Anyone who doesn't live in the BBC version of reality will take the Oldham leaflet as a sarcastic attack on Labour whereas people who are for the time being still living in the fake BBC version of reality may react differently - one of the perils of the two realities I guess.
MrJones.
UKIP have already come out and slammed the leaflet heavily.
Which reality are they living in?
For the time being the majority of voters are still living in the fake BBC version of reality hence Ukip have to be careful. If they want to poke holes in the things Lab turns a blind eye to then they have to be more subtle about it as it will be obvious to somewhere between 10-20% (?) of the electorate that leaflet is a sarcastic attack on Labour but maybe not to the other 80%.
So they're right to slam it while at the same time - if they understand the two realities - they should be pleased so many people will read exactly how the postal votes are being fiddled.
Given Mr Fitzpatrick's recent employment do you think that he might be worthy of further investigation? Presumably he has all the evidence necessary to put people behind bars.
On his own account, until recently he appears to have been familiar with malpractices but entirely comfortable with them. Perhaps he would care to explain how the voters should view his character, given that.
Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes 3m BBC News Channel Editor >> @journomummy: #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views.
Of course the tweet was in a personal capacity....
I hope she loses her job, frankly. She is clearly a very stupid woman.
Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes 3m BBC News Channel Editor >> @journomummy: #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views.
Of course the tweet was in a personal capacity....
I hope she loses her job, frankly. She is clearly a very stupid woman.
The LibDems will survive by regrouping on the opposition benches.
The LibDems have survived worse. In 1990 they were polling negligible figures, yet had 50 MPs within a decade.
I do not see UKIP doing that, but in the unlikely event of gaining an MP, they will be sitting on the opposition benches next to the Cleggites. There is no party that UKIP would form a coalition with, but it is entirely realistic to have LDs in coalition again soon.
Janet Daley: "That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
I don't see any "smear" campaign on ukip by the MSM. The press has just reported on a multitude of rash and stupid remarks made by kipper candidates. The MSM would have done the same for candidates of any party. Don't forget that the press prefers not to have sober analysis of policies but to report on "splits" and "rows" - they hope to boost their declining circulations with hysterical articles.
Then yours is a minority view.
"... the public generally agree with Nigel Farage’s own assessment that UKIP is being victimised by “a political class” and “their mates in the media”. The majority (54%) of British adults agree with his statement, while only 26% disagree."
Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes 3m BBC News Channel Editor >> @journomummy: #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views.
Of course the tweet was in a personal capacity....
I think the account has gone already.
Nope, just my computer on the fritz.
Nope. Still there.
twitter.com/journomummy/status/469134204874522624
This will be fair game I suppose, and UKIP supporters will be told they have tp get used to this "scrutiny"
I am certain that, in time, posters of all hues will look back on the arguments they have put forward in the last week or so and feel very embarrassed
There's supposedly 2% sociopaths in the general population with a higher percentage among high achievers. I think post-war prosperity led to the percentage of non-sociopaths getting involved in politics going down and as a result the percentage of sociopaths in politics went up.
"The maths skills of teenagers in parts of the deep south of the United States are worse than in countries such as Turkey and barely above countries such as Chile and Mexico."
OK but then surely we must question the remuneration of the board. If board members are not actually responsible for anything that goes wrong (because there will always be a rogue employee that can be found) what is the justification for paying them more than the minimum wage?
OK a bit tongue in cheek but not much. Too often in recent years we have seen super-star CEO's, for whose services the shareholders had to pay vast sums, actually destroy companies but walk away with millions in their own personal bank accounts. My cat could have made a better job as CEO and he would ave charged just a tin of pilchards a day.
That's a separate point. The answer is that it is no business of anyone other than shareholders. If they think your cat could expand the business whilst keeping costs down, great. (I'd recommend a zero-hours contract because cats are notoriously lazy...).
So I'm sure you'd support a requirement to have shareholder approval for any increase in executive pay then?
Speedy, the UKIP agent has already acknowledged it as coming from them.
No, no, no, you can't be right, it's a truth universally acknowledged amongst Kippers that every single negative story about them is a LibLabConEstablishment conspiracy.
"Interestingly, the tendency to see coverage as biased against UKIP is largely non-partisan. Majorities of UKIP (77%) and Conservative (53%) supporters take this view, as well as pluralities of Lib Dems (31%) and Labour (40%)."
3 months of non stop UKIP coverage will produce that result. People will start to not believe accusations even if their true.
BBC News editor...
Jasmine Lawrence @journomummy 42m #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today
Taffys: I quite agree with you. The way the criminal bar has argued its case has been dreadful.
I don't represent the criminal bar. My concern is that we will end up - through the cheese-paring "price of everything/value of nothing" approach of Grayling and the cloth-eared approach of the Bar - with a second rate justice system. Remember also that there have already been cuts to legal aid rates; the current proposal is for a further 30% cut.
Nurses may well be underpaid. Care workers certainly are. But as far as I'm aware they have not been told that their pay is to be cut by 30%. Has anyone paid from the public purse been told that their income is to be reduced by such an amount? I'm not aware of any but no doubt someone will correct me if I'm wrong.
Bit of clarification please: is the 30% cut to the fee of the individual person, i.e. the lawyer's actual take home pay before tax? Or the fee to the practice (which will include overheads)? Or to separately invoiced overheads?
The legal isd rates paid to lawyers are gross. Out of that they have to pay all their expenses and overheads. Then tax. The average take-home pay for criminal legal aid lawyers is pretty low. There are a few at the top who get paid a lot though the figures usually quoted are gross and cover several years' work. The criminal bar is being seriously squeezed as are legal aid solicitors.
The effect will be to reduce the number of lawyers doing such work. That will have an effect on those needing such advice. Either they won't get the advice they need - and risk suffering injustice - or it will only be the better off who will get advice. We may get the return of law centres offering free legal advice and paid for by local councils (I started my career at one such place). It's the same argument used by those arguing against fees for GP visits, for instance: the poor won't attend and will suffer and only the rich will be able to afford it.
You can say that you're fine with this and it's the inevitable consequence of having to reduce the budget. But then don't be surprised to find that your justice system suffers - either because you have to spend time arguing whether you can even bring people to trial or because your trials are longer as people try to defend themselves or because juries won't convict. Don't be surprised to find yourself taken to the ECHR for breach of Article 6 - the right to a fair trial.
What you can't do - especially when you believe in a free market - is expect people to work for a rate they won't accept. Lawyers will move into more lucrative areas, if they can, or leave the profession or not go into it in the first place. It won't be them losing out. It will be those who need the services of criminal lawyers. Why is this point so hard to grasp?
Anyone who doesn't live in the BBC version of reality will take the Oldham leaflet as a sarcastic attack on Labour whereas people who are for the time being still living in the fake BBC version of reality may react differently - one of the perils of the two realities I guess.
MrJones.
UKIP have already come out and slammed the leaflet heavily.
Which reality are they living in?
For the time being the majority of voters are still living in the fake BBC version of reality hence Ukip have to be careful. If they want to poke holes in the things Lab turns a blind eye to then they have to be more subtle about it as it will be obvious to somewhere between 10-20% (?) of the electorate that leaflet is a sarcastic attack on Labour but maybe not to the other 80%.
