I've been looking at the age of MPs by party and it is quite interesting:
Labour have 15 MPs over the age of 70 including 4 over the age of 80 (Kaufman, Skinner, Winnick and Flynn), while the Cons only have 8 MPs over 70 (Haselhurst is the oldest by some way at 78). Lab also has more MPs in their 60s (50 vs. 40 for the Cons). Unsurprisingly the SNP's MPs are the youngest with only 6 over 60.
It suggests the Cons have been better at persuading some of the old guard to stand aside and reduces the probability of a by-election in a Con seat due to an MP passing away.
Isn't the lowish number of age-70+ Tory MPs due to a mixture of 1997 and the expenses scandal?
Greetings from Nha Trang . Thanks to Old King Cole for the Cu Chi recommendation. That was an amazing experience. Vietnam is wonderful. Great people food history etc. Would recommend it to anyone and can't wait to see Hoi An, Hue, Halong bay and Hanoi. Looking forward to 9am a week on Friday or so here when Oldham news comes in!
The man who helped mastermind a campaign that broke electoral laws and triggered the resignation of a former minister is at the heart of Ukip’s push to win the Oldham West and Royton by-election.
Joe Fitzpatrick, Ukip’s interim Oldham chairman, was the electoral agent for Labour MP Phil Woolas when he was accused of inflaming racial tensions with false statements about his rival.
Mr Woolas was forced to resign after a court found he had made “untrue” statements in the 2010 election campaign linking his rival to Islamists who “advocate extreme violence”.
The court heard how Mr Fitzpatrick wrote an email during the tightly-fought campaign warning: “If we don't get the white folk angry, he's gone."
If Labour manage to get their act into gear by 2020, an Osborne lead Tory party will have a fight on it's hands to stay in office. He's wound up a lot of natural Conservative voters.
This policy is very simple:
1. BTL-buyers will have to pay 3% more tax. All other things being equal, they will reduce their bids by 3%, which will reduce the price that owner-occupiers have to pay to compete with the BTL segment.
2. The exemption for more than 15 properties is because the government is trying to persuade the insurance companies to get involved in the private rental sector by building specific rental developments. Putting up their taxes will not help this. So it's not about "helping out his chums". It's all about reducing house prices and reducing rents.
Surely a good thing?
It's one of the better ideas in the statement but it's a long way from what is needed.
The ideal solution is to introduce a rental tax to which certain organisations would be exempt with a stated intention to build it up, bit by bit to at least the level of VAT. A slow movement over 10 years would push property from BTL into Owner-Occupation.
Although people already pay income tax on rental income, and the changes to the W&T allowance and the mortgage interest relief are designed to reduce the return on investment
I've advocated before, a charge equivalent to the rate of NIC on profits derived from letting more than two properties
Reducing profitability of current renting will impact interest coverage analysis and possibly lead to loans being called in due to regulatory reasons. Result will be forced selling and uncontrolled price movements (as well as potential ruination for individuals)
Increasing stamp duty on new purchases will put pressure on prices of new purchases so selling will be more controlled but the o/o will get the immediate competitive advantage on new purchases
There could also be a by election. If she's found guilty her position could be untenable even if she doesn't receive a custodial sentence of more than 12 months.
Labour MP Marie Rimmer faces trial over alleged 'referendum assault'
Everyone supports her on that and no one but the SNP would demand a resignation for kicking an obnoxious YES campaigner in the balls. She's safe no matter what the verdict.
Typical lying cheating unprincipled lowlife unionist opinion there I see.
I don’t know the seat or the MP but my understanding is that, unlike Oldham West and Royton, this is not natural UKIP territory.
Islington North?
I didn't know Oldham West and Royton was natural UKIP territory... You live and learn
Maybe fertile territory rather than natural? The kind of seat where, since the events of May, one expects UKIP to be in contention.
If "natural" means a seat which a party is nailed on to win at a GE then there is, as yet, no natural UKIP territory.
One of the things that has been slightly surprising about the coverage around this election is the relative lack of attention paid to just how bad relations are between the two communities in Oldham in general, and that part in particular. There has been a long history of nasty incidents over the years and, while the optimists will say that much has been done to repair the damage, around the Manchester area, Oldham has the reputation of being the town with probably the most difficult community relations, more so than in H&M. There has also been a lot of anger historically at the perceived bias of Oldham Council towards certain communities.
Personal feeling is the key to whether UKIP wins or not will be the Conservative block in OW (I think the WWC ex-Labour core has now disappeared to UKIP bar some residual loyalty): if you are Conservative in one of those types of Northern seats, you tend to stick with them but, unlike H&M, I suspect at least some Conservative voters may be tempted to switch to give the Council a black eye.
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
Peston "confirms" nothing. He's just a bitter lefty beeboid who can't get over the fact that there is a Conservative majority government. Nothing that this government does will meet with his complete approval.
Kezia Dugdale must get sick and tired of being given the dockyard hooker treatment every Thursday at FMQs. I genuinely felt sorry for her when she led on oil revenues and Nicola slapped her down by pointing out how she was essentially laughing at people losing jobs and livelihoods.
You could tell in her tone in the next question that she was totally deflated and realised just how insidious she was being.
Labour are so thick it is unbelievable , they are constantly belittling people in Scotland, hard to believe they can be as stupid.
