. "Miliband is so much better than he was a year ago," Frears says.

What was he like then, I ask.

Rosenthal: "Not as focused."

Frears: "More wooden."

Rosenthal: "He was warm today, and warmth is very important in a politician. I hope it comes across with other audiences."

Miliband spots me hovering as he's talking. "Hey, man, did you enjoy the speech?" I'm so taken aback by him calling me man, I almost don't hear when he asks if I've heard from Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Leeds College of Music, 69 days to go
We're on the 7.35am from King's Cross to Leeds. Miliband has work to do on today's speech about reducing tuition fees from a maximum £9,000 to £6,000 – one of his flagship pledges. I tell him I've got good news, and pass him the phone. "It's not?" he says. "Hello? Hello, Ronnie? Yes, it's Ed Miliband here. I am such a fan... Yes, I've always loved snooker... How are you doing?... And when's the world championship?... Do you remember the Steve Davis versus Dennis Taylor final? I wanted Dennis to win. Oh, you wanted Steve to win. Yes." Spin doctor Bob Roberts is looking at his watch, begging me to retrieve the phone: they have work to do. But Miliband is still going. "Would you like a game one day? Snooker or pool? Probably pool best for me. Yes, that would be brilliant." He's beaming when he gets off the phone. "What a lovely man. He's so nice! He said we could have a game." There is even good news in the polls, which suggest Miliband has 74% chance of becoming PM.

In Leeds, the music students greet Miliband's announcement about tuition fees rapturously. The louder the applause, the sharper his delivery. His critics are less enthusiastic. Miliband is accused of introducing a regressive tax that will help only high earners. The students don't see it like that – they say they haven't got a clue who'll be earning millions in the future; all they know is, £9,000 a year is a considerable deterrent for many people. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls is on hand to explain the sums; despite all the talk, the two Eds look like a team.

Will Miliband honour his pledge, whatever form of coalition he makes, he is asked.

"Yes, yes, yes." His eye sockets are dark with exhaustion, but he's on a high.

***

It's the end of the day, and we sit down to talk in a bar. We clink glasses – he's drinking Coke, me wine. He takes off his tie, a concession to a Friday night. I mention David's name for the first time. Did they talk a lot about politics when they were young? "Around the dinner table, yes." Did they disagree often? "Yes." His voice tightens and he blinks. Miliband rarely talks about his brother, and can't hide his discomfort. What did they most commonly disagree about? "I wouldn't say there was a pattern. If you're saying, can you read what happened later into what we were arguing about or discussing when we were teenagers, I wouldn't particularly say so."

As Gordon Brown's special adviser, he says, his opinions became clearer; he realised they diverged from the New Labour norm. Was there a rift growing between him and David? "Well, I wouldn't describe it as a rift. You want to be careful about this. You don't want to exaggerate the differences. I've got huge admiration for him, and he's got very good progressive politics. So it's a difference of degrees, not absolutes."

But it was a huge thing to challenge your brother: if the differences were tiny, it just looks like a bad case of sibling rivalry. "OK, don't do it retrospectively then," he says. "This is without comment on him, but look at how I've moved Labour on from New Labour." Tell me? "On Murdoch, I've moved Labour on. On Syria. On inequality. On the responsibilities of the rich and powerful, and the accountability of companies and corporations. On what I call responsible capitalism, I've moved Labour on."

In terms of inequality, can he explain what he means? "The gap between the rich and the poor – I care about it." And New Labour didn't? "Well, it was more that, as long as the people at the bottom are doing OK, does the gap matter? But the gap absolutely matters to me. New Labour were too sanguine about it. The Conservatives don't care about it."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F3%2F4%2F1425470432695%2F6bd8229b-3613-49a4-a322-0966c3aaa41d-620x372.jpeg&hash=bac6de63eb945182ce7eff7dafdbe0b863dd7fc3)
David embraces Ed after losing to him in the Labour leadership battle in 2010. Photograph: Paul Ellis/Getty Images
When he stood against David, did he realise what he was risking? "I knew it was a big decision at the time, but it was an even bigger decision. It had bigger ramifications for my family, and for my relationship with David, than I had anticipated."

What is their relationship like now? "It's a massive, massive amount better than it was. Massive. And it's partly because he's got his own thing he's doing in New York, I'm doing my own thing, so that makes it a lot better and easier."

What was it like at its worst?

"Hard."

Were they talking ?

"Yeah," he says uncertainly. "But it was difficult. Because you know... the closeness of the result. He obviously felt very bruised."

Did he resent you?

"Look, I would always say he tried to be incredibly understanding about it, but he felt very bruised by what happened."

Did he think you wouldn't win, so it was OK for you to stand? "No, I don't think so. I think he was always more fearful than I was about what the implications would be."

If he wins the election, will he invite David back to play a role? "I think he's doing his own thing. I've always said any anticipation of things I might do as prime minister is a measuring-the-curtains question. I don't do it. He's doing his job. I'm getting on with mine."

Has the massive family split been worth it? "Your words, 'massive split'," he says. But he doesn't contradict them. "Do I feel in my heart of hearts it was right? The answer is I do."

How has the fallout affected their mother? "She's pretty stoical. She's been through worse." What was worse? "I'd say what happened during the second world war."

A young woman walks up to us and asks if she can take a picture of the two of them together.

"Of course." He gives her a lovely warm welcome.

"I've heard about you trying to reduce tuition fees," she says.

"Yes!"

"And the reason I stopped university is because they were too high."

"Is that right?" he says.

"So I'm trying to get back because I love languages. I'm working for NHS Professionals."

"How many years did you do?"

"One. Then they raised it up to £9,000 and that was too much."

"What's your name?"

"Harbinder. I like to be called Harby."

"Harby, nice to meet you."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-620%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F3%2F5%2F1425575730214%2F6bafb92c-d622-4fff-8bca-46af5caf92c8-680x1020.jpeg&hash=0518be48bba9ca4516d6fa797701efd03ff1eda0)
Photograph: Shamil Tanna for the Guardian. Thanks to Park Plaza Leeds (parkplaza.com).
We pick up our conversation. The other day, Miliband told me he thought he was unusual for a politician in that he was not arrogant. But perhaps people don't want modesty in their politicians. "Look, I don't think decency is a weakness if that's what you're asking. I've got strong convictions. That does go with the ability to listen, to empathise, to reach out to people. The moment you become arrogant, you stop listening, and when you stop listening, you don't understand what's actually happening. If people know me as a decent guy who does things his own way, I think that's incredibly important."

But some people are still not sure what you believe, I say. They want a big gesture: an ambitious council housing programme, renationalisation of the railways, scrapping Trident, something to grasp hold of – something that says: this is EdMilibandian. But he's not playing ball. He's never been Red Ed, he says. He is a complex politician who deals in subtleties and increments, and he's not going to pretend to be someone he's not. "Look," he says, "if you rescue the NHS, and you raise people's wages, and you deal with zero-hours contracts, if you build 200,000 homes a year, if you put tuition fees down to £6,000 a year, if you put young unemployed people back to work – if you do all those things, you're in business."

What would Ed Miliband's Britain look like? "A place for everybody in it. There are so many people who feel this country is not for them," he says passionately. He pauses, his mind running back over all the people he has spoken to in the past couple of weeks. This is the important point for him: forget the big gestures, it all comes down to individuals. "I mean Harby, she's just an example. The bullshit that is said about tuition fees not putting people off. I mean, just talk to Harby."

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 07, 2015, 02:32:29 PM
Is staying out of Syria really a big voter in the UK?

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 24, 2015, 12:48:02 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on February 23, 2015, 02:56:31 AM
UKIP will target Labour seats in the North where the Tories are toxic, after coming second in this GE, they then try and take them in the next.

Makes a lot of sense. They could do very well in Labour areas after the glorious success of the Miliband Ministry :weep: :bleeding:

I am intrigued by the fact a number of polls show UKIP dropping back fairly consistently.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 09, 2015, 07:04:58 AM
I suppose the biggest election news at the moment is the rise of the SNP. There are predictions that they could get nearly all of the Scottish seats :

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/04/snp-set-for-56-of-59-scottish-seats-in-general-election-poll-suggests

This makes it more or less impossible for Labour to get a majority of course, in fact it looks like the SNP will hold the balance of power.................interesting times.

Quote from: Gups on March 09, 2015, 07:39:46 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 09, 2015, 07:04:58 AM
I suppose the biggest election news at the moment is the rise of the SNP. There are predictions that they could get nearly all of the Scottish seats :

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/04/snp-set-for-56-of-59-scottish-seats-in-general-election-poll-suggests

This makes it more or less impossible for Labour to get a majority of course, in fact it looks like the SNP will hold the balance of power.................interesting times.

It does look probable and it's hard to see how that won't prompt a constitutional crisis.

Quote from: mongers on March 09, 2015, 07:49:49 AM

Quote from: Gups on March 09, 2015, 07:39:46 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 09, 2015, 07:04:58 AM
I suppose the biggest election news at the moment is the rise of the SNP. There are predictions that they could get nearly all of the Scottish seats :

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/04/snp-set-for-56-of-59-scottish-seats-in-general-election-poll-suggests

This makes it more or less impossible for Labour to get a majority of course, in fact it looks like the SNP will hold the balance of power.................interesting times.

It does look probable and it's hard to see how that won't prompt a constitutional crisis.

Maybe Cameron Tories want that or at least a way of getting shot of Scotland so they can have a generational stranglehold on Rump UK/ LittleEngland? :unsure:

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 11, 2015, 03:38:56 AM
Creativity, imagination and great statesmanship will be required to save the Union; I expect to see Scotland independent within 10 years or so.

Quote from: Gups on March 11, 2015, 06:13:53 AM
I really thought that Cameron ducking the debates was very poor political thinking by him and his team and expected a drop of a couple of points in the polls for the Tories. Instead, there's been a pretty clear shirt from a slight Labour lead to a slight Tory one. Shows what I know.

QuoteNevertheless, I'm currently calling it for the Tories- as biggest party rather than with a majority. My prediction:

Tories: 36%
Labour: 32%
UKIP: 13%
Lib Dems: 8%
Greens: 4%

Quote from: Valmy on March 11, 2015, 03:47:36 PM
Any chance of a Labor-SNP coalition?

Quote
Comedian Al Murray 'too heavy' for parachute jump

Comedian Al Murray, who is standing for parliament in his guise as The Pub Landlord, has been forced to cancel a parachute jump because he is too heavy.

He was expected to plunge 12,000ft (3,658m) into Headcorn Aerodrome in Kent before addressing constituents.

"It seems that I am too heavy to jump. Yet another tragic victim of this country's obesity epidemic," he said.

Murray is contesting the South Thanet seat where he is taking on UKIP leader Nigel Farage in the general election.

'Political heavyweight'

Mr Murray learned at the aerodrome that he was heavier than the 14st 7lb (92kg) limit.

Dressed in his trademark burgundy blazer, he said he was unaware of his weight.

"I'm a true British man - I neither cry nor weigh myself on scales. Those are my values," he said.

In a statement, Murray, whose character is based around a love for all things British, said: "My life is being held back by health and safety gone mad.

"Gone are the days that a British citizen could throw themselves out of a plane regardless of the risk.

"I hope, however, that this settles once and for all the issue of whether I am a political heavyweight."

Mr Murray said he was 'another tragic victim of the country's obesity epidemic'

He complained about being weighed on metric scales, adding they proved conclusively the "dead hand of Brussels" on the British way of life.

.....

Quote from: mongers on March 13, 2015, 10:15:57 AM
I'd vote for this candidate:

Quote
Mr Murray learned at the aerodrome that he was heavier than the 14st 7lb (92kg) limit.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 11, 2015, 03:54:30 PM
Very unlikely. Especially because SNP's condition would be getting rid of Trident. But also importantly I don't think the SNP want the responsibility of being in a Westminster government which would rather tarnish their reputation at home. I think a confidence and supply arrangement is more likely.

Quote from: Tamas on March 13, 2015, 12:12:51 PM
It is my understanding that the housing situation is a bit of a divide middle-classingly. If you already have a property, then any meaningful easing of the housing situation (like not being such pricks about permissions, government building programs etc) would devalue it.

QuoteAnd presumably you can buy poor people's votes with short-term handouts, so why upset the middle class by making their net worth look less impressive and their green belts smaller?

Quote from: Tyr on March 13, 2015, 01:34:32 PM
Home ownership is gravely overrated.

QuoteTimes columnist comes to the defence of 'Two Kitchens' Miliband
48 comments 12 March 2015 17:45Steerpike 

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F03%2Fil.jpg&hash=f57c5c84012cbc399f4e32705c6050f05a88910a)
The 'functional kitchenette' (Photo: BBC)

Mr Steerpike was interested to see Jenni Russell springing to Ed Miliband's defence after Sarah Vine took a pop at his kitchen in the Daily Mail. Mrs Gove described his kitchen as 'drab' and said it made her want to 'bring him over some fresh brownies'.

Thankfully, as Times columnist Russell points out, this is not his main kitchen. It is in fact his ' functional kitchenette':

QuoteEd Miliband's kitchen is lovely.  Daily Mail pix: the functional kitchenette by sitting room for tea and quick snacks.

Mr S imagines Russell is a fairly reliable source when it comes to the living arrangements of the Miliband family, given that the Labour leader is godfather to her child. Who needs two jags when you have two kitchens... 

UPDATE: More info through from Russell about the kitchen:

Quote@hugorifkind it's not 2 kitchens! More like Times' tea prep area.  Can't even sit in it.

Does the Times' tea prep area come complete with oven and stools?

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 13, 2015, 03:42:01 PM
Two months from the general election. British politics 2015 :lol: :weep: :bleeding:

QuoteTimes columnist comes to the defence of 'Two Kitchens' Miliband
48 comments 12 March 2015 17:45Steerpike 

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F03%2Fil.jpg&hash=f57c5c84012cbc399f4e32705c6050f05a88910a)
The 'functional kitchenette' (Photo: BBC)

Mr Steerpike was interested to see Jenni Russell springing to Ed Miliband's defence after Sarah Vine took a pop at his kitchen in the Daily Mail. Mrs Gove described his kitchen as 'drab' and said it made her want to 'bring him over some fresh brownies'.

Thankfully, as Times columnist Russell points out, this is not his main kitchen. It is in fact his ' functional kitchenette':

QuoteEd Miliband's kitchen is lovely.  Daily Mail pix: the functional kitchenette by sitting room for tea and quick snacks.

Mr S imagines Russell is a fairly reliable source when it comes to the living arrangements of the Miliband family, given that the Labour leader is godfather to her child. Who needs two jags when you have two kitchens... 

UPDATE: More info through from Russell about the kitchen:

Quote@hugorifkind it's not 2 kitchens! More like Times' tea prep area.  Can't even sit in it.

Does the Times' tea prep area come complete with oven and stools?

Edit: And now Milliband's claiming they mainly use the small kitchenette :lol:

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 13, 2015, 03:42:01 PM
Two months from the general election. British politics 2015 :lol: :weep: :bleeding:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 13, 2015, 04:24:15 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 13, 2015, 03:42:01 PM
Two months from the general election. British politics 2015 :lol: :weep: :bleeding:

Is that his home?  :blink:

QuoteIs that his wife?  :zipped:

Quote from: Tyr on March 13, 2015, 01:34:32 PM
Home ownership is gravely overrated.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 13, 2015, 04:36:41 PM
The election needs a bit of livening up, perhaps some left-wing policies for benefit British working class Ed?

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 13, 2015, 05:59:21 PM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 13, 2015, 04:36:41 PM
The election needs a bit of livening up, perhaps some left-wing policies for benefit British working class Ed?

On the other hand the less attention or thought it demands the better :lol:

Every time I see my friends in the pub how shit this choice is is a subject that invariably comes up.

Quote from: Gups on March 11, 2015, 06:13:53 AM
I really thought that Cameron ducking the debates was very poor political thinking by him and his team and expected a drop of a couple of points in the polls for the Tories. Instead, there's been a pretty clear shirt from a slight Labour lead to a slight Tory one. Shows what I know.

Nevertheless, I'm currently calling it for the Tories- as biggest party rather than with a majority. My prediction:

Tories: 36%
Labour: 32%
UKIP: 13%
Lib Dems: 8%
Greens: 4%

I anticipate SNP support falling away from its current peak but them still dominating, getting 35-40 seats although I must admit there's no good reason to think this.

Quote from: Valmy on March 13, 2015, 01:44:39 PM

Quote from: Tyr on March 13, 2015, 01:34:32 PM
Home ownership is gravely overrated.

Why?

Granted I agree with Thomas Piketty that owning of assets is far more important than earning of wages as the world economy goes through its current revolution.

Quote from: Tyr on March 14, 2015, 02:08:50 PM

Quote from: Valmy on March 13, 2015, 01:44:39 PM

Quote from: Tyr on March 13, 2015, 01:34:32 PM
Home ownership is gravely overrated.

Why?

Granted I agree with Thomas Piketty that owning of assets is far more important than earning of wages as the world economy goes through its current revolution.

Traps you in one place and drastically cuts down on opportunities open to you.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 15, 2015, 07:04:28 PM
The functional kitchenette is allegedly for the live-in nanny! :o

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 15, 2015, 07:04:28 PM
The functional kitchenette is allegedly for the live-in nanny! :o

Quote from: Tonitrus on March 14, 2015, 01:30:53 AM

Quote from: Gups on March 11, 2015, 06:13:53 AM
I really thought that Cameron ducking the debates was very poor political thinking by him and his team and expected a drop of a couple of points in the polls for the Tories. Instead, there's been a pretty clear shirt from a slight Labour lead to a slight Tory one. Shows what I know.

Nevertheless, I'm currently calling it for the Tories- as biggest party rather than with a majority. My prediction:

Tories: 36%
Labour: 32%
UKIP: 13%
Lib Dems: 8%
Greens: 4%

I anticipate SNP support falling away from its current peak but them still dominating, getting 35-40 seats although I must admit there's no good reason to think this.

Just curious, but why doesn't SNP show up in the polling?

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 01:11:12 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 15, 2015, 07:04:28 PM
The functional kitchenette is allegedly for the live-in nanny! :o

Oh dear; I don't think an "Upstairs, Downstairs" vibe really helps Milliband here.

Quote from: Syt on March 16, 2015, 03:47:52 AM
Questions to Brits: regardless of Milliband's awkwardness as a human being, is he a capable politician at least, so that you could disregard his, uhm, quirks?

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 13, 2015, 07:48:06 PM
My vote is up for grabs, any party that announces "given that the rate of household formation in the UK is 250k per annum we plan to increase housebuilding from 110k a year to 300k a year" will get my vote.

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 04:17:08 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 13, 2015, 07:48:06 PM
My vote is up for grabs, any party that announces "given that the rate of household formation in the UK is 250k per annum we plan to increase housebuilding from 110k a year to 300k a year" will get my vote.

Meh, anyone can promise that. Putting the policies in place to achieve it is a very different matter. They basically require some combination of scrapping local democratic input into planning decisions, ending the green belt and allowing urban sprawl or significant public subsidies for house builders.

Quote from: Tamas on March 16, 2015, 08:08:40 AM
How valid old style leftism is by now, anyways? "We need more spending. More spending is what we need. Higher taxes, too." Would that really win the election?

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 08:09:21 AM
Taxes on the rich, not you.

Quote from: Martinus on March 16, 2015, 08:14:17 AM
Well, I think there should be a 100% inheritance tax, with a certain tax free amount (say, $100,000).

Quote from: Martinus on March 16, 2015, 08:14:17 AM
Well, I think there should be a 100% inheritance tax, with a certain tax free amount (say, $100,000).

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 08:16:44 AM

Quote from: Martinus on March 16, 2015, 08:14:17 AM
Well, I think there should be a 100% inheritance tax, with a certain tax free amount (say, $100,000).

This is possibly the stupidest idea I have ever heard. Everybody with any money will flee the country, leaving the middle classes as the only ones to be fucked over by your scheme will the rich just keep getting richer. But I guess that is basically true with all of these sorts of plans.

Quote from: Tamas on March 16, 2015, 08:19:32 AM

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 08:16:44 AM

Quote from: Martinus on March 16, 2015, 08:14:17 AM
Well, I think there should be a 100% inheritance tax, with a certain tax free amount (say, $100,000).

This is possibly the stupidest idea I have ever heard. Everybody with any money will flee the country, leaving the middle classes as the only ones to be fucked over by your scheme will the rich just keep getting richer. But I guess that is basically true with all of these sorts of plans.

The more centrally planned and redistributed an economy is, the worse it performs, but this is something lost on a lot of people.

Quote from: Razgovory on March 16, 2015, 08:23:01 AM
Yeah, Iraq is doing gang busters.

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 08:25:43 AM
Unfortunately, he's just not brave enough to go for the kind of policies which would put some clear water between Labour and the Tories. Genuine devolution to regions, some sort of policy on multinational's avoiding tax (I know it's difficult but they seem to simply ignore the issue), a commission on drugs policy to explore how cannabis could be legalised and taxed (opening up spending options). There are lots of options but Miliband has decided to hope that the Tories lose the election rather than try to win it. 