So they're right to slam it while at the same time - if they understand the two realities - they should be pleased so many people will read exactly how the postal votes are being fiddled.
Given Mr Fitzpatrick's recent employment do you think that he might be worthy of further investigation? Presumably he has all the evidence necessary to put people behind bars.
I don't see any point chasing people for postal vote fraud when it would be a lot simpler and cheaper to change the system back to an honest one.
You are alleging that Labour candidates in Oldham have engaged in criminal activity. Given Fitzpatrick was Labour's agent there at the last General Election, if it happened and you know about it he will too (indeed, he makes clear that he does). Don't you think that criminals should be punished?
I think most people in places like Oldham will see the leaflet as a sarcastic attack on Labour.
I think the more people know how wide open postal voting is to abuse the more likely the system will be scrapped and replaced with an honest one.
Speedy, the UKIP agent has already acknowledged it as coming from them.
No, no, no, you can't be right, it's a truth universally acknowledged amongst Kippers that every single negative story about them is a LibLabConEstablishment conspiracy.
"Interestingly, the tendency to see coverage as biased against UKIP is largely non-partisan. Majorities of UKIP (77%) and Conservative (53%) supporters take this view, as well as pluralities of Lib Dems (31%) and Labour (40%)."
3 months of non stop UKIP coverage will produce that result. People will start to not believe accusations even if their true.
BBC News editor...
Jasmine Lawrence @journomummy 42m #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today
Thought that had to be a spoof - is she really a BBC news editor? would certainly explain alot.
The public has a strong interest in the effective management of some companies, as the experiences of 2008 show only too sharply. You're being far too casual in dismissing the idea of additional oversight of them.
No, I'm not being casual and I'm not suggesting there shouldn't be oversight. I'm being practical about what sort of oversight we need.
What is 100% clear is that the sort of oversight we shouldn't have is that which Gordon Brown put in place, which led to the ludicrous situation whereby the FSA, supervising RBS, didn't even bother to ask the most basic question of all about the takeover of ABN Amro, namely what effect it might have on the stability of our banking system. That was despite the FSA employing literally thousands of regulators, despite the fact that every single employee of RBS who was even vaguely working in a financial job had to be FSA-approved and pass some idiotic exams, and despite the fact that RBS was crawling with compliance officers who no doubt had rooms full of carefully-filed forms and databases full of electronic certificates, all linked together with audit trails, to demonstrate that they had complied with all the bonkers regulations.
Sadly we are still not free of all this nonsense, but at least Osborne has ensured that a tightly-focused and identifiable organisation, the Bank of England, is again responsible for financial stability (as it was for 150 years before Brown screwed it up). That's an improvement; putting in place yet more box-ticking would be counter-productive.
Speedy, the UKIP agent has already acknowledged it as coming from them.
No, no, no, you can't be right, it's a truth universally acknowledged amongst Kippers that every single negative story about them is a LibLabConEstablishment conspiracy.
"Interestingly, the tendency to see coverage as biased against UKIP is largely non-partisan. Majorities of UKIP (77%) and Conservative (53%) supporters take this view, as well as pluralities of Lib Dems (31%) and Labour (40%)."
3 months of non stop UKIP coverage will produce that result. People will start to not believe accusations even if their true.
BBC News editor...
Jasmine Lawrence @journomummy 42m #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today
Thought that had to be a spoof - is she really a BBC news editor? would certainly explain alot.
Yes she is since 2001, before she was an ITN business producer/planning editor.
Using an automated system to place a bid seconds before the auction ends to try and prevent someone else outbidding you.
I remember reading an amusing story about online restaurant reservations near silicon valley. Apparently it led to a fiercely competitive coding war have the fastest system and hence get the best bookings.
Anyone who doesn't live in the BBC version of reality will take the Oldham leaflet as a sarcastic attack on Labour whereas people who are for the time being still living in the fake BBC version of reality may react differently - one of the perils of the two realities I guess.
MrJones.
UKIP have already come out and slammed the leaflet heavily.
Which reality are they living in?
For the time being the majority of voters are still living in the fake BBC version of reality hence Ukip have to be careful. If they want to poke holes in the things Lab turns a blind eye to then they have to be more subtle about it as it will be obvious to somewhere between 10-20% (?) of the electorate that leaflet is a sarcastic attack on Labour but maybe not to the other 80%.
So they're right to slam it while at the same time - if they understand the two realities - they should be pleased so many people will read exactly how the postal votes are being fiddled.
Given Mr Fitzpatrick's recent employment do you think that he might be worthy of further investigation? Presumably he has all the evidence necessary to put people behind bars.
I don't see any point chasing people for postal vote fraud when it would be a lot simpler and cheaper to change the system back to an honest one.
You are alleging that Labour candidates in Oldham have engaged in criminal activity. Given Fitzpatrick was Labour's agent there at the last General Election, if it happened and you know about it he will too (indeed, he makes clear that he does). Don't you think that criminals should be punished?
I think most people in places like Oldham will see the leaflet as a sarcastic attack on Labour.
I think the more people know how wide open postal voting is to abuse the more likely the system will be scrapped and replaced with an honest one.
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
So I'm sure you'd support a requirement to have shareholder approval for any increase in executive pay then?
Absolutely I would, in respect of directors. As I've argued before, we also need to fix nominee accounts so that nominee shareholders are not disenfranchised. And I would change the law so that company law takes precedence over employment law in respect of directors (i.e. that if shareholders vetoed a pay rise or sacked a director, the director wouldn't have a case in employment law).
Mr. Corporeal, that reminds me of a Quaker firm a relative did business with. He said they did everything with pen and paper, and their telephone was the only piece of technology they used, but that they were very efficient.
Bit of clarification please: is the 30% cut to the fee of the individual person, i.e. the lawyer's actual take home pay before tax? Or the fee to the practice (which will include overheads)? Or to separately invoiced overheads?
The legal isd rates paid to lawyers are gross. Out of that they have to pay all their expenses and overheads. Then tax. The average take-home pay for criminal legal aid lawyers is pretty low. There are a few at the top who get paid a lot though the figures usually quoted are gross and cover several years' work. The criminal bar is being seriously squeezed as are legal aid solicitors.
The effect will be to reduce the number of lawyers doing such work. That will have an effect on those needing such advice. Either they won't get the advice they need - and risk suffering injustice - or it will only be the better off who will get advice. We may get the return of law centres offering free legal advice and paid for by local councils (I started my career at one such place). It's the same argument used by those arguing against fees for GP visits, for instance: the poor won't attend and will suffer and only the rich will be able to afford it.
You can say that you're fine with this and it's the inevitable consequence of having to reduce the budget. But then don't be surprised to find that your justice system suffers - either because you have to spend time arguing whether you can even bring people to trial or because your trials are longer as people try to defend themselves or because juries won't convict. Don't be surprised to find yourself taken to the ECHR for breach of Article 6 - the right to a fair trial.
What you can't do - especially when you believe in a free market - is expect people to work for a rate they won't accept. Lawyers will move into more lucrative areas, if they can, or leave the profession or not go into it in the first place. It won't be them losing out. It will be those who need the services of criminal lawyers. Why is this point so hard to grasp?
Many thanks - it has been a very interesting debate (in which I have no cat, technically, being in Scotland, though I gather there are similar issues).
So I'm sure you'd support a requirement to have shareholder approval for any increase in executive pay then?