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
Peston "confirms" nothing. He's just a bitter lefty beeboid who can't get over the fact that there is a Conservative majority government. Nothing that this government does will meet with his complete approval.
PS Agree with the view Gorton is the most likely candidate for a by-election - definitely not UKIP territory as it has a large Asian population. Lib Dems historically were very strong in the area but have faded away.
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
How can Robert Peston 'confirm' anything of the sort? I think you mean he's giving his not-especially-authoritative opinion.
In fact the article is bollocks. A moment's glance at the figures shows that Osborne has changed very little overall: he's spending a smidgen more (partly because he had no choice, given the fact that he didn't have the votes to get the tax credit changes through), and he's taxing a smidgen more to (partially) compensate.
As for the point that the forecasts all depend on, err, the forecasts being right: that's always true. If things go better than expected the outcome will be better, and if things go badly - perhaps because of external shocks from China or the EU - then the outcome will be worse. I'm amazed that journalists can get paid for telling us this!
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
It is 'articles' such as this that undermine the BBC in their attempt to prove their impartiality and the need to retain the BBC website in its current form.
The BBC news department should report the news. It should not seek to make the news. And it certainly should not exist to give journalists major platform for comment pieces.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
E-mail from EMoneyunion, a P2P company I hae a tiny investment with:
"We started the Peer to Peer ISA journey in March 2014 when George Osborne pulled the unexpected New-ISA rabbit out of his hat, just weeks before we became part of the FCA regulatory framework April 2014. As a small Fintech business, we couldn't have asked for more support from HM Treasury and FCA on the shaping of our disruptive and ground-breaking platform. Our shareholders benefitted from EIS tax breaks when investing to help build us and now our lenders are on track to benefit from tax free lending with their annual ISA allowances from April 2016. The final rules are set be confirmed by the end of this year. "
Kezia Dugdale must get sick and tired of being given the dockyard hooker treatment every Thursday at FMQs. I genuinely felt sorry for her when she led on oil revenues and Nicola slapped her down by pointing out how she was essentially laughing at people losing jobs and livelihoods.
You could tell in her tone in the next question that she was totally deflated and realised just how insidious she was being.
Labour are so thick it is unbelievable , they are constantly belittling people in Scotland, hard to believe they can be as stupid.
Indeed.
It is true, to an extent that if oil prices are high it is good for SNP and if oil prices are low, it is not so good for the SNP.
However, if oil prices are low, George Osborne guffaws in Westminster about Scots losing jobs and Scottish businesses going under, then the very next day Kezia Dugdale stands up in Parliament and joins in with Osborne's laughter at lost Scottish jobs and livelihoods, then that is the biggest win imaginable for the SNP.
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
If this is true then those of us who have bet on UKIP in Oldham may well be in with a better chance than the odds are saying.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
Labour just need a UKIP-level event, to hive off the crazy fuckers from the party.
I don't for a moment think even the craziest Kippers are as intransigent, nasty, deaf and full of hatred as the staunchest Corbynites, but they do need their own party, like the Kippers have.
The Kippers at least have a mainstream cause (leaving the EU). The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
Labour just need a UKIP-level event, to hive off the crazy fuckers from the party.
I don't for a moment think even the craziest Kippers are as intransigent, nasty, deaf and full of hatred as the staunchest Corbynites, but they do need their own party, like the Kippers have.
The Kippers at least have a mainstream cause (leaving the EU). The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The problem is that the Corbynites have control and are rapidly changing the rules to ensure that they will always have control. The only way to carve the Corbynites out is for everyone else to leave and that is a big gamble as the SDP showed...
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
How can Robert Peston 'confirm' anything of the sort? I think you mean he's giving his not-especially-authoritative opinion.
In fact the article is bollocks. A moment's glance at the figures shows that Osborne has changed very little overall: he's spending a smidgen more (partly because he had no choice, given the fact that he didn't have the votes to get the tax credit changes through), and he's taxing a smidgen more to (partially) compensate.
As for the point that the forecasts all depend on, err, the forecasts being right: that's always true. If things go better than expected the outcome will be better, and if things go badly - perhaps because of external shocks from China or the EU - then the outcome will be worse. I'm amazed that journalists can get paid for telling us this!
You are correct and I am continually amazed these days by the PB Hysterics who are snuffling everywhere for any shred to back up an increasingly thin argument.
Kezia Dugdale must get sick and tired of being given the dockyard hooker treatment every Thursday at FMQs. I genuinely felt sorry for her when she led on oil revenues and Nicola slapped her down by pointing out how she was essentially laughing at people losing jobs and livelihoods.
You could tell in her tone in the next question that she was totally deflated and realised just how insidious she was being.
Labour are so thick it is unbelievable , they are constantly belittling people in Scotland, hard to believe they can be as stupid.
Indeed.
It is true, to an extent that if oil prices are high it is good for SNP and if oil prices are low, it is not so good for the SNP.
However, if oil prices are low, George Osborne guffaws in Westminster about Scots losing jobs and Scottish businesses going under, then the very next day Kezia Dugdale stands up in Parliament and joins in with Osborne's laughter at lost Scottish jobs and livelihoods, then that is the biggest win imaginable for the SNP.
When have you ever heard a Tory MP laughing at Scottish job losses?
