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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Damian McBride says he doesn’t think his revelations will h

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited September 2013 in General

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Damian McBride says he doesn’t think his revelations will have any electoral impact. I think that he’s right

The biggest political impact of the McBride book and now TV interviews is that they will reduce media coverage of the current Labour conference. Some of the messages that EdM and his team were hoping to get across will be over-shadowed.

Read the full story here


«13

Comments

  • @GeneralBoles is a spoof account.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    edited September 2013
    I'm in France and haven't seen or read anything of the McBride stuff. I haven't even read Plato's interminable extracts of extracts on here. I didn't even know what McBride looked or sounded like.

    So seeing the clips above were quite a revelation.

    What a piece of work.

    PS. But it is interesting seeing Paxman back to his best
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724

    @GeneralBoles is a spoof account.

    As is @ids_mp which is run by @skiplicker
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    "...Like Mr Brown, Mr Miliband has a tendency to dither, not decide. Labour MPs worry that their leader is putting tactics before strategy, attempting to neutralise specific negatives rather than creating a coherent whole. “It’s the squaring of circles; that means you end up nowhere,” says one. “There just isn’t much behind the project. These guys were meant to be policy wonks but nobody seems to have done any heavy lifting.”

    Too often, the Labour leader sounds more like a think-tank analyst than a prime minister in waiting. In this sense he is the son of his real father, the Marxist historian. As Mr McBride writes in his book: “It’s hard to listen to any of Ed Miliband’s occasionally tortured, over-academic speeches without hearing his father’s voice.” You can detect it in his politics as well. When he was asked by a man in Brighton: “When will you bring back socialism?” he replied, without pausing for breath: “That’s what we are doing, sir.”

    It is no coincidence that Ralph Miliband’s gravestone in Highgate Cemetery, which stands just a few yards from Karl Marx’s tomb, is engraved with the words: “Writer Teacher Socialist”. Indeed, according to a family friend, one reason Ed decided to stand against his brother David for the Labour leadership was because he thought he would protect his father’s political legacy more faithfully than his more Blairite sibling... http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/rachelsylvester/article3877224.ece
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    Whoever named him DAMIEN had insight
  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,650
    I have to say he comes across as a lovable rogue.Maybe because he`s being truthful in that interview.

    And I feel a degree of respect for him for putting party prospects above personal gain in not going for the offer to publish his memoirs in April 2015.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    @SMukesh

    "And I feel a degree of respect for him for putting party prospects above personal gain in not going for the offer to publish his memoirs in April 2015."

    Are you being ironic? I'm sure you must be but it's not always easy to tell on the internet
  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,650
    @Roger

    Not really.Do you think this sort of thing has never happened before Mcbride?This is what happens behind the scenes in national politics of most countries.
  • Best prices - next UK Government

    Lab Maj 6/4 (Hills)
    Con Maj 3/1
    Lab/LD coalition 4/1 (PP)
    Lab Min 5/1
    Con/LD coalition 7/1
    Con Min 7/1
    Any coalition involving UKIP 40/1
    LD Maj 250/1

    Is Lab/LD coalition the value bet? 4/1 seems a bit long.
  • There have been tantalising hints, from McBride and elsewhere, that Ed Balls was more closely involved with McBride than he now wants us to think. And that there is an email trail to back this up. If emails were to emerge, that would get fun.
  • JohnLoonyJohnLoony Posts: 1,790
    Is Damien McBride to Ed Balls as Ed Balls is to Ed Miliband?
    Is Damien McBride Labour's version of Godfrey Bloom?
    Does he serve the same purpose of deliberately-but-pretending-to-be-accidentally-clumsily distracting media attention away from a party conference which would otherwise have exposed political weaknesses?
    Will he be replaced by Bo Xilai?
    Is Ed Miliband a secret Maoist?
    Is Harriet Harman the new Chiang Qing?
    Is it a coincidence that Ralph Miliband died on the very same day that Tom Daley was born?

    QTWTAIN or QTWTAIY, as the case may be. Boing!
  • AndyJSAndyJS Posts: 29,395
    edited September 2013
    O/T:

    It's seeming more and more likely that the widow of one of the 7/7 bombers could be involved in the Kenya attack. If true it's a pity the security forces didn't pick her up 8 years ago, (if they had any grounds to do so).

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200528/Samantha-Lewthwaite-Im-ready-suicide-bomber-Chilling-words-7-7-bombers-widow-worlds-wanted-list.html
  • Best prices - next UK Government

    Lab Maj 6/4 (Hills)
    Con Maj 3/1
    Lab/LD coalition 4/1 (PP)
    Lab Min 5/1
    Con/LD coalition 7/1
    Con Min 7/1
    Any coalition involving UKIP 40/1
    LD Maj 250/1

    Is Lab/LD coalition the value bet? 4/1 seems a bit long.

    Could be right. I think the balance between minority government and coalition is wrong. Cameron just got five years in office without having to worry about votes of confidence, and Ed Miliband will want the same. Meanwhile lots of LibDems have ministerial jobs, and as the number of LibDem MPs drops the proportion with a government job will grow. It's hard to see the LibDems and Lab or Con failing to make a deal.
  • I think Mike is right about this one - bar falling for the twitter spoof, which seems to be an occupational hazard for anyone writing about anything these days, and reinforces my technophobic prejudices.

    I really doubt voters are going to care about this come 2015 - this is an issue affecting the Westminster Bubble, and a small minority of bubble-watchers, but a Newsnight special here or there isn't going to eat into the opinion polls. (Next time PB debates the fall and fall of newspaper circulation, viewing figures for higher-brow TV news and current affairs should get a look in.) In terms of compromising the effectiveness of the Labour party, I don't think any substantial damage will be done, though the confessions will make some flinch. It helps that the Blair/Brown axes are no longer grinding against each other at full pelt in Labour's political nerve centre - the Blairites are effectively vanquished, Ed Miliband isn't quite Heir to Brown - so any wounds that get opened up are likely to be ancient, festering and irrelevant.

    Also agree with @Roger - this is a piece of work so nasty that even other practitioners of the dark arts have professed their surprise, and definitely not the normal behind-the-scenes functioning of a modern democracy. The work of most spin doctors is, from all I have gathered, pretty mundane. Anybody who thinks this stuff "happens all the time" either hasn't grasped the magnitude of some of the revelations, or harbours a cynicism about politics so profound that it's distorting.
  • McBride is symptomatic of the corrosive impact that Labour had - *and continues to have* - on public morality, ethic and standards.

    The tragedy is that is true of every period of Labour Government and that we've become so inured to it that it cannot be long before we regard bribing of public officials as the norm - and justice as only available to those with the deepest of deep pockets.