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 08:25:43 AM
Labour made the decision in 2010 that it could not afford to be seen as the party soft on the deficit. They thought, probably correctly, that it would be political suicide. So they've ended up with their only really differentiator that they would not cut quite as quickly or as deeply as the Tories (in fact the Tories ended up adopting Labour's policy in any event, but neither of them want to say so). The effect is a policy straightjacket. Every spending policy requires and equal and opposite bit of fund raising.

So, I have some sympathy with Miliband. He has very few choices on tax and spend and has to go negative instead. All of the battles on social issues have been won by the left so there are no options there.

Unfortunately, he's just not brave enough to go for the kind of policies which would put some clear water between Labour and the Tories. Genuine devolution to regions, some sort of policy on multinational's avoiding tax (I know it's difficult but they seem to simply ignore the issue), a commission on drugs policy to explore how cannabis could be legalised and taxed (opening up spending options). There are lots of options but Miliband has decided to hope that the Tories lose the election rather than try to win it.

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 08:30:13 AM

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 08:25:43 AM
Unfortunately, he's just not brave enough to go for the kind of policies which would put some clear water between Labour and the Tories. Genuine devolution to regions, some sort of policy on multinational's avoiding tax (I know it's difficult but they seem to simply ignore the issue), a commission on drugs policy to explore how cannabis could be legalised and taxed (opening up spending options). There are lots of options but Miliband has decided to hope that the Tories lose the election rather than try to win it. 

Huh. Those are good ideas. He probably could form functional alliances with the nationalists with those sorts of policies. Is there a lot of pushback on those? The cannabis thing might be tough for the older crowd to stomach but the other two just seem like natural positions for Labour to take.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 16, 2015, 10:36:00 AM
The problem with the multinationals and the tax they pay is that change will have to come at an international level. The EU is investigating the role of Luxembourg and others and their poaching of larger countries' corporation tax revenues, you also need to keep the G20 and WTO sweet, unilateral action is not really an option........so the truth is not very popular, maybe best keep quiet  :hmm:

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 08:44:14 AM
Labour is kind of split on devolution. Some want an economy that's centrally planned other's believe in more local democracy and accountability. Blair's first government tried to push through a series of regional assemblies but (except for London) they were not popular with the electorate.

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM
And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM


And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?"

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 10:52:26 AM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM
And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

So...these would be your regional assembly areas?

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F1%2F14%2FEnglish_ceremonial_counties_1998.svg%2F515px-English_ceremonial_counties_1998.svg.png&hash=a72c2182c9294c8fbd6a8a1c4930a2f0809b0123)

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 10:54:37 AM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM


And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?"

I agree. It wasn't a great idea at all. But that doesn't mean that you can't have devolution to cities and counties (or areas who band together) that want it without creating a new tier of govt.  The Greater Manchester authorities are leading the way on this and Osborne is pushing it.

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 11:25:32 AM
How about this?

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fth02.deviantart.net%2Ffs71%2FPRE%2Fi%2F2013%2F194%2F4%2Ff%2Fheptarchy_by_c00lfr0g-d6dcfp2.png&hash=6e0f12a9ff0bc5102caa7eb4c7e2cb9479c56d40)

:P

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 11:38:20 AM
The green one in the middle?

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:32:28 AM

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 11:25:32 AM
How about this?

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fth02.deviantart.net%2Ffs71%2FPRE%2Fi%2F2013%2F194%2F4%2Ff%2Fheptarchy_by_c00lfr0g-d6dcfp2.png&hash=6e0f12a9ff0bc5102caa7eb4c7e2cb9479c56d40)

:P

:lol:

On a more serious note, though, that map illustrates the problem, in a way; just what regions could/should be used for devolution. I live in Northamptonshire, officially a part of the East Midlands, technically a part of Mercia.

Take a look at the regional television map and guess which region I feel closest too in my personal identity...

http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/new-to-itv/itv-regions

Quote from: Habbaku on March 16, 2015, 12:22:43 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:32:28 AM

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 11:25:32 AM
How about this?

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fth02.deviantart.net%2Ffs71%2FPRE%2Fi%2F2013%2F194%2F4%2Ff%2Fheptarchy_by_c00lfr0g-d6dcfp2.png&hash=6e0f12a9ff0bc5102caa7eb4c7e2cb9479c56d40)

:P

:lol:

On a more serious note, though, that map illustrates the problem, in a way; just what regions could/should be used for devolution. I live in Northamptonshire, officially a part of the East Midlands, technically a part of Mercia.

Take a look at the regional television map and guess which region I feel closest too in my personal identity...

http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/new-to-itv/itv-regions

Was it necessary to quote the picture again?

Quote from: Tamas on March 16, 2015, 10:40:53 AM
Yeah. On the other hand, if eg. Amazon's "tax evasion" (IDK if doing something perfectly legal in the EU is tax evasion) results in them being able to offer the cheapest and fastest service to customers, then maybe it isnt that Luxembourg's taxes are low, but rather, the others are high?

Quote from: Zanza on November 11, 2013, 04:28:40 PM

Quote from: Threviel on November 11, 2013, 03:55:39 PM
Or Spain could compete with Ireland on lowering corporate taxes. But of course, much easier to punish Ireland than to change something in Spain.

Ireland can afford the low corporate tax rate for reasons that Spain and other countries cannot emulate and can never compete on.

Ireland has just 4.6 million people to Spain's 46 million people. So let's assume that Spain roughly needs ten times the government revenue that Ireland needs.

There is a finite number of multi-national corporations in the world and they typically need just one HQ in the EU due to it being a common market.

As Ireland just needs a tenth of Spain's government revenue it can compensate a low tax rate for its domestic corporations by enticing a higher than proportional number of multi-nationals to open shop in Ireland and paying taxes there.

Spain cannot do that as it will never be able to attract enough multi-nationals to offset the loss in tax revenue for lowering the tax rate for its domestic companies to match Ireland's low rate.

And if you look beyond Spain, Ireland has less than 1% of the EU population. For simplicity sake, let's assume the EU was perfectly equal in tax revenues and government expenditures. If a tiny piece of the EU attracts a lot of multi-nationals through a low corporate tax rate, the other 99% of the EU can't just lower their tax rate accordingly and hope for multi-nationals to somehow materialize out of nowhere and start paying taxes to compensate. Mainly because there just aren't that many multi-nationals.

Ireland is only in this position thanks to their membership in the EU. But they exploit that by establishing a policy that the bigger EU countries cannot enact themselves. The only other countries that can compete on this policy are typically considered tax havens as well, e.g. Luxembourg.

Quote from: Zanza on March 16, 2015, 12:56:17 PM
In Tamas' ideology a vicious circle mechanism like this that ultimately destroys tax revenue for the benefit of the rich (corporate owners) is probably something good. Starve the government of money and it can do less "harm" as he sees it.

Quote from: Zanza on March 16, 2015, 12:56:17 PM
In Tamas' ideology a vicious circle mechanism like this that ultimately destroys tax revenue for the benefit of the rich (corporate owners) is probably something good. Starve the government of money and it can do less "harm" as he sees it.

Quote from: Tamas on March 16, 2015, 12:38:17 PM
Also, I am raising my eyebrows every time a Brit blames financial trickeries for their country's problems. As I understand the only reason the UK's economy is not in a dump is that it has been the favourite playground of EU rule-bending bankers since the 70s :P

Quote from: Tamas on March 16, 2015, 01:03:38 PM

Quote from: Zanza on March 16, 2015, 12:56:17 PM
In Tamas' ideology a vicious circle mechanism like this that ultimately destroys tax revenue for the benefit of the rich (corporate owners) is probably something good. Starve the government of money and it can do less "harm" as he sees it.

My point was that Amazon gets a competitive advantage because it pays less tax than smaller competitors who can't afford to go to tax-manipulating Luxembourg.

So, MAYBE, if everyone was as lenient on corporations as Luxembourg is via its trickery, then the positive effect on corporate growth and heavier competition would outweight the negative of less tax money for the state to play with.

Quote from: alfred russel on March 16, 2015, 01:10:04 PM
Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 16, 2015, 01:11:38 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on March 16, 2015, 01:10:04 PM
Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 16, 2015, 01:11:38 PM
High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 16, 2015, 01:11:38 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on March 16, 2015, 01:10:04 PM
Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

High earners are probably as mobile as, if not more mobile than, corporations.

Quote from: alfred russel on March 16, 2015, 01:10:04 PM
Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 01:27:59 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on March 16, 2015, 01:10:04 PM
Corporate income taxes are a challenging way to generate government revenue, for a lot of reasons. I think it would be better to keep them low and offset the lost government revenue with higher income taxes on high earners.

IN the UK, corporation tax earns about £50bn a year and income tax £150bn. If corporation tax were abolished and the whole burden fell on higher rate tax payers, we would be looking at punitive (90%+) rates starting at a pretty low level.

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:21:41 AM

Quote from: Valmy on March 16, 2015, 10:52:26 AM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM
And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

So...these would be your regional assembly areas?

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F1%2F14%2FEnglish_ceremonial_counties_1998.svg%2F515px-English_ceremonial_counties_1998.svg.png&hash=a72c2182c9294c8fbd6a8a1c4930a2f0809b0123)

No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

QuoteQuestions to Brits: regardless of Milliband's awkwardness as a human being, is he a capable politician at least, so that you could disregard his, uhm, quirks?

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 10:50:12 AM

Quote from: Gups on March 16, 2015, 08:44:14 AM
Labour is kind of split on devolution. Some want an economy that's centrally planned other's believe in more local democracy and accountability. Blair's first government tried to push through a series of regional assemblies but (except for London) they were not popular with the electorate.

And how surprising was that? If you're going to convince voters that another layer of government is a good idea you've got to tie it to something people have emotional ties to. Most people's ties run from County straight to country. "North East Region? Huh?" 

Quote from: mongers on March 16, 2015, 02:34:36 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:21:41 AM
No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

:huh:

Wessex.   :P

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 03:23:24 PM

Quote from: mongers on March 16, 2015, 02:34:36 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:21:41 AM
No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

:huh:

Wessex.   :P

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that. :hmm:

Quote from: garbon on March 16, 2015, 03:42:54 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 03:23:24 PM

Quote from: mongers on March 16, 2015, 02:34:36 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:21:41 AM
No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

:huh:

Wessex.   :P

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that. :hmm:

I saw they are releasing another film adaptation of one of his books.

Quote from: mongers on March 16, 2015, 04:16:07 PM

Quote from: garbon on March 16, 2015, 03:42:54 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 03:23:24 PM

Quote from: mongers on March 16, 2015, 02:34:36 PM

Quote from: Agelastus on March 16, 2015, 11:21:41 AM
No, partly for the obvious reason that many of them are too small, partly because County Council is already a government level, and partly because despite the roll-back of some of the 1970s reforms that saw Rutland reappear, some of them are still artificial to the people living in them.

Yorkshire (North, South, East and West Riding) is probably the only "Region sized" area that could be successfully devolved on the model Labour tried in the late Nineties. Possibly East Anglia has a strong enough identity as well, although that's "iffy". I can't think of anywhere else.

:huh:

Wessex.   :P

I doubt there's enough Hardy fans these days for that. :hmm:

I saw they are releasing another film adaptation of one of his books.

He is still quite popular here; besides ignore Agelastus, from his own description he sounds like a landless peasant without a connection to his 'region'  :bowler:

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 16, 2015, 04:21:29 PM
Has anyone a connection to the Midlands?

QuoteWestminster: Where houses earn more than people

Members of Parliament heading home are greeted by a poster at the tube station that reads "£30,000 wouldn't even buy you floor space the size of this poster in Westminster".

It is a graphic reminder of the affordability crisis affecting housing in London and the South East - a disparity that has turned home owners in the region into lottery winners while those not on the property ladder are denied a roof over their head.

Research by the National Housing Federation to mark the Homes for Britain rally on Tuesday reveals that property values in England increased by £289 billion in the first three years of the current government, but £282 billion of that wealth growth (97%) took place in the capital and the South East.

The price of the average house in London, now a staggering £502,000, has been increasing each year by more than the average annual wage.

Most home-owners in the capital have seen their property earn more than they do. Small wonder that Generation Rent struggles to find anything it can afford.

In a sense, the housing crisis plays into that wider public view that Londoners, and in particular the 'Westminster-elite', are coining it - while the rest of the country struggles to pay the electricity and gas bills.

The value of property in the North West and north-east of England has fallen slightly.

All the political parties will go into the election promising answers to the housing crisis, in most cases with pledges to build many more homes.

But it takes time to produce a house, often four or five years from first planning application to the moment when the occupant walks through the freshly-painted front door. So we can be sure that the crisis is going to get worse before it gets better.

According to projections by the Town and Country Planning Association, using data from the last census, England needs 245,000 extra homes every year from 2011 right the way to 2031. Completions are currently only half of what is required and the country has already fallen more than half a million homes behind, pushing the annual demand even higher.

The reason we need so many extra homes is due to household formation: the elderly are living longer and, increasingly, in their own homes; relationship breakdown has created a big demand for more single-person homes; high levels of net-migration puts pressure on housing supply; we are living through something of a baby boom which increases demand for new family homes.

The argument that the lack of supply is now at crisis proportions appears to be shifting the public mood.

A British Social Attitudes survey published by the government last week suggests that most people in England (56%) are now supportive of house building in their local area, up from 28% in 2010.

The proportion of people who say they are opposed to new homes in their neighbourhood has fallen from 46% in 2010 to 21% in 2014.

Although public attitudes are changing, surveys suggest people don't tend to regard housing as a priority at the election.

This seems surprising given the passions the issue creates, but experts think it is because voters don't regard providing homes as a job for central government. It is seen either as something private developers should do or local authorities and housing associations.

Until that changes, our political leaders are unlikely to devote much money or energy to solving the housing crisis.

QuoteIt is a graphic reminder of the affordability crisis affecting housing in London and the South East - a disparity that has turned home owners in the region into lottery winners while those not on the property ladder are denied a roof over their head.

QuoteIn a sense, the housing crisis plays into that wider public view that Londoners, and in particular the 'Westminster-elite', are coining it - while the rest of the country struggles to pay the electricity and gas bills.

QuoteA British Social Attitudes survey published by the government last week suggests that most people in England (56%) are now supportive of house building in their local area, up from 28% in 2010.

The proportion of people who say they are opposed to new homes in their neighbourhood has fallen from 46% in 2010 to 21% in 2014.

Quote from: garbon on March 18, 2015, 02:11:31 PM
So what of the new tax changes?

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 22, 2015, 08:15:53 AM
Torn between thinking this is very odd and being perfectly willing to watch a feature length version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JeYlBRvUeE&app=desktop

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 22, 2015, 08:15:53 AM
Torn between thinking this is very odd and being perfectly willing to watch a feature length version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JeYlBRvUeE&app=desktop

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 22, 2015, 01:23:59 PM
More the latter. This may change if coalitions become the new normal, but this is the first peacetime coalition in 80 years.

At the minute I think Labour and the Tories publicly wouldn't talk about it because it's like conceding they won't win. Minor parties are more open but then it's mainly about their red lines.

My suspicion is we may not actually have the maths for a coalition after this election, I think a minority government is more likely.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 03:25:11 AM
I read that UKIP is doing worse in polls and might just win a handful of seats. Mainly due to lunatics and crooks among their candidates. What's your take?

Quote from: Gups on March 23, 2015, 03:45:54 AM

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 03:25:11 AM
I read that UKIP is doing worse in polls and might just win a handful of seats. Mainly due to lunatics and crooks among their candidates. What's your take?

They aren't really doing worse in the polls. Maybe down 1% from 3 months ago, but solidly at about 14%. They were never likely to win more than a few seats - between 2 and 5 because their support is fairly evenly divided across the country. There's been quite a few scandals recently with dodgy UKIP candidates but they seem to have little effect. OTOH, Farage was harassed by a left wing group while having a pub lunch with his family yesterday, which is getting him a lot of press and sympathy.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 23, 2015, 09:14:41 AM
One point to be made in Farage's favour is that he has not dragged his wife and kids into his campaigning. Similarly the protestors should not have disrupted his family lunch.

Quote from: mongers on March 23, 2015, 09:30:08 AM

Yeah, I didn't even know he still had a relatively young family, I'd assumed, based on age, if he had any they'd have already flown the nest.

Quote from: Gups on March 23, 2015, 09:46:28 AM

Quote from: mongers on March 23, 2015, 09:30:08 AM

Yeah, I didn't even know he still had a relatively young family, I'd assumed, based on age, if he had any they'd have already flown the nest.

He's on his second family. His first two kids are in their 30s.

QuoteDavid Cameron: I would not serve third term as PM
Prime minister names Theresa May, George Osborne and Boris Johnson as possible future leaders of the Tory party
Rowena Mason Political correspondent and Nicholas Watt
Monday 23 March 2015 20.33 GMT Last modified on Monday 23 March 2015 21.02 GMT

David Cameron unexpectedly ruled out serving a third term in office, causing dismay in Conservative circles as he highlighted three potential successors.

The prime minister said he felt fit enough to serve another full five years in Downing Street – if he were to remain in power after the forthcoming general election but added that after that it would be "time for new leadership".

In an interview with the BBC, conducted largely in the kitchen of the prime minister's Cotswolds home, Cameron named home secretary Theresa May, chancellor George Osborne and London mayor Boris Johnson as potential Conservative leaders.

"I've said I'll stand for a full second term, but I think after that it will be time for new leadership. Terms are like shredded wheat: two are wonderful but three might just be too many," the prime minister said.

The three senior politicians are already the bookmakers' favourites to be their party's next leader, perhaps as soon as this year if the Conservatives lose the election. However, their ambitions have never been so publicly acknowledged by Cameron before.

The prime minister made the declaration about his political future during a informal interview with the BBC, which saw him preparing food in the kitchen and featured a brief appearance from his wife Samantha.

Cameron appears to have made a calculation that voters do not want a prime minister who goes on for too long in the vein of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. He has previously been thought to be planning to hand over to another Tory leader half way through a second term, if he were to get re-elected.

But his remarks were greeted with dismay by Conservative commentators. Fraser Nelson, the editor of the Spectator magazine, said that Cameron had just "set fire to his authority" by "pre-announcing his resignation".

Douglas Alexander, Labour's chair of general election strategy, seized on Cameron's remarks as evidence of a complacent attitude towards the electorate.

"The Tories are taking the British public for granted," Alexander said. "It is typically arrogant of David Cameron to presume a third Tory term in 2020 before the British public have been given the chance to have their say in this election. In the UK it is for the British people and not the prime minister to decide who stays in power."

Downing Street sources immediately tried to row back on Cameron's comments, saying he was only rejecting the idea of serving a full third term. In what appeared to be a damage limitation exercise, the source said: "What happens in five years' time in 2020? Let's cross that bridge when we get to it."

The source said that the prime minister is in a different position to Blair and Thatcher who declined to give similar commitments at the end of their first terms in office. This is because they chose to fight elections on four-year cycles.

Under the fixed term parliament act Cameron fights elections on five-year cycles. This means that Cameron is at the equivalent of Blair's half way stage at the end of just one term. Blair won three elections, as did Thatcher.

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said it was "incredibly presumptuous of David Cameron to be worrying about a third term as prime minister weeks before the general election".

"He should spend a bit more time considering how he can possibly justify to voters the Tories' dangerous plans to cut public services than agonising over his own long-term legacy."

The prime minister said political leaders should never regard themselves as "indispensable – however mad you go in this job".

"I'm standing for a full second time," he said. "I'm not saying all prime ministers necessarily definitely go mad or even go mad at the same rate... But I feel I've got more to bring to this job, the job is half done, the economy's turned round, the deficit is half down and I want to finish the job.

"I didn't just come to do this to deal with the debts and the mess, I want to go on with the education reforms and the welfare reforms.

"But there definitely comes a time where a fresh pair of eyes and fresh leadership would be good, and the Conservative Party has got some great people coming up: the Theresa Mays, and the George Osbornes, and the Boris Johnsons. There's plenty of talent there. I'm surrounded by very good people. The third term is not something I'm contemplating."

But his intervention will hardly have delighted other cabinet colleagues such as Jeremy Hunt, Savid Javid, and Michael Gove who may have leadership aspirations of their own.

Cameron's wife Samantha also appeared in the short film, saying she thought her husband was "definitely, in my mind, the best man for the job".

"I hope that me and the family help him to keep things in perspective, keep him grounded and help him pace himself over the next eight weeks," she said.

During the film, Cameron was seen cheering on son Elwen's football team, shopping at a local butcher's and preparing food in the kitchen of his Oxfordshire home.

His children were also filmed eating a meal at the kitchen table and Cameron spoke of how his daughter, Nancy, has threatened to go on hunger strike unless his friend Jeremy Clarkson is reinstated as presenter of Top Gear. The television star was suspended after allegedly hitting a BBC producer, sparking a petition for him to return.

"I told her this is not necessarily a useful intervention. It is not exactly Gandhi," Cameron said. Samantha added: "Nancy's hunger strike this morning lasted approximately five minutes."

The prime minister then joked: "It's between lunch and tea is the way it works."