You need to start seeing past your dribbling prejudices dude.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave them to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I'm beginning to think there will be a leadership election much sooner than most of us expected. How can this go on? And will Len and co allow it to?
While Oldham office has the highest cumulative number of [Universal Credit] starts of any Jobcentre Plus Office (6,013)
Is UC live anywhere? or is the point that Oldham is leading the way?
At the most recent count there are 140,000 live universal credit claims.
I'm just noting the coincidence that the biggest live load is in an area with an upcoming by-election, and there is no reversal of the universal credit changes, no cancelling of Christmas letters.
In this case, you need big companies to increase the supply of properties. Individuals tend to buy 1, 2 or 3 existing properties. We need investors to build 50 or 100 units for rent at a time.
Absolutely right. Large investors will be building new stock while small "investors" will buy existing stock and try to extract maximum yield from it by ripping off private tenants as much as they possibly can. Insurance companies, pension funds and large developers just aren't going to be interested in buying up single units here and there like private "investors".
The other good part about this is that by making it a stamp duty based charge it doesn't effect those real investors who are taking a risk by buying land and building new property to rent. I also think they should be able to claim maximum tax relief while existing property lets should have all tax relief abolished and the stamp duty increased to 10% additional, plus an annual fee worth 2% of the market price for foreign buyers not resident for tax purposes. We absolutely have to stamp out buy-to-let and encourage build-to-let. Buy-to-let is economically unfavourable, it is a transfer or wealth from young people who spend money to old people who don't spend money. It means less actual investment in housing, people who rent never spend money on home improvements and landlords are completely useless in this area despite tax breaks on offer (thankfully now on their way out) and young people spending less of their disposable income on luxury goods and services as they save for a deposit to buy their own place.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
Labour just need a UKIP-level event, to hive off the crazy fuckers from the party.
I don't for a moment think even the craziest Kippers are as intransigent, nasty, deaf and full of hatred as the staunchest Corbynites, but they do need their own party, like the Kippers have.
The Kippers at least have a mainstream cause (leaving the EU). The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The problem is that the Corbynites have control and are rapidly changing the rules to ensure that they will always have control. The only way to carve the Corbynites out is for everyone else to leave and that is a big gamble as the SDP showed...
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I'm beginning to think there will be a leadership election much sooner than most of us expected. How can this go on? And will Len and co allow it to?
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I'm beginning to think there will be a leadership election much sooner than most of us expected. How can this go on? And will Len and co allow it to?
If I were David Cameron or George Osborne I would be pushing as many controversial votes as I could think of to the Commons as soon as possible with the direct intention of losing these votes.
Then, once he has lost a few of these, and do so with complicit support from fake "Tory rebels", he can use it as an excuse to call an early election (which can be done even under FTPA, it's just more convoluted.
That would kill Labour. Without an election, Labour can always recover in time for 2020 by replacing the leader. But once they go through an actual GE and people become entrenched in their opposition to Labour, there is no way back.
The Tories could kill Labour forever, if they play this right.
@patrickwintour: Emails being sent by staff in office of a Labour whip urging MPs to oppose air strikes. "Western attacks play into ISIS hands", it claims.
Re this - http://hurryupharry.org/2015/11/25/jeremy-corbyn-and-the-finsbury-park-mosque/ - it would be interesting to know how often he has visited this mosque before. The article suggests the association is of long standing. Was he close to it when Abu Hamza was using it as a base for his terrorist activities?
It is very depressing that a Leader of the Opposition should see no problem at all with associating with people such as these. Still the Labour Party were warned about this and they still went ahead and elected them. They can hardly complain now if they are seen by some us as terrorist sympathizers.
Harry's place provides a very useful service by shinning a spot light on areas(certain areas of) the left would not like to be widely know.n
Indeed it does. As does Jamie Palmer - check out www.jacobinism.blogspot.co.uk.
I've been saying for weeks that UKIP had a good chance of winning. It is a by-election after all. People can make a protest and then return to their usual party at the next general election.
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
If this is true then those of us who have bet on UKIP in Oldham may well be in with a better chance than the odds are saying.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
I don’t know the seat or the MP but my understanding is that, unlike Oldham West and Royton, this is not natural UKIP territory.
Islington North?
I didn't know Oldham West and Royton was natural UKIP territory... You live and learn
Maybe fertile territory rather than natural? The kind of seat where, since the events of May, one expects UKIP to be in contention.
If "natural" means a seat which a party is nailed on to win at a GE then there is, as yet, no natural UKIP territory.
One of the things that has been slightly surprising about the coverage around this election is the relative lack of attention paid to just how bad relations are between the two communities in Oldham in general, and that part in particular. There has been a long history of nasty incidents over the years and, while the optimists will say that much has been done to repair the damage, around the Manchester area, Oldham has the reputation of being the town with probably the most difficult community relations, more so than in H&M. There has also been a lot of anger historically at the perceived bias of Oldham Council towards certain communities.
Personal feeling is the key to whether UKIP wins or not will be the Conservative block in OW (I think the WWC ex-Labour core has now disappeared to UKIP bar some residual loyalty): if you are Conservative in one of those types of Northern seats, you tend to stick with them but, unlike H&M, I suspect at least some Conservative voters may be tempted to switch to give the Council a black eye.
