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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It’s time for a level playing field when choosing Labour’s next leader
Labour’s electoral college for determining its leader is currently divided and weighted into thirds. MPs & MEPs making up one third, party members another & affiliate members (members of trade unions and other socialist societies) the final third.
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I'm not really sure this is a problem that needs solving. It has become fashionable for both main parties to tinker with the rules after each leadership election.
Today, the 13th July, is the 300th anniversary of the signing of Article X which relates to Gibraltar.
“The Catholic King does hereby, for himself, his heirs and successors, yield to the Crown of Great Britain the full and entire propriety of the town and castle of Gibraltar, together with the port, fortifications, and forts thereunto belonging; and he gives up the said propriety to be held and enjoyed absolutely with all manner of right for ever, without any exception or impediment whatsoever.”
We never need an excuse for a party, but this is quite a good one so we'll use it
Nowadays its simply a land-grab. Rather like the Falklands it is a distraction for domestic troubles and a nationalist drum to bang. Spain cherry-picks the bits of the treaty they can use to be awkward (no explicit definition of sea water area, for example) and ignore the bits which don't suit them.
They play the "colonial anachronism" card whilst insisting that Ceuta and Melilla, their equivalent overseas territories, somehow aren't the same thing and don't count.
Union boss Bob Crow will seek to exploit Labour wranglings with trade unions by urging the movement to break ties with Ed Miliband and create a party that "speaks for working people". The RMT general secretary will speak at the Durham Miners Gala.
http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-07-13/union-leader-bob-crow-urges-trade-unions-to-break-ties-with-ed-miliband-and-form-new-party/
Two threads ago, I wrote the following about the 787 fire:
"Having said all that, it'll be a different cause. One fire on a ?A310? a decade ago was caused by a stewardess leaving a kettle on in the galley ..."
I'd like to draw people's attention to this soothsaying (and ignore all the other possible mechanisms I mooted). :-)
If so, relatively good news for Boeing (still bad, but nowhere near as bad as it could be), and easily fixed. I can imagine many people will want to study the fire damage to the plane to learn lessons.
Labour will have problems for a few years (probably up to 2015) with every selection and winning candidate being put under the microscope to study if the contest was fair. I also expect more appeals from failed candidates and more arguments. It should be manageable with care.
As for the leadership: As NP says, PLP selecting candidates, and the membership selecting the winner via OMOV seems a reasonable approach. But the elephant in the room will be the make-up of the membership that gets to vote.
In addition, the last thing Labour need is another episode of ballot papers being sent out with a candidate's picture on it. Democracy it ain't.
I don't really care how the Labour Party elects its leader. I do care that public money is used to fund the unions. Not a penny of public money should be spent on trade unions or subsidising their members. The state doesn't pay me to carry out my duties as a member of the Federation of Small Business or the Institute of Director so why should Trade Union members get paid time off to conduct union duties? Let the unions pay for them.
Has politics in Britain ever been so boring?
Is there another Miliband sibling, or are you suggesting Labour should have selected their mum?
In goading Miliband in the way he did Cameron has probably ended up doing Labour a huge favour. As it changes, the spotlight will fall ever more brightly on the way in which the Tories get their money. I may be wrong, but I think that what polling has been done on this indicates that voters are more sceptical of Tory links to their funders than they are of Labour's union links. As the union links diminish, that scepticism about the Tories is only set to grow I'd have thought.
It's an interesting quirk how often we use sporting-particularly cricketing metaphors-in daily conversation.
'He/she had a long innings....It's just not cricket...they hit him for six or Geoffrey Howe's home made "It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain".
Well yesterday I think we might have got a new one. Like "Quisling" which describes someone treacherous and 'Hoover' vacuum cleaners Broad 's chance at immortality is as the new word for 'cheat'
http://youtu.be/L1JYHNX8pdo
MPs are given disproportionate influence as they started with 100 per cent. I agree this seems unjustifiable now but it seemed an important quid pro quo at the time.
Those who don't study history are going to live in it. Or something like that.
The LAB system has only been in place since 1994 and since then the party has won three of the four general elections it has faced.
It was only when they started announcing some in early 2010 that their lead collapsed.
Considering the Australian team are famously against walking unless given out and have no issue with broad I find it interesting that you seem to have such a strong view....
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/07/13/poll-alert-33/
https://www.predictious.com/politics
It seems to be pretty much an Intrade clone, hopefully not including the bit about getting sued by the US regulators for unlicensed commodities future trading and everybody losing their money while the founder dies trying to climb Mount Everest.