    So Mike is right - this will have minimal electoral impact - and that is the saddest thing that can be said about GE2015.
  • Scott_PScott_P Posts: 51,453
    This all adds to the damaging sense that Labour is much better at consuming cash than it is at producing it. Labour in the Tony Blair years was clearly on the side of people who wanted to get on. With a lame routine based on the question “who wants to be a millionaire?” Mr Balls left the impression that he did not understand that many people do. Labour has never had a credibility problem on the spreading of wealth. It struggles, though, with creating it and in playing to the Labour gallery, Mr Balls did not do enough to dispel that impression.
    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3877232.ece
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Wildly O/T but there might be few Linked-in users here. I used to have an account, but thought I'd closed it. I'm not working any more, and don't intend to.
    Now I've had an email from someone saying "Hi, stop sending me spam via my Linked-in account". Thre was an info bit on the email about how to reply to Linked-in, I clicked it and it referred me to what seemed to be a dodgy Canadian pharmaceutical company.

    Then googled Linked-in and found this ......www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/23/linkedin-sued-by-users. Seems Linked-in has been hacked into.
  • SimonStClareSimonStClare Posts: 7,976
    edited September 2013

    Also agree with @Roger - this is a piece of work so nasty that even other practitioners of the dark arts have professed their surprise, and definitely not the normal behind-the-scenes functioning of a modern democracy. The work of most spin doctors is, from all I have gathered, pretty mundane. Anybody who thinks this stuff "happens all the time" either hasn't grasped the magnitude of some of the revelations, or harbours a cynicism about politics so profound that it's distorting.

    Mr MBE, I couldn't agree more - Ali Campbell summed it up quite well when he said: The main flaw of Gordon Brown, was his need for "truly horrible people to be around him, doing truly horrible things in politics"

    The Brown/Blair years were an abhorrent low point in British politics, which I hope never to see again.
  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,650
    The memoirs as serialized in the Mail are actually interesting and funny!

    I might buy a copy after all!
  • Ali Campbell summed it up quite well when he said: The main flaw of Gordon Brown, was his need for "truly horrible people to be around him, doing truly horrible things in politics"

    Did Ali Campbell mention Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam, or Dr David Kelly? Perhaps WMDs, 45 minutes or dodgy dossiers?


  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    I agree. It is a revolting part of our history that confirms many views of the Brown era. But it is history. The links to Balls and Ed are not being made in a way that is going to damage them.

    So no political impact. Just a bit of fun.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    A Labour government would cut business rates for small companies’ premises, but increase the corporation tax that bigger firms pay on their profits, Mr Miliband will tell his party conference.

    The shift in taxation would cost bigger firms almost £800 million a year, all of which the Labour leader will promise to pass to small companies in the form of lower business rates.

    Coalition ministers are drawing up plans for their own business rate cuts, which could be announced in the Treasury’s Autumn Statement later this year.

    Labour aides were last night hoping that the tax announcement could distract attention from what colleagues described as a split between Mr Miliband and his shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, over the High Speed 2 rail link, which Mr Balls yesterday threatened to scrap if the party were to enter government. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10329486/Miliband-Labour-will-be-small-business-party.html
  • WelshJonesWelshJones Posts: 66
    edited September 2013
    tim said:

    "Ed Miliband stakes the house on huge new-build programme and tax cut

    Labour leader to promise 200,000 new homes a year by 2020, and will echo Reagan by asking voters: 'Are you better off now?'"
    An end to the cancerous housing policies of the last 35 years.

    For once, I can agree both with you, tim, and with a Millband policy statement, though I'm not sure what changed in 1978 WRT planning laws.

    200k homes a year would merely see us standing still in terms of supply and demand, when what's required is a significant over-capacity, to allow for relocation, downsizing, up-sizing etc as one's life and circumstances change.

    Of course, making marriage tax-efficient and divorce much harder would ensure more couples stayed together, thus lowering demand for homes.....
    Sadly, every Labour Govt seems to INCREASE demand for new homes (immigration, easier divorce/separation) whilst restricting demand (no-one in the right minds would want to live on the latest developments of modern slums. if you've not looked around one, you've no concept of just how small, dark and crowded they are - and vastly over-priced too.)

    If we build 300k houses/yr at <3 houses/acre, the price of ALL houses will fall significantly, thus making ALL houses more 'affordable': if you build a handful of vastly over-priced slums each year, that merely drives the price of every house UP ("If a tiny, dark, fireplace-less dump like THAT is worth £XXXk, then our (pre-1960) home MUST be worth AT LEAST double that - just look at the size of our garden and the light and airy rooms!")

    At some point, the penny will drop....

    However, the current set-up means we pay vast sums in mortgage interest to banks, which make vast profits, which pay the largest part of the CT bill - it thus suits HMG to maintain the current absurdity of under-supply and consequently over-pricing of housing in the UK.

    'What the State controls, the State rations' was never more true than of housing in the UK.

    NIMBYS > BANANAS and Councils running scared and allowing absurd densities - the BBC yesterday stated 3,500 homes (+ offices, park and shops) will be built on 39 acres of Grade II Battersea Power Station- can that figure be right?
  • MrJonesMrJones Posts: 3,523
    edited September 2013
    As this is about getting rid of Cerise and Balls it will have a big electoral impact because either it will work and Cerise gets replaced - which will have an electoral impact one way or the other - or it won't but the battle to unseat him will drag on - which will have an electoral impact.

    The bit that gets me is thinking Malcolm Tucker was based on Campbell because in the show Tucker was the PM's fluffer. I'm thinking now all the really devious stuff and the clever-nasty use of language may have been lifted from elsewhere and mixed and matched.
  • Wildly O/T but there might be few Linked-in users here. I used to have an account, but thought I'd closed it. I'm not working any more, and don't intend to.
    Now I've had an email from someone saying "Hi, stop sending me spam via my Linked-in account". Thre was an info bit on the email about how to reply to Linked-in, I clicked it and it referred me to what seemed to be a dodgy Canadian pharmaceutical company.

    Then googled Linked-in and found this ......www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/23/linkedin-sued-by-users. Seems Linked-in has been hacked into.

    It sounds like most of those users were not paying attention. Linkedin frequently "offers" to upload your address book, especially after you have accepted a connection invitation, and it sounds like these people have accepted this offer -- perhaps unknowingly -- and are surprised that Linkedin has promptly spammed every name therein with connection invitations.

    If you click on a link or accept a connection, and are then asked to sign in, stop and read -- chances are that you are really being asked about your address book.
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    tim said:

    It's a terrible backlash

    Latest YouGov / The Sun results 23rd September - Con 32%, Lab 40%, LD 10%, UKIP 12%; APP -27


    YouGovs weightings return to normal.

