Jacqui’s exit: Another PB betting winner!
June 2nd, 2009
A Marf original - Dec 2nd 2008
How many more will go in the coming days?
One of the difficult things about political betting is that often your markets are long term. Unlike most sports betting you can often tie up cash for months maybe years - so news that one of those long-term bets is coming to fruition is very welcome. It was at the start of December 2008 that it was suggested here that the William Hill price 6/4 that she’d be out by the general election seemed a great bet.
With Alistair Darling being spoken of by Brown in the past tense it’s starting to look as though there could be a very different appearance to the cabinet after the weekend.
The worry for Number 10, surely, is that the image of positive change that they will try to project being seen as one of chaos. And that could further impede Brown’s fight-back?
Even worse is the way that news of Smith’s exit has dribbled out today. One of the points about the re-shuffle was for it to be presented as agenda-changing and that required the right timing - on Friday to overshadow the local results. Now, as Labour faces Thursday’s desperate day of elections the overall picture, as they say, is “less than optimal”.
To survive Brown need to ensure that there are no pegs on which his many detractors in the PLP can base a call for him to go.
What a week - and more betting outcomes in prospect. Could my 10/1 “Alan Johnson as Labour leader” bet be one of this month’s winners?
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
First.
The cabinet is going to look awfully think. I mean, Smith and Darling are hardly heavyweights, but at least they are reasonably familiar faces and have had two years to (try to) get on top of their briefs.
“No time for a novice”? Brown is going to have a cabinet of novices and Blairite retreads. It’s hardly a great position to be in less than a year before the election.
First?
Drat! That oleaginous creep Vaz on Sky put me off my stride. What an utter to$$er that guy is.
.
.
From previous thread! We had a new thread about every 100 or so posts yesterday as new polls came out. Today with the Labour Party falling apart this one is over 550!
Spoke too soon!!!
This is bad news for my pb.com prediction competition score. I suspect my polling guesses are way off too.
Byyyeeeee!
Better go and speak to a good lawyer jackboots my dear and you can tell the armed cops they’re no longer required to guard your sister’s place.
Yours Insincerely
CHT
Great cartoon Marf, is that Jacqui’s sister helping with the hanging?
Will Smith be the only one to do a Kelly this week, or will others follow??
You can see the family resemblance in the portrait.
2. For “think”, read “thin”. Not “thick”.
10, you misspelt retards too.
Edit: hurrah, Azarenka breaks back twice, now on serve in the second.
Edit2, Edit Harder: 0-30 on her own serve. WHy can’t my backed players just win in easy straight sets?
Drat! That oleaginous creep Vaz on Sky put me off my stride. James, I just had too look up oleaginous in the dictionary, wasn’t really much help, all it said was “see Keith Vaz”
Replacing her with Blunkett would take this from bad to worse.I reckon H.Benn will get it……………
Totally agree with the earlier comments about Vaz.He’s ‘on a par’ with Mandelson in the smarm stakes.
I think Vaz just knifed Darling’s chances saying that the next Home Secretary needs to ‘understand the issues of England & Wales’and that ‘Scotland has it’s own minister for Home Affairs’.
13 - I’ve got Hilary Benn att 66/1 so I hope you are right.
In the meantime, everyone here is assuming that this is the tent interior leaking out rather than the other way around.
Big assumption that.
The Times says:
“Sources close to Ms Smith say she will step down to concentrate on winning back her constituency at the next election”
Well, it’s admirable of her to try - but surely she can’t believe she can hold it? I can’t imagine there are too many MPs who have been made more personally unpopular - unique mixture of newsworthy expense claims, spectacular incompetence (remember when the home office kept losing all those disks? Seems like a vaguely-remembered heyday of government competence now) and supporting all the least popular policies. I thought the point of Jacqui as Home Sec was that Labour had written her seat off long ago and she had no future to worry about.
14 James Burdett
Excellent point.
Mr Vaz may be disgusting and odious but he gets away with it because he’s actually quite smart. Just like Mandelson.
A Scottish MP deciding devolved English/Welsh matters would just not wash. To be fair, some responsibilities (counter-terror, etc.) are national. But bored correspondents could pitch the perceived injustice all day to Brown, and there would be no real answer.
14. James Burdett. I don’t think the views of Mr Vaz count for anything in the greater scheme of things.
Why do I think Darling to Home? Because he could do a Howe and would be very effective as the wronged loyal servant. Miliband can’t - he is a Prince and a Pretender to the Throne. By keeping Darling in, it means the loss of well known faces is limited and Brown gets to keep an ally in one of the big cabinet positions.
18, what about Johnson to the Home Graveyard, Balls Chancellor, Mandelson Foreign Secretary and Darling Justice?
Sean Fear: you around this afternoon?
Might you be able to do me a small favour?
Of our slate of MEP candidates on Thursday, do you know who are the non-federalists? Advocates of EPP withdrawal and/or signers up to Direct Democracy and generally healthily eurosceptic and good-natured?
I know Dan Hannan, Roger Helmer & Neil Parish are all good guys. Who else?
I don’t want to vote for a ‘Phile. I have some friends in London and the North-East and I want to reassure them that UKIP isn’t for them.
19 Morris Dancer
What do you do with Straw then?
He needs to be rewarded. He (together with Mandelson and Harman) have been the most vocally and definitively supportive of Brown recently.
Milipede scored Brown at 10/10 according to Boulton and Co, so is he comfortable or worried??.