Absolutely I would, in respect of directors. As I've argued before, we also need to fix nominee accounts so that nominee shareholders are not disenfranchised. And I would change the law so that company law takes precedence over employment law in respect of directors (i.e. that if shareholders vetoed a pay rise or sacked a director, the director wouldn't have a case in employment law).
"France wastes at least 15 billion Euros on trains that are too wide for regional platforms"
They are going to scrap the trains? Or possibly widen those platforms where it needs it, at an increased cost, but nowhere near 15 billion? "Architects pencil" is well known to any who work in the construction industry, it refers to a missing slip of paper, or notation that is the fault of "somebody" but never "who".
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
The main political point is that the majority of voters in some areas will see the leaflet as obviously being a sarcastic attack on Labour. However voters elsewhere might see it different.
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
The public has a strong interest in the effective management of some companies, as the experiences of 2008 show only too sharply. You're being far too casual in dismissing the idea of additional oversight of them.
I'm
No, I'm not being casual and I'm not suggesting there shouldn't be oversight. I'm being practical about what sort of oversight we need.
What is 100% clear is that the sort of oversight we shouldn't have is that which Gordon Brown put in place, which led to the ludicrous situation whereby the FSA, supervising RBS, didn't even bother to ask the most basic question of all about the takeover of ABN Amro, namely what effect it might have on the stability of our banking system. That was despite the FSA employing literally thousands of regulators, despite the fact that every single employee of RBS who was even vaguely working in a financial job had to be FSA-approved and pass some idiotic exams, and despite the fact that RBS was crawling with compliance officers who no doubt had rooms full of carefully-filed forms and databases full of electronic certificates, all linked together with audit trails, to demonstrate that they had complied with all the bonkers regulations.
Sadly we are still not free of all this nonsense, but at least Osborne has ensured that a tightly-focused and identifiable organisation, the Bank of England, is again responsible for financial stability (as it was for 150 years before Brown screwed it up). That's an improvement; putting in place yet more box-ticking would be counter-productive.
I'm suggesting nothing of that kind. I would introduce a general criminal offence requiring board members to take personal criminal responsibility for systemic corporate failures caused by running unbalanced risks.
As matters currently stand, financial institutions have every incentive to pick up pennies in front of steamrollers, because the worst that can happen is that when disaster strikes most of their staff will have made their pile. It's the socialising of risk and the privatising of profit. I'm intensely relaxed about the privatising of profit, but only if the risk is also privatised.
Speedy, the UKIP agent has already acknowledged it as coming from them.
No, no, no, you can't be right, it's a truth universally acknowledged amongst Kippers that every single negative story about them is a LibLabConEstablishment conspiracy.
"Interestingly, the tendency to see coverage as biased against UKIP is largely non-partisan. Majorities of UKIP (77%) and Conservative (53%) supporters take this view, as well as pluralities of Lib Dems (31%) and Labour (40%)."
3 months of non stop UKIP coverage will produce that result. People will start to not believe accusations even if their true.
BBC News editor...
Jasmine Lawrence @journomummy 42m #WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today
Thought that had to be a spoof - is she really a BBC news editor? would certainly explain alot.
Yes she is since 2001, before she was an ITN business producer/planning editor.
Cheer, I just googled her - I wonder what BBC will have to say about an employee being so overtly, sexist, racist and politically biased? - ....who am I kidding.
I'm suggesting nothing of that kind. I would introduce a general criminal offence requiring board members to take personal criminal responsibility for systemic corporate failures caused by running unbalanced risks.
To which a defence would be: Ah, but I put in place all this massive compliance structure fully implementing the 10,000 page Guide To Best Practice, and I got Ernst & Young to check it all out and every memo I wrote was checked by the company's lawyers.
It just leads back to the same box-ticking nonsense.
Mr. Speedy, whilst comically awful, the bar chart was (quite rightly) laughed at when it first emerged, some weeks ago. Mildly surprised it's resurfaced.
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
The main political point is that the majority of voters in some areas will see the leaflet as obviously being a sarcastic attack on Labour. However voters elsewhere might see it different.
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
John0 - I'll be trying my best to think of everyone who engages with this site. I dare say I'll be up in time for the best of the Today programme.
We're the poor bloody infantry of politics. Normally there'd be at least one other teller to keep me company as we record the electoral numbers, but it will be only be me tomorrow as Labour and LibDems don't bother.
UKIP are not the anti establishment party. They are led by a public school educated city trader who took over from an Old Etonian Lord.They simply want to get rid of our current establishment and restore the 1950's establishment. There is a world of difference between being reactionary and being anti establishment. Roger Helmer and Neil Hamilton are about as old establishment as it gets!
The Greens, No2EU, pirate party and Bus Pass Elvis party could all reasonably be described as anti establishment.
The LibDems will survive by regrouping on the opposition benches.
The LibDems have survived worse. In 1990 they were polling negligible figures, yet had 50 MPs within a decade.
I do not see UKIP doing that, but in the unlikely event of gaining an MP, they will be sitting on the opposition benches next to the Cleggites. There is no party that UKIP would form a coalition with, but it is entirely realistic to have LDs in coalition again soon.
Janet Daley: "That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
Re-grouping how? We have just had a national campaign with The Establishment on one side (inc LDs) and UKIP on the other.
The antiestablishment party is now UKIP, and the LDs are now another marque of The Establishment.
Re: MPs. I think Eastleigh will be one of the seats won by UKIP candidates in 2015.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
Don't I know it. Sparrow's fart telling slot at Hersham Village Hall. Think of me.
Good luck. How long are you there for? (ie when can you come on here and give us 'live, on the ground' reports of turnout in Hersham?)
Thanks. Two hours then off to do the same at St George's Hill (a marginal and we're determined to beat Kelvin Mckenzie who is our principal opponent!). Hopefully, Freddie Starr will have eaten his ballot paper.
The track record of this BBC woman is irrelevant. She has made her political leanings clear and so should be fired, or at least removed from the newsroom. People like Craig Oliver, Thea Rogers and Will Walden did not reveal their Tory sympathies when working in senior positions at BBC News until very recently. She should not have done either.
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
The main political point is that the majority of voters in some areas will see the leaflet as obviously being a sarcastic attack on Labour. However voters elsewhere might see it different.
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
So makes perfect sense.
Riiight - so it's just a joke and not true?
If it's seen as a sarcastic attack on Labour then it's effectiveness will be related to how true it is.
If it's not true it won't be very effective.
Either way more people knowing how easy it is to fiddle postal voting is all good.
Mr. Speedy, whilst comically awful, the bar chart was (quite rightly) laughed at when it first emerged, some weeks ago. Mildly surprised it's resurfaced.
I'm still trying to find the reliable polling source of the numbers (sarcasm). Plus it's election day tommorow so parties will try to convince people that the result is a good one for their own party regardless of numbers. It will be bar-chart heaven.
Question: I'm casting a proxy vote for someone tomorrow. Will I be able to come back later to vote myself or do I have to do them at the same time?
Why would you not do them at the same time? (I don't think that it would be an issue - but you would want to be very clear both times about which ballot you are casting for)
I'm suggesting nothing of that kind. I would introduce a general criminal offence requiring board members to take personal criminal responsibility for systemic corporate failures caused by running unbalanced risks.