QuoteIn a brave move, David Cameron sets fire to his authority
23 comments 23 March 2015 18:35Alex Massie 

It is always useful to remember Robert Conquest's suggestion that The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

No, I don't know why David Cameron would amputate his authority before he runs for re-election either. But that's what he has done today by ruling out running for a third term in office.  I dare say it was an honest – and spontaneous – answer to a simple question. But still: what a bizarre thing to do, not least because no-one expected him to run again in 2020 even if, by some good fortune, he returns to Downing Street on May 8th.

But there is every difference between common knowledge inside the village and broadcasting that knowledge to the wider world. Authority and credibility are all-too-easily bandied-about but they have some importance not least because perceptions of these qualities have some considerable impact on the overall manner in which a politician is perceived. If you doubt this, look at Ed Miliband.

Cameron, today, has started the race to be his successor. True, that race might yet begin on May 8th but the Tories were always likely to need a new leader if Cameron is defeated in May. They didn't need the leadership question to begin as soon as they had won a second term, however.

But it has. Needlessly. How long will you remain in office, Mr Cameron? When do you plan on resigning? These are questions from which there is no escape. The clock is ticking. The countdown has started and once begun it cannot be stopped. There is no blue wire that can be cut to prevent the explosion.

I know people like to complain that the press have an unhealthy fascination with these games of personality and process at the expense of policy and I dare say there's some truth to that. (Personality and process are more fun than policy). But there's no need for politicians to ask us to play these games in the first place. That's what Cameron has done, however.

Who's up? Who's down? Who is on manoeuvres? Everything (well, almost everything) half a dozen senior Tories (May, Osborne, Boris et al) do in the first three years of the next parliament will be viewed through the prism of the succession.

That's bad enough but it's really quite something to declare yourself a lame duck before an election. It also allows Labour to argue Vote Dave, Get George or Vote Dave, Get Boris.

There's one other thing too: declaring you won't seek a third term risks seeming awkwardly presumptious before you've even won your second. Risks? Nay, 'tis. Another reason why this is a baffling declaration.

Perhaps it really is the case that no-one actually wants to win the next election.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:33:51 PM
I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:34:41 PM
The American president also has his full formal powers all the way to 19th January. How is it different?

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:33:01 PM
Has Cameron ever done anything politically astute during his term as prime minister? I can only think of blunders and gaffes.

QuoteI don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:36:31 PM
The American system involves more quid pro quo.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:42:11 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:36:31 PM
The American system involves more quid pro quo.

That's what happens within parties in a parliamentarian system. Cameron announcing that he'll resign makes him a lame duck because the Tories will lose all discipline. They've been an unruly bunch over the last years, but now there is really no reason for his inner-party foes to follow him on anything anymore.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:42:11 PM
That's what happens within parties in a parliamentarian system. Cameron announcing that he'll resign makes him a lame duck because the Tories will lose all discipline. They've been an unruly bunch over the last years, but now there is really no reason for his inner-party foes to follow him on anything anymore.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:53:00 PM
These are examples of backbenchers ignoring party discipline and voting down legislation?

They sound more like leadership fights.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:53:00 PM
These are examples of backbenchers ignoring party discipline and voting down legislation?

They sound more like leadership fights.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 04:56:32 PM
I don't quite get the distinction your making here or how it relates to lame duckness.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 05:18:32 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 04:56:32 PM
I don't quite get the distinction your making here or how it relates to lame duckness.

A lame duck is considered lame because he is unable to make any long term promises, and therefore has ability to move his agenda forward.  That is different than another person vying for his position, which is what you seem to be talking about.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 05:18:32 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 04:56:32 PM
I don't quite get the distinction your making here or how it relates to lame duckness.

A lame duck is considered lame because he is unable to make any long term promises, and therefore has ability to move his agenda forward.  That is different than another person vying for his position, which is what you seem to be talking about.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 05:24:07 PM
A prime minister that has announced his resignation is unable to make any long term promises either. I don't see the difference...

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 05:28:28 PM
I think he's lame because he's unable to move his agenda forward.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 05:29:35 PM

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 05:24:07 PM
A prime minister that has announced his resignation is unable to make any long term promises either. I don't see the difference...

A PM doesn't generally have to persuade the members of his own party to vote for his agenda.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 05:29:35 PM
A PM doesn't generally have to persuade the members of his own party to vote for his agenda.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 05:33:57 PM
Of course he does :blink:

Quote from: Tamas on March 23, 2015, 07:50:14 PM
In Hungary it is a rare event wheat an MP doesn't vote what he is told to by party leadership

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 22, 2015, 01:55:03 PM
I propose that the only acceptable post-election conditions should be the holding of referenda.

Referendae?  Referendums?  OK.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 06:06:47 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 05:33:57 PM
Of course he does :blink:

I was unaware of that.

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:34:41 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:33:51 PM
I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

The American president also has his full formal powers all the way to 19th January. How is it different?

Quote from: crazy canuck on March 23, 2015, 05:28:54 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 05:18:32 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 23, 2015, 04:56:32 PM
I don't quite get the distinction your making here or how it relates to lame duckness.

A lame duck is considered lame because he is unable to make any long term promises, and therefore has ability to move his agenda forward.  That is different than another person vying for his position, which is what you seem to be talking about.

What long term promises (or even short term promises) do you think a PM who has announced their resignation can make?

Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 24, 2015, 05:20:47 AM

Quote from: Zanza on March 23, 2015, 04:34:41 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 23, 2015, 04:33:51 PM
I don't see how the concept of a lame duck applies in a parliamentary system.

The American president also has his full formal powers all the way to 19th January. How is it different?

GWB got a lot of stuff done in the last two years and the opposition controlled the congress! Cameron will control Parliament, why should he have a problem?

Quote from: Zanza on March 24, 2015, 04:37:32 AM
How did you think decision making processes in parties/coalitions in parliamentarian systems work?  :huh:

Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 24, 2015, 05:20:47 AM
GWB got a lot of stuff done in the last two years and the opposition controlled the congress! Cameron will control Parliament, why should he have a problem?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2015, 07:37:47 AM

Quote from: Zanza on March 24, 2015, 04:37:32 AM
How did you think decision making processes in parties/coalitions in parliamentarian systems work?  :huh:

I figured the cabinet thrashed things out then the backbenchers fell in line.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on March 24, 2015, 03:12:54 AM
Referenda, second declension, neutral plural of referendum, so no referendae, since it would be first declension.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 30, 2015, 06:02:04 PM
It begins :bleeding: :weep:

Quote from: garbon on March 31, 2015, 04:29:23 AM
To be honest, I don't know what to make of this story. I can't help but think that here is a man who made terribly poor choices in his past and now he should be elected into office? :blush:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-britains-first-hiv-positive-parliamentary-candidate#.mpdE61qnp

Quote from: garbon on March 31, 2015, 04:29:23 AM
To be honest, I don't know what to make of this story. I can't help but think that here is a man who made terribly poor choices in his past and now he should be elected into office? :blush:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/meet-britains-first-hiv-positive-parliamentary-candidate#.mpdE61qnp

Quote from: Warspite on March 31, 2015, 06:16:24 AM
I dabbled in the Lib Dems when I was younger, and they turned out to be a gateway into other, more serious political parties.

Quote from: Valmy on March 31, 2015, 07:41:59 AM
:cry: Leave the LibDems alone!

Quote from: Valmy on April 03, 2015, 04:33:32 PM
What that everybody became more popular?

Quote from: Tamas on April 04, 2015, 06:33:27 AM
I still can't believe that two-bit communists are a thing in Britain. Yes, I mean the Green Party

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 04, 2015, 09:28:59 AM
The Greens must be furious that Natalie Bennett's the leader during their breakthrough. If they had Caroline Lucas or Patrick Harvie on stage for the debate I think they'd probably have won.

Quote from: Valmy on April 04, 2015, 11:08:53 AM
Huh. You have done a pretty good job on this board making the Greens look like dangerous lunatics. Is it possible they could be considered winners in a debate?

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 04, 2015, 11:42:00 AM
Sure. Let's not forget that the woman who did win the debate wants to break up the country :P

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 03, 2015, 04:23:05 PM
Ed Miliband's got a positive approval rating for the first time since he became leader :o

Although I think this trend, especially since the debate, is interesting:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/m/CBr2pmCWYAAakXs.jpg:large)

Quote from: Tyr on April 06, 2015, 03:21:00 AM
What's up with farage? People just went "hmm... Maybe we should be picking on people with HIV afterall"?

Quote from: Zanza on April 07, 2015, 01:01:25 PM
The man of the people eats a hotdog with spoon and fork:  :bowler:

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fa.abcnews.com%2Fimages%2FInternational%2FGTY_cameron_kab_150407_16x9_992.jpg&hash=424a162124974dee7823f9f810fc9e3fc3d97db7)

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 07, 2015, 02:25:50 PM
My local chippy is advertising for the Regional Health Action Party...

Quote from: Zanza on April 07, 2015, 03:10:30 PM
Is "chippie" British for fish & chips shop?

Quote from: Zanza on April 07, 2015, 01:01:25 PM
The man of the people eats a hotdog with spoon and fork:  :bowler:

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fa.abcnews.com%2Fimages%2FInternational%2FGTY_cameron_kab_150407_16x9_992.jpg&hash=424a162124974dee7823f9f810fc9e3fc3d97db7)

Quote from: Liep on April 09, 2015, 04:39:20 AM
There's no video of the last one? I'd love to see his reaction.

QuoteGang of men in York attacked Spanish couple for 10 minutes

A Spanish couple on holiday in York have been assaulted in a racist attack by a gang of five men.
Police said the man and woman were set upon at about 03:45 BST on Sunday shortly after they left the Blue Fly Cafe Bar on New Street.
The 24-year-old man was punched and kicked for 10 minutes, suffering a broken jaw and chipped teeth.
His girlfriend, 29, was repeatedly pushed to the floor. The attack only ended when a taxi driver intervened.
(...)
The suspects are described as white, aged between 20 and 25, with short or shaved hair.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 09, 2015, 12:04:01 PM
I feel Labour and Miliband are running better than I expected and, the last few days, the Tories seem really useless.

Maybe the past five years of relentless negativity about Miliband is his secret weapon.

Quote from: Agelastus on April 09, 2015, 04:31:53 PM
My opinion of the last few days is that both main parties have been utterly useless.

QuoteAlso Ms. Flounder is still riding high.

QuoteThe Tories' wobble shows they don't know how to fight Ed Miliband
Jonathan Freedland
Is the Labour leader Ed Miliband a useless dweeb or a power-hungry cad? The confusion shows the extent of panic in the Conservative ranks

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fstatic%2Fw-700%2Fh--%2Fq-95%2Fsys-images%2FGuardian%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2015%2F4%2F10%2F1428687257574%2FLittle-girl-lets-her-head-008.jpg&hash=269d0fe805bb49903c4951e4274e3d47977e6811)
'The reaction [to Fallon's attack on Miliband], even from fellow Conservatives, was akin to that of the little girl who let her head fall to the desk during a photo-op with David Cameron.' Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Friday 10 April 2015 19.54 BST Last modified on Friday 10 April 2015 22.26 BST

Why do they always wobble on a Thursday? In 1987, the Conservative campaign was rocked by a poll, published on a Thursday, that showed the Tory lead over Labour down to a meagre four points. For the first time, Margaret Thatcher thought she might actually lose. Watching was an aide, Michael Dobbs, who would later write the television drama House of Cards. "She was more than furious. She was almost frothing," he recalled, describing the day that is forever carved into the Tory annals as Wobbly Thursday.

The memoirs of the future may describe 9 April 2015 the same way. Thursday was the worst day so far in what has been a shaky start to the Conservative general election campaign. The morning brought an attack on Ed Miliband by the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, over Trident, suggesting that just as the Labour leader had stabbed his brother David in the back, so he would betray Britain, bartering away the country's nuclear deterrent in return for enough Scottish National Party support to put him into Downing Street.

The reaction, even from Fallon's fellow Conservatives, was akin to that of the little girl who let her head fall to the desk during a storytime photo-op with David Cameron. Tories despaired at a move that saw them retoxified as the nasty party – not 24 hours after they had been defending the super-rich tax avoiders formerly known as non-doms. To round off this day from hell, a trio of polls arrived showing Labour with a slight but unmistakable lead.

Of course the original Wobbly Thursday was followed a week later by a landslide Tory victory. The wobble turned out to be no more than that. It was a blip. The same may be true this time, too. After all, two more polls appeared a few hours later showing the Tories with a nose in front. And, in contrast with 1987, this wobble came a month before polling day. The Conservatives have plenty of time to regain their equilibrium.

And yet the fundamentals are very different now – and not in a way that will encourage the Conservatives. In 1987, thanks in part to an economic boom and an opposition still divided between Labour and the Liberal/SDP Alliance, the Tories were out in front throughout. The four-point lead that sent Thatcher into a fury would bring shrieks of delight at Conservative headquarters today.

The current numbers are dispiriting indeed for Cameron's party. Stay like this and, even if the Tories win the greatest number of both votes and seats, they will be locked out of Downing Street. They could team up with the remnant Liberal Democrats, Northern Ireland's DUP and a couple of Ukippers and still not reach the magic number. To retain power the Tories have to add three or four points to their vote share. They need liftoff.

And they've been waiting for that moment with great patience. Lynton Crosby reportedly told Conservative MPs to expect it after Christmas. Then it was scheduled for February. Then March. Then after Easter. Easter Sunday came and went, and still the mythic number has not risen. If anything, it's got slightly worse as Miliband's personal ratings – whose poverty was meant to be the Tories' insurance policy – have started climbing, even on one poll overtaking Cameron's for the first time.

The result is that Conservatives are getting twitchy. For now, MPs are holding their nerve, in a state of mind that might be described as pre-panic. One told me he and his colleagues will remain steady just so long as there's something with a bit of "wow factor" in the manifesto launched on Tuesday. Taking a break from door-knocking, one confided that "long term economic plan" is just not cutting it. The phrase is too bureaucratic, too devoid of optimism: two in three voters think it means more austerity. They're hoping that, just as no one expected George Osborne's pension liberalisation in the 2014 budget, the PM and chancellor will spring another dramatic surprise in the party programme – on the lines of the £8bn NHS funding increase promised by Osborne today.

The Tory foot soldiers want something sunnier to sell. If they don't get it on Tuesday, and if the polls stay static, a full panic is pencilled in for next weekend.

Others lack even that patience. The Tory press is always a good guide to the party's unrestrained id – and look at what they've been up to. Friday's Mail and Telegraph claimed to have uncovered the secrets of Red Ed's "tangled love life". In fact, all they revealed was that before he was married, Miliband had, as the Times columnist Janice Turner put it, "dated a bunch of hot, clever and successful women". It was hard to see how that might hurt him with voters.

Combined with the Fallon salvo, all this suggests confusion in the Tory tribe. They've lost their confidence over how exactly to condemn Ed Miliband. Is he a useless dweeb or a ruthless, power-hungry cad? In the 1990s, the Tories and their Fleet Street outriders couldn't decide whether Tony Blair was Bambi or Stalin. In the space of a few days, the Conservatives of 2015 have turned Miliband from Wallace into Poldark.

Miliband was meant to have folded by now, crumbled under the pressure and turned into a drooling, gaffe-prone wreck

That's partly because he has refused to follow his part in the script. He was meant to have folded by now, to have crumbled under the pressure and turned into a gaffe-prone wreck. Instead, he has proved more resilient than they – and perhaps the voters – expected. Whatever else the public thinks of him, they are surely beginning to recognise that he has some steel and an improbably thick skin.

The failure of these attacks to penetrate is leading to desperation, especially in those parts of the press that, thanks to Miliband's stance on media regulation, are determined to keep him out of No 10. Both the Trident and ex-girlfriends stories smack of Tory operatives frantically stabbing at the old buttons and pulling at the familiar levers, only to find they no longer work.

Lynton Crosby has, by all accounts, delayed his deadline. He now says the key moment will come in the final week. Not because that will bring some game-changing TV appearance orpolicy announcement. It will simply be the imminence of polling day. "The clarifying moment is the fact that you're about to vote," says Rick Nye, director of the Populus polling organisation.

The Tories are betting everything on the voluminous evidence that the sound and fury of an election campaign rarely matters, that when voters take a hard look – at the economy and at Ed Miliband – on 7 May, just enough of them will switch, giving the Conservatives those three or four extra percentage points they need. If they are right, this year's wobbly Thursday will soon be a forgotten footnote. If they're wrong, it may well be remembered as the turning point.

QuoteIs the stab in the back attack on Ed Miliband anti-Semitic?
Michael Fallon's broadside at Ed Miliband yesterday has sparked accusations of anti-Semitism. But the reality is more mundane - and better news for Labour, too
BY STEPHEN BUSH PUBLISHED 10 APRIL, 2015 - 08:00
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F02902%2Fed-miliband_2902852b.jpg&hash=67b0138c13edefdd9e4d2434dced78c48e422bcd)
A weak, ruthless, surrender-minded, sex god? Photo:Getty


Michael Fallon's attack on Ed Miliband yesterday has raised eyebrows  - the Labour leader, we are told is too weak to keep Trident while also being a fiendish backstabber who betrayed his own brother.

It's that latter accusation that has got the Defence Secretary in hot water, with some commentators suggesting it echoes the "stab in the back" myth that was popular in far-right circles in inter-war Germany. Various internal enemies - Communists, Jews, and the politicians of the Weimar Republic -were held to have secretly undermined the German war effort in the First World War to further their own ends.

But was it a deliberate slur? Frankly, as dog whistles go, it seems unlikely that anyone in CCHQ thinks there's any mileage in targeting the historically well-informed and anti-Semitic voting bloc. It's somewhat grating, too, to see people who were willing to share a platform with Ken Livingstone in 2012 suddenly developing bat-like hearing as far as  anti-Semitic code words as concerned.   Certainly there is a cross-party problem with the lazy evocation of North London in British politics, although that's as much an attack on Emily Thornberry and Tony Blair as it is on Miliband.

What really lay behind the intervention was the attempt to pull together the two biggest alarm bells that voters raise in focus groups and on the doorstep about Miliband - that they don't trust him in a room with Putin and that he ran against his brother for the leadership. But the problem for Fallon - and the overall Conservative campaign - is that, increasingly, it appears as if a message that polls well in its constituent parts doesn't hang together very well. Like Nutella and smoked salmon, everyone likes them, but no-one wants to eat them together.

It comes back to the fear that some Conservatives are starting to raise about Lynton Crosby - namely, that his approach has only worked in national elections in Australia, where everyone has to vote, so candidates can focus on driving up their opponents' negatives rather than coming up with a persuasive reason to get them to the polling station. One parliamentary candidate says of their patch: "If everyone I spoke to were marched to the polling station, I'd win. There is still a hatred of Miliband in the country at large. But what are we offering to get our vote out?"

It all feels uncomfortably like Better Together's "Leave and we'll kill you" approach to the Scottish referendum - but with the added worry for the Conservatives that people liked the Union to begin with. They have no such cushion.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 10, 2015, 04:44:06 PM
Worst recession?  I thought the UK economy was cruising.

QuoteI kinda feel sorry for David Cameron. He seems like a genuinely decent person.

Quote from: Zanza on April 07, 2015, 01:01:25 PM
The man of the people eats a hotdog with spoon and fork:  :bowler:

Quote from: alfred russel on April 10, 2015, 04:52:39 PM

It is such a no win situation. Eating a hotdog like a normal person will live on the internet forever with a thousand spoofs.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 10, 2015, 04:41:29 PM
My flatmates have cooked for some colleagues and there is a Tory in my house :bleeding: :ultra:

Quote from: PJL on April 10, 2015, 05:42:22 PM
David Cameron made another foodie faux pas today, he messed up how Devonians & Cornish do their scones. He thought the Devonians put jam and then cream on them, while in fact in was the opposite (Cornish) method:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32258235

QuoteRed Ed's VERY tangled love life: Miliband's wife tells of fury after meeting 'unattached' Ed, only to learn he was seeing Newsnight's Stephanie - just one of a number of relationships he had with women from same clique
Justine Miliband reveals how she met future Labour leader at dinner party
But she was 'furious' when she discovered he was dating the party hostess
Mr Miliband was at the time seeing Newsnight editor Stephanie Flanders
She was just a number of women he dated from the same privileged clique
By ANDREW PIERCE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 23:01, 9 April 2015 | UPDATED: 00:31, 10 April 2015

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2015%2F04%2F09%2F22%2F2769290B00000578-0-image-m-3_1428614807363.jpg&hash=031302f82b0c93444d4c2571632f342b6dbc07bb)
Ed and Justine Miliband first met at a dinner party, hosted by the woman he was 'secretly' dating

Relish the scene. A dinner party in West London. The hostess: Stephanie Flanders, the glamorous then economics editor of BBC2's Newsnight. The guests: young barristers and would-be politicians.

Central to the party that night back in March 2004 was Flanders' boyfriend, Labour rising star Ed Miliband. At the time, he was chief economics adviser to the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Miliband had been back in Britain for two months after a brief spell as a lecturer at Harvard University in the U.S. Ever the policy nerd, the son of a Marxist professor waxed lyrical about economic theory.