19. MD. Justice is a demotion too far surely? Also giving Johnson Home, would make him more credible as a potential challenger - once he has had one of the four great offices. It’s possible, but risky. This is also the reason why I dont see HH as Home. Instead, far better to strengthen her position relative to Johnson by making her deputy PM.
22 - he cuts his own hair, I can say that much.
You can’t put a Scottish MP in Justice - the constitutional position with regards to the twin legal systems make that untenable.
I think it’s pretty irrelevant that the reshuffle starts leaking out now - it was always a panic throw of the dice - too little and far too late.
If Brown had taken decisive action against the troughers by sacking them from the cabinet earlier in the year he wouldn’t be in the hole he is now.
The more interesting question is who will he get to populate his cabinet if everyone who has been in trouble over their expenses has stood down - no Balls or Cooper, Hain, Straw, Tom Watson or Ian Wright. Jowell’s a no no as is Mandelson, he can’t fall back on Eric Joyce or Tom Harris and as for Prescott…
The likelihood is that whoever comes in will have big question marks over their behaviour too meaning the story is simply given fresh legs.
It’s like the dog days of Major when with every Cabinet resignation and reshuffle the focus just moved to the next sleaze merchant. The tabloids must be creaming themselves at the prospect of a whole bunch of new victims.
23. What about Johnson to Justice with a brief to consult widely on constitutional reform?
The Brown interview mentioned on the last thread. He couldn’t be announcing a 25th June election could he?
21, if you’re worried about Straw, kick him upstairs. He likes prancing about in his Lord Chancellor gear, I bet he’d love an ermine robe.
22, same as Wendy Alexander.
23, disagree with Justice being a heavy demotion. It’s roughly on a par with Home.
20 Our slate in Eastern Region is pretty sound. 6 out of 7 of them are in favour of EPP withdrawl, including the top 4, Geoffrey van Order, Robert Sturdy, Vicky Ford, and John Flack.
2 “No time for a novice”?
A great opening line for Cameron tomorrow in referring to both the incoming CoE and Home Secretary, accompanied by a sarcastic remark about the impending departure of Darling (probably seated next to Brown for additional toe-curling embarrassment), along the lines why don’t keep the poor chap in suspense any longer.
28 NO its about Mp’s expenses
Has the Guardian endorsing the LibDems been discussed yet?
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/06/02/guardian-endorses-libdems-at-election/
Symbolically, that seems pretty important to me.
I am 85% certain to vote LibDem myself on Thursday. That will be a first for me.
Should Balls go the Treasury (PtP doesn’t believe he will), what then happens to Yvette - perhaps she’ll get her husband’s old job at Schools?
31 - Brown can counter that, though: “The new CoE has spent the last 12 years in my rectum, and as such is entirely qualified to deal with the shi**y state the economy is in.”
If we’re playing fantasy reshuffle, and on the assumption that Alistair Darling is also to leave the Treasury, I’d suggest the following:
Deputy Prime Minister: Harriet Harman
Chancellor: Yvette Cooper (first woman Chancellor, eyecatching)
Foreign Secretary: David Miliband (too risky to move)
Home Secretary: Hilary Benn
I’d also sack Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw, and leave Ed Balls where he is.
I would astonish Peter Mandelson with my ingratitude.
27 - I definitely think that’s possible. Constitutional reform is the hot topic of the moment and Alan Johnson has put in his ha’pennyworth.
29 MD - Indeed, especially if as seems very possible, he’s set to lose at Blackburn next time. Trouble is Brown wouldn’t want another by-election.
Is the lovely Hazel B due a promotion!?………
Martha Kearney’s a very professional journalist but I’m sure I heard her catch her breath after her interview with Harriet Harman on the World at One. HH: Smith was an excellent Home Secretary, we were very unlucky to lose her and Hewitt and Hughes who were all pretty much a mixture of Mother Teresa and resistance heroines. Then: it was all the fault of the media. You never heard such a load of rubbish.
33. The Guardian leader contains a bizarre sentence: “The PR system means that voters can support more than one party.” Not this PR system, Mr. Rusbridger.
If the Guardian can’t work out the difference between STV and list PR, what chance have we PR advocates of explaining it to anyone else?
37. antifrank.
The idea is to put spokes in the wheels of Brown’s enemies, not strengthen them. Johnson should be given a nasty job. Not one that allows him to prance in front of the cameras.
AD: I’ve got a hunch. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
AD: You’re totally out to lunch. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
AD: This whole Credit Crunch thing has gotten the better of me. . . .
(Chorus) Tee hee tee hee
AD: So long, thanks a bunch. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
AD: I’ve taken your punch. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
AD: You must be a dunce if you think I’ll let the blame fall on me. . . .
(Chorus) Tee hee tee hee
GB: It’s how the dice falls. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB: I’m lost without Balls. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB: I’ve taken a mauling cos I’m so appalling you see. . . .
(Chorus) Tee hee tee hee
JS: My Hubby’s soft porn. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
JS: Makes me wish I weren’t born. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
JS:I was Labour’s false dawn - she who made you most yawn it was me. . . .
(Chorus) Tee hee tee hee
GB: If we’re rating Home Secs. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB:You scored like train wrecks. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB: Even looney Ruth Kelly didn’t drop a smelly like ye. . .
(Chorus )Tee hee tee hee
GB: Damn this crap Euro vote. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB: Everyone’s at my throat. . .
(Chorus) Move over Darling
GB: I’m forced to re-shuffle while back benchers muffle their glee. . . .
(Chorus) Tee hee tee hee.