Unfortunately I think you are right about community relations, but none of it seems to have exploded into the open during the campaign. Whatever the result it seems likely it will have to be interpreted through the glass of a low turnout.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I was going to say that what happened in Scotland was different, with the SNP having polled so well in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2014 (Euros), not even counting the referendum. However, I'm not sure that's entirely true. There have been straws in the wind as to UKIP's performance over the last few years and while it's not on the scale of the defection to the SNP (yet), that defection has occurred over ten years or more, in stages. In fact, it was the general election in 2010 that was the exception, not the rule.
UKIP are nowhere near as far down the line against Labour than the SNP are but they are travelling the same road, or at least a parallel one.
The man who helped mastermind a campaign that broke electoral laws and triggered the resignation of a former minister is at the heart of Ukip’s push to win the Oldham West and Royton by-election.
Joe Fitzpatrick, Ukip’s interim Oldham chairman, was the electoral agent for Labour MP Phil Woolas when he was accused of inflaming racial tensions with false statements about his rival.
Mr Woolas was forced to resign after a court found he had made “untrue” statements in the 2010 election campaign linking his rival to Islamists who “advocate extreme violence”.
The court heard how Mr Fitzpatrick wrote an email during the tightly-fought campaign warning: “If we don't get the white folk angry, he's gone."
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
It seems that b is the one, given what we have seen so far. Certainly those around him - McDonnells, the Seamus Milnes, the Owen Jones and Momentum and all the rest - they really believe as far as I can see that their time has come. They need to get out a bit more - maybe go mad and do some door knocking in Oldham this December.
I've been saying for weeks that UKIP had a good chance of winning. It is a by-election after all. People can make a protest and then return to their usual party at the next general election.
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
If this is true then those of us who have bet on UKIP in Oldham may well be in with a better chance than the odds are saying.
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I was going to say that what happened in Scotland was different, with the SNP having polled so well in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2014 (Euros), not even counting the referendum. However, I'm not sure that's entirely true. There have been straws in the wind as to UKIP's performance over the last few years and while it's not on the scale of the defection to the SNP (yet), that defection has occurred over ten years or more, in stages. In fact, it was the general election in 2010 that was the exception, not the rule.
UKIP are nowhere near as far down the line against Labour than the SNP are but they are travelling the same road, or at least a parallel one.
I think, perhaps, it is not just the polling which is indicative of these sort of mood changes. It's also the noises.
The line "people were handing back our leaflets" and "I've never seen anything like this before".
Those *are* direct quotes from Scotland in the run up to GE2015. And the same words, exactly the same words, are now being attributed to Labour sources in Oldham.
Labour are not even being listened to. Exactly the same as SLAB say to this day. Scotland isn't listening to us any more. Once that happens, it's all over.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
It seems that b is the one, given what we have seen so far. Certainly those around him - McDonnells, the Seamus Milnes, the Owen Jones and Momentum and all the rest - they really believe as far as I can see that their time has come. They need to get out a bit more - maybe go mad and do some door knocking in Oldham this December.
I'm not sure that it's a case of thinking that their time *has* come, more that they believe that at some point their time *will* come. If they believe that eventually, every government loses power (you can't go on forever), and that therefore Labour will certainly gain power at some point in the future, then they are doing what they can to ensure that the Labour government which eventually comes is a Left-ist-Socialist one.
Scots are incurable optimists. More think that Scotland is likely to win the rugby world cup by 2025 than expect life to be discovered on Mars by that date:
Certainly those around him - McDonnells, the Seamus Milnes, the Owen Jones and Momentum and all the rest - they really believe as far as I can see that their time has come.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Bonkers...embellish your story about 9/11, makes some more offensive tweets, mock a disabled reports...bump in poll ratings. He is making Teflon Tony look like an amateur.
@patrickwintour: Emails being sent by staff in office of a Labour whip urging MPs to oppose air strikes. "Western attacks play into ISIS hands", it claims.
Given that no one is going to plonk 300,000 (x2) boots on the ground to defeat Islamic State and then create and maintain civil society; given also that airstrikes are an imprecise tool which can inhibit but not defeat an enemy such as Islamic State, then I am of the opinion that airstrikes do the following:
1) inhibit operations as much as possible in theatre; and/but 2) more importantly, and at the risk of sounding like a London cabbie via Private Eye, are an important strategic tool because it is the only language Islamic State understand.
The Israelis have long understood that displays of weakness simply embolden its enemies and likewise here with IS, it is important that they and anyone who fancies heading off there to fight with them should know that targeting the West is not without consequences.
Scots are incurable optimists. More think that Scotland is likely to win the rugby world cup by 2025 than expect life to be discovered on Mars by that date:
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
We would all be speaking German if we had taken that attitude in the 1940's.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
I expect Corbyn, McDonnell etc probably hugely overrate their chances of actually winning in 2020 and see it as far more probable than almost anyone here would. Also, however, if they get, say 23% of the vote that, while a catastrophe for Labour, would be excellent compared with what TUSC (or equivalent) might achieve. In short, they have hijacked the Labour brand, built by the right and soft-left over decades, and will be happy to cash it in.