    Labour's disastrous conference continues

  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,650
    tim said:

    I'm surprised that the PB Tory hysterics, who were slightly more removed from reality than ever last week haven't had a bit more to say about this

    @MSmithsonPB: LAB back in the 40s with YouGov
    CON 32
    LAB 40
    LD 10
    UKIP 12

    What will be their reaction when they realise they were clinging to a couple of days odd weightings?
    Will they ever realise?

    And I wonder why the Sun hasn't made a 7% jump in the labour lead a front page story?
    No early tweeting either

    Somehow I doubt that we`ll hear more about the L&N model today!
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    tim said:

    I'm surprised that the PB Tory hysterics, who were slightly more removed from reality than ever last week haven't had a bit more to say about this

    @MSmithsonPB: LAB back in the 40s with YouGov
    CON 32
    LAB 40
    LD 10
    UKIP 12

    What will be their reaction when they realise they were clinging to a couple of days odd weightings?
    Will they ever realise?

    And I wonder why the Sun hasn't made a 7% jump in the labour lead a front page story?
    No early tweeting either

    Inexplicable behaviour from the Sun. All very odd.

    What was YouGov's reasoning for shifting the weighting?
  • Ali Campbell summed it up quite well when he said: The main flaw of Gordon Brown, was his need for "truly horrible people to be around him, doing truly horrible things in politics"

    Did Ali Campbell mention Robin Cook, Mo Mowlam, or Dr David Kelly? Perhaps WMDs, 45 minutes or dodgy dossiers?
    No. – I believe Ali Campbell was responding in an interview, to specific charges laid against McBride and Brown’s inner circle. – But you are right to highlight his own murky past, which some have suggested was a precursor to, or a catalyst for what was to come.

    No wonder Hazel Blear described the Labour party at the time as "wicked and malicious"
  • SMukeshSMukesh Posts: 1,650
    Bobajob said:

    tim said:

    I'm surprised that the PB Tory hysterics, who were slightly more removed from reality than ever last week haven't had a bit more to say about this

    @MSmithsonPB: LAB back in the 40s with YouGov
    CON 32
    LAB 40
    LD 10
    UKIP 12

    What will be their reaction when they realise they were clinging to a couple of days odd weightings?
    Will they ever realise?

    And I wonder why the Sun hasn't made a 7% jump in the labour lead a front page story?
    No early tweeting either

    Inexplicable behaviour from the Sun. All very odd.

    What was YouGov's reasoning for shifting the weighting?
    Anthony Wells denied Youguv changed their weighting.
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    SMukesh said:

    Bobajob said:

    tim said:

    I'm surprised that the PB Tory hysterics, who were slightly more removed from reality than ever last week haven't had a bit more to say about this

    @MSmithsonPB: LAB back in the 40s with YouGov
    CON 32
    LAB 40
    LD 10
    UKIP 12

    What will be their reaction when they realise they were clinging to a couple of days odd weightings?
    Will they ever realise?

    And I wonder why the Sun hasn't made a 7% jump in the labour lead a front page story?
    No early tweeting either

    Inexplicable behaviour from the Sun. All very odd.

    What was YouGov's reasoning for shifting the weighting?
    Anthony Wells denied Youguv changed their weighting.
    Fair enough. So just jumpy polling in and around the MOE?

  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    tim said:

    FSB ‏@fsb_hq 11m
    We welcome @Ed_Miliband @uklabour leadership on #businessrates. 7% of small firms pay more rates than rent, major reforms required. #Lab13


    Federation of Small Businesses getting behind Miliband and Labour

    Looks a decent policy. Our firm has ~50 employees and non-staffing costs are too high as a proportion of revenue. This should free up a bit of cash to help us grow.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Yes, I talked to a senior journalist at the Conference about it - he said the whole story was "fun for us but meaningless to most voters". I've had one reference to it, but from someone who was anti-Labour already.

    The YG is encouraging but we need to wait for post-conference polls to judge the lasting impact. The sense from my postbag is that a bunch of people who thought all the parties were rubbish now think we're at least engaging with their worries, but they're not yet sold. What is also worth noting is the complete absence of either a negative Bloom effect or a positive UKIP conference effect. People who like UKIP still like it. People who don't, don't. Possibly this voter segment is quite hard to shift either way.
  • Yes, I talked to a senior journalist at the Conference about it - he said the whole story was "fun for us but meaningless to most voters". I've had one reference to it, but from someone who was anti-Labour already.

    The YG is encouraging but we need to wait for post-conference polls to judge the lasting impact. The sense from my postbag is that a bunch of people who thought all the parties were rubbish now think we're at least engaging with their worries, but they're not yet sold. What is also worth noting is the complete absence of either a negative Bloom effect or a positive UKIP conference effect. People who like UKIP still like it. People who don't, don't. Possibly this voter segment is quite hard to shift either way.

    That makes it all hunky-dory and fine, then. Careers ruined by the poison spread by the acolytes of people you supported. And both the Brownites and Blairites were doing it.

    Aren't you even a little bit ashamed of being involved with a party where this was going on?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    tim said:

    FSB ‏@fsb_hq 11m
    We welcome @Ed_Miliband @uklabour leadership on #businessrates. 7% of small firms pay more rates than rent, major reforms required. #Lab13


    Federation of Small Businesses getting behind Miliband and Labour

    yeah tim, they're just lining up behind Ed's promise to bring back socialism. Or could it be small businesses support plan to give them more money shock ?

    chortle.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    Bobajob said:

    tim said:

    FSB ‏@fsb_hq 11m
    We welcome @Ed_Miliband @uklabour leadership on #businessrates. 7% of small firms pay more rates than rent, major reforms required. #Lab13


    Federation of Small Businesses getting behind Miliband and Labour

    Looks a decent policy. Our firm has ~50 employees and non-staffing costs are too high as a proportion of revenue. This should free up a bit of cash to help us grow.
    then move out of London and watch your non-staffing costs fall.

  • EasterrossEasterross Posts: 1,915
    Labour discovers a genus of human called the small business. This is a species Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling consistently ignored and did their best to destroy with their economic policies 1997-2010.

    Someone should tell Bland the Younger that all his "family friendly" proposals for extending maternity/paternity/granny leave etc etc will cripple the self same small businesses who struggle to recruit good staff now let alone people who can fill in gaps at short notice, especially if he keeps his reported promise to abolish zero hours contracts.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    Chart showing vote shifts between the major parties in the German election. Top two switchers for the AfD were from the rightish FDP and the far left Die Linke.


    http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/bundestagswahl/wahlanalyse-von-grossen-und-gernegrossen-12587181.html
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724

    Labour discovers a genus of human called the small business. This is a species Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling consistently ignored and did their best to destroy with their economic policies 1997-2010.