To which a defence would be: Ah, but I put in place all this massive compliance structure fully implementing the 10,000 page Guide To Best Practice, and I got Ernst & Young to check it all out and every memo I wrote was checked by the company's lawyers.
It just leads back to the same box-ticking nonsense.
Your basic line of argument is that any attempt to raise standards is just going to lead to defensiveness, so we'll just have to shrug when it all happens all over again.
For what financial services board members get paid, we can expect a bit more than that.
Question: I'm casting a proxy vote for someone tomorrow. Will I be able to come back later to vote myself or do I have to do them at the same time?
Afaik you can come back later. Worth checking with the people at the polling station (especially since proxy votes are a bit of a rarity) but don't see why you couldn't go back later.
We won't have any problems getting board members to come forward if they are rewarded appropriately. But they can't expect the sweeties without the responsibility. With such responsibility, they will be driven to put in place the systems to control abuses.
No they won't. If they are not driven away completely (as happens to some extent in non-exec director positions already), they will be driven to waste vast amounts of money to ensure there is an auditable trail of box-ticking which can be used in their defence if, God forbid, some rogue employee in a far-off branch, unknown to them, does something bad. Such box-ticking has zero or negative effect on actually improving things, but it does shield the arses of the management.
We have been through all this once with Brown's financial regulation nonsense.
I have a simpler solution: prosecute the rogue employee.
OK but then surely we must question the remuneration of the board. If board members are not actually responsible for anything that goes wrong (because there will always be a rogue employee that can be found) what is the justification for paying them more than the minimum wage?
OK a bit tongue in cheek but not much. Too often in recent years we have seen super-star CEO's, for whose services the shareholders had to pay vast sums, actually destroy companies but walk away with millions in their own personal bank accounts. My cat could have made a better job as CEO and he would ave charged just a tin of pilchards a day.
Is that as just base salary or is the bonus included?
Base salary, Mr. Corporeal, just base salary. The Brute is not that much of a push over. When it comes to bonus time he would probably want to talk about a ration of extra-mature cheddar cheese and a certain amount of cold roast pork. However, as a CEO of a major bank surely he could not do a worse job than some others of recent name, or a major industrial or two. If my cat had been appointed Chairman and CEO of, say, GEC I dare say it would still exist, still be making money and still be a big exporter. It goes without saying that The Brute would have made a better job of running RBS than Goodwin, well lets be honest there are things floating down the sewer that would have made a better job than him.
The cult of the super-star CEO needs to be destroyed. Not normally a supporter of government interference in peoples lives, I think I could favour a limit on board pay - 20 times what they pay their cleaners. Damned if I can see how any CEO is worth more than that.
Question: I'm casting a proxy vote for someone tomorrow. Will I be able to come back later to vote myself or do I have to do them at the same time?
Why would you not do them at the same time? (I don't think that it would be an issue - but you would want to be very clear both times about which ballot you are casting for)
I know it sounds like a stupid question, but the point is I haven't quite made up my mind who to vote for, and I usually vote at about 9:45 pm anyway.
But since I'm casting a proxy vote for the first time, there might be some kind of problem with establishing that I am actually the right person to be voting for someone else, and so therefore I was going to go very early to do that particular job: if there was a problem (which I don't expect), I'd have all day to try to sort it out. So you can see why I ask the question. I need to go early for the proxy vote, just in case something goes wrong, but I'd still like to do by 9:45pm, last minute vote for myself.
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
The main political point is that the majority of voters in some areas will see the leaflet as obviously being a sarcastic attack on Labour. However voters elsewhere might see it different.
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
So makes perfect sense.
Riiight - so it's just a joke and not true?
If it's seen as a sarcastic attack on Labour then it's effectiveness will be related to how true it is.
If it's not true it won't be very effective.
Either way more people knowing how easy it is to fiddle postal voting is all good.
Fair enough. We have two plausible scenarios: Fitzpatrick knows something and should be providing his evidence to the relevant authorities; or he is making it all up, in which case he is just stirring. Either way, it's not PC gone mad for complaints about the leaflet to have been made or for UKIP to be investigating it. Glad we cleared that up. It took a while, but we got there in the end.
The track record of this BBC woman is irrelevant. She has made her political leanings clear and so should be fired, or at least removed from the newsroom. People like Craig Oliver, Thea Rogers and Will Walden did not reveal their Tory sympathies when working in senior positions at BBC News until very recently. She should not have done either.
I wonder if there is an instant defence in that the BBC corporation itself has done just that - made its political leanings clear in refusing to resign membership of a political activist organization, the CBI, immediately the latter self-declared as one (quite apart from what we all knew anyway). Even just suspending membership for the official campaign period doesn't cut it given the importance of the link before and after the formal period.
Even the NUJ, not so far as I know run by Mr Salmond (irony here), is unhappy, and very much so. Latest report here
I'm suggesting nothing of that kind. I would introduce a general criminal offence requiring board members to take personal criminal responsibility for systemic corporate failures caused by running unbalanced risks.
To which a defence would be: Ah, but I put in place all this massive compliance structure fully implementing the 10,000 page Guide To Best Practice, and I got Ernst & Young to check it all out and every memo I wrote was checked by the company's lawyers.
It just leads back to the same box-ticking nonsense.
Your basic line of argument is that any attempt to raise standards is just going to lead to defensiveness, so we'll just have to shrug when it all happens all over again.
For what financial services board members get paid, we can expect a bit more than that.
Come on anti, what he is arguing for is that the wrong-doer is punished.
And only the board members if they are either directly implicated in a crime or helped cover it up.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
So no further investigation of alleged widespread voting fraud by Labour candidates made by the former Labour agent in Oldham then. Just a hope that at some stage in the future it might all change. And in the meantime Labour can just go on fiddling results. Including tomorrow's. In Oldham. That makes sense.
The main political point is that the majority of voters in some areas will see the leaflet as obviously being a sarcastic attack on Labour. However voters elsewhere might see it different.
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
So makes perfect sense.
Riiight - so it's just a joke and not true?
If it's seen as a sarcastic attack on Labour then it's effectiveness will be related to how true it is.
If it's not true it won't be very effective.
Either way more people knowing how easy it is to fiddle postal voting is all good.
Fair enough. We have two plausible scenarios: Fitzpatrick knows something and should be providing his evidence to the relevant authorities; or he is making it all up, in which case he is just stirring. Either way, it's not PC gone mad for complaints about the leaflet to have been made or for UKIP to be investigating it. Glad we cleared that up. It took a while, but we got there in the end.
Question: I'm casting a proxy vote for someone tomorrow. Will I be able to come back later to vote myself or do I have to do them at the same time?
Why would you not do them at the same time? (I don't think that it would be an issue - but you would want to be very clear both times about which ballot you are casting for)
I know it sounds like a stupid question, but the point is I haven't quite made up my mind who to vote for, and I usually vote at about 9:45 pm anyway.
But since I'm casting a proxy vote for the first time, there might be some kind of problem with establishing that I am actually the right person to be voting for someone else, and so therefore I was going to go very early to do that particular job: if there was a problem (which I don't expect), I'd have all day to try to sort it out. So you can see why I ask the question. I need to go early for the proxy vote, just in case something goes wrong, but I'd still like to do by 9:45pm, last minute vote for myself.