Scots are incurable optimists. More think that Scotland is likely to win the rugby world cup by 2025 than expect life to be discovered on Mars by that date:
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
How soon after commencing airstrikes can we expect an terror attack in the UK do you think? I'd be surprised if some lunatic didn't go for it within a week.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
I guess this backbencher had never been to Scotland.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
I was going to say that what happened in Scotland was different, with the SNP having polled so well in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2014 (Euros), not even counting the referendum. However, I'm not sure that's entirely true. There have been straws in the wind as to UKIP's performance over the last few years and while it's not on the scale of the defection to the SNP (yet), that defection has occurred over ten years or more, in stages. In fact, it was the general election in 2010 that was the exception, not the rule.
UKIP are nowhere near as far down the line against Labour than the SNP are but they are travelling the same road, or at least a parallel one.
And that SNP progress was also (patchily) seen in Parliamentary By-Elections. (cf Glasgow East, 2008, although not so much in Inverclyde, 2011)
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Surely it's all a matter of cost-benefit.
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
How soon after commencing airstrikes can we expect an terror attack in the UK do you think? I'd be surprised if some lunatic didn't go for it within a week.
It doesn't matter if it was a week or even a day after. We cannot let the fear of attacks from ISIS dictate our foreign policy.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Surely it's all a matter of cost-benefit.
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
If we allow the putrid mess to fester we could be reaching that point sooner rather than later.
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
Much simpler than that.
He wants his party back.
The truth is that it never was HIS party.
Well quite – Corbyn may hate New Labour, but Old Labour was never the Communist utopia he wishes to recreate.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
I quite agree. I too have some reservations not least the "What next?" question. But sometimes a course of action will increase the risks we face in the short-term but is necessary in the long term.
Declaring war on Germany in September 1939 undoubtedly increased the risks of British civilians being bombed but it was nonetheless the right thing to do.
If/when a terrorist atrocity occurs here, undoubtedly Corbyn et all will blame our foreign policy, as he did after 7/7. He is incapable or unwilling to accept that a murderous ideology will find any pretext for doing what it wants to do anyway and is clever enough to prey on the gullibility of people like him to couch their explanations in such a way as to make the victims feel guilty for the actions of the murderers.
We should have no truck with this and call this nonsense out for what it is. Perhaps one way to make some of the dimmer Leftists understand might be to quote one of their own - La Pasionaria: "Better to die on your feet than to live forever on your knees."
We are targets not because of what we do but because of what we are.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Surely it's all a matter of cost-benefit.
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
If IS had a nuclear bomb in London they'd detonate it regardless of anything we did or said. Part of what makes them so alarming, imo, is that with the resources they command it is relatively more likely that they could afford a nuclear bomb compared with other terrorist groups. It seems to me that taking away their hold on territory will make that less likely.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Surely it's all a matter of cost-benefit.
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
Surely then we would hunt down these fellows holding the bomb, there would be no guarantee they wouldn't detonate it anyway, just out of the kindness of their hearts. This is one of those ideological fights that goes beyond cost/benefit. We must defeat ISIS whatever the cost, if it makes the streets of London slightly less secure for a while or increases the threat of terrorism, requires us to land troops in Syria or even bringing back the draft to wage war, we have to do it now because the problem of extremist Islam isn't just going to go away.
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
When you see some of the other regressive thinking going on here, it is clear that this SJW mentality has spread far and wide round the dreaming spires.
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
I don’t know the seat or the MP but my understanding is that, unlike Oldham West and Royton, this is not natural UKIP territory.
Islington North?
I didn't know Oldham West and Royton was natural UKIP territory... You live and learn
Maybe fertile territory rather than natural? The kind of seat where, since the events of May, one expects UKIP to be in contention.
If "natural" means a seat which a party is nailed on to win at a GE then there is, as yet, no natural UKIP territory.
One of the things that has been slightly surprising about the coverage around this election is the relative lack of attention paid to just how bad relations are between the two communities in Oldham in general, and that part in particular. There has been a long history of nasty incidents over the years and, while the optimists will say that much has been done to repair the damage, around the Manchester area, Oldham has the reputation of being the town with probably the most difficult community relations, more so than in H&M. There has also been a lot of anger historically at the perceived bias of Oldham Council towards certain communities.
Personal feeling is the key to whether UKIP wins or not will be the Conservative block in OW (I think the WWC ex-Labour core has now disappeared to UKIP bar some residual loyalty): if you are Conservative in one of those types of Northern seats, you tend to stick with them but, unlike H&M, I suspect at least some Conservative voters may be tempted to switch to give the Council a black eye.
Unfortunately I think you are right about community relations, but none of it seems to have exploded into the open during the campaign. Whatever the result it seems likely it will have to be interpreted through the glass of a low turnout.
I suspect the reason it has not exploded (in fact, almost certain of it) is that no one wants to get accused of being an ignorant bigot - Northern WWC (believe it or not) are quite sensitive about that. That does not mean they do not think it and cast their vote accordingly in the privacy of the ballot box.
23 billion does not appear out of thin air in just a few months.
Might be worth reminding yourself of that when you're next advocating an avalanche of public spending splurging a.k.a. current Labour leadership policy.
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
When you see some of the other regressive thinking going on here, it is clear that this SJW mentality has spread far and wide round the dreaming spires.
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
I was there until a year and a half ago too, I would not say that ideas like "Rhodes Must Fall" are widespread. The more extreme the idea, the fewer adherents.
Sure, the majority are what other people might call "politically correct", but the vast majority do not talk of safe spaces, trigger warnings, or anything else. They are, like most students, far too busy.