36 Chancellor: Yvette Cooper
antifrank - Yes please, as well as my bet on Balls at 20/1, I’ve backed Yvette at 50/1 to be the next CoE. Eat your heart out Mike Smithson!
Shifting Darling from Chancellor is imperative. Basically Labour voters (all voters) are thinking
“This total t0sser who is taxing us, then stole money from the taxpayer. What the flippin’ eck is going on?” That what Darling did was legal matters not to the masses.
Chancellor must be clean. But, Darling can be rehabilitated and given Home.
42 - In three months’ time, it will be too late for anyone to move this side of a general election without it looking like mayhem. The coming week is the week of maximum danger for Gordon Brown. Time for Danegeld for those who actually could bring you down. Peter Mandelson has been too effusive recently to stick the stiletto in too quickly.
45. How about sacking Darling, and promising him the next EU Commissionership?
44. “I’ve backed Yvette at 50/1 to be the next CoE.” You think she’d not be happy to serve under Balls in her present position?
.
39. Is the lovely Hazel B due a promotion!?………
Blears OUT! BlearBlears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! Blears OUT! OUT, OUT, OUT!
24
I wasn’t even sure he grew it!
44 - To be candid, that is the one bit of the reshuffle that I would regard as a no-brainer. She’s got the experience in the Treasury, it would be a great news story and Gordon Brown’s opponents couldn’t attack him in the same way that they would if he appointed Ed Balls because it would look chauvinist to do so.
To have 50/1 on her is a fantastic bet.
36 “Chancellor: Yvette Cooper (first woman Chancellor, eyecatching)”
Sell everything you own AND FLEE!!!
52, it’d be eye-catching to have the first gorgon too. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea in and of itself.
She looks like a small boy and is very easy to dislike, unlike Hutton or Denham who have a reasonable air of competence. Presumably that’s why they haven’t been promoted.
Edit: crikey, looks like Soderling’s walking to victory. Azarenka’s still in with a chance but it looks unlikely.
.
36: I would astonish Peter Mandelson with my ingratitude.
To have a Foreign Secretary from the Lords would be more than even Our Great Leader would chance.
Labour would further disentigrate at this blatant elitism. The Labour Core would simply curl up and stay home during any election.
53. MD - Yvette Cooper - Gorgon - same thing isn’t it?
Any chance a woman in the FCO to make it a hat-trick.
Harman Home
Cooper CoE
Flint FCO?
Would be quite a bold move.
53. Hutton is IMHO by far the best qualified candidate for the chancellorship within the Labour ranks. But he’d probably irritate the left and rub up against Gordon, so he won’t get the job.
The problem with Yvette as Chancellor is that she has atrocious media skills and you could present her as a proxy for her husband. Ruth Kelly would have made an interesting Chancellor, but that was before she legged it from Brown and Parliament.
58, Kelly would’ve been no good. Didn’t she state she spent so much time with her kids she didn’t bother with all her red boxes?
FPT -
“Take a look at the ‘Seats’ Spread. For example Labour at 13-13.5 is just mindblowing.”
URW - Is it? Obviously I’ve missed something, it looked just about spot on to me.
53. Cooper sounds extraordinarily dim when interviewed, but Labour supporters insist that she is an economic genius, second only to The Great Leader.
61, that’s like saying she’s the second most courageous person in Britain, after Brave Sir Robin.
53 Snowflake as Chancellor? We’ll get Gabble MacShane back at this rate……
Its odd - while I expect Gordon to beat back the challengers there is a feeling that it is arranging deckchairs onthe Titanic . announcing this and that, moving him and her, all industry but in a week or so he could be moving back to his wife’s one room flat (though he would probably take the traditional fortnight at Chequers offered to ex-PMs as adjustment period)
58 - the Tories at Westminster I have spoken to tend to agree on Kelly. She was more intelligent than either Balls or Cooper, and suffered from not being kept in economic positions - as it was very much her forte. She was also far less partisan than most, more cordial, and capable of working cross-party.
Cooperphiles should note that you can still get 40-1 with Ladbrokes.
61 “Labour supporters insist that she is an economic genius”
Wot, people like Polly Toynbee? Anyone remotely to do with cheerleading for this Labour Govt. obviously wouldn’t know an economic genius if it bit them on the arse.
Like I said,
Sell everything you own AND FLEE!!!
“Jacqui Smith is expected to stand down as home secretary in a reshuffle, Whitehall sources have told the BBC.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8079205.stm
Why are Whitehall sources putting this out now? What terrible news cycle management to put this expenses/adult movies business back in the headlines two days before people will be voting. Are “Whitehall sources” attempting to cut their own party’s throat?
morris dancer many thanks for your soderling tip; as i bought him on the spreads his three set win has made me very happy.
am sorely tempted to back gonzalez against murray
51 antifrank - this was part of my post from 10 May, which I subsequently repeated:
Hills have the following odds on the successor to Alistair Darling:
Ed Balls…………20/1
David Miliband……50/1
Alan Johnson……..Not listed
Yvette Cooper…….50/1
Sky. William Hague - Cabinet Ministers - not the living dead anymore but a row of corpses.
ROFLMAO
67. “Whitehall Sources” = According to Sky News, in this case.
69 - I obviously wasn’t paying attention. I wish I had now! If it comes home, it will be a triumph for you of Obamaesque proportions.
Are “Whitehall sources” attempting to cut their own party’s throat?
yes
70 - He is giving a pretty good interview!!