As he held court, a young woman called Justine Thornton, who was sitting across the table and whom he had never met before, became transfixed.

A clever young environmental lawyer, she had been invited by Stephanie — the brilliant daughter of Michael Flanders, of the Fifties and Sixties musical comedy duo Flanders & Swann.

Yesterday, Justine recalled in a red-top newspaper: 'I thought he was good-looking and clever and seemed to be unattached. But we just went down a conversation cul-de-sac. Apparently we had nothing in common.

'He just wanted to talk about economics — one of my least favourite subjects. None of our conversations went anywhere.'

Mrs Miliband said that she was 'furious' when — far from being 'unattached' — she found out that he was 'secretly going out with' the woman who had invited her for dinner.

Fast-forward more than 11 years and the Milibands have since had two children, married and believe they are less than a month away from moving house with their family to No 10 Downing Street.

But the story of the pair's first meeting offers a fascinating insight into the somewhat caddish character of the Labour Leader.

For, not only did he knife his elder brother in the back by ending his dream of getting the Labour leadership by standing against him (contrary to the wishes of their mother), but he met his future wife Justine (albeit unwittingly) at that dinner party hosted by his then girlfriend.

The story emerged yesterday when Mrs Miliband gave an interview to the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror. Clearly she was guided by Labour spin doctors, who wanted to give the impression to voters that her husband was a touchy-feely human being, rather than the soulless nerd that his awkward image conveys on TV. The simpering headline of the article ran: 'Ed bandaged me up after I was bitten by a Doberman . . . and I fell in love.'

Justine told how, during the 2005 election campaign, Ed had come to her rescue after she was bitten by the dog.

It happened when they were putting leaflets through letter-boxes in houses in Runcorn, Cheshire. 'Ed bandaged me and I fell in love with him,' said Justine.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2015%2F04%2F09%2F22%2F2768D2DD00000578-0-image-a-10_1428614975470.jpg&hash=beefbc83da381dc4652fd29d70ff0034053009bc)
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2015%2F04%2F09%2F22%2F2768ECD100000578-0-image-m-9_1428614968631.jpg&hash=39dd8c24aacd7665011cf12b139a31dae89542d8)
Former partners of Mr Miliband include Juliet Soskice (left) and fellow political aide Liz Lloyd (right)

After their first meeting at that 2004 dinner party, it was at least a year before they started dating. Justine's recollection isn't, though, the first public airing of her love story with Ed.

In the biography of the Labour leader, titled Ed: The Milibands And The Making Of A Labour Leader, an associate is quoted as saying: 'Although she was struck by his eyes — wide and brown and fixed on their subject — a friend remembers her undoubted excitement after meeting Ed as: 'Gosh, how fascinating, he's really clever', rather than: 'Gosh, how handsome'.' Perhaps glossing over what may be seen as such caddish behaviour, the Daily Mirror omitted to say that the dinner's hostess, Stephanie Flanders (who later left the BBC for a £400,000-a-year job at a bank in the City), was Ed's then girlfriend.

It was left to Tony Blair's biographer John Rentoul to let the cat out of the bag after reading the Mirror story, when he tweeted: 'Justine on clandestine Ed. Why has Mirror not named the host of that dinner? It was Stephanie Flanders.'

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2015%2F04%2F09%2F22%2F0092640300000514-0-image-m-14_1428616082199.jpg&hash=0ac6c3e0f60e2d5cf07f98476c1047e8f6040afe)
Stephanie Flanders (pictured), a former girlfriend of Mr Miliband, hosted the dinner party where he first met his future wife

Considering that she, at the time, was economics editor of BBC-TV's flagship Newsnight, Rentoul added: 'Could the secrecy have been because he was a Treasury special adviser and Stephanie Flanders was a BBC economics journalist?'

What's more, there is another intriguing twist to this story of high politics and high economics.

For two years ago, Ed Miliband ungallantly blurted out, during an interview with a celebrity magazine, that not only had he romanced Stephanie but that his close Labour colleague and Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, had had a relationship with her, too.

Miliband said: 'We did both date her but there was a long time apart between me and Ed. Stephanie and I don't have any problems running into each other now.'

For her part, Stephanie had no forewarning of Miliband's revelation and restricted her response to curtly dismissing her relationship with him as having been 'very brief and a very long time ago'.

However, her relationship with Balls, a decade earlier, was more serious. They met in 1989 at Harvard University, where they were both Kennedy scholars after having graduated from Oxford University.

It was while they were working at the Financial Times as leader writers that their friendship blossomed into a serious relationship.

The way these relationships intertwined also highlights the deeply incestuous and narrow world of the Labour high command. For it wasn't just Miliband and Balls, but others, too, who had close personal relationships.

Of course, Balls is now married to fellow Shadow Cabinet Minister Yvette Cooper. All four studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Oxford University.
Cooper and Flanders were tutorial partners and Kennedy scholars at Harvard. Miliband also studied at Harvard.

Cooper once shared a house with Miliband (who apparently had a few other girlfriends). And she met Balls when they both worked at the FT.

But back to Ed Miliband's tangled love-life. For several years in the mid-1990s, when he was working as an adviser to the then-Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown, he went out with fellow political aide, Liz Lloyd (a Cambridge graduate).

She worked for a time for Tony Blair, who described her in his memoirs as 'an English rose, intellectually able and blue stocking or red stocking according to the occasion'.

In the summer of 1995, she and Miliband went on holiday to the south of France. They stayed in the family home of one of Miliband's first girlfriends, Juliet Soskice (the daughter of an LSE political economist and who went on to marry the late tycoon Andrew Rosenfeld, who gave £1 million to the Labour Party).

At the time, Juliet was dating the Blairite journalist Phil Collins (who went on to write speeches for Blair). It was clearly a busman's holiday, as much of the discussion among the group was about the national minimum wage which was a New Labour policy.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2015%2F04%2F09%2F22%2F2769291600000578-0-image-a-11_1428614983783.jpg&hash=c57ca72ae3a01769b75adaadce47ee00680c47e7)
After breaking up with Liz Lloyd, Mr Miliband had a brief relationship with the journalist Alice Miles (pictured)

'We discussed it like we were in a Fabian Society seminar,' recalled Collins. 'I remember being in the kitchen and listening to Ed having a conversation about it in real detail.'

Miliband's relationship with Lloyd continued when Blair became PM. Her job at No 10 meant she sat next to her lover's elder brother David Miliband, who was a key figure in the Downing Street policy unit.

After breaking up with Lloyd, Ed Miliband had a brief relationship with the journalist Alice Miles, who then worked for The Times. Ms Miles, who some years later became a single parent, also had a fling with her then coke-snorting Times colleague Tom Baldwin, who is now Miliband's chief spin doctor.

What a deliciously small and privileged world! One that is a million miles from the lives of millions of ordinary voters.

And so back to Red Ed and Justine.

The next time they met after his questionable behaviour at his then girlfriend Stephanie Flanders' dinner party was in the months leading up to him becoming an MP. Later, she helped campaign for him in Doncaster during the 2005 election by moving chairs around for a public meeting.

Some months after, Justine planned a holiday with a woman barrister friend, Quincy Whitaker, to Libya to see the Roman ruins. However, after it was booked, Justine said she wanted to go, instead, with Ed Miliband.

Their relationship had consolidated further by the time Miliband was appointed Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the Brown government. Not only had their personal lives meshed, but their professional ones, too, as Justine (who was a member of the Labour Party) had written a book on the environment.

A few years later they had the first of their two children — and then decided to get married (in May 2011).

This week, by happily putting the spotlight on her husband's past love affairs, Justine must be hoping that the result will be to portray him as a dashing romantic figure.

However, many voters — particularly women — may see him in a less attractive light.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2015, 04:38:10 PM
A Tory MP quoted as saying 'we're not in the panic room yet. We're in the waiting room to the panic room.' :lol:

Meanwhile the Tories, needing to broaden their appeal, are today mainly focusing on raising the inheritance tax threshold to a million :blink:

QuoteI think I'm at the "shrug" stage now...after all, in the last few days we've had the Lib Dems saying that they'll loan 18-30 year olds up to £2000, repayable over 2 years, for a deposit for renting a flat so that they can "move out of home" (if an 18-30 year old can't save up enough for a deposit of that level what makes the Lib Dems' think that they'll be able to repay such a loan?) :rolleyes:

QuoteAnd Labour saying that they'll provide "one to one" Midwife care from Labour to birth; the first reaction I had was where are these midwives coming from? The first reaction of a family member was "so, they're not going to be allowed a toilet break then?" :D

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 11, 2015, 07:08:06 PM
I think that's a decent idea. In fairness I've had situations where the landlord has decided to kick us out to renovate the place or announced that the rent would be increasing by 50% if we extend the tenancy. So before I get my old deposit back I've got to get together £1200 for the next place. Normally I've had to borrow the money from my mum and dad. I'd probably be okay now with overdrafts etc but it can be a problem.

Quote from: Agelastus on April 11, 2015, 05:42:22 PM
at they'll provide "one to one" Midwife care from Labour to birth; the first reaction I had was where are these midwives coming from? The first reaction of a family member was "so, they're not going to be allowed a toilet break then?" :D

Quote from: Agelastus on April 12, 2015, 03:10:26 AM
But you wouldn't be eligible for the loan anyway, Sheilbh - not in the situation described. This is supposed to be available for people leaving the parental home for the first time, not moving between rental flats.

QuoteNot that raising the Inheritance Tax threshold isn't such a bad idea - disregarding than the fact that I think it should be abolished it was allowed to sit at a level that that wasn't adjusted for inflation for far too many years. Doing it as an election pledge rather than a budget measure, however...:bleeding:

QuoteSturgeon vs Murphy vs Davidson is the best show in British politics
82 comments 9 April 2015 18:09Alex Massie 

Right now, you know, Nicola Sturgeon vs Jim Murphy vs Ruth Davidson is the best show in British politics. It really is. Better, for sure, than David Cameron vs Ed Miliband vs Nick Clegg.

The three Scottish leaders are each substantial – and likeable – figures in their own right but it also helps that the question of Scotland is a large and important issue upon which there is mighty disagreement. That makes for a heftier, more passionate, kind of politics. The future matters and is, depending upon our choices, very different. It is more than just a managerial process.

This week's two Scottish debates confirmed all this. They were, as Fraser says, proper politics. There is a thirst for argument up here and a welcome for the rough-and-tumble too. The future of the country really is at stake and so too, for that matter, the kind of country we wish to be.

All three leaders have reason to be happy with their work this week. Ruth Davidson's blue-collar Conservatism is the party's best look (it is hard to imagine Ruth instinctively pandering to non-doms, for instance) and she gave a fine account of herself this week. I thought she "won" Tuesday's debate.

Jim Murphy also had a good week. He was, on balance, the most impressive performer last night. Sure, his manner and persona annoys some people and he occasionally has the look of a manic pterodactyl but, at this stage of Operation Salvage Something, everything and anything is fair game for Labour. This is no time to be worried about delicacies; it is time to get stuck in. That necessarily means making some outlandish claims but Labour desperately need what the SNP once spent years craving: attention and relevance. Murphy achieved something on both fronts this week.

As for Nicola Sturgeon, well, the only way was down following her triumphant appearance at the UK leaders' debate in Manchester. That was a turkey shoot; this week she was the hunted, not the hunter. Even so and even though I don't think she "won" either contest it's not as though she was badly beaten either. She retains first mover advantage. She is still the alternative to a "Westminster system" with which many voters are thoroughly scunnered.

Nevertheless, Labour have reason to be grateful this morning that Ms Sturgeon pledged last night that her MPs would press for "full fiscal autonomy" in the next parliament. At last, you see, Labour have an issue they believe can cut through with voters. An issue that means more than flags and identity and everything else.

In one sense Sturgeon's remarks were hardly a surprising revelation. Full fiscal autonomy is, after all, the SNP's preferred policy. 'Politician confirms policy' is not a shocking development.

And yet FFA is also a ticklish problem for the SNP. It shifts the Scottish debate away from identity and aspiration to cold, hard, economics. It moves the argument, therefore, from an area of SNP strength to an area of relative weakness. It was, more than anything else, doubts about numbers and, consequently, fear of 'uncertainty' that dashed Yes hopes last September.

It is true that, as the SNP suggests, moving to FFA would take some years (though how, in that case, they thought the UK could be unraveled in a mere 18 months is, well, something else). But it's also true that it hands Labour their best opportunity yet.

Not because Scotland is too poor to manage its affairs or because FFA is self-evidently daft but because, in the short-to-medium term, FFA must at some point require considerable tax increases, large spending cuts or, most probably, some combination of the two.

At present, you see and as the Institute of Fiscal Studies has helpfully clarified, Scotland receives around £7.6bn a year more in UK spending than she contributes in UK revenue. She is, as the SNP always argue, a larger than average contributor but also, as they generally neglect to point out, a larger than average recipient of UK spending. (London is also in this situation though London contributes more per capita than she receives.)

No matter how you slice and dice this and no matter what kind of timetable you put on it this is a gap that is more than just technical. (A reminder for slow learners: £1200 is a larger number than £400.) It would have to be closed at some point.

Now you can argue that lower public spending in Scotland would be no bad thing. I have no ideological objection to that. But this is not, it must be said, a popular position in the present political climate. Nor is there any great Caledonian thirst for higher taxes.

Perhaps this would change though, frankly, I doubt it. Independence within the UK – which is more or less what FFA amounts to – comes with certain disagreeable costs. About seven billion of them, at the moment. (Recovering oil prices would help offset this difficulty but they can only take you so far.)

So this is why Labour are in a moderately chipper humour today. They believe the SNP have committed themselves to £7bn of spending cuts or tax increases or both. That's a number we will now hear every day from every Scottish Labour politician. Never mind Tory austerity; think about SNP austerity.

That's a message they think will cut through on the fabled doorsteps of ordinary working families all across Scotland. And perhaps it will. It's certainly the best piece of news Labour have had in a long, long time.

And while it remains the case that Labour are the underpuppy in this fight even a modest advance in the polls might produce a significant improvement in their final result. 35 percent of the vote gives Labour an even-money chance of being the largest Scottish party after the election. (True, this would still be a disastrous result but, hey, it's better than annihilation.)

Labour believes FFA is one of those notions that polls better in the abstract than it does when the detail is explained to voters. It is true that surveys routinely report Scots want control of taxation and welfare; it is also true that those same surveys generally report that Scots want taxation and welfare to be uniform across the United Kingdom.

In which circumstances, it may be that the only thing worse than frustrating the aspirations of the Scottish people is giving them what they want.

Then again, the only people who can give the SNP what they say they want – full fiscal autonomy – are the Conservatives and the SNP say they would never do any kind of deal with the Tories. Even if the Tories were to offer the SNP what they say they want. (They might not make any such offer. That's not the point.) And as you savour that, remember that the nationalists will do a deal – albeit an unofficial, on the QT, kind of arrangement – with the party that will offer them nothing.

The game is complex and sometimes it makes no sense but, my, it's a braw game nonetheless. All this skirmishing, mind you, is still only the first part of the first-half. The final whistle won't sound until May 2016 after next year's Scottish parliamentary elections...

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 12, 2015, 07:19:36 AM

Quote from: Agelastus on April 12, 2015, 03:10:26 AM
But you wouldn't be eligible for the loan anyway, Sheilbh - not in the situation described. This is supposed to be available for people leaving the parental home for the first time, not moving between rental flats.

True. But I would have been eligible for my first flat when I'd graduated which I had to borrow the deposit for - I think both of my flatmates at the time were also borrowing money from their parents for it.

I'd decided there were minimal jobs, especially for someone who can't drive, in rural Dorset so I'd be better off in London. Worked out in the end but I needed help to get out.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 10, 2015, 04:41:29 PM

QuoteIs the stab in the back attack on Ed Miliband anti-Semitic?
Michael Fallon's broadside at Ed Miliband yesterday has sparked accusations of anti-Semitism. But the reality is more mundane - and better news for Labour, too
BY STEPHEN BUSH PUBLISHED 10 APRIL, 2015 - 08:00
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F02902%2Fed-miliband_2902852b.jpg&hash=67b0138c13edefdd9e4d2434dced78c48e422bcd)
A weak, ruthless, surrender-minded, sex god? Photo:Getty


Michael Fallon's attack on Ed Miliband yesterday has raised eyebrows  - the Labour leader, we are told is too weak to keep Trident while also being a fiendish backstabber who betrayed his own brother.

It's that latter accusation that has got the Defence Secretary in hot water, with some commentators suggesting it echoes the "stab in the back" myth that was popular in far-right circles in inter-war Germany. Various internal enemies - Communists, Jews, and the politicians of the Weimar Republic -were held to have secretly undermined the German war effort in the First World War to further their own ends.

But was it a deliberate slur? Frankly, as dog whistles go, it seems unlikely that anyone in CCHQ thinks there's any mileage in targeting the historically well-informed and anti-Semitic voting bloc. It's somewhat grating, too, to see people who were willing to share a platform with Ken Livingstone in 2012 suddenly developing bat-like hearing as far as  anti-Semitic code words as concerned.   Certainly there is a cross-party problem with the lazy evocation of North London in British politics, although that's as much an attack on Emily Thornberry and Tony Blair as it is on Miliband.

Quote from: grumbler on April 12, 2015, 12:37:53 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 10, 2015, 04:41:29 PM

QuoteIs the stab in the back attack on Ed Miliband anti-Semitic?
Michael Fallon's broadside at Ed Miliband yesterday has sparked accusations of anti-Semitism. But the reality is more mundane - and better news for Labour, too
BY STEPHEN BUSH PUBLISHED 10 APRIL, 2015 - 08:00
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.telegraph.co.uk%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F02902%2Fed-miliband_2902852b.jpg&hash=67b0138c13edefdd9e4d2434dced78c48e422bcd)
A weak, ruthless, surrender-minded, sex god? Photo:Getty


Michael Fallon's attack on Ed Miliband yesterday has raised eyebrows  - the Labour leader, we are told is too weak to keep Trident while also being a fiendish backstabber who betrayed his own brother.

It's that latter accusation that has got the Defence Secretary in hot water, with some commentators suggesting it echoes the "stab in the back" myth that was popular in far-right circles in inter-war Germany. Various internal enemies - Communists, Jews, and the politicians of the Weimar Republic -were held to have secretly undermined the German war effort in the First World War to further their own ends.

But was it a deliberate slur? Frankly, as dog whistles go, it seems unlikely that anyone in CCHQ thinks there's any mileage in targeting the historically well-informed and anti-Semitic voting bloc. It's somewhat grating, too, to see people who were willing to share a platform with Ken Livingstone in 2012 suddenly developing bat-like hearing as far as  anti-Semitic code words as concerned.   Certainly there is a cross-party problem with the lazy evocation of North London in British politics, although that's as much an attack on Emily Thornberry and Tony Blair as it is on Miliband.

I am confused.  How could anyone think "back stabber" is anti-Semitic?  I mean, I suppose that some Germans have used the term, but so have a lot of Jews.  Are all of those Jews anti-Semitic too?

Quote from: grumbler on April 12, 2015, 12:37:53 PM
I am confused.  How could anyone think "back stabber" is anti-Semitic?  I mean, I suppose that some Germans have used the term, but so have a lot of Jews.  Are all of those Jews anti-Semitic too?

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 10, 2015, 04:56:25 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on April 10, 2015, 04:52:39 PM

It is such a no win situation. Eating a hotdog like a normal person will live on the internet forever with a thousand spoofs.

Yeah. I do feel sorry for these politicians. It's like they're caught in between the generation of rigorously controlled spin and messaging and the politicians of the future who will have thousands of horrifyingly embarrassing photos on Facebook and deeply idiotic tweets (assuming we don't only elect sociopaths who've only ever wanted to be PM).

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 13, 2015, 06:47:44 AM
Apparently Labour's manifesto launch is going well. Given that their last one involved a literal car crash, that's probably not saying much.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2015, 03:24:07 PM
God help anyone who cares about defence or foreign policy (except Europe) in this election :bleeding:
:weep:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2015, 03:24:07 PM
God help anyone who cares about defence or foreign policy (except Europe) in this election :bleeding:
:weep:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2015, 03:24:07 PM
God help anyone who cares about defence or foreign policy (except Europe) in this election :bleeding:
:weep:

Quote from: The Larch on April 15, 2015, 03:38:53 PM
UK being unecessarily hostile to Russia over Ukraine.

Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2015, 03:41:45 PM

Quote from: The Larch on April 15, 2015, 03:38:53 PM
UK being unecessarily hostile to Russia over Ukraine.

:bleeding:

Quote from: Tamas on April 15, 2015, 03:45:57 PM
Don't they receive funding from Russia?

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2015, 03:24:07 PM
God help anyone who cares about defence or foreign policy (except Europe) in this election :bleeding:
:weep:

Quote from: Tamas on April 15, 2015, 03:45:57 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2015, 03:41:45 PM

Quote from: The Larch on April 15, 2015, 03:38:53 PM
UK being unecessarily hostile to Russia over Ukraine.

:bleeding:

Don't they receive funding from Russia?

Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2015, 05:54:35 PM
They are going to have post offices sell milk? Well I hope that is soy milk at least Green Party!