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
When you see some of the other regressive thinking going on here, it is clear that this SJW mentality has spread far and wide round the dreaming spires.
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
When you see some of the other regressive thinking going on here, it is clear that this SJW mentality has spread far and wide round the dreaming spires.
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
It does seem to be the case that top universities attract people who are a little bit thick, these days.
Sources in Pyongyang, quoted by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, said authorities in the North Korean capital have issued an order requiring that men keep their hair to a maximum 2 cm (0.8 inches) in length.
They are also being instructed to pay homage to Mr Kim by copying his trademark swept-back bouffant that emerges upwards from the shaved patches above his ears.
Women have also been told to adopt a bob similar to that affected by Ri Sol-ju, the North Korean leader's wife. The only exceptions to the new rules, the paper claimed, are performers.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Miss P., I am a reluctant No when it comes to British involvement in Syria. Not because I am a pacifist or frightened of terrorist attacks but because I don't believe anyone in HMG has actually got a plan for how to win such a war or that anyone in HMG has really got the commitment to see such a war through to its end.
I think we will go off half-cock joining in with not enough resources to make a difference and no plan as to how to win and then after a few years get bored with it and pull out. If we are not going to do it properly then best not to do anything.
On ISIS, I've heard a lot of opposition coming from people saying that if we bomb them then we will get reprisal attacks, so we shouldn't bomb them. Wouldn't that basically be saying that they've won? They have cowed us into such a state that we are so afraid of their terrorism that we won't take the fight to them.
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
Surely it's all a matter of cost-benefit.
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
If IS had a nuclear bomb in London they'd detonate it regardless of anything we did or said. Part of what makes them so alarming, imo, is that with the resources they command it is relatively more likely that they could afford a nuclear bomb compared with other terrorist groups. It seems to me that taking away their hold on territory will make that less likely.
Exactly. Having territory is important to IS. It gives them a base. It gives them credibility amongst their target audience. It makes them successful. If they lose territory, it will be harder for them to operate and they will be less attractive to some. People - even jihadists - are attracted to success. It is important to make IS losers.
Bombing will not - on its own - bring success. But it is one of a range of measures that are needed. My reservations are that it is too often seen as the only thing we need do and that no thought whatever is given to the long term strategic aim, what victory is, what it looks like, when we know whether we've achieved it and what we do next.
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
Much simpler than that.
He wants his party back.
The truth is that it never was HIS party.
They can't handle the truth.
(I was referencing the Kinnock quote)
Oi! I'm not a Major General, not a Colonel!
Get it right before I send you for immediate reeducation.
One week until we have either a stunning UKIP victory, or the first piece of good news for Corbyn since he became Supreme Leader/Chairman/Ayatollah.
Could I tempt you into a small wager, Mr. D.? I will bet you a glass of beer to be taken in the Adelphi the next time I am in Leeds that UKIP will not win (dinner afterwards at that marvellous Brazillian place will be on me).
There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.
There is an interesting thread over on Property 118 explaining why a lot of LLs who don't put rents up during a tenancy are about to start doing so, thanks to Mr O.
"Oxford University in 'race row' over 'problematic' 1920s ball
Critics have wondered why the colleges are commemorating 'an era of history steeped in racism
Colleges at the University of Oxford have been drawn into a 'race row' after advertising New Orleans and 1920s-themed balls, to be held in May 2016. Students have claimed that the balls may cause offence to female and ethnic minority students.'
It is a source of shame that the current student body of Oxford University is so incapable of rational thought that this sort of campaign ever got off the ground.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
It's not really " the current student body of Oxford University " is it?
When you see some of the other regressive thinking going on here, it is clear that this SJW mentality has spread far and wide round the dreaming spires.
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
I was there until a year and a half ago too, I would not say that ideas like "Rhodes Must Fall" are widespread. The more extreme the idea, the fewer adherents.
Sure, the majority are what other people might call "politically correct", but the vast majority do not talk of safe spaces, trigger warnings, or anything else. They are, like most students, far too busy.
Quite - when I left (8 years ago) the people most loudly involved in such ridiculous protests/handwringing were those:
a) not smart enough to realise that buckling down would give them a good degree an enviable advantage in life b) not interesting enough to direct their interests/appetites to sports/passions/friends to give them contacts providing an even more enviable advantage in life
The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
The Corbynites already had their own party. In fact they had several parties, split off from the Communist Party. That didn't work terribly well so they've taken the opportunity Ed Miliband gave then to take over Labour.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
What I think is really, deeply, philosophically interesting about all this, is whether Corbyn wants the Labour party to split.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
Much simpler than that.
He wants his party back.
The truth is that it never was HIS party.
They can't handle the truth.
(I was referencing the Kinnock quote)
Oi! I'm not a Major General, not a Colonel!
Get it right before I send you for immediate reeducation.
The very model of a modern major general, Mr Jessop, or one of Cromwell's type? Which do you see yourself as?
Comments
Joe Fitzpatrick, Ukip’s interim Oldham chairman, was the electoral agent for Labour MP Phil Woolas when he was accused of inflaming racial tensions with false statements about his rival.
Mr Woolas was forced to resign after a court found he had made “untrue” statements in the 2010 election campaign linking his rival to Islamists who “advocate extreme violence”.