    Someone should tell Bland the Younger that all his "family friendly" proposals for extending maternity/paternity/granny leave etc etc will cripple the self same small businesses who struggle to recruit good staff now let alone people who can fill in gaps at short notice, especially if he keeps his reported promise to abolish zero hours contracts.

    I read this Labour The Party of Small Business and LOL - after adopting the Tories mantra of One Nation - now EdM is trying to ape their history of small business too. Why not go the whole hog and start carrying a handbag?

    A 1% change in Corp Tax - which is paid by every limited company doesn't strike me as particularly ground breaking. It's tinkering. I was my only employee and had to be Ltd to work for HMG for goodness sake.
  • This Paxman / MacBride interview is great TV!

    Truly the Labour Party were scum. Probably they still are. Balls has a stink about him that lingers right from his days as Gordon's pet.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    edited September 2013

    tim said:

    Labour discovers a genus of human called the small business. This is a species Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling consistently ignored and did their best to destroy with their economic policies 1997-2010.

    Someone should tell Bland the Younger that all his "family friendly" proposals for extending maternity/paternity/granny leave etc etc will cripple the self same small businesses who struggle to recruit good staff now let alone people who can fill in gaps at short notice, especially if he keeps his reported promise to abolish zero hours contracts.

    They are Clegg and Camerons policies on maternity/paternity leave.
    Abolishing Zero hours contracts is nobody's policy
    Labour is rumoured to be considering a proposal to allow grandparents to take up some maternity/paternity care which will help people get back to work more quickly if they choose to.
    I'm sure you will be welcoming them
    non policies, rumours of policies - labour still haven't got any tim. It's just all hot air.
  • EasterrossEasterross Posts: 1,915
    The McBride story is a 9-day wonder and next week's chip paper. However the one thing it will do is give Tories ammunition if any Labour politician starts talking about the "nasty party".

    Clearly the rates relief for small business idea has been borrowed from Scotland where many small businesses have been exempt from business rates for several years.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    For Germany election nerds

    Michel Jansen @dawuss
    Whipped up a map of Berlin with election results and the boundaries of the former Berlin Wall superimposed: pic.twitter.com/u8meaYRaCK
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Errr

    Sunder Katwala @sundersays
    "You have to match the costs against the benefits: that's what a cost-benefit analysis is" explains Harriet Harman on @BBCr4today #lab13
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    tim said:

    As we await ScottP/Easteross/fitalass et al's psephological insight into the terrible backlash

    Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB
    Today's 40% LAB share with YouGov is highest of the month and 4% up on six days ago
    CON 32% is 4% down on 6 days ago

    I'm sure they are number crunching as we speak.

    That's as daft as saying parity is then norm, it's tim the surger.
  • Chart showing vote shifts between the major parties in the German election. Top two switchers for the AfD were from the rightish FDP and the far left Die Linke.


    http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/bundestagswahl/wahlanalyse-von-grossen-und-gernegrossen-12587181.html

    Chart showing vote shifts between the major parties in the German election. Top two switchers for the AfD were from the rightish FDP and the far left Die Linke.


    http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/bundestagswahl/wahlanalyse-von-grossen-und-gernegrossen-12587181.html

    Amazing correlation in the votes for Linke in Germany and the old Berlin wall divide. Almost worth a story in itself!
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    Plato said:

    For Germany election nerds

    Michel Jansen @dawuss
    Whipped up a map of Berlin with election results and the boundaries of the former Berlin Wall superimposed: pic.twitter.com/u8meaYRaCK

    Plato

    Links do not work.

  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    tim said:




    tim said:

    Labour discovers a genus of human called the small business. This is a species Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling consistently ignored and did their best to destroy with their economic policies 1997-2010.

    Someone should tell Bland the Younger that all his "family friendly" proposals for extending maternity/paternity/granny leave etc etc will cripple the self same small businesses who struggle to recruit good staff now let alone people who can fill in gaps at short notice, especially if he keeps his reported promise to abolish zero hours contracts.

    They are Clegg and Camerons policies on maternity/paternity leave.
    Abolishing Zero hours contracts is nobody's policy
    Labour is rumoured to be considering a proposal to allow grandparents to take up some maternity/paternity care which will help people get back to work more quickly if they choose to.
    I'm sure you will be welcoming them
    non policies, rumours of policies - labour still haven't got any tim. It's just all hot air.
    Plenty of policies being announced in the election run up, you keep clinging to you revolutionary benefits shake up on Aston Under Lyme - it's transformational in Tameside
    Really tim ? I must have missed them in between the throw away gimmicks. Ed just needs to get to the end of the week intact and keep the press of the scent of how little he's doing.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Wildly O/T but there might be few Linked-in users here. I used to have an account, but thought I'd closed it. I'm not working any more, and don't intend to.
    Now I've had an email from someone saying "Hi, stop sending me spam via my Linked-in account". Thre was an info bit on the email about how to reply to Linked-in, I clicked it and it referred me to what seemed to be a dodgy Canadian pharmaceutical company.

    Then googled Linked-in and found this ......www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/23/linkedin-sued-by-users. Seems Linked-in has been hacked into.

    It sounds like most of those users were not paying attention. Linkedin frequently "offers" to upload your address book, especially after you have accepted a connection invitation, and it sounds like these people have accepted this offer -- perhaps unknowingly -- and are surprised that Linkedin has promptly spammed every name therein with connection invitations.

    If you click on a link or accept a connection, and are then asked to sign in, stop and read -- chances are that you are really being asked about your address book.
    But, DJL, I'd closed my account some time ago. Now I can't contact Linked-in unless I rejoin. And, given this, that's the last thing I want to do.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    edited September 2013
    Worrying that tim was posting at 12:24 last night and was already posting again at 6:04 this morning.

    This is not a healthy lifestyle

    My thanks to Avery for this:

    Labour's great record on Local Authority Dwelling Completions

    1997-98 1,520
    1998-99 870
    1999-00 320
    2000-01 380
    2001-02 230
    2002-03 300
    2003-04 210
    2004-05 130
    2005-06 320
    2006-07 260
    2007-08 250
    2008-09 830
    2009-10 780
    Total 6,400

    Anyone who believes that the Eds will increase housebuilding is putting faith before reality.

    Labour will no more meet their promises on housebuiling under the Eds than they did under Blair and Brown.
  • “Damian McBride last night branded Labour critics of his sensational memoir as hypocrites.

    'They are not entirely innocent themselves': Unrepentant McBride rounds on Labour critics and accuses party of wrecking its own conference with bungling response to his memoirs.

    Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor said his accusers were ‘not entirely innocent themselves’ when it came to the party’s toxic culture of spin and smear.”

    Well that’s OK then! - It would appear this culture of ‘don’t blame me for my actions’ is a widespread affliction amongst McBride and his former colleagues.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2430167/Unrepentant-McBride-rounds-Labour-critics-accuses-party-wrecking-conference.html
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Financier said:

    Plato said:

    For Germany election nerds

    Michel Jansen @dawuss
    Whipped up a map of Berlin with election results and the boundaries of the former Berlin Wall superimposed: pic.twitter.com/u8meaYRaCK

    Plato

    Links do not work.

    Try again https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BU24Cm6CYAEMMun.png
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    Miliband's proposal re rates is extremely modest, basically keeping the current level of taxation for these small businesses and cancelling the increase. The sums involved are negligible in the overall scheme of things.

    That said, it is a step in the right direction. Rates are one of the major causes of the huge number of empty shops. They are an unfair tax on the brick and mortar end of retail which gives internet companies a substantial unfair advantage. If we want to have shopping centres and High Streets employing the casualties of our schools in large number we need to change the model.

    That does mean the tax needs to be found elsewhere. I am not sure that CT, which has become a major source of international competition, is the place. Businesses relocating to Ireland in the last decade, for example, have cost us a lot of tax. Some of those are drifting back and we don't want to discourage this.
  • Remember also that in his first budget Gordon Brown declared he would not allow house prices to grow out of control.

    By the time he was prime minister he was throwing government money at them to keep houses unaffordable.

  • The thing I don't understand, is if the McBride era was so horrible (Harriet Harman this morning was doing her best to it across how traumatising it was for them all) why was she and so many others backing Brown to the hilt? Why didn't someone speak up? Is it me, or are they all by implication pretty much saying they're weak and unprincipled?
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    DavidL said:

    Miliband's proposal re rates is extremely modest, basically keeping the current level of taxation for these small businesses and cancelling the increase. The sums involved are negligible in the overall scheme of things.

    That said, it is a step in the right direction. Rates are one of the major causes of the huge number of empty shops. They are an unfair tax on the brick and mortar end of retail which gives internet companies a substantial unfair advantage. If we want to have shopping centres and High Streets employing the casualties of our schools in large number we need to change the model.

    That does mean the tax needs to be found elsewhere. I am not sure that CT, which has become a major source of international competition, is the place. Businesses relocating to Ireland in the last decade, for example, have cost us a lot of tax. Some of those are drifting back and we don't want to discourage this.

    It's just asnother stupid gimmick which works on the assumption they can fool all the people all of the time.

    So they drop rates. Will that pay for the hit on living wages, forced apprenticeships, paternity, childcare, rising interest rates and all the other "gifts" that await the business sector ? Mon cul.
  • The McBride story is a 9-day wonder and next week's chip paper. However the one thing it will do is give Tories ammunition if any Labour politician starts talking about the "nasty party".

    It is Conservative politicians who talk about the "nasty party" as an explanation of why people who "should" vote Conservative refuse to do so. Hence David Cameron's detoxification strategy.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited September 2013

    Worrying that tim was posting at 12:24 last night and was already posting again at 6:04 this morning.

    This is not a healthy lifestyle

    My thanks to Avery for this:

    Labour's great record on Local Authority Dwelling Completions

    1997-98 1,520
    1998-99 870
    1999-00 320
    2000-01 380
    2001-02 230
    2002-03 300
    2003-04 210
    2004-05 130
    2005-06 320
    2006-07 260
    2007-08 250
    2008-09 830
    2009-10 780
    Total 6,400

    Anyone who believes that the Eds will increase housebuilding is putting faith before reality.

    Labour will no more meet their promises on housebuiling under the Eds than they did under Blair and Brown.

    Is there more than one "tim"? I have a vision of a relay of "clones" doing three or four hour sessions at the computer!

    More seriously, do those figures include Housing Association starts. For example, Essex Cricket Club is, in partnership with a developer, building several blocks of flats on land which it owns to finance major ground improvements, and most of one of the blocks has been pre-sold to a social housing organisation, allegedly from EastLondon.
  • Blue_rogBlue_rog Posts: 2,019
    Mike Smithson -

    "My main verdict is that Labour is the poorer for not having someone with McBride’s skills currently on board working behind the scenes."

    Ah yes, someone who is a self admitted liar that created malicious stories about rivals within and outside his party with the aim of bolstering/protecting one person.

    Labour really need someone like that again!
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    edited September 2013
    In his key conference address, Mr Miliband will say: “In 2015 you should ask yourself: am I better off now than I was five years ago?”

    In his successful 1980 White House bid, Mr Reagan famously asked American voters: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

    Mr Miliband pinched another historic right-wing figure’s words last year, using 19th century Tory PM Benjamin Disraeli’s “One Nation” catchphrase. But Mr Miliband — who admits he looks like Wallace from The Wrong Trousers — will boost his “Red Ed” credentials by unveiling plans to hit large firms with an extra £1.25billion in tax.

    If Labour gets in, Mr Miliband will pull a plan to cut corporation tax from 21 per cent to 20 per cent. He will instead freeze rates rises for smaller businesses for two years.

    The move — to please “the little men”, say aides — will save £450 a year for owners of commercial premises with a rent under £50,000. > http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/5157520/ed-miliband-adopts-ronald-reagan-slogan.html
  • WelshJonesWelshJones Posts: 66
    edited September 2013
    tim said:

    @WelshJones.

    Immigration reduces house prices in the UK, as it does in the US

    That's so wildly impossible that it beggars belief that even you would post such nonsense.

    450k net immigrants each year means 230k new homes each year, just to stand still.

    We've not built that in decades, which is why house prices keep going up.

    It's notable that the best (ie most popular) homes in Britain were almost ALL built when there were no planning laws - so builders put up what they could sell - which was what people wanted to live in.

    There ARE exceptions, of course, as with any generalisation, but as the density of new homes was capped at a MAXIMUM of 3/acre until well into the 70's (if not later) and is now a MINIMUM of 16/acre, you can see why modern houses are cramped, dark - and dismal.

    Today, a minimum requirement should be off-street parking for one car/bedroom, since that's the norm these days - even in very average income households (probably outside London and other big cities where work-place parking is a nightmare).

    Modern developments have 0 or 1/home, to allow for the high densities demanded since Prescott. He allowed 3 storey and 4 storey 'town houses' to be built - which I applaud, as long as they are in town centres, and not on risible land footprints in suburbs.