Quote from: garbon on April 17, 2015, 03:35:20 PM

Quote from: Valmy on April 15, 2015, 05:54:35 PM
They are going to have post offices sell milk? Well I hope that is soy milk at least Green Party!

The Post Office nearest to my work looks like half mini-mart, half mailboxes etc.

Quote from: Tyr on April 16, 2015, 02:35:54 PM
Farage is doing simply excellent in this debate :lol:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 17, 2015, 03:49:37 PM

Edit: Also just saw a story that the Coalition for Marriage is distributing leaflets informing constituents that Caroline Lucas voted for gay marriage. Which is bound to work in Brighton :blink: :lol:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 15, 2015, 04:22:59 PM
Also the Tory party has controversially followed the CCP with their manifesto, which is based on the idea 'we have a plan for every stage of your life'.

And everyone's having fun with this excerpt from the Green party manifesto:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCjqfToWYAANRL2.png)

Edit: Incidentally I'm increasingly convinced that, like Scotland, the whole country's just going fucking mad :bleeding: :blink:

QuoteFive rules of politics that Nicola Sturgeon has broken
465 comments 20 April 2015 12:39Fraser Nelson 
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F04%2F124.jpg&hash=cd3036d9b4ee33e624d1b31a1e66cacaa3f43960)
Doesn't she know you aren't meant to talk to grassroots activists? (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

Nicola Sturgeon met my Auntie Patsy over the weekend, then was kind enough to tweet a picture of their encounter (below). Seeing her sandwiched between the two people most likely to break up the union was odd, but so was discovering that many members of my extended family are now voting SNP. Aunt Patsy is, I'm afraid, a typical example: like 1 in 50 Scots she has joined the SNP in the last seven months. She wasn't really into politics until recently, but has caught the bug (there is a lot of it about in Scotland).

It got me thinking: what are the odds on a party leader bumping into random voters in England? The campaign is being fought differently up there. Sturgeon is creating panic and disorder through her failure to understand the basic rules of politics:

1. Don't try to recruit actual members. The age of mass membership of political parties is dead. If she were a proper politician, she'd content herself with plunging membership – knowing that this was a sign of modernity, rather than a party being hollowed out. Nowadays, as any PPE graduate knows, people are too busy/content to actually join parties. Her failure to understand this basic lesson of modern politics has seen the SNP membership quadruple since the referendum, causing all of this havoc.
2. Don't bother with genuine rallies and meetings – town-hall politics belongs in the last century. In the digital age, people just like to follow party leaders on Twitter – not actually see them speak. Or attend rallies. Sturgeon only encountered my aunt because of her ignorance of the basic rule of politics: never meet the actual voters, or you could end up with a Gillian Duffy moment. All you need to do is bus a few activists into cowsheds – get enough placard-holders for a backdrop for the cameras, job done. That's how modern politics is carried out: not on soapboxes, showing passion, selling out the SECC and town-hall meetings across the country. Sturgeon has so much to learn.
3. Treat grassroot party members as you would embarrassing relatives: they are the old guard, nutjobs, a liability. As everyone knows, parties expand their support by giving the impression that even you dislike your party supporters. Sure, that annoys existing members but, hey, who else are they going to vote for? And it's not as if they'll refuse to campaign for you when the election comes. Word-of-mouth politics (i.e., enthused supporters persuading workmates and neighbours to vote for you) died with the invention of 3G. Now, all you need is the press. Voters are imbeciles, who believe whatever they read. Hence the importance of spin: you control the press, who in turn control the voters. A tame columnist is worth a hundred constituency associations.
4. Run a ruthlessly narrow campaign: technology allows you to ignore most voters. Most elections are decided by about 30,000 swing voters in swing seats – and nowadays there are clever computers which can tell you where these voters live. Focus groups then help you identify the trigger messages which will change the mind of your handful of target voters. So you don't need to fight a national campaign, or pitch to a whole country. Just aim your campaign at a narrow number of people who will be decisive. It's embarrassing seeing Sturgeon adopt a scattergun approach, pitching her party at rural and urban, Highland and central belt.  If the SNP could afford the right American consultant, she could take the 21st century approach to campaigning: just junk mail a few thousand voters and be done with it. Campaign sorted!
5. Bring out the bludgeon: negative campaigning wins elections. She's talking and behaving like an amateur, trying to capture voters' imagination with uplifting messages about what Scotland can become. In fact, study after study shows the most effective message is: 'Vote for me, because the other guy is even worse!'. So you spend the campaign not selling your own message, but attacking your opponents. Negativity wins. Has no one told Sturgeon?

Nicola Sturgeon is fighting this election using tactics that belong in the 1970s, tactics being used by no other party. Not only is this hugely un-modern but it is causing chaos. So she bears a huge personal responsibility for the uncertainty that may follow after the general election.

Quote from: Valmy on April 20, 2015, 04:03:52 PM
Just tax the rich?

Man Communists have gotten soft these days.

'Unite workers! We shall tax those who own the means of production!'

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 20, 2015, 04:29:26 PM
Also interesting, from the Spectator:

QuoteFive rules of politics that Nicola Sturgeon has broken
465 comments 20 April 2015 12:39Fraser Nelson 
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F04%2F124.jpg&hash=cd3036d9b4ee33e624d1b31a1e66cacaa3f43960)
Doesn't she know you aren't meant to talk to grassroots activists? (Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

Nicola Sturgeon met my Auntie Patsy over the weekend, then was kind enough to tweet a picture of their encounter (below). Seeing her sandwiched between the two people most likely to break up the union was odd, but so was discovering that many members of my extended family are now voting SNP. Aunt Patsy is, I'm afraid, a typical example: like 1 in 50 Scots she has joined the SNP in the last seven months. She wasn't really into politics until recently, but has caught the bug (there is a lot of it about in Scotland).

It got me thinking: what are the odds on a party leader bumping into random voters in England? The campaign is being fought differently up there. Sturgeon is creating panic and disorder through her failure to understand the basic rules of politics:

1. Don't try to recruit actual members. The age of mass membership of political parties is dead. If she were a proper politician, she'd content herself with plunging membership – knowing that this was a sign of modernity, rather than a party being hollowed out. Nowadays, as any PPE graduate knows, people are too busy/content to actually join parties. Her failure to understand this basic lesson of modern politics has seen the SNP membership quadruple since the referendum, causing all of this havoc.
2. Don't bother with genuine rallies and meetings – town-hall politics belongs in the last century. In the digital age, people just like to follow party leaders on Twitter – not actually see them speak. Or attend rallies. Sturgeon only encountered my aunt because of her ignorance of the basic rule of politics: never meet the actual voters, or you could end up with a Gillian Duffy moment. All you need to do is bus a few activists into cowsheds – get enough placard-holders for a backdrop for the cameras, job done. That's how modern politics is carried out: not on soapboxes, showing passion, selling out the SECC and town-hall meetings across the country. Sturgeon has so much to learn.
3. Treat grassroot party members as you would embarrassing relatives: they are the old guard, nutjobs, a liability. As everyone knows, parties expand their support by giving the impression that even you dislike your party supporters. Sure, that annoys existing members but, hey, who else are they going to vote for? And it's not as if they'll refuse to campaign for you when the election comes. Word-of-mouth politics (i.e., enthused supporters persuading workmates and neighbours to vote for you) died with the invention of 3G. Now, all you need is the press. Voters are imbeciles, who believe whatever they read. Hence the importance of spin: you control the press, who in turn control the voters. A tame columnist is worth a hundred constituency associations.
4. Run a ruthlessly narrow campaign: technology allows you to ignore most voters. Most elections are decided by about 30,000 swing voters in swing seats – and nowadays there are clever computers which can tell you where these voters live. Focus groups then help you identify the trigger messages which will change the mind of your handful of target voters. So you don't need to fight a national campaign, or pitch to a whole country. Just aim your campaign at a narrow number of people who will be decisive. It's embarrassing seeing Sturgeon adopt a scattergun approach, pitching her party at rural and urban, Highland and central belt.  If the SNP could afford the right American consultant, she could take the 21st century approach to campaigning: just junk mail a few thousand voters and be done with it. Campaign sorted!
5. Bring out the bludgeon: negative campaigning wins elections. She's talking and behaving like an amateur, trying to capture voters' imagination with uplifting messages about what Scotland can become. In fact, study after study shows the most effective message is: 'Vote for me, because the other guy is even worse!'. So you spend the campaign not selling your own message, but attacking your opponents. Negativity wins. Has no one told Sturgeon?

Nicola Sturgeon is fighting this election using tactics that belong in the 1970s, tactics being used by no other party. Not only is this hugely un-modern but it is causing chaos. So she bears a huge personal responsibility for the uncertainty that may follow after the general election.

I've always thought a problem in our politics right now is that all our politicians came up through first the Tory revolutions and then Blairism, but I think voters are now able to actually see through those, at the time, exciting innovations - ruthless spin, clever advertising etc. Perhaps because of the internet. They seem a bit like radio politicians in a TV age.

Maybe Sturgeon's just the first to catch on.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 24, 2015, 03:42:12 AM
I don't think the Telegraph are dealing well:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11558732/Where-should-you-flee-in-the-event-of-a-Labour-SNP-pact.html

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 24, 2015, 06:59:01 AM
Yaaaay! Someone's talking about foreign policy :w00t:

It's Miliband :weep:

Talking :bleeding:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 24, 2015, 06:59:01 AM
Yaaaay! Someone's talking about foreign policy :w00t:

It's Miliband :weep:

Talking :bleeding:

QuoteTo keep Scotland, Britain must embrace the separatists
Jonathan Freedland
Friday 24 April 2015 19.50 BST

Just as actors call Macbeth the Scottish play, so historians will for ever think of 2015 as the Scottish election. Whatever happens on 7 May – whoever ends up limping through the door of 10 Downing Street – the big, enduring fact of 2015 will be the shifting of the tectonic plates now under way in Scotland. It is nothing less than a realignment – and it will last.

As one longstanding Scottish observer puts it, the shift in allegiance from Labour to the Scottish National party is "not cyclical". The pendulum has swung so far, it's snapped off.

For Labour to lose Scotland is like the Tories losing "the home counties", says the former Scottish secretary Malcolm Rifkind. One Labour peer admitted to me this week that he's placed a "cheeky bet" on the Tories emerging with more MPs in Scotland than Labour. That's not a turnaround; that's an earthquake, reshaping the landscape out of all recognition.

Participants and observers are both, blinkingly, trying to adjust their eyes to this new terrain. The appealing, if maverick, view is that the SNP's imminent arrival in Westminster with up to 50 seats – they had just six in the outgoing house – could, paradoxically, see the separatist party embed itself in the union. If the Nats assist Ed Miliband into No 10, they will overnight be "handed a starring role at the very heart of the British state," says the Scotsman columnist Kenny Farquharson. Scottish voters might warm to a Labour-led administration, backed by the SNP. No longer would the nationalists be able to disdain Westminster as a faraway imperial capital oblivious to their concerns. They'd be right in it.

Many of those who want this union of four nations to endure will suspect that's too optimistic. Not because of what they predict will happen after 7 May – but because of what's happened before it. It's everything that's led to this moment that has them fearing for the future of the United Kingdom.

Blame attaches first to the Tories. For one thing, they have repeatedly talked up the SNP, adding to the latter's momentum. Tory grandees sniff at the suggestion, insisting that the Nats didn't need to be bigged up, they've been getting bigger all by themselves. In which case, why was George Osborne's first spin on the seven-way leader's debate – and remember, this is a man who does not choose between jam and marmalade in the morning without thinking through the political implications – praise for the performance of Nicola Sturgeon? The Tories' narrow and obvious calculation is that the SNP takes seats from Labour, so a stronger SNP is better for them.

The Osborne bouquet for Sturgeon was unusual for being so direct. The preferred method has been roundabout, aiming simply at inflaming nationalist sentiment. The bar was set low and early by David Cameron the morning after the independence referendum result. Instead of issuing a 7am message of healing and national reconciliation, he immediately declared that the real issue raised by the democratic renaissance of Scotland was ... England. He implied that there could be no progress, even on honouring the "vow" he had just issued with the other Westminster leaders, until the perennial English question had been solved first.

The sheer speed of the apparent betrayal, the confirmation of the age-old nationalist caricature of unionists – and the English – as perfidious, cast the 55% who had voted no as suckers. Many decided right then that they would not be fooled again. They switched from Labour, who had partnered the Tories in the ill-conceived Better Together alliance, to the SNP. And they have never looked back.

But the insults have continued, amplified in the echo chamber of the Tory-cheering press. Sturgeon has been cast as "the most dangerous woman in Britain", with any suggestion that the SNP might use its democratically won seats in the House of Commons depicted as a "coup". All of this has a twin purpose: to anger Scots by making them feel like strangers in their own country – so pushing them closer to the SNP – and to stir English voters who might fear an SNP tail wagging a governing Labour dog.

The polling suggests there are not many who think that way. Indeed, many non-Scottish voters have been impressed by Sturgeon. But according to YouGov, there is an 8% slice of the electorate "not already voting Tory" who think that a Lab/SNP deal is likely and would be a bad thing, and who would prefer a Tory government. This 8%, many of them flirting with Ukip, is the target audience for those images of Sturgeon mounted on a wrecking ball or playing puppeteer to a marionette Miliband.

You can see the electoral logic clearly enough. But it is a strategy fraught with danger. As several Tory grandees, and other unionists, keep warning, the price for what may bring a narrow advantage over Labour is serious peril for the union. The rise of a party committed to the union's break-up is the least of it.

For the Tory attack both assumes and awakens a mutual loathing between the English and the Scottish. Witness the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine referring to Scots and English northerners as "leeches", or this Times headline: "The example set by Scottish women should embarrass the rest of the UK.")

It rests on the idea that the English cannot stand the prospect of Scots having a say beyond Scotland. Hence the Tories' unprecedented launch today of an English-only manifesto.

In Dead Sheep, a terrific new play about the defenestration of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, we see the former PM refer to Labour not as an opponent but as "the enemy". That is the process now under way against the SNP. It depicts them not as internal adversaries, but as an external threat – as if they have no place inside this country. Labour's insistence that it will do no deal with the SNP, as if they are too toxic to be touched, only reinforces that feeling.

But, comes the reply, the SNP is different. The fact that they want to break up the UK puts them in a separate category. There's some logic to that. But it misses the shift now taking place. If the predicted landslide comes, this will no longer be about the SNP. This will be about Scots and Scotland.

If the electoral map turns yellow on 7 May, then to ostracise the SNP will be to ostracise the Scottish nation that – under our first-past-the-post system – will have given that party an overwhelming mandate. To say Sturgeon's party cannot be a legitimate partner in the governance of the UK will be to say that the Scots are not a legitimate partner in the governance of the UK. And that will be the end of the union.

It's a paradox. The unionist parties will have to work with those who don't believe in the union. But to do otherwise will be to pronounce the union dead.

It means unionists have to start talking about this in a different way. Maybe it was once fine to speak with venom against those who would break up Britain. But now that is heard as venom directed not at the SNP but at the people who are choosing them: Scots.

The tone has to change. Those who believe in the union need to speak respectfully of the choice their fellow citizens are about to make. It doesn't mean they have to agree with it or like it. But the onus now is on unionists to prove the union is a hospitable, inclusive place for Scots – that they are seen not as an enemy within but as equals. If we believe in the union, we have to prove it works.

QuoteReport from Glasgow – a city on the brink of a political earthquake
Jim Pickard    Author alerts
| Apr 24 07:00 | 35 comments | Share

"We can get the Tories out and start delivering fairness in this country," he told her. "Aye," she replied, nodding.

"We won't get fairness while they're still in." Again she replied, smiling: "Aye."

After Mr Bain disappeared up the street she gave her honest opinion. "No, I'm voting SNP. I'm all for independence," she said.

Possilpark is one of the most deprived areas in Glasgow, scarred by the decline of manufacturing since the 1980s: out of 70,000 adults only 28,000 are registered taxpayers. Close to 10,000 are on long-term sickness benefit.

Many of those canvassed by Mr Bain said they were solidly behind Labour. But the former MP is keeping an eye on the bookies' odds, which are getting closer every day.

When Mr Bain – majority 15,942 – cannot take his seat of Glasgow North East for granted, it speaks volumes about the future of the Labour party in the Scottish city.

Out of seven Labour MPs in central Glasgow he may be the only one to survive on May 7.

Frank Burke, who lives on the other side of the city, was among the union members who went out on strike in the 1970s under the leadership of Jimmy Reid at the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.

For decades there was no question that he would vote any other way than for Labour.

But the pensioner is disillusioned:
"Labour are rubbish, they are not left-wing any more, they should nationalise the railways, gas electricity," he told me. "Instead they are full of careerist politicians and they do nothing for people like me."

Some Glaswegians used to deride the Scottish National Party as "Tartan Tories": But the tables have turned. Now there are stickers across the city attacking Labour as "Red Tories".

Glasgow was once a Labour stronghold: it is now a fortress on the brink of conquest by the increasingly popular SNP.

In the Easterhouse estate in east Glasgow– another area of acute deprivation – every person who stopped to talk said they were likely to vote for the nationalists.

They included Graham Epton, a handyman who backed Scottish independence last year: he is now switching his support from Labour to the SNP.

Labour had monopolised votes in Easterhouse because it was for both "the working class and the unemployed", said Mr Epton, chatting outside the Easterhouse Community Health Centre.

He described an area dogged in the past by "umpteen gangs" and endemic knife and drug crime – but with "hundreds of great people" getting by.

"I'm not sure that Labour are working for us any more. I know a lot of people who are definitely voting SNP. A lot of people."

An early summer descended on Glasgow this week but the clouds are gathering for Labour.

Margaret Curran, shadow secretary of state for Scotland, said that only a "fool" would deny that Labour is facing a tough battle in the west coast city.

"There is a definite sense that people want change," she said, talking to journalists after an event at a nursery in Baillieston in Glasgow East.

"They do feel that Westminster has let them down. We need to prove that the best party to produce positive change in the whole country is Labour."

Glasgow East was Ms Curran's seat in the last Parliament: now her majority of 11,840 looks likely to crumble.

It did not look very positive for Ms Curran on the streets of Easterhouse. Ann Monaghan, a cleaner, said that most of her friends and family would vote for the SNP – including herself.
"It's most people now apart from a few diehard Labour people," she said, waiting at a bus stop. Her friend, who did not give her name, is also SNP: "My son is making me," she said.

Someone once told me of Scottish politics: "It's so vicious because the stakes are so low". (The quote was a twist on Henry Kissinger's observation on student politics.)

Today that no longer holds.

Voters in Scotland now hold the key to the result of the general election, deciding the country's political future for the next five years.

The polls are pointing to only one result: a landslide for the Scottish National Party.

There will be seats where Labour clings on: but it will be reduced from its previous tally of 40 MPs to a vastly diminished rump.

And that could decide – on the national canvas – whether Labour wins more seats than the Tories on May 7. It seems increasingly likely that Scotland will be the crucial factor.

The SNP had six MPs in the last Parliament. Now it is set to deliver 30, 40 or even 50 politicians to Westminster.

Labour's biggest losses are expected in the one-time Red stronghold of Glasgow, a concept that some people find mind-boggling, including Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Tory former Scotland secretary. "It is like my party losing the Home Counties," he told me.

Others on the outer fringes of the city are also under severe pressure: including Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire, Douglas Alexander in Paisley and Tom Greatrex in Rutherglen & Hamilton West.

Labour has not lost a seat at a general election in Glasgow for three decades: since 1983.

Political commentators often talk about "big events": the resignation of a cabinet minister, a big Parliamentary defeat, or Mark Reckless winning the by-election in Rochester & Strood.

But it seem likely that Ukip's two by-election victories last autumn will be only a footnote to 2014.

In Scotland – by contrast – it feels as if history is being made.

Polls are just polls, of course. But after four days talking to scores of people around different areas of Glasgow it seems pretty clear. The pollsters are right.

For years many Scots have voted one way for Holyrood elections and another for Westminster elections – delivering a majority to the SNP in Scotland four years ago. The big shift is their willingness to vote for the nationalists in both events.

What no one knows yet is whether a landslide for the SNP will turn out to be a cyclical event or structural.

The Tories thought they would return after being wiped out in Scotland in 1997: that recovery never came. (Although the party had one Tory MP in the last Parliament.)

Instead, the party seems as defunct as the Victorian gravestones in the Necropolis that looms above Glasgow, built by rich merchants in the heyday of the "Second City of the British Empire".

For all their public talk of "confidence" and "resilience" some Labour strategists fear this is not a defeat that they will bounce back from too easily.

For anyone outside Glasgow– which has been a fiefdom of the Labour party for a lifetime – the trend may seem puzzling. The city holds a special place in the history of industrial relations, not least because of the "Red Clyde" workers' demonstrations of the early 20th century.

"If you're from Glasgow you're a socialist," said Stewart O'Neill, a Tory-supporting student. "My preference makes me unusual," he said with considerable under-statement.

But the city was one of the few areas that backed independence in last autumn's referendum: by 194,779 votes to 169,347. (Or 53%:47%).