Stars and Stripes - you make a good point, but maybe they conclude that Jacqui Smith is already toast, so why not use her as a lightning conductor to divert attention from Geoff ‘Buff’Oon who could be headed to the departure lounge with Alistair Darling..
As you would expect from Labour politicians of long standing. A dignified and orderly exit.
No one dragged kicking and screaming as far as we know.
30. Ta Sean.
Know much about London??
A dignified and orderly exit = legging it before fired
76, roger, that is irony isn’t it? It is so hard to tell online.
Before all this Fantasy Cabinet game gets out of hand, please can someone reassure me that neither Margaret Hodge nor Tessa Jowell is going to be rehabilitated?
ComRes Euro Poll
Con 24
Lab 22
UKIP 17
Green 15
LibDem 14
76: We’ll save that for Brown come the day after the GE….
81 alex
Nonsense.
Lab same in GE as Euro?
No chance.
Comres lost all credibility with their ‘other others’ and Hawkin’s terrible answer to OGH and their fiddling their weightings seemingly arbitrarily. I was happy to give them the benefit of the doubt briefly yesterday, but not after all that.
60.PfP.Maybe I went o’er the top with the hyperbowl.
That 1.18 Labour under 20% is sure looking good.
SPIN rank the challengers as follows……LD-LAB-UKIP.
The sharp minds have it LAB-UKIP-LD.
Sky interviews:
Hague just handled Burley excellently. She did her usual disbelieving noises but was never given an opportunity to attack Hague eventhough she kept trying to go back to Conservative expenses. He just brushed her aside and in someways turned it into a PPB.
Huhne now on and getting bogged down in how bad Jacqui was. OK but a bit on the boring side (talking about audits) and not a patch on Hague.
81 - I think that shows that ComRes have got it wrong
badly wrong
no way is Green support at 15% nationally
81 - that just confirms that the ComRes yesterday was as fruity as a Jamaican hat.
68, np
Feel like a mug for resisting the urge to back him for the tournament at 22/1 though. Now about 7.4.
81, well, come the euros they’re either going to look shit-hot or just plain shit.
81 Now they are just ‘avin’ a ‘larf….
Explains why no-one has been canvassed by Labour - all their activists have been busy filling out ComRes questionnaires…
.
.
First requirement in a Chancellor these days must be to be able to master the Commons. Whilst boring them to sleep worked in more normal times, Howe, Brown and Darling come to mind, a real performer is required.
No, I have no ideas either, but think it would rule out Cooper.
44,72 antifrank - Snap!
81 Source?
85 - It’s the difference between a professional and an amateur…
The Mole has this article in the First Post - Darling’s fate in the balance
“The Mole: Because of the expenses scandal, Darling may have to leave not just the Treasury, but the Cabinet, says our Westminster insider”
All over bar one.
85 - It’s the difference between a professional and an amateur.
86 - Why is that so far-fetched? They’re everyone’s favorite “feelgood” protest party.
50% turnout on Thursday according to Yougov survey?:
http://www.politics.co.uk/opinion-formers/press-releases/legal-and-constitutional/unlockdemocracy-yougov-survey-suggests-that-euro-elections-turnout-could-be-the-highest-ever-$1300576$365709.htm
94, now is no time for a novice, Mister Burdett
A combined share of 41% for Conservatives and UKIP (compared to 43% five years ago) seems implausible.
ComRes=Comedy Result.
“I think Vaz just knifed Darling’s chances saying that the next Home Secretary needs to ‘understand the issues of England & Wales’and that ‘Scotland has it’s own minister for Home Affairs’.” — I am sure darling will not want to be Home Secretary. For one thing he would have to prosecute himself.
But seriously folks -
a - A Scot could not be Home Secretary over the English. Has brown thought oif that?
b - Darling does not want the job anyway.
c - Darling should insist on the job of clapped out Chancellors down the ages. Foreign Secretary. That would bugger up Browns plans.
He should do the nation a service and refuse to be moved, thereby forcing Brown to sack him. If he dares.
Indeed if they have the nerve the whole cabinet should refuse to be moved. Balls is the exception of course since he is at the core of all the movements.
If Balls goes to Chancellor then whither Cooper? Assuming you cannot have Richard and Judy at the Treasury then she will have to go somewhere. Education? err Home Office?
95 If they get 15%, we can be pretty sure Labour will poll a good deal less than 22%.
95 I can believe 1 in 7 people would say they will vote green.
I can’t believe that many people would actually be arsed to vote in the Euros though. A very soft vote, IMHO.
95 - They have no national profile, their support is very much in pockets round the country.
They are not a national party in the usual sense. They may have constituencies where they can get 15% - but not a national share
99 That will stick!!!
I have a horrible feeling they may need to rebrand!
I don’t like having a go at Burley ‘cos she comes from the same place as me. but she is an airhead. Like most of them really, over promoted from local radio.
81. There is a chance that Labour could end up in 5th behind Con, UKIP, LibDem and Green. This must be a near-cert in some regions, if not nationally.
103 - We are not talking about permanent levels of Green support. Merely a lot of people casting around for anyone they feel they can cast their vote for and the Greens being the easiest option. Not tainted in any way.
They’ve got higher than 15% in national elections before.
Comres Poll Detail:
Taxpayers Alliance Euro Poll:
http://www.comres.co.uk/resources/7/Political%20Polls/TPA%20full%20tables%20June%2009.pdf
Independent Westminster Poll:
http://www.comres.co.uk/page190891517.aspx
106 will never forget watching one of the highlights of Kay Burley’s high-flying journalistic career - her asking Rebecca Loos whether David Beckham was circumcised.