The court heard how Mr Fitzpatrick wrote an email during the tightly-fought campaign warning: “If we don't get the white folk angry, he's gone."
http://bit.ly/1LBgCly
If "natural" means a seat which a party is nailed on to win at a GE then there is, as yet, no natural UKIP territory.
Increasing stamp duty on new purchases will put pressure on prices of new purchases so selling will be more controlled but the o/o will get the immediate competitive advantage on new purchases
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34920769
I hope the Tories who naively voted for Corbyn are pleased.
Large quantity of salt, a giant pinch may be required.
Personal feeling is the key to whether UKIP wins or not will be the Conservative block in OW (I think the WWC ex-Labour core has now disappeared to UKIP bar some residual loyalty): if you are Conservative in one of those types of Northern seats, you tend to stick with them but, unlike H&M, I suspect at least some Conservative voters may be tempted to switch to give the Council a black eye.
In fact the article is bollocks. A moment's glance at the figures shows that Osborne has changed very little overall: he's spending a smidgen more (partly because he had no choice, given the fact that he didn't have the votes to get the tax credit changes through), and he's taxing a smidgen more to (partially) compensate.
As for the point that the forecasts all depend on, err, the forecasts being right: that's always true. If things go better than expected the outcome will be better, and if things go badly - perhaps because of external shocks from China or the EU - then the outcome will be worse. I'm amazed that journalists can get paid for telling us this!
The BBC news department should report the news. It should not seek to make the news. And it certainly should not exist to give journalists major platform for comment pieces.
It needs to stop and stop now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/12018575/Syria-will-be-the-spark-for-open-rebellion-of-Labours-shadow-cabinet-against-Jeremy-Corbyn.html
Interesting stuff about feelings of ordinary voters when Labour come a calling
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher.
You should have listened to Southam.
"We started the Peer to Peer ISA journey in March 2014 when George Osborne pulled the unexpected New-ISA rabbit out of his hat, just weeks before we became part of the FCA regulatory framework April 2014.
As a small Fintech business, we couldn't have asked for more support from HM Treasury and FCA on the shaping of our disruptive and ground-breaking platform. Our shareholders benefitted from EIS tax breaks when investing to help build us and now our lenders are on track to benefit from tax free lending with their annual ISA allowances from April 2016. The final rules are set be confirmed by the end of this year. "
They certainly sound very happy with George.
It is true, to an extent that if oil prices are high it is good for SNP and if oil prices are low, it is not so good for the SNP.
However, if oil prices are low, George Osborne guffaws in Westminster about Scots losing jobs and Scottish businesses going under, then the very next day Kezia Dugdale stands up in Parliament and joins in with Osborne's laughter at lost Scottish jobs and livelihoods, then that is the biggest win imaginable for the SNP.
“We were out leafleting on tax credits in rock solid Labour areas, and people were handing us the leaflets back. I’ve never seen a reaction like it before,” said one backbencher. If this is true then those of us who have bet on UKIP in Oldham may well be in with a better chance than the odds are saying.
I don't for a moment think even the craziest Kippers are as intransigent, nasty, deaf and full of hatred as the staunchest Corbynites, but they do need their own party, like the Kippers have.
The Kippers at least have a mainstream cause (leaving the EU). The communists, anti-British terrorist-apologisers and real batshit crazy types who think Corbyn is the answer will have a cause that enthuses about 1% of the population.
When they are hived off labour can go back to being a serious contender again. I still think - if they carve off the Corbynites sooner rather than later - they can win in 2020.
If this sort of story is true, UKIP have already won Oldham West and Royton.
You need to start seeing past your dribbling prejudices dude.
The question facing Labour now is: will the Corbynites be the expellees, or the expellers?
At the most recent count there are 140,000 live universal credit claims.
I'm just noting the coincidence that the biggest live load is in an area with an upcoming by-election, and there is no reversal of the universal credit changes, no cancelling of Christmas letters.
The other good part about this is that by making it a stamp duty based charge it doesn't effect those real investors who are taking a risk by buying land and building new property to rent. I also think they should be able to claim maximum tax relief while existing property lets should have all tax relief abolished and the stamp duty increased to 10% additional, plus an annual fee worth 2% of the market price for foreign buyers not resident for tax purposes. We absolutely have to stamp out buy-to-let and encourage build-to-let. Buy-to-let is economically unfavourable, it is a transfer or wealth from young people who spend money to old people who don't spend money. It means less actual investment in housing, people who rent never spend money on home improvements and landlords are completely useless in this area despite tax breaks on offer (thankfully now on their way out) and young people spending less of their disposable income on luxury goods and services as they save for a deposit to buy their own place.
Both seem a tad peed off.
Then, once he has lost a few of these, and do so with complicit support from fake "Tory rebels", he can use it as an excuse to call an early election (which can be done even under FTPA, it's just more convoluted.
That would kill Labour. Without an election, Labour can always recover in time for 2020 by replacing the leader. But once they go through an actual GE and people become entrenched in their opposition to Labour, there is no way back.
The Tories could kill Labour forever, if they play this right.
Corbyn is a not a (completely) stupid man, and he will likely know there isn't enough support in the country to lead a Marxist-socialist government. He'll likely know his agenda will never even get close.