That sense of longing for "freedom" and "change" has endured: and with it a feeling of having been short-changed by the Westminster parties in the immediate aftermath.

Mr Bain probably articulated it most clearly.
"What we have got here is a hybrid between the basic left-to-right politics you have got in England and the pure identify politics of Northern Ireland," he said. "We are now a mix of the two. That makes it a challenging place electorally. What matters at the moment is how people feel."

The sight of Labour politicians working alongside the widely-hated Tories has been immensely damaging.

John Boyle, one of Scotland's best known entrepreneurs – who provided financial backing to last year's Better Together anti-indepence campaign – still cannot quite believe the polls.

The multi-millionaire former owner of Motherwell FC is astonished by the spike in support for the SNP despite what he calls their "stardust" measures based on a "cloud of economic nonsense."

"Having won the battle, to now lose the war seems extraordinary," he said over a Diet Coke at his house in suburban west Glasgow.

Politicians like to think that the public are hanging on their every word; their promises, their speeches, their manifestos.

That is not the case – even in Scotland, where the level of political engagement is refreshing compared to the widespread apathy in England. (People are talking about politics at home, in the pub, in the workplace.)

Many Glaswegians told me they opposed Westminster-led "austerity" or perhaps the Trident nuclear deterrent: but no one mentioned zero-hours contracts, or the mansion tax, or free schools, or any of the other themes that dominate the English political debate. If anything they wanted Labour to be even more left-wing.

Instead many people described a positive emotional response to the SNP: they believed simply that the party would stick up for them.

This is the message on posters across the City, above a picture of a confident Nicola Sturgeon: "My vow is to make Scotland stronger at Westminster." The SNP manifesto title? "Stronger for Scotland."

It is a simple phrase but it is working.

At dawn, on the slopes of Ben Arthur, in the Trossachs National Park– half an hour north of Glasgow– I encountered climber Euan Ryan, a 20-something SNP supporter.

"A change is needed," said Mr Ryan, who works in the creative industries.

"Things need to be shaken up a bit. I feel I don't have a voice in Parliament at the moment and that is now going to change at last."

The mood is perhaps best summed up by Samantha Morton, who works at a housing association.

She told me: "For the first time ever I think my vote might actually count for something...I feel completely empowered."

At an event at Glasgow University on Tuesday night, former first minister Alex Salmond was given an honorary doctorate. In his acceptance speech he made a direct appeal to the hundreds of academic types sat in front of him and emphasising the SNP's "progressive" ideals.

"Caged rats will choose freedom for other rats over cheese for themselves," he declared, clad in red robes. "If even rats have empathy, so can humans."

Lorna Young, a student at the university, said it was an "excellent" speech.

"The more represented the SNP is at Westminster, the more we will be able to put forward what we want as a country," she said as she left the event. "I just don't think Labour has put up a good fight for Scotland's interests."

The main thrust of Labour's counter-attack is to warn that for every SNP politician sent to Westminster– at its expense – the more likely it will be that the Tories get back into government. And surely voters don't want another Tory government?

That may sound logical. But it smacks of negative campaigning. And it is not cutting through to voters, many of whom believe that most politicians would say anything to get elected, true or otherwise.

Many believe the SNP claims that Labour would carry out "austerity-lite". The Labour argument that it would cut the deficit less painfully than the Tories is not gaining much traction.

Nor is the claim from the IFS – made on Thursday – that the SNP would cut some parts of government even more deeply than Labour.

"I just think it's scare tactics, that's what we had during the referendum campaign," said Ms Monaghan, the cleaner in Easterhouse. "I'm just fed up with it."

Derek Holland, a 45-year old electrician, said he had heard the argument. "But I don't think it will make any difference, Labour won't make a difference."

The SNP is picking up support from those who wanted independence last year – and came tantalisingly close – from other parties.

That alarms some Labour loyalists. "As far as I'm concerned, if you vote SNP you're voting for the break-up of the UK, people need to wake up and realise it's just around the corner," warned John Wall, a 68-year old former union official.

In Possilpark, pensioner Patsy Filligan told Mr Bain that she would never back the nationalist "mob". The last time the SNP knocked on her door she slammed it closed on them, she recalled. "They never came back."

Such views are getting less common, however.

Behind closed doors the morale of Labour activists is hitting new lows with every passing week.

One compared the situation to being a professional sportsman doing the same thing as before – but this time finding it does not work. "Everything we do, everything we say, it just isn't moving the dial," he said mournfully.

Another former MP said he was disillusioned with politics. "I should have stood down last year," he said.

One Labour figure observed that Scotland appeared to be gripped by something akin to the US Tea Party trend.

The Labour brand is in decline – even if it is still nothing like as toxic as that of the Tories.

"Labour used to be the party of the people but they aren't any more," said Mr Holland. "The SNP is the new lot, the way Labour used to be."

Labour candidates are astonished by the speed of the reversal, which has occurred in barely half a year. "Last summer you could get odds of 100:1 on me losing my seat," said one former Glasgow MP, incredulously.

Some fear that the party was damaged by its association with the Tories during the Better Together campaign.

Others within the party point to an organisation hollowed out by decades of complacency.

"I went up to help the campaign last summer and asked who the local organisers were and where I could see their database," said one member of the shadow cabinet. "They didn't have one – because they hadn't needed to do any campaigning for so long."

Jim Murphy, Labour's leader in Scotland, struck an upbeat note as he campaigned on a soap box in Glasgow City Centre on Tuesday morning – a technique he refined during the independence campaign.

Mr Murphy seemed to enjoy taking on SNP hecklers, rolling up his shirt sleeves as he declared that always loathed "bullies" when he was growing up on a Scottish "scheme" – or estate. "You've got to do better next time," he told his tormenters, after drowning them out with his microphone.

But Mr Murphy's machismo belies the fact that he too is in potential trouble. His seat of East Renfrewshire– which he has held for 18 years – is up for grabs, if a poll by Lord Ashcroft is correct.

Mr Murphy appears to have aged rapidly. "He has gone grey in the last five months," said one of his own activists.

Vincent Waters, who is managing the local SNP campaign from a former butchers in Clarkston, said his party had made contact with nearly 10,000 people in the constituency.

"The number of those people who said 'I have voted Labour all my life and I'm going to back you was unbelievable," he said over a cup of tea.

Mr Murphy is not a popular figure in Glasgow, judging by people who spoke to the FT.

Arthur McPhillimy, one of his constituents, said he was "not impressed" by his former MP. "He doesn't strike me as a strong person. He is wishy-washy," the pensioner said.

Others are even more hostile. "I just don't trust him, don't like him, he's a typical politician," said one waitress. "He was really aggressive in the TV debates."

On Ed Miliband the verdict was in a way even more damning: people just weren't interested.

"Weak" was one comment. "Well-meaning" was another. Many people barely had any view on Labour's national leader at all.

Mr Mr Miliband flew into the area on Monday to address trade unionists at their annual conference at Ayr racecourse.

He delivered a passionate speech, citing Keir Hardie – who lived locally – and promised a list of union-friendly policies such as an inquiry into blacklisting.

"His picture hangs on my wall as a constant reminder of all the strength and courage of the people who built this movement," Mr Miliband said.

But the oration was met with a half-hearted standing ovation. Perhaps 30 out of nearly 200 people in the room took to their feet to applaud the Labour leader.

Scotland's union movement, supposedly the backbone of Labour, is deeply divided – with Unite and Unison having refused to campaign against independence last year.

Twenty miles up the road is the gravestone of Keir Hardie himself, although many of the locals in the village of Cumnock seemed unaware.

Local people had only vague opinions – if any about the celebrated Labour stalwart. "Never heard of him," said Angie Dynburn, 19, pushing a pram.

Gillian Davies, 58, said she had never visited the grave despite living in the village.

"The older generation might know about it, but not me, I suppose it might be something they teach in schools?" she said.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 24, 2015, 05:40:44 PM
First TESTS:
https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/
I got 30% each Labour and Lib Dem and 20% each UKIP and Green :lol:
Labour: Crime, Health/NHS, Welfare
Lib Dem: Economy, Environment, Education
Green: Europe, Immigration
UKIP: Foreign Policy/Defence, Democracy

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 24, 2015, 05:40:44 PMAnd:
http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/
Labour: 56
Green: 41
Lib Dem: 28
Tory: 4
UKIP: -39

Quote
David Cameron's own goal

The Conservative prime minister gets confused about which football team he supports

DAVID CAMERON'S inability to remember which football team he claims to support—he said on April 25th he was a West Ham fan, despite having for years claimed to follow a different team in claret-and-blue, Aston Villa —was the most embarrassing gaffe of his career. It made him look foolish. It made him look a fraud. It also stands for how imperfectly the Conservative prime minister has learned the lessons of Tony Blair, his thrice-winning New Labour predecessor, who was a far more accomplished phony football fan.

Mr Blair was not the first Labour Party prime minister to understand the potency of Britain's most popular game. Harold Wilson, a prime minister of the 1960s and 70s, was a Huddersfield Town fan who compared politics and football endlessly. After England won the World Cup in 1966 he quipped that this had only ever happened under a Labour government; he blamed Labour's defeat in the 1970 election on the goal, scored by Gerd Muller for West Germany, that had knocked England out of the World Cup four days before. But if Mr Wilson's flaunting of his passion for the working-man's game grated, no one doubted that his passion was real. Not least, because at this time English football was similarly politicised and left-wing. "The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It's the way I see football, the way I see life," said Bill Shankly, manager of Liverpool Football Club. Brian Clough, another great manager, and socialist, turned down invitations to stand as a Labour MP. But what Mr Wilson gently manipulated, Mr Blair span outrageously.

The further New Labour pivoted towards the middle-class-populated centre ground, the louder its members trumpeted their football love. To be a member of the Labour governments that ran Britain from 1997 to 2010 was, with remarkably few exceptions, to be—or to claim to be—obsessed with the game. Mr Blair, a middle-class, public-schoolboy from Edinburgh, claimed to be a diehard Newcastle United fan. Footage of the Labour leader playing keep-up with Kevin Keegan, a former Newcastle and England great, shortly before he made it to 10 Downing Street, was about the most iconic of his career. His lieutenants were similarly, and in some cases actually, football-mad. Alastair Campbell, Gordon Brown, Ed Balls all talked up their love of the game, in a way that could seem revealingly challenging and self-righteous. To proclaim football love was a palliative for New Labour's junking of the class war. It was a redoubt of the male chauvinism it otherwise frowned on. Ironically, what was meanwhile happening to English football was more indicative of Britain under New Labour. Turbo-charged with satellite television money, the English Premier League grew rapidly, to become the highly commercialised, globalised business it now is, from which traditional working-class British culture has been largely banished.

New Labour was cynical and opportunistic in its football love; at least it had something to say about the main enthusiasm of modern Britain. Most Conservatives seemed uninterested in the game which, by contrast, seemed indicative of their general fogeyishness. According to Mr Campbell, the Tory MP Nicholas Soames proudly advertised the fact that he preferred fox-hunting to football. Mr Cameron, a keen huntsman until hunting was banned in 2005, was probably of the same stable. Addressing the House of Commons in 2001, he said: "Many of those who have spoken in the debate or have written about the subject are either lawyers or football fans, but I have to confess that I am neither". Yet a decade later, the self-declared "heir to Blair" and Tory moderniser was pictured jogging in a customised Aston Villa shirt and declaring himself to be an "ardent fan".

Sham football ardour is now widespread in British politics. (The Labour candidate for Thurrock, Polly Billington, a former spin-doctor, provided a particularly irritating demonstration during last year's World Cup in Brazil. Having feigned umbrage at being disturbed during the England team's group game against Uruguay, she then sent your correspondent a celebratory text after the Uruguayans scored, followed by the inevitable retraction: "Sorry, that wasn't meant for you".) But this doesn't excuse Mr Cameron's bungle. In a speech on multiculturalism, this Villa obsessive trumpeted a Britain:"Where you can support Man Utd, the Windies and Team GB all at the same time. Of course, I'd rather you supported West Ham."

Oh dear. He claimed it was the result of a "brain fade". More likely, he was reading out a badly-prepared speech. Either way, it was the sort of appallingly sloppy error it is impossible to imagine the cynical, but efficient, Mr Blair and his team of New Labour spinners making. Mr Cameron should feel cripplingly embarrassed.

Quote from: Valmy on April 27, 2015, 08:06:02 AM
So long as the SNP sits at Westminster and doesn't go all Sinn Fein on us I don't see why they cannot help form a government. Hell that would probably be the best thing for the Union. Tories are stupid.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 28, 2015, 02:09:17 AM
Apparently Ed's been paying covert visits to Russell Brand, to try and get his endorsement :blink:

I'm increasingly convince British politics is an extremely elaborate sketch.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 27, 2015, 04:14:48 PM
Not unrelatedly, the SNP are now polling at 54% :blink:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 28, 2015, 02:09:17 AM
Apparently Ed's been paying covert visits to Russell Brand, to try and get his endorsement :blink:

Quote from: Valmy on April 28, 2015, 07:27:19 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 27, 2015, 04:14:48 PM
Not unrelatedly, the SNP are now polling at 54% :blink:

In the UK? See maybe they should run candidates in England.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 02:23:11 AM
It is going to be very hard to satirise..................perhaps a show where the actors behave like serious politicians with a coherent set of policies...........not many laughs in that though  :hmm:

Quote from: Valmy on April 28, 2015, 11:34:20 AM
They already tried to reboot it right?

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 28, 2015, 11:37:01 AM

Quote from: Valmy on April 28, 2015, 11:34:20 AM
They already tried to reboot it right?

I don't know.  If they did I messed it. :blush:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 28, 2015, 03:05:03 PM
HKIP! :o

Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2015, 03:11:14 PM
I have no idea why I got that, as I am strongly pro-EU and I want the UK to adopt the Euro immediately  :lol:

Quote from: The Larch on April 28, 2015, 03:22:51 PM

Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2015, 03:11:14 PM
I have no idea why I got that, as I am strongly pro-EU and I want the UK to adopt the Euro immediately  :lol:

Proof that your greedy side is stronger. :contract:

Quote from: Monoriu on April 28, 2015, 03:11:14 PM
I have no idea why I got that, as I am strongly pro-EU and I want the UK to adopt the Euro immediately  :lol:

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 12:30:27 PM
I forget my results but it was Lib Dem followed by the tories with Labour last.

As it happens I'm planning to vote LibDem.

I can't stand the current Labour party. In theory they are supposed to appeal to centrists like me, but they just look like tories with added hypocrisy and a spot of good old left-wing sanctimoniousness to me  :hmm:

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 28, 2015, 04:37:45 PM
Was being in favour of transit and a carbon tax on gas enough to identify me as a Green party supporter?  Is it unusual to support such things in the UK?

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 04:52:44 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 28, 2015, 04:37:45 PM
Was being in favour of transit and a carbon tax on gas enough to identify me as a Green party supporter?  Is it unusual to support such things in the UK?

This may be where the problem lies. There is already a huge tax on petrol (gas) in the UK, so foreigners might be more inclined to tick that box rather than UK residents who are already paying the tax.

The current tax here is 58p per litre (about $1.07 Canadian), according to these fellows http://retail.petro-canada.ca/en/fuelsavings/2139.aspx the average in Canada is around 39 cents per litre.

So, would you want your gas to cost 68 cents per litre more from right now and have an annual inflation+ increase on top of that?

I would as it happens, but then I don't drive  :P

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 05:05:33 PM
@cc

I accidentally understated the tax btw, the 58p is just the fuel duty, there is another 20% VAT on top of that raises another 20-25p or so  :huh:

Physically small country of course, it does make a difference.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 04:52:44 PM


This may be where the problem lies. There is already a huge tax on petrol (gas) in the UK

Quote from: Tyr on April 29, 2015, 11:44:08 AM
A poll in Scotland today had the SNP taking EVERY seat :ph34r:

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 28, 2015, 05:05:33 PM
@cc

I accidentally understated the tax btw, the 58p is just the fuel duty, there is another 20% VAT on top of that raises another 20-25p or so  :huh:

Physically small country of course, it does make a difference.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 29, 2015, 01:24:29 PM
Going to my constituency hustings tomorrow (how pointless) and I'm delighted to discover the Whig candidate will be there.

QuoteRuth Davidson Is Having The Most Fun Election Campaign Ever
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F29%2F9%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr09%2Fenhanced-buzz-26029-1430315025-20.jpg&hash=0f4e37f3dca7563eac5bbc4e78fea809c2c6d425)
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives talks to BuzzFeed News about why politics is more entertaining in Scotland, how she's standing up to homophobic abuse, and her fears about the imminent "SNP tsunami".
posted on April 29, 2015, at 5:47 p.m.
Jamie Ross
BuzzFeed News Reporter

Bombing down the A7 in the Scottish borders, there's a moment when an already strange election campaign turns in a weird new direction. Ruth Davidson, the cheery leader of the Scottish Conservatives, is plying me with Haribo Tangfastics while giggling.

"Do you mind if I tweet about this?" she asks, as I shovel a fistful of sour cola bottles into my face. The previous day she fed me a Solero in front of the whole of the Scottish press. It doesn't seem wise to protest.

It would be fair to say, then, that Davidson takes an unusual approach to election campaigning. Sugary treats aside, she has recently been photographed at the bingo, driving a tank, playing a set of bagpipes, holding a falcon and an eagle, and staring lovingly into the eyes of a trout – although not all at the same time.

Contrast that with David Cameron, who's trying so hard to avoid looking foolish that his security staff prevented a puppy from getting within a certain radius of him.

"I think that's more to do with my personality than any kind of strategy," says Davidson about her eye for an entertaining photo-op. "I take politics incredibly seriously but I don't necessarily take myself seriously, and I don't think campaigning is something you have to do with a face that's tripping you."

Of course, this is Scottish politics, and things are different here. Each party leader is out on the streets every day, mixing even with people who might disagree with them. In the rest of the UK, far more campaigning takes place behind closed doors.

"I guess we kind of re-found our mojo in old-fashioned politics during the referendum campaign," explains Davidson.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F28%2F9%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr11%2Fenhanced-5525-1430227058-7.jpg&hash=64f295c795a05978303b8d07ce4c81bf32b6db45)
Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

"The level of engagement in Scotland is so incredibly high, and all of us are fighting fit for this general election because we've just been doing this level of public engagement for years now."

Scotland expects a bit of theatre and audience participation in its politics, and its leaders are happy to deliver. As a result, Scottish politics is just a bit more fun.

With this open, "old-fashioned" style of politics comes a huge level of engagement – on the campaign trail people come up to Davidson to ask a question, share a joke, or say something along the lines of, "I know you're a Tory, but I like you". But inevitably, there's a heightened chance of abuse as well.

Davidson was recently the subject of expletive-strewn abuse about her sexuality from an SNP member – who was then expelled from the party for homophobia by first minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Davidson clearly enjoys campaigning, but admits that a small number of "zoomers and bampots" run the risk of spoiling Scotland's reawakening.

"It's a very small minority of people involved in it," she says. "And one of the things which has been good is that Nicola Sturgeon, myself, and [deputy Scottish Labour leader] Kezia Dugdale – without having any sort of arrangement – have all taken the view that, irrespective of party, we will call out stuff we don't like.

"I will call out the homophobic stuff because it does affect folk, and not everyone is as bloody-minded as I am.

"For young kids growing up gay, some of the feelings you can have – of guilt and shame and uncertainty and fear and all of it that we all go through – reading your worst fears about yourself in black and white, being directed at someone else like you, is not acceptable."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F28%2F9%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr15%2Fenhanced-14064-1430226906-8.jpg&hash=a48bbd1ad4d20fea6bae18121089596f17356c0e)
Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

The way that the female Scottish leaders – Davidson, Sturgeon, and Dugdale – have teamed up to deal deal with homophobic and misogynist abuse has led to many commentators holding them up as a guiding example for women in politics.

They've also joined together on Twitter to mock Theresa May by discussing going shoe-shopping together, and talked about bunking off First Minister's Questions to watch Andy Murray and drink Pimm's. Do they get on as well as they seem to?

"Well, we don't go on holiday together or anything like that," says Davidson. "We're not about to go to Blackpool for the fair fortnight and take part in a knobbly knees competition." (Although she promises I will be invited to cover it if that ever does happen).

"We are professional women doing a professional job, but just because we are in opposition doesn't mean we can't appreciate each other's skills, and there's a mutual respect between all three of us.

"I think Nicola is a very capable, articulate women – I just think she's wrong about almost everything."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F29%2F10%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr05%2Fenhanced-8298-1430316699-1.jpg&hash=08f213529331f36b26f0bb21126be3456267cb62)
Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Davidson is an unapologetic unionist. Unlike her Scottish Labour counterpart, Jim Murphy, you won't see her play down her love of Britain in an attempt to win back support from those who voted Yes in September's referendum.

This belief in the union has been suggested as the reason why she has decided to lead her own distinctive election campaign in Scotland rather than follow the UK-wide Conservative campaign, led by strategist Lynton Crosby, which has been criticised for risking the future of the union by portraying the SNP as kingmakers.

"That's such nonsense," says Davidson, before I have a chance to finish the question.