Such incisive Quality, asking the big questions of the day.
96. jsfl. And if you believe that 9/1 at Will Hills for 38.8%+ is attractive.
86. I don’t think the Greens have the resources to turn that potential into votes in the ballot box.
UKIP have the “air war” - lots of billboards,
The Lib Dems have the GOTV “ground war” in about 100 constituencies and hundreds of county council wards.
It was a Green Party commissioned poll though.
Quentin Letts - ‘She has neither resigned or been sacked, she has just sort of evaporated.’
Conspiracy theorists, a call to arms!
Talk has been very much around - will the Prime Minister announce a re shuffle on Friday in order to deflect from disastrous Euro election results to be announced on Sunday, or will the cabinet resign en masse?
If they resign the plotters will win and there will follow the indignity of Gordon Brown’s removal and another leadership election.
Looks like Jacqui Smith may have given us a clue today which may mean that Gordon Brown has only days left as Prime Minister.
It will be down to Harman or Johnson. Whichever, the public won’t be in the mood for another non elected Prime Minister so a General Election could be on the cards as early as July.
http://blog.dorries.org/Default.aspx#02
Sky News got the scoop, but who leaked it first and why? Brown central arguably would rather have not have this come out until the weekend. Home Office sources were also very much caught wrong-footed. Are we just at the rolling cock-up stage of government? It is hard to see who on the government side benefits from leaking this now apart from a deliberate Machiavellian internal saboteur. Someone with skills in the dark arts of spin who might have decided it is time, for the sake of the survival of his beloved New Labour, to bring down the curtain on Gordon Brown. Jacqui exiting in a messy way puts the reshuffle speculation front and centre and adds to the sense of Brown’s government on the verge of collapse on the very eve of an election. It takes a crisis to precipitate a solution.
Was it the same person who leaked the idea that Balls could go to No 11?
http://www.order-order.com/2009/06/who-leaked-jacquis-exit/
So, who leaked the “Jacqui Smith to quit” story to Sky News?
The home secretary’s special adviser is not taking calls – even from Home Office staff, I understand.
According to the Sky report, Smith will stand down as home secretary, but not as a Redditch MP. But asked to confirm the story earlier, a tetchy Home Office press officer barked: “Who knows?” before slamming down the phone. Annoyed at being caught on the hop perhaps?
Downing Street described the claims as “just speculation”, so the question is, who’s been briefing whom and who knew?
Update: Smith is supposed to be at the second reading of the borders, citizenship and immigration bill in about 10 minutes. I wonder if she will turn up?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/jun/02/who-leaked-jacqui-smith-story
109 was he?
Reid was Home Secretary so it sounds like Badger’s on the way out.
Good. No mercy for troughers.
On the other hand if the Badger-fronted treasury was the only thing holding McDoom back from destroying the UK’s credit rating then I’d imagine Herman or the Boy Wonder being Chancellor means pretty much guaranteed loss of AAA rating within a shortish while.
115 lol. you’ll have to dig out the interview!
81
So Labour poll pretty much the same Euro as well as for Westminster?
Doesn’t quite make sense
How clueless is Kay Burley, she just confused Mother Becket for Pat Hewitt…
109 - There’s a lot of public interest in that question!
Comres/Green Poll have BNP collapsing to 2%
***** Betting Post *****
81
ComRes Euro Poll
Con……. 24
Lab……. 22
UKIP…… 17
Green….. 15
LibDem…. 14
This and other recent Euro polls make Ladbrokes’ offering of 0.833/1 (5/6) on the Tories winning less than 30% of the vote on Thursday look very tasty indeed …….. but then again, after last night, it is a ComRes poll. I’m on anyway!
If you were an MC at a treasury dinner would you announce them as the ‘Balls’ or the ‘Ballses’?
112 - If the greens get 15% nationally I will eat my hat.
If ComRes have found 15% because the Greens paid for the poll that should kill their credibility.
2008 - Mori dead
2009 - ComRes dead
Thge other pollsters must be happy.
121 - They only polled people in Brighton. It’s frankly the only explanation. Maybe ComRes can’t find people in Burnley to talk to?
114. I’m surprised at the speculation over who leaked the Jacqui Smith story. It seems blindingly obvious to me that the source is…Jacqui Smith.
124, if they keep dropping at the rate Mister Smithson will have to set up his own firm. The proceeds could go towards running pb.com and development of Earth-to-space ballistics.
124 - I think 15% is entirely conceivable. I hope your hat is a porkpie.
122 - You really believe the Greens will outpoll the DimLibs nationally?
Tom Watson’s simultaneous announcement he was stepping down has the smell of an arrangement to me. Damian MacBride stepped down to “backroom strategy” (thinking up smears involving sex toys, sexual illnesses, sexual misbehaviour and politicians wives) in the last “Save my Job” Brown re-shuffle. So Watson has been sacrificed to the Blairites for what concession?
Balls to CoE seems most likely but equally it could have been a price demanded by Mandelson for loyalty and to to cut down the alternate strategy group that Balls, Watson, McBride, Whelan and Byrne were running.
I can see a lot of Labour people saying Green to pollsters at the moment. I can’t see them actually turning out at the polls though. If they want to send a message, staying home will do just as well.
I don’t understand why people are so against the idea of a large Green vote. If public outrage at the expenses scandal prompts unusually high numbers to go to the polls on Thursday to punish the political establishment then they are the obvious choice.