AW seems to have been with us forever - what an institution.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPC48JSCUAAPJkp.jpg:large
and a lovely little anecdote from his obit in the Telegraph, him to a tee.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BPC7ax9CYAAHTQS.jpg:thumb
Local Governments have built more residential dwellings in the first three years of tthe Coalition government than Labour built in their entire 13 years in office between 1997 and 2010. The problem is that council houses only accounted for a tiny proportion of new build completions during Labour's years of misrule: It is the private sector which accounts for nearly nine in ten of all dwellings constructed. Only private construction companies hold the land, planning permissions, sales capability and financial resources to increase construction rates substantially in the short term.
What has been constraining house building has been lack of finance supply from the banks and lack of demand from housebuyers. Osborne's housing sector interventions have been targetted specifically at removing these constraints and are delivering what is needed.
On Mortgage supply:
First-time buyers are returning to Britain’s housing market, raising hopes for a revival in the residential property sector.
Mortgages for first-time purchases were 25,100 in May – up 29% on April and 42% on a year earlier, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said. The number of first-time buyer loans was the highest since the peak of the housing boom in late 2007 and more than three times January 2009’s low of 8,500.
More first-time buyers are seen as essential for a revival in the UK property market. Prices have risen in recent months but increases have been driven partly by a lack of supply.
First-time buyers are getting mortgages with smaller deposits as lenders ease stiff lending requirements. May’s 81% loan-to-value ratio was the highest since November 2008.
And the construction sector is responding to increased demand with the private sector leading the way:
private enterprise housing starts (seasonally adjusted) were 7% higher in the March quarter 2013 than the previous quarter, whilst starts by housing associations were 1% higher
The rate of housing completions has continued to escalate during the second quarter in line with increased confidence in the economy and improved credit supply.
You should note however that both demand and supply remain well below their 2007 peaks:
seasonally adjusted starts are now 62% above the trough in the March quarter 2009 but 44% below the March quarter 2007 peak; completions are 49% below their March quarter 2007 peak
There is therefore plenty of slack capacity which can be utilised to ramp up housing construction and sales over the next two years.
Believing that the solution to the current housing market problems lie in ramping up local government building is pure fantasy.
The polling shows otherwise.
It's the Tories that seem to be losing council by-elections every week
It's the Tories who have been most affected by the rise of UKIP
It's the Tories who are seeing a huge decline in activists as seen by polling this week
If you want to make staements back them up with facts
You just make yourself you stupid.
1) Buy-to-lets
2) Second homes
The latter of these is particularly troublesome in certain areas of countryside.
There is little point in building increasing numbers of houses, just for the liquidity of the housing market to go down as they go straight into the hands of private landlords.
There are plenty of ways for these to be tackled, but few are appealing to the electorate. In the meantime, large tracts of countryside die and landlords snap up large numbers of properties in our towns and cities.
It is like building new roads - the more you build, the greater the traffic levels grow.
The tax arrangements with Switzerland work as follows.
The UK government reaches an agreement with the Swiss Government and/or banks, under which the banks pay the UK a fixed sum of deposit transactions made by UK nationals at Swiss banks. The Swiss banks do not reveal the identity of individual account holders to the UK government. They recover the sums paid to the UK government by applying a fixed rate 'withholding tax' to UK National account holders.
This arrangement has been the case for many decades and the withholding tax has been set at a level designed to capture a broad equivalent of the income taxes which would be applied had the account been held in a UK bank. The new treaty extends the arrangement to collecting capital gains and other applicable taxes and involves higher rate withholding taxes being applied to a broader range of transactions.
As an individual account holder, you have the option of allowing the Swiss bank to apply the agreed withholding taxes at pre-agreed rates or to declare the existence of the account and its underlying transactions to HMRC.
Declaration makes sense when the tax assessed by HMRC would be lower than that collected by the Swiss banks through a withholding tax. This is more likely to apply for capital gains taxes as a tax payer is likely to have offsetting tax losses which may not be shown by transactions within the Swiss bank account.
This is why the tax take from the Swiss Banks is so difficult to estimate. It is not known how much of the tax due will be paid by direct declaration to HMRC and the proportion which will be collected through withholding taxes. Only the 'withholding tax' receipts will be entered into the National Accounts as a special item. Taxes paid directly to HMRC will not be separately accounted for: they will just increase the HMRC tax takes.