So is he:
a) so full of bitterness about the Blair/Mandelson years (believing that neo-Thatcherites usurped the party) that he wants to split the party in an act of revenge.
b) Really naive enough to think that he is inspirational and right enough to persuade millions of voters to his and McDonnell's agenda, then rally to dramatic victory in 2020.
c) Up to something else? Is he planning to spend enough time in the job (taking all sorts of flak and abuse and laughter) to keep hammering home a social-justice agenda, so that - at some point - he can step aside and leave the position open to a more centrist leader, who can no longer ignore the plight of the poor etc*..
*If he does want this he has a hell of a job on his hands reconciling his unreconcilable supporters with the Blairite election-winning (popular) types...
Corbyn is the most interesting thing in British politics by far....
Whatever the result it seems likely it will have to be interpreted through the glass of a low turnout.
UKIP are nowhere near as far down the line against Labour than the SNP are but they are travelling the same road, or at least a parallel one.
Trump continues to hit new highs, great stuff.
The line "people were handing back our leaflets" and "I've never seen anything like this before".
Those *are* direct quotes from Scotland in the run up to GE2015. And the same words, exactly the same words, are now being attributed to Labour sources in Oldham.
Labour are not even being listened to. Exactly the same as SLAB say to this day. Scotland isn't listening to us any more. Once that happens, it's all over.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUvWYDnWUAA6Q82.jpg
I have some reservations about attacks in Syria, these 70,000 FSA fighters for one, but fear of revenge attacks or reprisals from ISIS shouldn't even be considered as one of them. We cannot allow fear of being attacked by terrorists to have any influence on our foreign policy.
1) inhibit operations as much as possible in theatre; and/but
2) more importantly, and at the risk of sounding like a London cabbie via Private Eye, are an important strategic tool because it is the only language Islamic State understand.
The Israelis have long understood that displays of weakness simply embolden its enemies and likewise here with IS, it is important that they and anyone who fancies heading off there to fight with them should know that targeting the West is not without consequences.
“Rhodes must fall,” chants the crowd. But bringing down an imperialist’s statue won’t change the past
Rhodes is a metaphor for the fact that the university is not a fully inclusive space,” says Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh."
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/11/rhodes-must-fall-chants-crowd-bringing-down-imperialist-s-statue-won-t-change
The University is South Africa, not the Greek island. Obviously.
He wants his party back.
We cannot change our past. But we can learn from it.
However these student radicals seem completely unwilling to listen or learn. They want to impose a world view that ignores the realities that the rest of us have to deal with.
It saddens me enormously
If ISIS had a nuclear bomb in London, and threatened to detonate it if we bombed them in Syria, then would you really be so sanguine?
Raqqa needs flattening.
Declaring war on Germany in September 1939 undoubtedly increased the risks of British civilians being bombed but it was nonetheless the right thing to do.
If/when a terrorist atrocity occurs here, undoubtedly Corbyn et all will blame our foreign policy, as he did after 7/7. He is incapable or unwilling to accept that a murderous ideology will find any pretext for doing what it wants to do anyway and is clever enough to prey on the gullibility of people like him to couch their explanations in such a way as to make the victims feel guilty for the actions of the murderers.
We should have no truck with this and call this nonsense out for what it is. Perhaps one way to make some of the dimmer Leftists understand might be to quote one of their own - La Pasionaria: "Better to die on your feet than to live forever on your knees."
We are targets not because of what we do but because of what we are.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/25/wesley_clark_isis_serving_interests_of_turkey_and_saudi_arabia_someones_buying_the_oil_isis_is_selling.html
Except Obama, he cannot love them enough:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/11/25/mike_morell_obama_didnt_hit_isis_oil_tankers_to_avoid_environmental_damage.html
Whether it is part of the no-platforming of speakers with whom a vocal minority disapprove or campaigns such as Rhodes must fall, it is scary to see how blinkered so many of the students here actually are.
(I was referencing the Kinnock quote)
Sure, the majority are what other people might call "politically correct", but the vast majority do not talk of safe spaces, trigger warnings, or anything else. They are, like most students, far too busy.
One week until we have either a stunning UKIP victory, or the first piece of good news for Corbyn since he became Supreme Leader/Chairman/Ayatollah.
I think we will go off half-cock joining in with not enough resources to make a difference and no plan as to how to win and then after a few years get bored with it and pull out. If we are not going to do it properly then best not to do anything.
Bombing will not - on its own - bring success. But it is one of a range of measures that are needed. My reservations are that it is too often seen as the only thing we need do and that no thought whatever is given to the long term strategic aim, what victory is, what it looks like, when we know whether we've achieved it and what we do next.
Get it right before I send you for immediate reeducation.
http://www.property118.com/are-most-landlords-are-under-charging/82183/
Responses from 50+ LLs representing 1000+ properties.
"Oxford University in 'race row' over 'problematic' 1920s ball
Critics have wondered why the colleges are commemorating 'an era of history steeped in racism
Colleges at the University of Oxford have been drawn into a 'race row' after advertising New Orleans and 1920s-themed balls, to be held in May 2016.
Students have claimed that the balls may cause offence to female and ethnic minority students.'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/12014304/Oxford-University-in-race-row-over-problematic-1920s-ball.html
Quite - when I left (8 years ago) the people most loudly involved in such ridiculous protests/handwringing were those:
a) not smart enough to realise that buckling down would give them a good degree an enviable advantage in life
b) not interesting enough to direct their interests/appetites to sports/passions/friends to give them contacts providing an even more enviable advantage in life