Con, Lab and LD are out since they ARE the political establishment named and shamed by the expenses scandal.
UKIP are hardly known to be clean on expenses so it would be strange to vote for them as a protest on the issue.
Most people just won’t vote BNP on principle.
Which only leaves the Greens as someone to vote for.
In normal circumstances people voting Green might not vote, but you have to factor in the possible increased interest in voting in the current climate.
124 Just out of curiousity - how do you fix a political poll to get the result your client hopes for? If it’s the greens, do they just canvass in vegetarian restaurants? And how do they then sell that as credible to their clients?
Surely this poll is fishy. Where would the Green Party find the money just to pay for a ComRes poll, when there are stacks of polls appearing at the moment, unless they thought they could get a result which could be turned into a media story?
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams: “To be in the hallway when the president walks by with a handful of M&Ms, popping them in his mouth as he goes to visit his chief of staff — it was unbelievable.”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/06/01/easily-amazed-brian-williams-finds-it-unbelievable-watch-obama-eat-m-ms-
OMG, he’s eating M&Ms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *orgasm*
122. PfP. It’s absurd. Where are the BNP? Add up the numbers and those named parties add up to 92%. Leaving 8%. Say 3% for nationalists, 5% split between the BNP and all the other little wasted votes? If the protest vote really is up at those levels, then the BNP should be sharing in Green/UKIP success.
And Labour at 22%? On what planet does that come from?
Sky confirming Watson to quit as minister!
Yes!!!!!!!
127 - I think a pb.com polling organisation would be cool, I’m sure we would do better than most.
136 - It’s like a government version of Ten Green Bottles!!
Long post eaten up -aaargh.
Basically question is if Watson going was a sacrifice to Blairites for allowing Balls as CoE or to Mandelson for his loyalty?
134 Er, probably - if you are an M&M executive.
Of course he could have misheard, and it was actually Eminem he was….no, let’s not go there!
136 jsfl
Awesome.
Given Watson is very definitely a Brownite, are we getting a fracturing of even the Brown loyalists?
No-one in the public knows who Watson is; this is a story for journalists and MPs. Who gains by leaking this?
138 Ten Brown Bottles surely?
;o)
Iain Dale gets a namecheck in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/reaction-to-jacqui-smith-resignation
Yet more evidence that MSM journalists are increasingly scouring blogs for tidbits.
Is there Labour’s version of an “end of the World” DT coming out tonight - “LABOUR: THE REAL DIRT STARTS HERE”? Why is everyone jumping today?
134. It’s like Blair was over here but 10 times worse. The media just love their Leftie Messiahs.
Com Res poll = Quack, waddle
I’d much rather see a huge Green vote along with a 2% BNP vote but it just won’t happen. You could get large votes for BOTH but not just one.
144. Indeed it could well be they have all received their letters from the Kangaroo court.
The government appears to be reshuffling itself. Will probably produce a better result than the PM could manage.
135 2/6/2009 at 3:33 pm
“122. PfP. It’s absurd. Where are the BNP?”
In this poll they are on 2%- in line with most of the other polls over the last month. I dont know why people arent accepting of the fact that their support has collapsed over the past month
It is more likely the Yougov polls of 7% were the faulty ones
134 - **PUKE**
That’s just horrific. Mind you, Adam Boulton fleeing the UK to spend 100 days reporting on Obama opening crisp packets was pretty grotesque too.
146. I’d be very interested to see the demographic cross-tabs for the Com Res poll. Where are the C2DE voters going?
Just having a quick flick through the on-line betting sites and Victor Chandler has a very tasty 5-1 on the Lib Dems winning North Wiltshire. Given who the Tory candidate currently is - this has to be value?
Remember 15% is pretty much what everyone’s favourite vote dustbin got last time. And they are/were MUCH higher profile than the Greens.
The Greens get absolutely no media attention.
149. Indeed it’s been clear for a while that the BNP has a limited appeal. The question is whether they will increase their vote and in particular whether they can focus it particularly in the NW and get a seat.
That is what I think the nagging concern is. That Griffin and possibly another actually get elected to the EP.
“What a week”
What a month!
149 - I’ve never thought that the BNP should expect to do particularly well in the EuroPoll. Their main hope was an extremely low turnout, but their hopes on this may have been dashed by increased voter engagement thanks to expenses.
They haven’t really got a defining message for the Euros (or any national poll), but thrive on very localised discontent in racially segregated/polarised areas.
152 Risky - I reckon Cameron knows he’ll lose - and have him turfed out first…
146. David Roe.
The ComRes is saying BNP at 3%ish, Greens at 15% while Labour is still at 22% and Lib Dems at 14%. It’s very unlikely.
I could believe a 15% Green vote, but it would mean Labour at 15% and Lib Dems at 14%. And I’d expect BNP to be 10% and UKIP at 15%. Tories at 24%.
There was a Green on Question Time last week, and Joanna Lumley has given a very high profile endorsement to the Greens.
149. I think the BNP will at least double their vote on last time -but what percentage that is will depend on turnout. Polling is more or less meaningless with the BNP vote and I’d say the best way to guess if you don’t know the sort of people is to look at the total “others” score and treat that as a proxy marker.
re 81 assuming reasonable shares for SNP/PC that would give
C 19 (-8)
Lab 17 (-2)
UKIP 11 (-1)
Green 11 (+9)
LD 8 (-4)
SNP 2 (nc)
PC 1 (nc)
Darling is a cockney. As English as Bow Bells. He is no more a Scot than Charlie Farley. So he would make a great home secretary for Englandshire.