"People keep saying 'this is treading on your toes' but that campaign is only saying what I was saying back in January, when I was warning of Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon being halfway down the aisle."

Davidson says talking up the chances of a Labour/SNP deal is not just a campaign tactic, and appears genuinely concerned that a large number of SNP MPs being sent to Westminster to act as a backstop for a Miliband government may mean the end for the union.

"My worry is that they're going to make every vote in the Commons a fight – that they'll disrupt it and try to push a UK government in places it doesn't necessarily want to go," she says. "That will stoke up resentment in the rest of the UK towards Scotland, which would be something that would help the nationalist cause no end.

"Nicola Sturgeon's not an idiot – she knows that would help their cause."

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F29%2F9%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr11%2Fenhanced-buzz-14243-1430315361-29.jpg&hash=71cc365da91005e059d85111ac1d89094ee5e5d0)
Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

Davidson believes that over time, "the echoes of the referendum" will fade, but it's a hard prospect to imagine with the SNP standing on the brink of winning as many as 50 seats in next month's election.

She admits that even the one Conservative seat in Scotland, in Dumfriesshire, is in danger of being lost: "Our guys are standing on top of the house, but there's an SNP tsunami coming and we just don't know how big the wave is going to be.

"If the wave just goes up to the second floor we'll end up with more MPs, if the wave covers the house we'll have nobody. But I am naturally quite a positive person, and I'm just quietly hopeful we could end up surprising people."

A joke repeated to the point of tedium in Scottish politics is that there are "more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs".

Davidson hopes that after the election, that will no longer apply – "unless they start popping out babies".

But it's almost impossible to predict what will happen in this bizarre Scottish election, and who might win or lose their seats. Davidson thinks Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy "might be alright", that shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander "will find it hard", and that Treasury secretary Danny Alexander is "toast".

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fak-hdl.buzzfed.com%2Fstatic%2F2015-04%2F28%2F14%2Fenhanced%2Fwebdr09%2Fenhanced-12062-1430247297-6.png&hash=4cc85c07041f4b0a96408b957f04b335fa721803)
Ruth Davidson

If these big beasts of Scottish politics do lose their seats, then Davidson will be one the few unionist politicians left with a bright future.

She's been tipped as a rising star of the Conservatives, with Cameron hinting she could even be a future leader of the party. Could she tempted by Westminster?

"You know, when I started this job, people were saying, 'Would you like to go down to the House of Commons?', and I said that would be a demotion, and now, suddenly, I've been promoted to, 'Would you like to be in the Cabinet?'

"Maybe when people start asking me if I want to be the omnipotent poobah of the European Union or the secretary general of the United Nations, I'll think about it."
Until such a position becomes available, she'll carry on in her current role – and carry on enjoying herself while she does it.

"I'll go toe to toe with anybody on policy and values and ideas, and I'll have all the evidence to back it up," she says. "But politics, fundamentally, comes down to people.

"If you can't enjoy being with people, then you shouldn't really be in this job."

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Quote14 Photos Of British Politicians Improved By "Game Of Thrones" Quotes
When you play the game of elections, you win or you die.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Quote from: Syt on April 30, 2015, 09:37:13 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Why does that need a law? Just promise to not raise taxes.

And if you make a law like that, what keeps you from getting rid of it when it's no longer convenient?

Or am I missing something?

Quote from: Tamas on April 30, 2015, 09:40:31 AM
Well, yeah.


It is funny how in developed democracies we are starting to get the worst of both worlds: The politicians are bred and groomed for this job, so their practical experience in, well, whatever, is questionable (amateur politicians who have their business interests/aristocratic privileges on the side would at least be coming from the real world), yet they manage to be utterly pathetic in their chosen life calling as well, so its not like you gain anything by having these guys.

Quote from: Syt on April 30, 2015, 09:37:13 AM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Why does that need a law? Just promise to not raise taxes.

And if you make a law like that, what keeps you from getting rid of it when it's no longer convenient?

Or am I missing something?

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 30, 2015, 02:06:37 AM
The Tories will introduce a law preventing them from raising income tax, NI or VAT if they are elected :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32506490

In a generally asinine election campaign they have now plumbed new depths of stupidity.

QuoteIt is funny how in developed democracies we are starting to get the worst of both worlds: The politicians are bred and groomed for this job, so their practical experience in, well, whatever, is questionable (amateur politicians who have their business interests/aristocratic privileges on the side would at least be coming from the real world), yet they manage to be utterly pathetic in their chosen life calling as well, so its not like you gain anything by having these guys.

QuotePoliticians deserve a better electorate
Michael White
If voters wake up on 8 May furious with the election result, they only have themselves to blame
Thursday 23 April 2015 14.20 BST Last modified on Thursday 23 April 2015 14.21 BST

We know that voters everywhere worry about the quality, commitment and integrity of their politicians. We know because so many of them complain to pollsters when they get the chance. I wouldn't be surprised if millions of them don't spend a full minute every day, perhaps more during an election campaign, wondering what should be done to improve this sorry state of affairs.

But do politicians ever worry about the quality, commitment and integrity of the electorate? You bet they do. But, as Ed Miliband said when Nigel Farage attacked the BBC's studio audience last week: "It's never a good idea to attack the audience." So most of the time they keep quiet about voters' dirty habits except for designated scapegoats on the fringes of the spectrum, benefit claimants, investment bankers and other parasites.

An election campaign is never a good moment to tell folk to stop smoking either, to swallow less booze or pizza and do more exercise. That would help the hard-pressed NHS budget more than most promised "reforms". But in a society strong on individualistic entitlement and weak on civic virtue, would-be leaders prefer to pander to voters with manifesto offers of more nurses and childcare and 24/7 running hot and cold GPs, but no higher taxes – except for other people.

Voters don't believe it, many barely seem to listen. Click-driven media coverage shrinks, desperate politicians become more shrill and superficial – it is a vicious circle.

Result: this is proving a thoroughly unsatisfactory election and voters will wake up on 8 May furious with the mess they discover the politicians have probably made of getting a sensible result. However, just this once in the cycle, the blame for inconclusive uncertainty will be their own. The old adage that "we get the politicians we deserve" contains a germ of truth. The current crop is underwhelming, but what did you or I – media abuse must discourage all sorts of decent people from entering public life – do to deserve better?

Back in 1950 when poorer working men and middle-aged women could still remember when they didn't have a vote – full adult franchise reached Britain in 1929 – the election turnout was 83.9%. Next month, despite the tightness of the race, we will be grateful for 65% (59.4% in the Tony Blair shoo-in of 2001). In the 18-24 age group the turnout may be 50% and students will be strongly represented among the 6.5 million estimated to be unregistered. Yet some idiots (Miliband is one) want to make matters worse by giving 16-year-olds the privilege of not voting either.

Why and how have we (and other advanced liberal democracies) slipped into this condition? Many reasons, among them the decline of faith in ideology – Thatcherite as well as socialist – that generated hope and zeal. The decline of church and industrial trade union, rising expectation fuelled by consumerism and television but doomed to disappointment, even for the rich. Factored in too must be a loss of confidence in an uncertain future as Britain's extraordinary place in the world shrinks and Asia returns to centre stage. It is not David Cameron's fault that China's communists have abandoned communism, though it is his job to address the adverse consequences for our economy.

Yes, disappointing politicians are part of the story too. Yet both Margaret Thatcher and Blair were formidable, triple-winning leaders who gave post-imperial Britain a significant world voice. Their achievements were mixed (whose aren't?) but Thatcher has since been idolised as a means of denigrating her successors and Blair condemned by the left ( always gagging for a good betrayal) and the tax-shy oligarch press.

But it suits the political and media classes to attack each other while keeping stumm about the third side of the political equation that both seek to sway unfettered by the other: the voters. Millions are wonderful, of course, they watch those arid TV debates and (it is reported) look up "austerity" on Wikipedia. They follow events and, rain or shine, they will vote, especially the old. Hey kids, have you ever wondered why you have tuition fees and we have free bus passes?

But millions more, not just the poor and demoralised, will forget, shrug or even boast "I never vote" before turning back to something that seems more important: football, golf, Spotify, Britain's Got Talent. They don't bother to engage, let alone to make the connections between what happens to them and the difficult policy choices that bring it about, good or bad.

In Greece, voters mandate Syriza to end the cuts but stay in the euro; in Scotland, they do the same with sterling; in England, they want pizza and the NHS. Or they opt for panacea parties – from the Greens to Ukip via assorted nationalists – that make them feel better, but whose numbers don't stack up. George Osborne is a model of fiscal rectitude by comparison. Voting Ukip is the political equivalent of a tattoo imprudently extended beyond the wrist: a form of self–harm to be regretted in due course. And after nationalism as a panacea, what next? Theocracy?

It can be argued that happy is the country whose secular politics are boringly prosaic (they're not boring in Syria any more) and whose leaders are cheerfully despised, not feared or capable of murder, sackable when they inevitably fail. All true enough, but we live in dangerous global times and, as George Bernard Shaw had one of his characters say 100 years ago: "Do not believe the laws of God were suspended for England because you were born here."

Optimism is always attractive and most of us still have much to be optimistic about in a rich and safe country, not yet hideously unequal, one where politics as a process for mediating difficult issues does not kill or imprison. This flighty and illiberal hour may pass. But we may also come to regret our insular complacency when something nasty and (not really) unexpected happens. If that happens we will need politicians to demand sacrifices, not just make offers.

"Blood, toil, tears and sweat", as Churchill demanded of a quietly heroic generation in 1940, in return for a welfare state which Attlee later delivered. Their legacy – and the enduring tension within it between state and private action – has left most of us richer and healthier than the wildest utopian could have imagined then. But has it made us wiser or even grateful? Shrinking civic engagement in the 2015 campaign suggests not.

QuoteThey are professionals in getting elected, not in running a country.

QuoteNext they will be promising fixed election dates and all will be lost

QuoteThe (Not So) Fixed-term Parliaments Act

Catherine Haddon
14 April 2015
As the SNP pointed out last week, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act could have major implications for British politics. As Dr Catherine Haddon explains, those implications remain little understood – particularly given ambiguities in the Act which could raise big constitutional questions at just the wrong moment.

Parliament and the political process
On 24 March, the SNP's Alex Salmond told New Statesman that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA) could give his party great power in the next Parliament, pointing out that "nobody seems to have read" this 2011 law. Whether his first point is correct will, of course, depend on how many seats his party wins; but on the second point, he's on to something. For as we enter a first full Parliament under this new piece of law, only two things are absolutely clear: that the Act substantially changes the rules of politics; and that nobody can yet tell exactly how these new rules will change the game.

For many decades, prime ministers have used Royal Prerogative to call an election at a time of their choosing; and the collapse of an administration has led promptly to a general election. But the FTPA changes some of the basic principles of how governments can be defeated in Parliament, and how a change of government occurs if that happens. As we face the likelihood of another hung parliament, it's becoming clear that crucial aspects of the Act have not been thought through and may raise big constitutional questions in the midst of a major political drama.

Under the FTPA, Parliament's fixed five-year term can only be truncated in two ways. First, if more than two thirds of the House of Commons vote to call an election – and that means 434 of the 650 MPs, not just two thirds of those in the chamber. The second is more complicated. If a motion of no confidence is passed or there is a failed vote of confidence, there is a 14-day period in which to pass an act of confidence in a new government. If no such vote is passed, a new election must be held, probably a mere 17 working days later.

So far, so clear. But from there we start to get into uncharted territory on two fronts. One is that some of the crucial mechanisms are not set out; the other is how the operation of the Act could affect political dynamics and party bargaining.

Let's start with the mechanisms. The 14-day period only begins if the government loses a vote of confidence; and under the Act, this has been defined narrowly to exclude budgets and Queen's Speeches – two key votes that have long been considered an effective vote of confidence. The Commons must now pass a motion using very specific wording to trigger FTPA.

A government that lost a Queen's Speech vote could forestall that vote of confidence by resigning and recommending that the Queen offer the PM's role to the Opposition – in which case a new government could be formed, and attempt to govern for the remainder of the five-year term.

There is an alternative: in the past, governments which have lost major votes have sometimes used the procedures of the House to delay a vote of confidence. In 1977, this allowed Labour to forge a new pact with the Liberals, regaining a majority and continuing in government. However, following a Queen's Speech defeat this would be highly questionable, raising big questions of legitimacy. Constitutional authorities, and the parties, have different opinions on whether a PM should resign after losing a Queen's Speech vote.

Let's assume the government loses a vote of confidence, triggering the 14-day grace period. Here we hit a big ambiguity at the heart of the legislation: who governs during the next 14 days? Previously, an incumbent Prime Minister losing a vote of confidence would either resign immediately, handing power to a successor; or stay in as a sort of caretaker government while a second election was held – James Callaghan did the latter when we last saw a defeat on confidence in 1979. However, the 14-day clock only stops when a new government is approved by the House – and this requires a new government to already be in place: the wording specifically says that the motion must be "confidence in Her Majesty's Government". And at the point when the previous government has lost a vote of confidence, it may not be obvious that their opponents could themselves win one. So must the outgoing PM immediately resign and pass the reins to the leader of the Opposition, even if their chances of assembling a parliamentary majority look slender? Or should they hang on and await the outcome of negotiations, despite having lost a vote of confidence? Both solutions would be ugly and controversial.

A PM put in this position might be tempted to make it difficult for their rival to hold a new vote of confidence, and thus to form a government. And such blocking tactics would not be without precedent: in 2008, Canadian premier Stephen Harper secured a prorogation (suspension) of Parliament in order to forestall a vote of confidence. However, prorogation would require the Sovereign to exercise this remaining Royal Prerogative in support of a government which had clearly lost confidence. This drags the Queen into political manoeuvring in a way that Buckingham Palace has been keen to avoid.

Assuming our hard-pressed PM dismisses this option, they would have one further way out. Because under our constitution the powers of government are vested in the Prime Minister, they could simply hand over the leadership to a party colleague – creating a new government that could have another go at winning a vote of confidence. This would technically meet the Act's requirements; and our political history is full of different PMs of the same party forming new governments of slightly different composition. Ultimately, it would be up to the House to decide by voting their confidence. But again, the Sovereign would be put in a difficult position, as the Queen would have to appoint the new PM before they could put forward a new confidence motion.

Of course, all of this depends on whether party leaders use the Act in these ways. The Act has been understood as a means to allow for a new government to be formed and replace the incumbent, and there would be massive political pressures in anyone being seen to abuse its provisions. If used as intended, it would bring in a government led by the former Opposition. Yet even this would be challenging in our political culture: how many changes of government could we see without an election?

If the incumbent government does resign, FTPA could mean, to take one possible scenario, a Tory minority government is replaced by a Labour-led administration with the ambition and potential to govern right through till 2020. And this second government could itself be displaced without an election if a further vote of no confidence is won. There is nothing in the Act that restricts the number of times we go through the merry-go-round of a government falling and a further government being formed.

This would mean successive administrations without recourse to the polls, and much turmoil in government. Our political culture would find this a shock, as would the money markets. Since the Second World War the UK has had plenty of examples of the governing party changing the Prime Minister whilst in power, but we're not used to the party of government changing without the need for a general election. In the 18th and 19th century it was more common for governments to fall and a new party or combination of parties take over; but most sought a new mandate – if only to improve their power in Parliament. So in this situation the pressure for a new election would be massive, and an opposition party might decide not to form a government in the 14 days – precipitating a new election.

The FTPA might, of course, be repealed by the next government. But here there are also difficulties. If the big parties do indeed lack a majority, would the smaller parties – who will not benefit from the substantial political advantage of choosing when to call an election – want to hand back that power? Labour and the Conservative could unite to force the change through. But, the FTPA took away a Royal Prerogative, continuing a centuries-long flow of powers from the monarch to the legislature. Reversing this flow, or asking Parliament to put that power in the executive's hands, might be possible in legal terms, yet would be a tricky argument to make. It is not something the UK's constitution has had to attempt. It might be easier to amend the current Act, moving to a simple majority, rather than the two-thirds, in order to call an early election.

Those planning for any post-election hung parliament negotiations will have to think hard about the FTPA's significance. Gavin Kelly, a former Number 10 Deputy Chief of Staff, called it a "game-changer" at a recent Institute for Government event. Whilst MPs might be less enamoured with the idea of another coalition, he argued that minority governments are now rather more risky – for if they fell after a year or so, the prospect would not necessarily be of another election, but of handing power straight to their main rivals. This, said Kelly, creates a new incentive for people to build solid coalitions.

For smaller parties, too, the levers and risks look different now. Before FTPA, if the Lib Dems or SNP brought down a minority government, they'd have to explain themselves to the voters in an election; nowadays, they might end up kingmakers to a new government of a different hue, postponing that difficult conversation until they have a chance to deliver something for their supporters. Alex Salmond is already attempting such risky cat and mouse games.

Governments can and do navigate minority quite successfully, and for some it is preferable to coalition. Any minority government only dies by the ability of the other parties to form an opposition majority – something that's not as easy as it sounds. But the FTPA still has big implications for our parliamentarians and party leaderships; and we'll only learn their exact nature as the Act is tested in anger. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act was introduced to level the political playing field and strengthen the chances that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition would survive for a full term. But its significance for British politics could go much, much further than that.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 01:53:34 PM
I'm not really sure that's right though. For a start most of the 'professional' political background in this country comes from the executive branch. Miliband and Cameron both served in the Treasury for example not as an aide to an MP, but helping the Chancellor run the economy. David Cameron was there when we were forced out of ERM, Miliband was one of Brown's policy wonks, Nick Clegg was an assistant to the, appointed, British European Commissioner for Trade in the 90s. They're then generally parachuted into a safe seat (and I can imagine Clegg eventually parachuted into Brussells :bleeding:). They've never had to work a day in their lives to get elected.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 01:53:34 PM


But millions more, not just the poor and demoralised, will forget, shrug or even boast "I never vote" before turning back to something that seems more important: football, golf, Spotify, Britain's Got Talent. They don't bother to engage, let alone to make the connections between what happens to them and the difficult policy choices that bring it about, good or bad.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 30, 2015, 02:02:10 PMHow do you know what they did on a day to day basis?  I would think the Treasury has more than enough career civil servants to "run the economy," and that the duties of a junior career politician would lean more towards figuring out what would policies would make the electorate the happiest and avoiding blowups that will make his party look bad.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:19:48 PM
Miliband was definitely a policy wonk - there are now numerous memoirs from within New Labour that identify him as such

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 30, 2015, 02:24:42 PM
Well that certainly settles it. :lol:

QuoteIn my experience policy wonk is often a euphemism for a politician who reads a newspaper.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:30:05 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 30, 2015, 02:24:42 PM
Well that certainly settles it. :lol:

How else do you know how administrations worked? :mellow:

At least until the papers are declassified in 30 years :mmm:

But to explain there are only about 80-100 political advisers working for Ministers in government now. The PM has twenty. The rest are civil servants - including the communication staff for the most part.

QuoteIn my experience policy wonk is often a euphemism for a politician who reads a newspaper.

He was helping write the budget. Generally it was him, Ed Balls and Damien McBride (a civil servant who was recruited to the Dark Side and became very dark indeed).

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:30:05 PMEd Balls

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:34:34 PM
Sweden has 400 apparently. It's a model a few journos have argued we should follow, to avoid government's agendas withering on the civil service vine :P

Quote from: Monoriu on April 30, 2015, 02:37:45 PM

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:34:34 PM
Sweden has 400 apparently. It's a model a few journos have argued we should follow, to avoid government's agendas withering on the civil service vine :P

The virtuous civil servants are there to prevent the political appointees from spending beyond their means and accumulating an unsustainable level of debt :sleep:

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 02:41:23 PM
The idea of more appointees is that implementation of government policy is improved.

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 30, 2015, 03:00:11 PM
It would depend on the quality of the political appointee.  But who would be appointed.  Probably the most likely candidates are politicos who's main skill set was getting their Minister elected and to keep them elected.  Not so much strength on the administrative side of things.

Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2015, 03:08:49 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 30, 2015, 03:00:11 PM
It would depend on the quality of the political appointee.  But who would be appointed.  Probably the most likely candidates are politicos who's main skill set was getting their Minister elected and to keep them elected.  Not so much strength on the administrative side of things.

What sort of skills do you mean? I ask because I can't think of an example of a Spad along those lines (here's the rules on them: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/special-advisers-code-of-conduct).

Quote from: garbon on April 30, 2015, 02:58:28 PM
The Evening Standard has become even incredibly more dull

Quote from: Gups on May 01, 2015, 06:37:19 AM

Quote from: garbon on April 30, 2015, 02:58:28 PM
The Evening Standard has become even incredibly more dull

You get what you pay for.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on May 01, 2015, 01:53:54 AM
I'm with Sir Humphrey on this, we can't have political appointees sticking their oars in and implementing government policy................it is a recipe for chaos!

Quote from: crazy canuck on April 30, 2015, 04:02:00 PM
As with all codes of conduct that one has a lot of discretion.  For example when would there not be "overlap" particularly when an appointee can be called upon to provide "expert advice as a specialist in a particular field" even if the appointee has no particular expertise other than being a political appointee.