Yup - that does (sort of) make sense. I think that the thing to do is to be very clear and mention it when casting your proxy early on so that there is no chance of confusion.
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
Your basic line of argument is that any attempt to raise standards is just going to lead to defensiveness, so we'll just have to shrug when it all happens all over again.
For what financial services board members get paid, we can expect a bit more than that.
No, my line of argument is that we should concentrate on the things which matter, most notably financial stability, and that the best way of doing that is a much smaller, simpler, and nimbler regulator which is very focused on its core mandate.
It is no coincidence that one of the very best financial regulatory bodies of all is the Takeover Panel, which employs very few people and works in a remarkably informal way.
What you are suggesting is that a director of an organisation employing many thousands of people should become personally and criminally liable for behaviour about which she knows nothing and can know nothing. That is abhorrent in principle, and in practical terms would lead to the defensiveness I've described.
" Damned if I can see how any CEO is worth more than that" Not all shareholders, and quite often the majority (hedge funds, etc) take the view that a massive increase is a bad thing. For some it means that their backs will be well scratched come the time for their increase.
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
First post, after lurking.
If it's raining hard will the oldies actually turn out?
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
Weather always affects turnout and can determine the winner if the election is close. People who are not very bothered in voting would be further discouraged.
I'm suggesting nothing of that kind. I would introduce a general criminal offence requiring board members to take personal criminal responsibility for systemic corporate failures caused by running unbalanced risks.
To which a defence would be: Ah, but I put in place all this massive compliance structure fully implementing the 10,000 page Guide To Best Practice, and I got Ernst & Young to check it all out and every memo I wrote was checked by the company's lawyers.
It just leads back to the same box-ticking nonsense.
Your basic line of argument is that any attempt to raise standards is just going to lead to defensiveness, so we'll just have to shrug when it all happens all over again.
For what financial services board members get paid, we can expect a bit more than that.
We should expect it. Whether we'll get it is another matter. The issue of making people personally criminally responsible for corporate misbehaviour - which is always and everywhere caused by individuals acting or failing to act - is more complex and has been for years. Remember the prosecutions in the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.
A useful rule to remember is this Italian saying: "Fatta la legge, trovato l'inganno". (Once the law's made, people find a loophole/way round it.) Or the law of unintended consequences.
How to make people - especially senior well-paid people - accept responsibility is the big challenge for us all. Everyone always seems to blame the "system" or the "processes" or the "procedures". This failing is hardly exclusive to the world of finance.
The track record of this BBC woman is irrelevant. She has made her political leanings clear and so should be fired, or at least removed from the newsroom. People like Craig Oliver, Thea Rogers and Will Walden did not reveal their Tory sympathies when working in senior positions at BBC News until very recently. She should not have done either.
I wonder if there is an instant defence in that the BBC corporation itself has done just that - made its political leanings clear in refusing to resign membership of a political activist organization, the CBI, immediately the latter self-declared as one (quite apart from what we all knew anyway). Even just suspending membership for the official campaign period doesn't cut it given the importance of the link before and after the formal period.
Even the NUJ, not so far as I know run by Mr Salmond (irony here), is unhappy, and very much so. Latest report here
Hmmm - Scottish NUJ leader Paul Holleran may - just - have skin in the game:
Ahead of the conference, which opens tomorrow (Mon, April 14), Paul Holleran, Scottish Organiser of the National Union of Journalists and a member of Trade Unionists for Yes, said: “More and more trade unionists are moving to Yes, and believe that we are more likely to deliver a fairer and more just Scotland with the full powers of an independent country.
“Issues like health and safety, working conditions and wages are the real priorities for trade unions and our members, but powers to address these issues remain outside the hands of Scotland’s Parliament and our labour movement.
“Scotland has a strong and proud union movement, but we have been held back in Scotland for a generation. With a Yes vote we can get moving again.”
UKIP are not the anti establishment party. They are led by a public school educated city trader who took over from an Old Etonian Lord.They simply want to get rid of our current establishment and restore the 1950's establishment. There is a world of difference between being reactionary and being anti establishment. Roger Helmer and Neil Hamilton are about as old establishment as it gets!
The Greens, No2EU, pirate party and Bus Pass Elvis party could all reasonably be described as anti establishment.
On that basis, the Green Party are not "anti-establishment" at all, but are merely "reactionaries". They are simply attempting to restore the establishment of the Stone Age, rather than that of the 1950s.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
Jasmine proclaims that she had worked on Westminster Coverage when Blair was forced out; and had been working on General Election coverage in 2010.
" Damned if I can see how any CEO is worth more than that" Not all shareholders, and quite often the majority (hedge funds, etc) take the view that a massive increase is a bad thing. For some it means that their backs will be well scratched come the time for their increase.
Beg pardon, Comrade, but you have lost me there. Are you saying that at least some CEOs and other board members are worth more than twenty-times the lowest pay in their respective companies? If so I'd be glad to hear your arguments.
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
You'll be sitting round your bubbling cauldron next, in the company of Richard_Nabavi and foxinsoxuk, muttering curses at UKIP and hoping the whole party disappears before voting starts at 7 am tomorrow.
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
First post, after lurking.
If it's raining hard will the oldies actually turn out?
The oldies may already have voted by post.
The rain will not be continuous, so oldies with time on their hands will be able to wait for a gap in the rain to go out and do their electoral duty. If someone habitually votes in the ten minute window between returning from work and preparing dinner, then a heavy rain shower at that time might see them put it off until later, and possibly not vote at all.
These things always make a difference at the margins, but the question is always how wide those margins are. Like you I don't think it makes that much difference to most people.
The track record of this BBC woman is irrelevant. She has made her political leanings clear and so should be fired, or at least removed from the newsroom. People like Craig Oliver, Thea Rogers and Will Walden did not reveal their Tory sympathies when working in senior positions at BBC News until very recently. She should not have done either.
I completely agree, and good on you for saying so.
If one reaches the giddy heights in business or politics, you become a member of a special club. This means that quite often, you can "tank" a business, and walk into another directorship within the month. This club also likes to look after its "members" in much the same way that individual police officers are always supported by their fellows despite minor problems such as morality and the law.
Question: I'm casting a proxy vote for someone tomorrow. Will I be able to come back later to vote myself or do I have to do them at the same time?
Why would you not do them at the same time? (I don't think that it would be an issue - but you would want to be very clear both times about which ballot you are casting for)
I know it sounds like a stupid question, but the point is I haven't quite made up my mind who to vote for, and I usually vote at about 9:45 pm anyway.
But since I'm casting a proxy vote for the first time, there might be some kind of problem with establishing that I am actually the right person to be voting for someone else, and so therefore I was going to go very early to do that particular job: if there was a problem (which I don't expect), I'd have all day to try to sort it out. So you can see why I ask the question. I need to go early for the proxy vote, just in case something goes wrong, but I'd still like to do by 9:45pm, last minute vote for myself.
I seriously think that that's the most carefully-considered vote I've EVER heard of - to be in the polling station but ask for another 12 hours to think it over. Awesome!
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
I thought this tweet from Peston was a bit off. There's more than a nudge and a wink about it: :
Retweeted by Robert Peston Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic May 19 DO go and vote on thurs. It isn't hard, and a lot of people who are MASSIVE pricks definitely will, so every normo who shows up is a bonus.