144. Well something is surely up. I expected the collapse to begin on Friday.
156. “They haven’t really got a defining message for the Euros”
Apart from withdrawal and BJ4BW. You might disagree with it but that’s a lot more defined than most.
158 - I’d be stunned/horrified if BNP got near 10. They are, like the Greens, focused in relatively small areas. This is a national poll. Surely not one in 10 voters in this country is a moron or a Nazi (or both).
moves afoot .. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8079604.stm
153. “The Greens get absolutely no media attention.”
A lot of the BBC’s output, particlarly children’s programming, has a Green slant to it.
156 alex says: ” I’ve never thought that the BNP should expect to do particularly well in the EuroPoll. Their main hope was an extremely low turnout”
And the key at this election is that there will be an increased turnout, from both people appalled at expenses wanting to punish mainstream politicans, and significantly people voting to stop the BNP
164. MrJones. Quite. The Green message for the Euros is? Plant more trees? More environmental stuff? Greens = meaningless protest vote. BNP = nasty meaningless protest vote.
The next question is when will Gordon Brown go, the daddy of all questions???? I give him two weeks….
Check this out for a laugh
http://www.wekip.org/
Dissolution debate:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/mps-to-debate-dissolution-of-parliament
Interesting
159 - The difference between what the Greens got last time and a 15% result is about 1.5 million votes (based on similar turnout). Surely the saintly Joanna can’t swing that many?
166 - It will go nowhere, the Government will whip people through to defeat it.
What is going on today?
I would have said the Telegraph have a mammoth story to end on a bang, and this is Gordon’s attempt to control the news agenda.
But the No 10 response was completely uncoordinated. Something very fishy is going on.
If that Com Res Poll is correct (please, stay with me on this!) it looks like a veritable cavalry charge for the finishing post. Note that the Lib Dems (apparently in fifth place) have more than half of the percentage vote of the Conservatives, who are currently first. 14% to 24%.
Weird. But strangely exciting.
166
Hilarious quote of the day, from Harriet Harman:
“You can’t necessarily control the information agenda but it does not mean that this is anything other than a normal process,” she said.
If this a normal process, what would a chaotic one feel like?
172. There will be a LOT of abstentions. How many fancy trooping through the no lobby then explaining to their constituents they voted for another year of Gordo…
173. Are we certain that tomorrow will be the last day of the Telegraph revelations?
How to make Jacqui Smith look sensible, sane, pleasant and intellectual… Have Phil Woolas sit behind her!
175 Gordon Brown doesn’t want you to find out “Apres moi, Chaos” is his warning, so this can’t be chaotic can it?
165. I’d be amazed if they didn’t get 8-10% (if turnout was exactly as last time). Without the relentless media /establishment pressure to vote for anyone but them it would be more.
177 Jack Peterson
Andrew Porter pretty much admitted it earlier on the Daily Politics.
Although ‘tomorrow’ could either mean tomorrow’s paper, or Thursday’s edition with the revelations coming out tomorrow night.
I expect the non-stop barrage of stories to stop tomorrow, with about one a week that they overlooked or missed first time round coming out throughout the summer.
Something else to throw into the mix on current voting intentions is that maybe the anti-BNP message is getting through - not to people who are considering a vote for the BNP so much but to traditionally Labour people who are sick of Labour and who normally would not vote in thsse circumstances. However, this time they realise that the lower the turnout the better the chance the BNP has of getting people elected, so it is better getting out and casting a vote for the Greens than staying at home.
It is kind of like that with me and a few people I know, except we are more likely to go LD than Green.
As I said in the previous thread, these are not normal times.
On those Green Party scores, it’s interesting to read their spin on an earlier Yougov poll, talking about 34% who apparently “would consider” voting Green (whatever that means):
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2009-05-17-poll.html
“Also interesting was the fact that around one-fifth of those considering switching were Conservative voters - the group normally the least likely to switch to Green.”
Although I share people’s suspicions about Comres and the Green score they’re getting, we shouldn’t necessarily assume it’s wrong just because the left/right spread isn’t what we’d expect. Although political nerds like us know that the Greens are dedicated lefties, they’re still a plausible protest vote for less politically involved voters who would otherwise be Cameron’s-Conservative inclined.
Watson to leave the Cabinet Office…
about time
174. If Labour get within 2% of the Tories <> in the Euro-poll on Thursday, then its Cameron for the high jump, not Brown.
137- How much does a poll cost anyway? Maybe we could all pitch in or something ( unless its too big of course
)
173
wibbler
copulating couples engaged in fraudulent double claiming of hotel expenses.?
Ladbrokes Handicap Market looks like being a beanfeast for punters.
I’m meant to be packing my office stuff for tomorrow but good grief, first Smith now Watson both announced by the Department of Leaks and Spin and we are not even at 16.00hrs BST. Who else will be gone before the day is ended?
At the rate they are falling Nick Palmer might actually achieve ministerial rank before losing his seat next year (sorry Nick nice guy bad party).
181 - Isn’t there something about what the media can and can’t cover on the day of an election anyway?
At the last elections, the greens got 6.9% - a million votes. The BNP got 4.9% and 800,000 votes.
UKIP was in its prime then and got 16% and 2.65 million votes.
Do we think that the BNP is stronger or weaker than in 2004? Definitely stronger, more widespread. I dont understand why people think they’ll only get 2% - while being blithely happy to assume that the Greens would poll more than double their number. Green issues were higher up the agenda then.