    Build 1-2 million modern new family-sized homes at 1930's densities (allowing for parks, shops etc, that's well under 2/acre) on tree-lined wide streets and you'll see happy families as well as the price of every house in the UK fall by 50% or so as the rubbish thrown up recently is seen as what it is - slums.

    Note that I'm not for one minute suggesting scrapping Building Regs - just planning laws - specifically those requiring excessive density and forbidding Green Belt development (the inverse of what is required).

    Even Building Regs need a closer look - more window area and open fires (stoves are very efficient and smoke-free) - would make the homes much better to live in, and there's no reason why solar water heating/heat pumps should not be incorporated as well. The less said about PV panels this far north, mind, the better!
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Dan Hodges @DPJHodges
    Ed Miliband extract: "They used to say a rising tide lifts all the boats. Now the rising tide just seems to lift the yachts". ?????????
  • JohnOJohnO Posts: 4,211
    @Plato - Presumably that's Mrs Burnham's yacht?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    @Jessop

    "Aren't you even a little bit ashamed of being involved with a party where this was going on?"

    The first really nasty press briefer was Bernard Ingham who did Margaret Thatcher's dirty work-as I'm sure John Biffen will confirm.

    Those who weren't dyed in the wool Thatcherite professed outrage at their behind the scenes shenanigans particularly as he was a civil servant.......

    But eventually the Tories tired of her and her methods immediately followed by Ingham with the parting gift of a knighthood......

    Then the dogs barked and the caravan moved on and Al Campbell arrived.............
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    The Thoughts of Chairman Miliband

    Robin Brant @robindbrant
    bbc nick r reveals that a book called 'one nation economy' will be given out to people in brighton hall after ed m speech. not red apparently
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    JohnO said:

    @Plato - Presumably that's Mrs Burnham's yacht?

    Indeed. Even for conference its leaden stuff.
  • Worrying that tim was posting at 12:24 last night and was already posting again at 6:04 this morning.

    This is not a healthy lifestyle

    My thanks to Avery for this:

    Labour's great record on Local Authority Dwelling Completions

    1997-98 1,520
    1998-99 870
    1999-00 320
    2000-01 380
    2001-02 230
    2002-03 300
    2003-04 210
    2004-05 130
    2005-06 320
    2006-07 260
    2007-08 250
    2008-09 830
    2009-10 780
    Total 6,400

    Anyone who believes that the Eds will increase housebuilding is putting faith before reality.

    Labour will no more meet their promises on housebuiling under the Eds than they did under Blair and Brown.

    Is there more than one "tim"? I have a vision of a relay of "clones" doing three or four hour sessions at the computer!

    More seriously, do those figures include Housing Association starts. For example, Essex Cricket Club is, in partnership with a developer, building several blocks of flats on land which it owns to finance major ground improvements, and most of one of the blocks has been pre-sold to a social housing organisation, allegedly from EastLondon.
    If you include housing associations the number rises significantly but is still smaller in total and as a proportion of the overall total than it was during the 1980s and 1990s.

    Avery gave some tables on the previous thread.

    I listed the number of coucil built because tim has particularly fervent faith that local authorities will lead the way in housebuiling under the Eds.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    What is it with Lefties demanding others do what they say?

    Frank Fisher @frank_fisher
    In honour of t'Lefties' #dontreadthedailymail day, I shall be reading the Daily Mail. Don't read this, don't say that, don't think t'other..
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    No 12,

    "are they all by implication pretty much saying they're weak and unprincipled?"

    Yes.

    If Ed makes it Downing street, will he remain a ditherer, or will he let slip the mask of modernity and reveal his true self? I suspect it will be the former, but we could be in for interesting times.
  • Blue_rog said:

    Mike Smithson -

    "My main verdict is that Labour is the poorer for not having someone with McBride’s skills currently on board working behind the scenes."

    Ah yes, someone who is a self admitted liar that created malicious stories about rivals within and outside his party with the aim of bolstering/protecting one person.

    Labour really need someone like that again!

    Labour might be poorer for it, but the rest of us aren't. Doesn't anyone think of the morals, or is power everything?
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    Is Eds new speech writer Eric Cantona ??
  • JohnOJohnO Posts: 4,211
    edited September 2013
    SeanT said:

    Does anyone want to see the view from my hotel room, right now, in Elounda, Crete?

    NO?!

    Here it is, anyway:

    sean thomas knox @thomasknox

    I'm sorry about this. Again. But. Oh my word.

    pic.twitter.com/b56XKfTcnQ

    Whatever.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Mr Littlejohn is on fine form

    My old man’s a Marxist,
    He wears a Marxist’s hat,
    He wears old corduroy trousers,
    And he lives in a £2 million flat.
    (In Primrose Hill).

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2430140/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-If-Britain-falls-Eds-socialist-farce-really-tragedy.html
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    Worrying that tim was posting at 12:24 last night and was already posting again at 6:04 this morning.

    This is not a healthy lifestyle

    My thanks to Avery for this:

    Labour's great record on Local Authority Dwelling Completions

    1997-98 1,520
    1998-99 870
    1999-00 320
    2000-01 380
    2001-02 230
    2002-03 300
    2003-04 210
    2004-05 130
    2005-06 320
    2006-07 260
    2007-08 250
    2008-09 830
    2009-10 780
    Total 6,400

    Anyone who believes that the Eds will increase housebuilding is putting faith before reality.

    Labour will no more meet their promises on housebuiling under the Eds than they did under Blair and Brown.

    Is there more than one "tim"? I have a vision of a relay of "clones" doing three or four hour sessions at the computer!

    More seriously, do those figures include Housing Association starts. For example, Essex Cricket Club is, in partnership with a developer, building several blocks of flats on land which it owns to finance major ground improvements, and most of one of the blocks has been pre-sold to a social housing organisation, allegedly from EastLondon.
    There are more or less 110k homes started and completed each year at the moment (latest figures to June 2013).

    https://gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building

    Of these the vast proportion (80%) are private enterprises. The balance is housing association (20%) and a smidge local authority.

    So Lab would want to double that rate with I presume the mix reversed between private and public. Fair enough.

    As has been pointed out, though (ahem by me) - why should we believe that Lab will change their spots on housebuilding after 13 years of inaction when everyone seems to dismiss Dave's EU referendum pledge with the wave of a hand?

    And on topic, I thought DMcB for all his previous apparent vileness, was the picture of reasonableness and a perfect repentant sinner with Paxo.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724

    Blue_rog said:

    Mike Smithson -

    "My main verdict is that Labour is the poorer for not having someone with McBride’s skills currently on board working behind the scenes."

    Ah yes, someone who is a self admitted liar that created malicious stories about rivals within and outside his party with the aim of bolstering/protecting one person.