Given that the line between news and opinion is now very blurred, and that Twitter is used by news organisations and journalists to deliver both, I think Peston's out of order and shouldn't go under the BBC byline if he wants to make personal, yet party political, statements.
The LibDems will survive by regrouping on the opposition benches.
The LibDems have survived worse. In 1990 they were polling negligible figures, yet had 50 MPs within a decade.
I do not see UKIP doing that, but in the unlikely event of gaining an MP, they will be sitting on the opposition benches next to the Cleggites. There is no party that UKIP would form a coalition with, but it is entirely realistic to have LDs in coalition again soon.
Janet Daley: "That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
Re-grouping how? We have just had a national campaign with The Establishment on one side (inc LDs) and UKIP on the other.
The antiestablishment party is now UKIP, and the LDs are now another marque of The Establishment.
Re: MPs. I think Eastleigh will be one of the seats won by UKIP candidates in 2015.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
I thought this tweet from Peston was a bit off. There's more than a nudge and a wink about it: :
Retweeted by Robert Peston Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic May 19 DO go and vote on thurs. It isn't hard, and a lot of people who are MASSIVE pricks definitely will, so every normo who shows up is a bonus.
Given that the line between news and opinion is now very blurred, and that Twitter is used by news organisations and journalists to deliver both, I think Peston's out of order and shouldn't go under the BBC byline if he wants to make personal, yet party political, statements.
A lot of people may not like Labour voters, but to stoop and call them massive pricks is a bit low.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
I thought this tweet from Peston was a bit off. There's more than a nudge and a wink about it: :
Retweeted by Robert Peston Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic May 19 DO go and vote on thurs. It isn't hard, and a lot of people who are MASSIVE pricks definitely will, so every normo who shows up is a bonus.
Given that the line between news and opinion is now very blurred, and that Twitter is used by news organisations and journalists to deliver both, I think Peston's out of order and shouldn't go under the BBC byline if he wants to make personal, yet party political, statements.
A lot of people may not like Labour voters, but to stoop and call them massive pricks is a bit low.
Describing the number of people likely to vote for the Lib Dems as "a lot of people" is sadly consistent with their bar charts, though.
Seeing that BBC news editor tweet I thought that if UKIP achieves nothing else, we will know a little more about some of the people in positions of influence in our country, for better or for worse.
It does not take much to find out how many former BBC news folk are now advising senior Tories.
I thought this tweet from Peston was a bit off. There's more than a nudge and a wink about it: :
Retweeted by Robert Peston Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic May 19 DO go and vote on thurs. It isn't hard, and a lot of people who are MASSIVE pricks definitely will, so every normo who shows up is a bonus.
Given that the line between news and opinion is now very blurred, and that Twitter is used by news organisations and journalists to deliver both, I think Peston's out of order and shouldn't go under the BBC byline if he wants to make personal, yet party political, statements.
A lot of people may not like Labour voters, but to stoop and call them massive pricks is a bit low.
Ha ha. That would be his defense of course. But I'm sure all the Pestonettes at the BBC got the message.
I never said it would! All I have suggested is that UKIP is not an anti-establishment party, and in a minority that makes little or no effort to find common ground with other parties.
I expect it to be a smaller LibDem party in Westminster this time next year, and one that needs to reflect on its time in government. There have been a lot of positives to this period.
The LibDems will survive by regrouping on the opposition benches.
The LibDems have survived worse. In 1990 they were polling negligible figures, yet had 50 MPs within a decade.
I do not see UKIP doing that, but in the unlikely event of gaining an MP, they will be sitting on the opposition benches next to the Cleggites. There is no party that UKIP would form a coalition with, but it is entirely realistic to have LDs in coalition again soon.
Janet Daley: "That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
Re-grouping how? We have just had a national campaign with The Establishment on one side (inc LDs) and UKIP on the other.
The antiestablishment party is now UKIP, and the LDs are now another marque of The Establishment.
Re: MPs. I think Eastleigh will be one of the seats won by UKIP candidates in 2015.
The Tories were able to win the parliamentary seat by about 3,500 votes (8%) on the same day because it includes a number of rural wards in addition to the built-up area. Obviously Labour needs to be ahead by about 8% in the borough to have a decent chance of winning the constituency next year.
At the risk of dipping my toes into hot water significant progress has been made in Scotland in recent years by imposing duties on the defence to agree non-contentious evidence and to clearly set out what issues are genuinely in dispute. This has arisen through both statute and procedural hearings which case manage cases before they get to the Jury Trial.
It is true that some defence counsel rather resent the loss of the old ways and trial by ambush waiting for a crown slip up but it is also true that real progress has been made in cutting the length of complicated carousel type fraud cases. As a generality we do not have cases of the complexity of those that might arise in London.
I think that it has also helped juries to focus on the real issues in front of them to some extent.
If I was looking to cut the cost of complex fraud trials in England I would be focussing on the amount of evidence that is led and not actually disputed. This no doubt already happens to some extent but it is an obvious area for further improvement.
I also have reservations about the modern tendency of prosecutions to throw the kitchen sink at accused resulting in every possible charge being made. I appreciate sometimes this is necessary to make relevant evidence admissible but as a generality fewer, simpler charges are more likely to result in justice one way or the other.
I agree with Cyclefree that the failure to hold our bankers to account for their criminal behaviour has done London no credit whatsoever. But should guys who were until very recently earning several million a year even be getting legal aid? Just maybe if the defence was paying for their representation there may be a greater incentive to get to the point.
As a civil lawyer I am increasingly reluctant to take on legal aid work. The pay rate is between 30 and 20% of the commercial rate and many LA cases involving counsel are every bit as complicated as commercial ones. Legal aid is increasingly done by those who simply cannot find anything better which is a shame.
Some UKIP supporters are probably cock-a-hoop at tomorrow's heavy rain forecast in a lot of the country, since the lower turnout is the better they'll do in all likelihood, although personally I don't think bad weather makes that much difference if someone is intending to go to the polling station.
You'll be sitting round your bubbling cauldron next, in the company of Richard_Nabavi and foxinsoxuk, muttering curses at UKIP and hoping the whole party disappears before voting starts at 7 am tomorrow.
Do try to grow up and take it on the chin!
That wasn't actually an-anti UKIP post, you know! It was attempting to be neutral.
If one reaches the giddy heights in business or politics, you become a member of a special club. This means that quite often, you can "tank" a business, and walk into another directorship within the month. This club also likes to look after its "members" in much the same way that individual police officers are always supported by their fellows despite minor problems such as morality and the law.
Yes, I know all that, Comrade, but we were talking about executive pay. We have established that my cat could have made a better job of running RBS than did the man who eventually ran it into bankruptcy. Indeed a non-sentient lump of creation, say a tub of lard, could have done a better job. Then throw in all those other businesses that have been destroyed whilst at the same time paying their senior executives huge salaries and with the taxpayer having to pick up the fall out. Now, Comrade, tell me why there should not be a limit on executive pay.
The LibDems will survive by regrouping on the opposition benches.
The LibDems have survived worse. In 1990 they were polling negligible figures, yet had 50 MPs within a decade.
I do not see UKIP doing that, but in the unlikely event of gaining an MP, they will be sitting on the opposition benches next to the Cleggites. There is no party that UKIP would form a coalition with, but it is entirely realistic to have LDs in coalition again soon.