The overall taxes due to the Exchequer from UK Nationals holding accounts with Swiss Banks is generally well known and calculable. What is not known is the method by which these taxes will be paid.
Why did he walk today before the umpire even raised his finger ? If he was / you are being consistent he should have waited for the umpire to raise his finger.
Or, is the most likely answer being that he [they] wait(s) for the umpire's decision when he [they] feels that he/they can get away with it ?
So short term growth will not come from this sub-sector. Note that Housing Associations only increased completions by 1% in Q1 2013 compared to 7% by the private sector.
Only you and a super-annuated former Glaswegian Labour councillor pursuing a whimsical mid-1960s socialist five year planning cycle could fail to see that the engine for growth in house-building is and can only be the private sector.
Hadn't paid attention yday. Alex Salmond running so scared he calls it "independent-lite" & says it'll still be "UK" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23287920 …
Possible but still above the record of 284 for a fourth innings to win at Trent Bridge.
The overall local government limit would not be breached.
http://www.jostevens.co.uk/
She was backed by Unite and endorsed by Tom Watson. So expect a call for an inquiry soon.
Dan Watkins selected by the Tories in Tooting.
I think Labour's strategic position is weaker than it might be, but that their tactical advantage may be sufficient to get them over the line.
More importantly the last line of OGH's response was completely unnecessary. You can disagree with someone without being rude
The Unite running table is
10 selected
13 defeated
18 to go
In Dudley they support Natacha Millward, in Kingswood Rowenna Hayward, in Sherwood Lachlan Morrison. No-one in Hampstead after Fiona Millar decided not to run.
In Itchen we all support Avery's choice.
If you want to abolish limits on council borrowing then make that case. In my opinion there is a very good reason for these limits being in place.
"More importantly the last line of OGH's response was completely unnecessary. You can disagree with someone without being rude"
You'd think so - especially from the site host!
I'm tired of commenters making assertions of fact when what they are expressing are their personal hopes and aspirations.
In this case the preface "In my view" to the statement that "Labour are in dire trouble" would have been fine.
'That the strategy, but also the risk
3m people paying £3 per year or 300,000 opt ins contributing the equivalent of £2.50 per month.'
As Livingstone commented on Thursday night,all the evidence is that it's not going to happen.
London Labour party membership 2001 80,000 members Labour party membership 2011 30,000 members.
And your answer was very weak, how many people on here say at the outset "In my view"?.You could of course make it a rule..that would upset some posters tho.
Factual evidence to support this personal hope and aspiration will follow.
Funny how he suggested changes based on public populism and not membership of party and unions AFTER he got rid of Gillard after undermining her for months if not years.
Similar issues in Scotland, England and Oz, where Ken MacIntosh (who he?), David Milliband and Gillard would have won a party members vote. But externals, unions and whatever, changed the result.
OGH..You are kidding aren't you .. almost all of the Cheshire Farmers posts are statements of fact, even going in to what Cameron and Osborne think..
I think you need to replace fact with opinion in the statement above. More to the point when it comes to Tim OGH hears and sees no evil.
Anyone who is remotely interested already knows the tories are largely bankrolled by wealthy donors and Labour by the unions. That is alraedy factored in to the price, so to speak. Therefore, be not doing anything, Miliband doesn't risk losing much other than a bit of face at PMQ's and that doesn't cost votes.
By responding to Cameron's goading, Milaband has backed himself into a corner whereby he has two options - either back down and look incredibly weak (which will cost votes) or lose a huge percentage of funding when Labour are already millions in debt (which causes practical problems and gives the tories an open goal in comparing how Labour run their own finances with how they would run the countries).
I would imagine Cameron will be heartily satisfied with his work here, even if Labour can put the spotlight on tory donations, it won't be showing the public anything they don't already know and won't cost a single vote. Meanwhile Labour will lose plenty either electorally or financially.
Labour like the Tories before them have to make public choices very shortly - and it will have an impact on those who are currently projecting their desires onto them instead.
Ed Miliband will never be Prime Minister
Nothing in Miliband's plans show that they would involve losing millions in trade union funding yet. I would like to see some details before drawing that conclusion. The problem with Dave going on about trade unions as if they are evil is that it may not play very well with the millions of trade union members whose votes he needs.