    Labour really need someone like that again!

    Labour might be poorer for it, but the rest of us aren't. Doesn't anyone think of the morals, or is power everything?
    Quite. Mr McBride said he thought politics didn't need his ilk ever again and yet some think Labour are the worse for his loss - I find that weird unless the means don't matter a jot... I found his Newsnight intv disarmingly honest - he clearly knows that he's burnt his boats and no point in trying to defend it. I find his line that Ed Squared knew nothing nor Gordon hard to swallow myself given that all the Lobby knew.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Miss Plato, Littlejohn's meter is off. It'd be better if he axed 'old' and changed '£2 million' to 'grand old'.
  • Plato said:

    . I find his line that Ed Squared knew nothing nor Gordon hard to swallow myself given that all the Lobby knew.

    I don't, there are many things that they didn't know, such as why they screwed up the country, fot starters.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,559
    On topic.

    I'm not so sure the Mcbride book won't have some impact on the election.

    Last week the narrative was all about the pressure building up on Ed's leadership and how he needed to make a big impact. The Mcbride revelations have overshadowed all of Ed's problems and given him a hospital pass so far this week and most of the heat is off.

    Maybe the impact is Ed surviving.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    tim said:

    "Ed Miliband stakes the house on huge new-build programme and tax cut

    Labour leader to promise 200,000 new homes a year by 2020, and will echo Reagan by asking voters: 'Are you better off now?'"


    http://www.theguardian.com/uk?view=mobile

    @georgeeaton: Miliband's pledge to build a million new homes could be the game-changer he needs http://t.co/O7ntYGd76b


    There's the election campaign right there.
    Deficit reduction,growth, benefit savings, social mobility all tie in to that centrepiece.
    An end to the cancerous housing policies of the last 35 years.

    How many houses did Brown promise to build and how many did he actually get built?
  • TGOHFTGOHF Posts: 21,633
    McBride has achieved the impossible this week.

    He has sunk Gordon's reputation even lower.
  • On topic: MrJones at 7.09am is the comment everyone should carefully consider.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    TGOHF said:

    McBride has achieved the impossible this week.

    He has sunk Gordon's reputation even lower.

    Hattie is now saying HS2 is going to happen - after Balls poured cold water all over it. What is going on - its only £50bn after all...
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    TGOHF said:

    McBride has achieved the impossible this week.

    He has sunk Gordon's reputation even lower.

    While, strangely, emerging as an ok bloke himself.

    Although such is his artistry that he employs levels of deception I can only guess at.
  • SeanT said:

    JohnO said:

    SeanT said:

    Does anyone want to see the view from my hotel room, right now, in Elounda, Crete?

    NO?!

    Here it is, anyway:

    sean thomas knox @thomasknox

    I'm sorry about this. Again. But. Oh my word.

    pic.twitter.com/b56XKfTcnQ

    Whatever.
    Ah, yes, I see the problem:

    London, UK
    Tuesday 8:00 am
    Fog
    13°C | °F
    Precipitation: 0%
    Humidity: 99%


    Its sunny in Manchester too. Lovely view of the peak district from my window.
  • Plato said:

    Blue_rog said:

    Mike Smithson -

    "My main verdict is that Labour is the poorer for not having someone with McBride’s skills currently on board working behind the scenes."

    Ah yes, someone who is a self admitted liar that created malicious stories about rivals within and outside his party with the aim of bolstering/protecting one person.

    Labour really need someone like that again!

    Labour might be poorer for it, but the rest of us aren't. Doesn't anyone think of the morals, or is power everything?
    Quite. Mr McBride said he thought politics didn't need his ilk ever again and yet some think Labour are the worse for his loss - I find that weird unless the means don't matter a jot... I found his Newsnight intv disarmingly honest - he clearly knows that he's burnt his boats and no point in trying to defend it. I find his line that Ed Squared knew nothing nor Gordon hard to swallow myself given that all the Lobby knew.
    Of course the lobby knew. How could they not know McBride was standing (and drinking) with them and telling them stuff?
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Did anyone see this on the news?

    Taleah @TaleahPrince
    while a gang of Islamic terrorists were killing in the name of Allah in Nairobi, another Islamic gang was bombing 75 Christians in Pakistan
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536
    Plato said:

    Blue_rog said:

    Mike Smithson -

    "My main verdict is that Labour is the poorer for not having someone with McBride’s skills currently on board working behind the scenes."

    Ah yes, someone who is a self admitted liar that created malicious stories about rivals within and outside his party with the aim of bolstering/protecting one person.

    Labour really need someone like that again!

    Labour might be poorer for it, but the rest of us aren't. Doesn't anyone think of the morals, or is power everything?
    Quite. Mr McBride said he thought politics didn't need his ilk ever again and yet some think Labour are the worse for his loss - I find that weird unless the means don't matter a jot... I found his Newsnight intv disarmingly honest - he clearly knows that he's burnt his boats and no point in trying to defend it. I find his line that Ed Squared knew nothing nor Gordon hard to swallow myself given that all the Lobby knew.
    Spare us the sanctimonious garbage. You are loving it. Hence why you are tweeting it every five seconds. If I wanted to read it, I could visit the Daily Mail.
  • On topic, I don't believe the McBride revelations will have an impact on the opinion polls, although in the long term I think they are probably good for Labour; some of the bad blood needed to be let and McBride has nailed himself to the cross. I do however take issue with OGH saying Labour are poorer without someone of McBride's skills: you have to take the man as a whole, flaws and all, and when viewed like that the damage he did to his own colleagues and the role he played in driving the perception that Labour under Brown were disunited and fraught significantly outweigh any skills he had in controlling "the message". There was an element of truth (as well as self-aggrandisement) in Alistair Campbell's withering put down yesterday. While Campbell had his own issues, before 2003 he was devestatingly effective at taking the fight to the Tories and at maintaining internal discipline; McBride subsequently was less good at the former and unduly focussed on the latter.

    On YouGov, its odd to see people getting excited by today's poll. It may signify something, or it may not, and we won't know for some time, but the idea that YouGov introduced a different (and erroneous) weighting policy last week, corrected it this week and today's figure is therefore somehow more valid is nonsense. The trend is worth noting: this is the first 8pt lead for Labour in 16 polls, and the first in September.There were three 8pt+ leads in August (top: 10), six in July (top: 11), twelve in June (top: 11), eighteen in May (top: 13), seventeen in April (top: 14), nineteen in March (top: 14), twenty in February (top: 15) and twenty in January (top: 13). YouGov occasionally kicks out outliers at the top and bottom of the range but the current trend is a lead of about 4pts, enough, on ther face of it, to see Labour comfortably into power. I am expecting Labour to get a boost from their conference which may persist for a while unless the Tories can find an effective response to the Labour strategy of trying to force them to side with the few against the many on issues such as taxing very high earners, corporation tax/business rates etc
  • Plato said:

    TGOHF said:

    McBride has achieved the impossible this week.