Janet Daley: "That [anti-UKIP smear] campaign has done what would have been utterly beyond the capability of Ukip's own amateurish, content-less, incoherent presentation: it has permanently installed the idea that the political class are a united vindictive force which regards the anxieties and concerns of a large proportion of voters with contempt."
If the majority of the British public now see UKIP as THE antiestablishment party, how the dickens are the LDs going to revive their third party status after the 2015 election?
Re-grouping how? We have just had a national campaign with The Establishment on one side (inc LDs) and UKIP on the other.
The antiestablishment party is now UKIP, and the LDs are now another marque of The Establishment.
Re: MPs. I think Eastleigh will be one of the seats won by UKIP candidates in 2015.
I'm sure Friday's local election results will reveal others.
How does that help the LDs after the 2015 election?
By diluting the UKIP anti-establishment vote. The biggest threat to the Lib Dems is being pushed into fourth by UKIP, who then establish themselves as a better alternative. True, they've a long way to go before they get there and could easily come a cropper for any number of reasons but it'd be a lot harder for any party to come back from a disastrous showing these days simply because of the amount of competition (far more than there was in 1990, for example).
The Lib Dems are helped in one sense by being centrist and as such, not being hated from an ideological position by a sizable part of the electorate (taking decisions in government is a different matter), but the flip side's also true: who dies in the last ditch so that their party might act as a moderating influence?
Perhaps more evidence of good luck for UKIP: there was heavy rain today in East Anglia, but tomorrow it's forecast to be fine and sunny. Since this will probably be the party's best region they wouldn't have wanted bad weather there tomorrow.
The Tories were able to win the parliamentary seat by about 3,500 votes (8%) on the same day because it includes a number of rural wards in addition to the built-up area. Obviously Labour needs to be ahead by about 8% in the borough to have a decent chance of winning the constituency next year.
Thanks AndyJS.
Stevenage is also one of those areas that you would expect would be doing relatively well in the recent economic upturn and so will be a good test of whether Labour is advancing out of its heartlands.
With a population of about 85,000 it is in the 10,000 - 100,000 range of urban areas that I think of equating to the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands that were identified as being a more accurate description of the location of the marginals than "the Midlands".
Comments
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-27431968
Interesting that a fair number of these people are now living in England.
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?reset=#anchor
Hmm.
"... the public generally agree with Nigel Farage’s own assessment that UKIP is being victimised by “a political class” and “their mates in the media”. The majority (54%) of British adults agree with his statement, while only 26% disagree."
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/05/20/voters-think-media-more-biased-against-UKIP/
The national press did not report the various mis-deeds and foolishness of Conservative/Labour/LD councillors and candidates.
http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/electoral-fraud-homophobia-racism.html
http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-latest-digest-of-crimes-etc-by.html
http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/hope-not-hate-are-this-evening-pushing.html
http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html
Just a theory.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27442541
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27497727
Jasmine Lawrence @journomummy 42m
#WhyImVotingUkip - to stand up for white, middle class, middle aged men w sexist/racist views, totally under represented in politics today
The effect will be to reduce the number of lawyers doing such work. That will have an effect on those needing such advice. Either they won't get the advice they need - and risk suffering injustice - or it will only be the better off who will get advice. We may get the return of law centres offering free legal advice and paid for by local councils (I started my career at one such place). It's the same argument used by those arguing against fees for GP visits, for instance: the poor won't attend and will suffer and only the rich will be able to afford it.
You can say that you're fine with this and it's the inevitable consequence of having to reduce the budget. But then don't be surprised to find that your justice system suffers - either because you have to spend time arguing whether you can even bring people to trial or because your trials are longer as people try to defend themselves or because juries won't convict. Don't be surprised to find yourself taken to the ECHR for breach of Article 6 - the right to a fair trial.
What you can't do - especially when you believe in a free market - is expect people to work for a rate they won't accept. Lawyers will move into more lucrative areas, if they can, or leave the profession or not go into it in the first place. It won't be them losing out. It will be those who need the services of criminal lawyers. Why is this point so hard to grasp?
I think the more people know how wide open postal voting is to abuse the more likely the system will be scrapped and replaced with an honest one.
What is 100% clear is that the sort of oversight we shouldn't have is that which Gordon Brown put in place, which led to the ludicrous situation whereby the FSA, supervising RBS, didn't even bother to ask the most basic question of all about the takeover of ABN Amro, namely what effect it might have on the stability of our banking system. That was despite the FSA employing literally thousands of regulators, despite the fact that every single employee of RBS who was even vaguely working in a financial job had to be FSA-approved and pass some idiotic exams, and despite the fact that RBS was crawling with compliance officers who no doubt had rooms full of carefully-filed forms and databases full of electronic certificates, all linked together with audit trails, to demonstrate that they had complied with all the bonkers regulations.
Sadly we are still not free of all this nonsense, but at least Osborne has ensured that a tightly-focused and identifiable organisation, the Bank of England, is again responsible for financial stability (as it was for 150 years before Brown screwed it up). That's an improvement; putting in place yet more box-ticking would be counter-productive.
In Graphics Big Issues in EU Election
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27462683
Is that radical enough for you?
Mr. Corporeal, that reminds me of a Quaker firm a relative did business with. He said they did everything with pen and paper, and their telephone was the only piece of technology they used, but that they were very efficient.
The effect will be to reduce the number of lawyers doing such work. That will have an effect on those needing such advice. Either they won't get the advice they need - and risk suffering injustice - or it will only be the better off who will get advice. We may get the return of law centres offering free legal advice and paid for by local councils (I started my career at one such place). It's the same argument used by those arguing against fees for GP visits, for instance: the poor won't attend and will suffer and only the rich will be able to afford it.
You can say that you're fine with this and it's the inevitable consequence of having to reduce the budget. But then don't be surprised to find that your justice system suffers - either because you have to spend time arguing whether you can even bring people to trial or because your trials are longer as people try to defend themselves or because juries won't convict. Don't be surprised to find yourself taken to the ECHR for breach of Article 6 - the right to a fair trial.
What you can't do - especially when you believe in a free market - is expect people to work for a rate they won't accept. Lawyers will move into more lucrative areas, if they can, or leave the profession or not go into it in the first place. It won't be them losing out. It will be those who need the services of criminal lawyers. Why is this point so hard to grasp?
Many thanks - it has been a very interesting debate (in which I have no cat, technically, being in Scotland, though I gather there are similar issues).
and saying a vote to leave EU is an anti-Wales vote
"France wastes at least 15 billion Euros on trains that are too wide for regional platforms"
They are going to scrap the trains? Or possibly widen those platforms where it needs it, at an increased cost, but nowhere near 15 billion?
"Architects pencil" is well known to any who work in the construction industry, it refers to a missing slip of paper, or notation that is the fault of "somebody" but never "who".
"Welsh Jobs at risk and only the Lib Dems can protect them"
where were these leaflets printed? Portsmouth
The second point is even if that second group is more anti-Ukip as a result they will also be better informed about how easily the postal voting system can be fiddled. So from my point of view it's not all bad either way.
So makes perfect sense.
As matters currently stand, financial institutions have every incentive to pick up pennies in front of steamrollers, because the worst that can happen is that when disaster strikes most of their staff will have made their pile. It's the socialising of risk and the privatising of profit. I'm intensely relaxed about the privatising of profit, but only if the risk is also privatised.