"...the Tories ...raised some £13 million last year from only 707 donations; Labour raised some £12 million from 661 donations. What parties raise from the wider party base in voluntary membership subs and small donations is chickenfeed by comparison these days: and the yield is plummeting." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/matthewparris/article3815599.ece
I've the list of Labour candidates in 10 Southwark wards they selected so far. Are you interested?
That would be great thanks - it's always fun to see who's been deselected
Sadly it's difficult to get who has been deslected, who has been pushed or who really retired on their own preference.
But here we go
Brunswick Park: Cllr Ian Wingfield, Cllr Mark Williams, Radha Burgess
Camberwell Green: Cllr Dora, Tom Flynn, Kieron Williams
East Walworth: Cllr Rebecca Lury, Cllr Martin Seaton & Cllr Darren Merrill
Faraday: Cllr Dan Garfield, Cllr Lorraine Lauder & Paul Fleming
Livesey: Cllr Richard Livingstone, Cllr Michael Situ & Evelyn Akoto
Nunhead: Cllr Fiona Colley, Cllr Sunil Chopra, Sandra Rhule
Peckham: Cllr Barrie Hargrove, Cllr Cleo Soanes & Johnson Situ
Peckham Rye: Cllr Gavin Edwards, Cllr Victoria Mills, Cllr Renata Hamvas
The Lane: Cllr Nick Dolezal, Jamille Mohammed, Jasmine Ali
South Camberwell: Cllr Peter John, Sarah King, Chris Gonde
At least 2 of the replaced sitting Cllrs are due to deselections: Catherine McDonald in Livesey and Anthea Smith in Nunhead.
Smith was quoted in the Mail (in an article about Unite stitch ups at council levels, black candidates being rejected in Southwark and Lambeth and Little Dromey being selected in Lewisham) complaning about "People came from outside the borough who have connections to trade unions and MPs and were selected. These are the people who want to become career politicians. Harriet Harman wants equality, but she wants her own brand of equality.’
The Sandra Rhule selected in her place in Nunhead is black though. Assuming she's the same Sandra Rhule who sat for Brunswick Park before being deselected in 2010.
I'm sure that's your view
Is Dave going on about trade unions though? he's surely going on about a very small select band of trade union leaders.
Presumably those members of Red Len's union who vote tory don't like Len much either.
Being a member of a union is surely one of the most trivial aspects of one's life unless its your personal greasy pole.
Thanks - it looks like Veronica Ward is stepping down in South Camberwell (I'm sure that isnt a deselection). That was the ward we won a seat in 2006 and not having her running will help there. Dora is safe as expected!
What he is objecting to is the involuntary (or at least default) confiscation of salary by Unions from their members for the purpose of funding a political party selected by the Union and not the member.
Such action is legimately objectionable regardless of one's political views.
I believe it is even weakly opposed by the current weak leader of the weak Labour party.
The latest Ipsos-MORI "Satisfied/Dissatisfied" ratings have Dave at a net minus 24% Ed at minus 21%
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemID=88&view=wide#2013
The ComRes favourability ratings have Dave and Ed level.
Tonight we should see Survation favourability numbers - the firm has switched to this model.
I disagree, I think Cameron's constant attempts to link Labour to the trade unions (shock! who knew?) is based on the implicit premise that trade unions are something bad that you dont want to be linked to.
Like on gay marriage or foreign aid?
"I'm tired of commenters making assertions of fact when what they are expressing are their personal hopes and aspirations."
Hooray, let's hear for the grumpy and pedantic old gits (I is one so I can say that).
This site is a discussion place for opinion, and linking to some other similarly-deluded loon doesn't alter that.
I believe EdM is a dud but I suspect he may sneak a small majority. I believe tim thinks EdM is a dud too, but he will never say so. And I've no idea what Cameron or Osborne are planning, but I suspect that calling it planning might be an exaggeration. And anyone who claims that they know the intention of politicians, or ends a sentence with "fact" or "end of" is daft. or believes that the readers are.
Shuffles off to rant at the local bystanders,
The disappearing names (so far) seem to be Norma Gibbs, Emmanuel Oyewole, Kevin Ahem, Abdul Mohamed, Anthea Smith, Cat McDonald, Chris Brown (confirmed he didn't re -apply. He was elected in a by-election in 2011), Keadean Rhoden, Veronica Ward and Mark Glover.
But more importantly my point is that wider than the spat over funding Cameron and his top team are managing to give the impression that it is the wider trade union movement that is a problem. I do not think this is great politics.