    He has sunk Gordon's reputation even lower.

    Hattie is now saying HS2 is going to happen - after Balls poured cold water all over it. What is going on - its only £50bn after all...
    Why not ask the actual government whether HS2 will be built or not?
  • RichardNabaviRichardNabavi Posts: 3,413
    edited September 2013

    The thing I don't understand, is if the McBride era was so horrible (Harriet Harman this morning was doing her best to it across how traumatising it was for them all) why was she and so many others backing Brown to the hilt? Why didn't someone speak up? Is it me, or are they all by implication pretty much saying they're weak and unprincipled?

    Well, quite. Talk about bad judgement - this is the party which, near-unanimously, chose Gordon Brown as leader and PM - " the most unstable and ill-suited figure to have held power in Downing Street since Robert Walpole became its first tenant in 1735", according to Anthonty Seldon.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2428513/Gordon-Brown-unstable-ill-suited-PM-Robert-Walpole-1735-says-Anthony-Seldon.html
  • Miss Plato, wasn't the Pakistan incident mentioned here?

    I didn't see it on the news last night.
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536

    Bobajob said:

    tim said:

    FSB ‏@fsb_hq 11m
    We welcome @Ed_Miliband @uklabour leadership on #businessrates. 7% of small firms pay more rates than rent, major reforms required. #Lab13


    Federation of Small Businesses getting behind Miliband and Labour

    Looks a decent policy. Our firm has ~50 employees and non-staffing costs are too high as a proportion of revenue. This should free up a bit of cash to help us grow.
    then move out of London and watch your non-staffing costs fall.

    We wouldn't be able to hire outside London - all the skills we need are here.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Some of these figures - including, remarkably, Ed Balls - claim that they had no idea McBride was briefing against colleagues. It all sounds somewhat improbable. Sooner or later you half-expect one of them to go the whole hog and claim never to have heard of McBride at all. "Damian McBride? Hmm. Rings a bell. Ah yes - he's the new Doctor Who, isn't he?"

    Then there are other figures, such as Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander, who boast of having privately called for McBride's dismissal.

    Sadly Gordon Brown, the man who employed McBride, has yet to comment. It would be interesting to hear his excuse. ("I urged myself to sack Damian. But I just wouldn't listen. No matter how many times I pleaded with myself to take action, I ignored myself. It put my relationship with myself under tremendous strain. I've hardly spoken to myself since.")

    Yesterday, as the Labour conference continued in Brighton, McBride was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. In the afternoon, the programme's producers released a teaser clip. "I hope my book hasn't caused a distraction from the important discussions that are going on inside the conference hall," said McBride, heroically maintaining a straight face. I'd hate to play him at poker. > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/michael-deacon/10329776/Sketch-Damian-McBride-says-sorry-for-the-spin...sort-of.html
  • BobajobBobajob Posts: 1,536

    Yes, I talked to a senior journalist at the Conference about it - he said the whole story was "fun for us but meaningless to most voters". I've had one reference to it, but from someone who was anti-Labour already.

    The YG is encouraging but we need to wait for post-conference polls to judge the lasting impact. The sense from my postbag is that a bunch of people who thought all the parties were rubbish now think we're at least engaging with their worries, but they're not yet sold. What is also worth noting is the complete absence of either a negative Bloom effect or a positive UKIP conference effect. People who like UKIP still like it. People who don't, don't. Possibly this voter segment is quite hard to shift either way.

    That makes it all hunky-dory and fine, then. Careers ruined by the poison spread by the acolytes of people you supported. And both the Brownites and Blairites were doing it.

    Aren't you even a little bit ashamed of being involved with a party where this was going on?
    It's ancient history.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited September 2013
    Plato said:

    A Labour government would cut business rates for small companies’ premises, but increase the corporation tax that bigger firms pay on their profits, Mr Miliband will tell his party conference.

    The shift in taxation would cost bigger firms almost £800 million a year, all of which the Labour leader will promise to pass to small companies in the form of lower business rates.

    Coalition ministers are drawing up plans for their own business rate cuts, which could be announced in the Treasury’s Autumn Statement later this year.

    Labour aides were last night hoping that the tax announcement could distract attention from what colleagues described as a split between Mr Miliband and his shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, over the High Speed 2 rail link, which Mr Balls yesterday threatened to scrap if the party were to enter government. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10329486/Miliband-Labour-will-be-small-business-party.html

    I'd be interested to see how vehemently tim condems this gross act of centralisation.

    Business rates are the responsibility of local authorities (this is a real issue, for instance in RBKC, where it is making retail a very challenging operation). Corporation tax is collected centrally...
  • Mick_PorkMick_Pork Posts: 6,530
    "Damian McBride says he doesn’t think his revelations will have any electoral impact. I think that he’s right"

    Presumably mainly because Brown is no longer PM.
    Not that the Brown Blair split has healed by any means but these revelations are about what McBride did while in the employ of a PM. You can be 100% certain if someone like McBride was employed by little Ed right now and all this was revealed the impact would not be merely of historical interest. Even though very, very few scandals directly bring down governments that certainly doesn't mean they are all harmless.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724

    Miss Plato, wasn't the Pakistan incident mentioned here?

    I didn't see it on the news last night.

    I certainly didn't see mention of it anywhere in the MSM - I was occupied by #Lab13 but it seems a noteworthy story that's been missed entirely.
  • RichardNabaviRichardNabavi Posts: 3,413
    edited September 2013
    Roger said:



    The first really nasty press briefer was Bernard Ingham who did Margaret Thatcher's dirty work-as I'm sure John Biffen will confirm.

    Why do people keep repeating this unmitigated garbage? (Well, I know why they do...). The height of the 'briefing' against John Biffen was to answer a question about him by saying that he was 'semi-detached' from the rest of the cabinet. If you think that was in any way comparable to the smears, lies, and leaks about private lives engaged in by Campbell and McBride then your moral compass is severely out of true.

    New Labour was, thank goodness, a unique aberration in the modern history of the UK. At least, I hope it was, but many of the figures still hold senior positions in Labour so we will have to see whether they really have reformed. Given that their entire political position appears to comprise personal attacks on the Prime Minister, the reform doesn't exactly look complete.
  • Mr. Bobajob, the innovative use of a giant flamethrower at the Battle of Delium in 424BC is ancient history. McBride's involvement in politics is quite recent.
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