Given yr recent cmmts @CCHQPress assume a quote condemning this embarrassing moment will be along any moment http://bit.ly/1gPxEo4
I thought it was the slippery bluffing that made Ed's interview so embarrassing.... seem a tad desperate to play Shapps honest response as a cover...
It just leads back to the same box-ticking nonsense.
twitter.com/IanAustinMP/status/465511452183638017/photo/1
I didn't knew there was a reliable firm called Canvass Results.
The Greens, No2EU, pirate party and Bus Pass Elvis party could all reasonably be described as anti establishment.
It's a case of dual identities.
If it's not true it won't be very effective.
Either way more people knowing how easy it is to fiddle postal voting is all good.
For what financial services board members get paid, we can expect a bit more than that.
The cult of the super-star CEO needs to be destroyed. Not normally a supporter of government interference in peoples lives, I think I could favour a limit on board pay - 20 times what they pay their cleaners. Damned if I can see how any CEO is worth more than that.
But since I'm casting a proxy vote for the first time, there might be some kind of problem with establishing that I am actually the right person to be voting for someone else, and so therefore I was going to go very early to do that particular job: if there was a problem (which I don't expect), I'd have all day to try to sort it out. So you can see why I ask the question. I need to go early for the proxy vote, just in case something goes wrong, but I'd still like to do by 9:45pm, last minute vote for myself.
Even the NUJ, not so far as I know run by Mr Salmond (irony here), is unhappy, and very much so. Latest report here
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/9220-nuj-to-up-pressure-on-bbc-over-broadcasters-cbi-membership
And only the board members if they are either directly implicated in a crime or helped cover it up.
Poor management should not be a criminal offence.
It is no coincidence that one of the very best financial regulatory bodies of all is the Takeover Panel, which employs very few people and works in a remarkably informal way.
What you are suggesting is that a director of an organisation employing many thousands of people should become personally and criminally liable for behaviour about which she knows nothing and can know nothing. That is abhorrent in principle, and in practical terms would lead to the defensiveness I've described.
" Damned if I can see how any CEO is worth more than that"
Not all shareholders, and quite often the majority (hedge funds, etc) take the view that a massive increase is a bad thing.
For some it means that their backs will be well scratched come the time for their increase.
If it's raining hard will the oldies actually turn out?
http://www.cityam.com/article/1400624573/why-city-should-vote-ukip-eu-election
Welcome. And won't all those "kippers" own very large golf umbrellas?
A useful rule to remember is this Italian saying: "Fatta la legge, trovato l'inganno". (Once the law's made, people find a loophole/way round it.) Or the law of unintended consequences.
How to make people - especially senior well-paid people - accept responsibility is the big challenge for us all. Everyone always seems to blame the "system" or the "processes" or the "procedures". This failing is hardly exclusive to the world of finance.
Ahead of the conference, which opens tomorrow (Mon, April 14), Paul Holleran, Scottish Organiser of the National Union of Journalists and a member of Trade Unionists for Yes, said: “More and more trade unionists are moving to Yes, and believe that we are more likely to deliver a fairer and more just Scotland with the full powers of an independent country.
“Issues like health and safety, working conditions and wages are the real priorities for trade unions and our members, but powers to address these issues remain outside the hands of Scotland’s Parliament and our labour movement.
“Scotland has a strong and proud union movement, but we have been held back in Scotland for a generation. With a Yes vote we can get moving again.”
http://www.yesscotland.net/news/scots-trade-unions-shackled-westminster
Funnily enough News Net Scotland does not mention that in its report.
Do try to grow up and take it on the chin!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-and-local-elections-2014-what-will-happen-if-ukip-wins-the-popular-vote-9410357.html
I believe the media reaction will be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9NMt42il4Q
The rain will not be continuous, so oldies with time on their hands will be able to wait for a gap in the rain to go out and do their electoral duty. If someone habitually votes in the ten minute window between returning from work and preparing dinner, then a heavy rain shower at that time might see them put it off until later, and possibly not vote at all.
These things always make a difference at the margins, but the question is always how wide those margins are. Like you I don't think it makes that much difference to most people.
Oh, and welcome to posting.
If one reaches the giddy heights in business or politics, you become a member of a special club.
This means that quite often, you can "tank" a business, and walk into another directorship within the month.
This club also likes to look after its "members" in much the same way that individual police officers are always supported by their fellows despite minor problems such as morality and the law.
Retweeted by Robert Peston
Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic May 19
DO go and vote on thurs. It isn't hard, and a lot of people who are MASSIVE pricks definitely will, so every normo who shows up is a bonus.
Given that the line between news and opinion is now very blurred, and that Twitter is used by news organisations and journalists to deliver both, I think Peston's out of order and shouldn't go under the BBC byline if he wants to make personal, yet party political, statements.
Employees like her don't do the BBC any favours.
I expect it to be a smaller LibDem party in Westminster this time next year, and one that needs to reflect on its time in government. There have been a lot of positives to this period.
Lab: 13,670 (35.8%)
Con: 13,365 (35.0%)
LD: 8,367 (21.9%)
UKIP: 2,402 (6.3%)
The Tories were able to win the parliamentary seat by about 3,500 votes (8%) on the same day because it includes a number of rural wards in addition to the built-up area. Obviously Labour needs to be ahead by about 8% in the borough to have a decent chance of winning the constituency next year.
It is true that some defence counsel rather resent the loss of the old ways and trial by ambush waiting for a crown slip up but it is also true that real progress has been made in cutting the length of complicated carousel type fraud cases. As a generality we do not have cases of the complexity of those that might arise in London.
I think that it has also helped juries to focus on the real issues in front of them to some extent.
If I was looking to cut the cost of complex fraud trials in England I would be focussing on the amount of evidence that is led and not actually disputed. This no doubt already happens to some extent but it is an obvious area for further improvement.
I also have reservations about the modern tendency of prosecutions to throw the kitchen sink at accused resulting in every possible charge being made. I appreciate sometimes this is necessary to make relevant evidence admissible but as a generality fewer, simpler charges are more likely to result in justice one way or the other.
I agree with Cyclefree that the failure to hold our bankers to account for their criminal behaviour has done London no credit whatsoever. But should guys who were until very recently earning several million a year even be getting legal aid? Just maybe if the defence was paying for their representation there may be a greater incentive to get to the point.
As a civil lawyer I am increasingly reluctant to take on legal aid work. The pay rate is between 30 and 20% of the commercial rate and many LA cases involving counsel are every bit as complicated as commercial ones. Legal aid is increasingly done by those who simply cannot find anything better which is a shame.
Is there a subtext associated with that phrase that I'm not aware of?
The Lib Dems are helped in one sense by being centrist and as such, not being hated from an ideological position by a sizable part of the electorate (taking decisions in government is a different matter), but the flip side's also true: who dies in the last ditch so that their party might act as a moderating influence?
Stevenage is also one of those areas that you would expect would be doing relatively well in the recent economic upturn and so will be a good test of whether Labour is advancing out of its heartlands.
With a population of about 85,000 it is in the 10,000 - 100,000 range of urban areas that I think of equating to the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands that were identified as being a more accurate description of the location of the marginals than "the Midlands".