QuoteIn my experience career civil servants are generally well educated people who know how to navigate the bureaucracy.   They know all the relevant legislative requirements (or at least have a good understanding of them) and are generally a professional group.  A political appointee is someone who is in it for the short term.  Generally they are in this position because they haven't yet found a better job than being a politico and are looking to leverage their time as an appointee into some better position.  Their main experience is of being a politico.  They generally have no other meaningful expertise.

There are likely exceptions to these generalities.  But exceptions that prove the rule.

QuoteI think the biggest danger of relying on political appointees is because of their purpose.  They are not there to give good prudent advice.  They are not there to speak truth to power -  a cornerstone of the Canadian civil service.  They are there merely to carry out the wishes of their political masters whether those wishes are flawed or not.  At least with a senior civil servant the political master will be provided with good advice regarding all the ramifications of a particular policy decision.

Quote from: Tyr on May 01, 2015, 12:38:44 PM
Shit that audience was hostile to miliband last night :blink:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 02, 2015, 07:39:18 PM
I noticed that the campaign promises, at least the ones mentioned in the article, are suitably vague.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 02, 2015, 07:45:27 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 02, 2015, 07:39:18 PM
I noticed that the campaign promises, at least the ones mentioned in the article, are suitably vague.

Well of course. Right now an 8 ft block of stone is having this carved:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CECq5HqXIAIC4Cc.jpg)

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

QuoteIt seems extremely unlikely that the Council would ever authorise Mr Miliband's erection

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 03, 2015, 03:38:55 PM
A legal perspective on the Miliband monument:
http://barristerblogger.com/2015/05/03/if-milliband-erects-his-pillar-in-the-rose-garden-he-may-be-sent-to-prison/

QuoteIt seems extremely unlikely that the Council would ever authorise Mr Miliband's erection

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on May 03, 2015, 06:34:18 AM
It is a minor point but I don't like the design of the .....er..........monument.

You can see it here with Miliband talking alongside a small claque of carefully vetted Labour supporters :

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-05-03/miliband-commissions-election-pledges-stone-for-no-10/

Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 03, 2015, 03:54:06 PM

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on May 03, 2015, 06:34:18 AM
It is a minor point but I don't like the design of the .....er..........monument.

You can see it here with Miliband talking alongside a small claque of carefully vetted Labour supporters :

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-05-03/miliband-commissions-election-pledges-stone-for-no-10/

I'd never heard his voice before.  Certainly you guys can't elect this dork as your next PM?

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 03, 2015, 03:38:55 PM

QuoteIt seems extremely unlikely that the Council would ever authorise Mr Miliband's erection

Quote from: Syt on May 04, 2015, 12:07:50 PM(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fzeit-magazin%2Fleben%2F2015-04%2Fgrossbritannien-wahl-magnum-fs-bilder%2Fbitblt-884x588-59a18475dd187ce26a41fdf44aa203b4140dd823%2F16-magnum-grossbritannien-wahl.jpg&hash=4c7dec7197110779b01d363912fb125f81e3e2be)
South Wales Valley 1961

Quote from: Syt on May 04, 2015, 12:07:50 PM
Zeit.de uses the election as an excuse to show everyday pictures from the UK from the last 60 years. I have to say the pictures are more interesting than the campaign. :D

I like to imagine some of those pictures show RH or Brazen in their early years. :P

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fzeit-magazin%2Fleben%2F2015-04%2Fgrossbritannien-wahl-magnum-fs-bilder%2Fbitblt-884x591-fda3db62ee6ba31cf6713f33a7772059cd2b32fd%2F02-magnum-grossbritannien-wahl.jpg&hash=133051e71dfc14a86c44b9a49c56dd4e4ede0cbf)
Croydon 1970s

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 01, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
Civil servants don't know how to navigate the bureaucracy, they are the bureaucracy. It's like praising Cameron for doing so well navigating the class system.

And I've no doubt most civil servants are conscientious, intelligent, well-meaning people. But as an institution they, like any other institution, are jealous of their privileges and power and inherently conservative. They are very difficult to reform, especially if your reform is something that many civil servants either ideologically disagree with them, or an institution it diminishes their power. There is not a post-war administration that has not ended up saying their biggest problem was the civil service - and there isn't really one who went into office with low expectations (possibly Labour '97).

Quote from: garbon on May 05, 2015, 03:09:37 PM
I learned from my minion today that the UKIP candidate for Tooting is named Przemek Skwirczynski. :hmm:

Quote from: garbon on May 05, 2015, 03:09:37 PM
I learned from my minion today that the UKIP candidate for Tooting is named Przemek Skwirczynski. :hmm:

Quote from: celedhring on May 05, 2015, 03:23:25 PM
I have seen this quite a bit over here, too. Often some of the most virulent anti-immigrant types are second or third generation immigrants themselves.

Quote from: PJL on May 06, 2015, 04:17:53 AM
For those who are going to watch the results coverage, here's a list of expected declarations from each constituency here:

http://election.pressassociation.com/Declaration_times/general_2015_by_time.php

All times are in GMT, so most of the results should be known by about midnight EST.

Quote from: Valmy on May 06, 2015, 07:33:23 AM

Quote from: PJL on May 06, 2015, 04:17:53 AM
For those who are going to watch the results coverage, here's a list of expected declarations from each constituency here:

http://election.pressassociation.com/Declaration_times/general_2015_by_time.php

All times are in GMT, so most of the results should be known by about midnight EST.

I wonder why St Ives takes so long.

Quote from: garbon on May 05, 2015, 03:09:37 PM
I learned from my minion today that the UKIP candidate for Tooting is named Przemek Skwirczynski. :hmm:

Quote from: garbon on May 06, 2015, 04:28:12 AM

Quote from: celedhring on May 05, 2015, 03:23:25 PM
I have seen this quite a bit over here, too. Often some of the most virulent anti-immigrant types are second or third generation immigrants themselves.

In the case of Mr. Skwirczynski, he's actually first gen. I guess he got through the doors and wants to close them behind him?

QuoteDavid Cameron's secret A-list
The high-flying candidates that the Tories don't want photographed
44 Comments 28 March 2015 Harry Cole 

The Conservative party elected Britain's first ethnic minority MP, Sir Mancherjee Bhownagree, as long ago as 1895. It also gave us our first Jewish and women prime ministers. Yet something went badly wrong along the way. By the dawn of the 21st century the Tories had never looked more male or more pale.

Upon taking control of the party in 2005, the Cameroon spin machine embarked on a blunt attempt to reverse this trend, the 'A-list' project. Safe or winnable seats were reserved for a new breed of candidate: ambitious young women, known as 'Cameron's cuties', and high-profile ethnic minority poster boys. Ten would-be MPs were photographed for Tatler, looking glamorous, diverse and not a little smug.

Come the 2010 election, however, it all went pear-shaped. Every candidate in that photo feature lost, with the sole exception of Charlotte Leslie in Bristol North-West. Scarcely a third of the original 100 A-listers made it into Parliament. The ghost of the 'Tatler Tories' came to haunt No. 10: that ill-judged makeover crystallised a wider concern with the Cameron project's dependency on PR gimmicks. The final humiliation for the project came with the departure of chicklit novelist Louise Mensch. One of the few A-listers who managed to get elected, she moved to New York after two years, handing her marginal seat on a platter to the opposition.

This time round the Tories have been more careful. There is no public A-list – but a simple glance at the faces and names of those who have been selected to inherit the safest constituencies shows that something has been going on behind the scenes. As the election nears, a small group of candidates have swum into the narrow pool of safe seats, at times fighting each other in two finals on the same day.

There is an A-list in everything but name and — as in 2010 — it's dominated by women and ethnic minorities. The difference is that Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), formerly known as Central Office, does not want anyone to know about it. With no expenses scandal to force out the bed-blockers, there are fewer seats up for grabs in May. Despite this, the allure of the Lords or the private sector has freed up some the loveliest, true-blue rural constituencies for lucky candidates. They will have a seat for life and Tory command a chance to reshape the image of their party — this time below the radar.

What the Tories don't mind people knowing is that at May's election, 33 per cent of their candidates will be women, and 14 per cent representing black or ethnic minorities. Not a single new Etonian is standing in a Tory-held constituency. If you're a white, middle- or upper-class man, you're unlikely to have landed a safe seat. At a surface level, modernity has finally caught up with the pale, male party.

Look beyond the aesthetics, however, and has anything really changed? If you scrutinise the candidates selected for the plum seats, what jumps out are the similarities, not the diversity. They may not have gone to Eton, but several went to Cambridge. Privilege runs deep. The majority are married, able to rely on the security of alternative income streams. They're rich barristers and businessmen or ex-army officers and career politicians. The Tory party has been filling its benches from these professions for centuries.

But they are extremely quiet about their ideology — there is not an original idea to be found anywhere on their identikit websites. Most of them hide their ages. If they mention their schools, it's only because they were state-educated. Those who went to public school don't broadcast the fact.

Not only are details withheld, but access to these candidates is restricted. When they were invited to The Spectator for a group photograph, CCHQ refused to co-operate. Terrified of a 'Tatler Tories' debacle, the party machine is keeping the cream of the crop safely cocooned. Ideology-free, rich and slaves to PR? It's as if David Cameron has finally succeeded in building a Conservative party in his mould.

How does this process work? Grant Shapps, the Tory chairman, claims that the party has succeeded in making its candidates more representative 'without getting blood on the carpet'. But is that really true? Gareth Fox is one of the most influential people in the country that you have never heard of. He's not an MP, nor a civil servant, rather the head the Conservative party's candidates department. Nobody gets selected for a seat without the approval of this opaque office. Strictly speaking, Fox's role is purely administrative. In practice, his job carries enormous power.

Fox has his own way of micromanaging the system. Although the entrepreneurs, lawyers and bankers on the list are extremely tech-savvy, every time they put their name forward for a seat they must deliver two copies of their application form to party HQ in person. Cannier operators know what's going on. It is much easier to 'lose' a piece of paper without those pesky electronic paper trails. Who needs a formal A-list when it's so easy to bury an undesirable candidate early in the process?

Approved hopefuls, meanwhile, are 'invited' to apply for a seat. A sift of these candidates is then undertaken within CCHQ; association chairmen are invited in for some coffee and hard politicking with the candidates department; a longlist is drawn up. A source explains what goes on. 'It's all very coy: "We've got a name for you... there's a few people we think you might be interested in... I'd like to introduce you to so-and-so".' There are stories of photographs and CVs of favoured candidates left prominently on the top of piles, with nothing so crass as a wink or a nudge.

Needless to say, the unofficial A–listers play down the role of CCHQ. 'I do not know what went on, but I know that it's the Association that chooses the shortlist, not the headquarters,' says Lucy Frazer, candidate for South-East Cambridgeshire. She has more reason than most to choose her words carefully. A Cambridge-educated QC, she must have been acutely embarrassed by a selection process that would look iffy in a banana republic. Having seen off her competitor in the 'open primary' by 84 votes to 48, it later transpired that 23 votes had been mistakenly awarded to Frazer from her closest rival Heidi Allen. Despite a 'reaffirmation' vote a few weeks later, a shadow hangs over Frazer's fledgling political career (Allen was later adopted for the neighbouring seat, Cambridgeshire South). She has been compared to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, and it's not meant as a compliment. 'She's just one of those people that have been very successful at everything they've ever done,' says a fellow wannabe MP, cryptically.

Victoria Atkins, 37, should also be joining the green benches as member for Louth and Horncastle. Yes, she's a woman — but also another barrister and, conveniently, the daughter of former Tory MP Sir Robert Atkins. Not every incoming lady is from political aristocracy, though. Nusrat Ghani will become Britain's first female Muslim Conservative MP when the people of Wealden, East Sussex, go to the polls. Born in Kashmir, Ghani has worked for the World Service and Age Concern. No doubt she won selection for the seat (majority: 17,179) purely on merit. But it won't have harmed her chances that she is said to have the ear of the Chancellor.

Ranil Jayawardena, 28, candidate for North-East Hampshire, also ticks the BME box and holds the unglamorous title of deputy leader of Basingstoke council. But he's also from an extremely wealthy background and describes his day job as 'senior manager for Lloyds Banking Group'. According to a report in the Guardian, 'disclosures from the European parliament show that he has lobbied MEPs on European banking legislation and acted as Lloyds' "government relations manager" during the integration of HBOS with Lloyds TSB'. Painfully on-message, his nickname as a young Tory activist was 'Party Line'.

Cambridge graduate Alan Mak, 30, will be Westminster's first British Chinese MP. The son of Yorkshire Chinese restaurant owners, Mak was a solicitor at Clifford Chance, though he would like you to know he also serves 'as a non-executive director/investor in a range of businesses'. On paper, this comprehensive-educated son of immigrants looks like the dream candidate for the Tories. He was selected for Havant last autumn after a 'barnstorming' performance on the day emphasising his humble origins. Sadly, his selection prompted an outpouring of rage in the comment section of the ConservativeHome website, with the row spilling over into the local press. 'I was the surprise winner,' Mak tells Spectator Life. 'I'd worked very hard in the run-up, but some people thought I hadn't done my time in the party.' Yet there was a vitriol not directed at other youngish candidates selected elsewhere. So what was it about Mak? 'Probably a generational thing,' he says. 'I got some distasteful comments, but I won 70 per cent of the vote and the association and local residents were behind me'. Given his ethnicity, you can't wondering if 'distasteful' is a euphemism for 'racist'.

It's remarkable that so many unofficial A-listers went to Cambridge. But Rishi Sunak, 34, breaks the mould. He went to Oxford — followed by a Fulbright scholarship at Stanford University. No one is quite sure where he picked up his Jackie O habit of wearing sunglasses on his head; perhaps it was at his school, Winchester. He will inherit William Hague's seat in Richmond, a rare Tory stronghold in Yorkshire which, the locals joke, has not seen immigration since 1066. A successful investment fund entrepreneur, Sunak is married to Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Narayana Murthy, billionaire founder of the Indian multinational Infosys. She reportedly owns 1.4 per cent of the firm, so the Sunaks needn't worry about struggling on an MP's salary. 'He's a cool metropolitan guy,' say supportive Tories. 'Clearly favoured by the inside,' adds a fellow candidate.

Some white men have managed to slip through CCHQ's firewall. Simon Hoare, 45, did so at the last minute, in February this year, when Robert Walter unexpectedly vacated the plush seat of North Dorset. It can't have harmed his chances that he serves as a councillor in Witney, Oxfordshire, and that the PM is one of his own voters. Presumably no one mentioned a story that appeared in the Daily Mail on 4 April 2012, which claimed that 'a minister held a "private lunch" with a lobbyist to discuss a controversial rail terminal while MPs' demands for meetings were rebuffed by the government'. The minister was Theresa Villiers from the Department of Transport. The lobbyist was Mr Hoare, who owned an agency called Community Connect.

Still, at least one Tory candidate has a distinguished record in the public sector. Lt Col Tom Tugendhat, 41, is almost certain to be the next MP for Tonbridge in Kent. After a postgraduate degree in Islamic studies from Cambridge, Tugendhat spent time learning Arabic in Yemen. As a member of the TA, he was called up to serve in Iraq in 2003, later touring Afghanistan and remaining in the army until last year. Unlike some ex-soldiers currently in Parliament, Tugendhat — whose father is Mr Justice Tugendhat and uncle a Conservative peer — is oddly reluctant to talk about his military service. He charmed the Tonbridge Tories with his startling answer when he was asked to name a living politician he admired. 'Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley,' he replied without a blink. The two served together in Helmand, and Jarvis — one to watch on the red team — is equally complimentary about his 'thoroughly decent' friend. 'I would expect him to very quickly rise through the Tory ranks,' he says.

Described as carrying a 'slight whiff of James Bond', Tugendhat refuses to discuss the details of his military service. 'I was in the Intelligence Corps — that is a matter of public record,' he says when pressed by Spectator Life. 'I'm not going to get into what I did after that.' Rumour has it that 'Thomas of Arabia', as he's been called, negotiated with the Taleban on behalf of the British government. 'That's a different matter,' he says.

Another former public servant very keen not to talk about the last few years, but for different reasons, is Oliver Dowden. David Cameron's Cambridge-educated deputy chief of staff has spent years trying to secure a safe seat. He got his fingers burnt in Croydon South, where opponents portrayed him as a No. 10 plant. Fortunately James Clappison, the MP for Hertsmere in Hertfordshire, suddenly announced that he was walking away from his 17,000 majority last summer. This time Dowden's Downing Street connections did him no harm. Jealous colleagues describe him as 'the beneficiary of a coup'. What can they mean?

James Cleverly, leader of the Tories in the London Assembly, is a major in the Territorial Army. In May he will become MP for Braintree in Essex following the resignation of the electronic exhibitionist Brooks Newmark. He was chosen after the selection process was quietly suspended by CCHQ — the local party had chosen someone not on the approved candidates list and was told to 'think again'. Cleverly, a six-foot bruiser from a mixed-race background, has been described as 'the most charming man in City Hall'. That's not a view shared by the unions, who made him their pantomime baddie after he organised Boris Johnson's sell-off of London fire stations. Even his critics would not bet against him being in a Boris cabinet, should the situation arise.

If the PM survives, however, he can look back with satisfaction on the Tory selection process. He has the new intake he wants. While the Eurosceptic Tory class of 2010 spent its first years in Parliament writing policy pamphlets and forming pressure groups, there is scant evidence that this lot will stray too far from the reservation, much to Downing Street's relief.

Whether these lucky secret A-listers are the best candidates for the country remains to be seen. Just as selection was a breeze, the coming election will be no test for them — but five years in the House of Commons will. Although Cameron may have got the right names and faces in the safest seats, the Tories still have some way to go to represent modern Britain beyond percentages and photographs. The Conservative party may have planted the first female bottom on the green benches back in 1919 but, lest we forget, she was the multi-squillionairess Nancy Astor — Mrs Cameron's step great-grandmother.

Quote from: Sheilbh on May 07, 2015, 03:41:42 AM
Yaaaay! Voting.

QuoteStill, at least one Tory candidate has a distinguished record in the public sector. Lt Col Tom Tugendhat, 41, is almost certain to be the next MP for Tonbridge in Kent. After a postgraduate degree in Islamic studies from Cambridge, Tugendhat spent time learning Arabic in Yemen. As a member of the TA, he was called up to serve in Iraq in 2003, later touring Afghanistan and remaining in the army until last year. Unlike some ex-soldiers currently in Parliament, Tugendhat — whose father is Mr Justice Tugendhat and uncle a Conservative peer — is oddly reluctant to talk about his military service. He charmed the Tonbridge Tories with his startling answer when he was asked to name a living politician he admired. 'Dan Jarvis, Labour MP for Barnsley,' he replied without a blink. The two served together in Helmand, and Jarvis — one to watch on the red team — is equally complimentary about his 'thoroughly decent' friend. 'I would expect him to very quickly rise through the Tory ranks,' he says.

Described as carrying a 'slight whiff of James Bond', Tugendhat refuses to discuss the details of his military service. 'I was in the Intelligence Corps — that is a matter of public record,' he says when pressed by Spectator Life. 'I'm not going to get into what I did after that.' Rumour has it that 'Thomas of Arabia', as he's been called, negotiated with the Taleban on behalf of the British government. 'That's a different matter,' he says.

Quote from: Gups on May 07, 2015, 05:38:28 AM
But I'd been impressed by their management of the economy

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2015, 11:32:36 AM
This is what I don't get.
If you look at UK GDP/cap from 2008 - 2014, the UK did about as good as the aggregated Eurozone.  (that is GDP/cap by end of 2014 was still slightly lower than the 2008 level).  But the UK has an independent central bank that took vigorous action and the ECB didn't so really one should expect better performance from the UK.  If there was some masterful management by the Tories the numbers don't show it.  If anything -  as with the US.- given historically low public borrowing rates and existing infrastructure needs, a little more money could have been allocated there in the last couple years.  Also housing policy remains a disaster.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 07, 2015, 11:36:16 AM
Surely the financial crisis had a disproportionate effect on the UK.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2015, 11:51:20 AM
More than Spain, Ireland, or Iceland?  Don't think so.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on May 07, 2015, 11:55:18 AM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2015, 11:51:20 AM
More than Spain, Ireland, or Iceland?  Don't think so.

More than the entire Eurozone, which was your comparitor.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2015, 11:32:36 AM

Quote from: Gups on May 07, 2015, 05:38:28 AM
But I'd been impressed by their management of the economy

This is what I don't get.
If you look at UK GDP/cap from 2008 - 2014, the UK did about as good as the aggregated Eurozone.  (that is GDP/cap by end of 2014 was still slightly lower than the 2008 level).  But the UK has an independent central bank that took vigorous action and the ECB didn't so really one should expect better performance from the UK.  If there was some masterful management by the Tories the numbers don't show it.  If anything -  as with the US.- given historically low public borrowing rates and existing infrastructure needs, a little more money could have been allocated there in the last couple years.  Also housing policy remains a disaster.

Quote from: Gups on May 07, 2015, 12:46:25 PM
Unemployment has been kept low.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on May 07, 2015, 01:55:25 PM
Passive voice.  "has been kept low". By whom and by how?