181. Thanks.
It would be pretty cheap to bring out revelations on polling day, in my opinion.
181 - Once the expenses are published there will be another week as all the other papers try to find things the Torygraph hacks either missed or passed up on.
Those who have been checked by Telegraph already could find they thought it was over long before it was…
176 - I don’t think so. Most people don’t choose to leave their jobs earlier than they need to!
182. That sounds plausible too.
157 - that’s kind of my view - if Gray stands he’ll surely lose, but he’s survived one attempt at deselection already. What guarantee is there that he’ll lose if another was organised. Of course if he had the whip withdrawn (but there’d be a long queue)…
149 Both ICM and Populus have given the BNP 5%. This poll is the one that’s out of line, and I think you’re going to be pretty disappointed on Sunday night.
WRT the major party votes, according to Anthony Wells, this poll isn’t past vote weighted, which almost always has the effect of skewing findings towards the Labour party.
185 Alan, if Labour gets within 10% of the Tories on Thursday I will be surprised. I expect yuor lot to hump Labour.
Spotted the Big Chief platic shoe wearing lettice muncher herself on TV at lunchtime. Why on earth La Lucas might expect her party to benefit from any slump in BNP support baffles me. The lettice munchers will only get support from the “none of the above” voters and turned-off LibDems who can’t face buying another pair of real leather shoes without feeling guilty.
185 - not a chance. The General is where it really matters. If the Tories want to blame someone for the rise of UKIP, it sure as heck isn’t Cameron.
From the Labour Party site Gordon Brown says:
“But I also want to say explicitly to the people of the East Midlands that the BNP do not have the answer to any of these challenges facing Britain. Despite what they may claim to represent - they actually stand against everything that makes this country great.
“There are some people who argue that Labour has somehow abandoned the white working class. Nothing could be further from the truth: I will never forget where I’ve come from and the people and causes I came into politics to represent.”
I too dislike the BNP and all it stands for but aren’t Labour tactics similar to the BNP’s - Its all the fault of the Blacks?
191 Last time was a high turnout election, too. I see absolutely no evidence at all that the BNP have less support than in 2004.
185 NoOffenceAlan
Lol!
170 It’s a smart PR stunt. Labour will vote it down. Clegg will rely on Labour voting it down (Libdems would likely not want to facilitate a EU Referendum though)and will vote for dissolution and Cameron will be quite happy to go with the opposition motion.
Result Brown and Labour are clearly seen as the roadblock to an election. It puts Brown on the spot, not Cameron and Clegg, as the Guardian would laughably have us believe.
201. Not having evidence never usually stops you Sean.
**** Betting Post ****
ComRes Euro Poll - The 92% total for the named parties, doesn’t appear to leave sufficient room for the BNP (6%?), plus the Nats (4%?), plus the “Other Others”, who together won around 4.5% of the vote in 2005.
Totalling these three elements, it’s clear that 14.5% will not fit into 8%, therefore something simply has to give elsewhere seemingly - wake up ComRes - are you thinking about these various aspects before publishing your polls? Their 9% for “Other Others” in their Westminster-based poll last night also appeared about three times too high by any normal standards.
That said were the Greens to win “only”, say, 10%, they look a shoo-in to win Ladbrokes’ Share of the vote handicap market with their +24%, giving them a handicapped sore of 34%, which would be very difficult to beat and are therefore value at odds of 1.37/1, although in value terms Labour +12% could run them close and look very fair value as a small saver at big odds of 8/1.
What is it about people and their blinkered attitude to the BNP? In the last Euro election with a 37.6% turnout, the BNP scored 4.9%. Assuming no one else votes for them than the people who voted BNP in 2004, for them to fall to 2.45% (eg round down to 2%), the turnout would have to rise to 75.2%. Does anyone actually believe that fewer people will vote BNP than in 2004?
If the Greens get into double figures, the BNP will be just behind them. It’s just another protest vote.
186. I reckon, given our regional spread and number of contributors, we could run a PB poll quite easily. Mike could email out a sheet of questions, and we could each go out and survey 30-40 people and send the data back in for processing. Given careful control of the regional/sub-regional sampling, and Mike and others’ expertise in the mechanics of polling, we could probably produce as accurate a poll as any of the big firms.
Current Minister’s of State: Pat McFadden, Liam Byrne, Tessa Jowell, Margaret Beckett, John Healy, Bob Ainsworth, Mike O’Brien, Jane Kennedy, Bill Rammell, Phil Hope, Phil Woolas, Vernon Coaker, David Lammy, David Hanson, Michael Willis, Phil Goggins, Tony Mcnulty, Rosie Winterton
If that is up and coming talent, maybe it isn’t all Gordon’s fault! Of those on the list probably the creepy Liam Byrne & the tired Margaret Beckett could make it into the ‘A’ team, I suppose Phil Woolas is at least known, so in the sense that no publicity is bad publicity, he has an outside chance. But look at how many have been tainted with scandal….
191 Do we think that the BNP is stronger or weaker than in 2004? Definitely stronger, more widespread
Would agree that they are much stronger than 2004, but this is irrelevant in the face of the press attacks over the last few weeks, and an antifascist campaign which has dwarfed their puny efforts, and prevented them from getting any political points over.
There are, from my own experience and talking to others, quite a few people who would vote either Green or Conservative - in 2005 I can’t actually say for sure whether I voted Green or Conservative - I was in two minds up to the point I placed my cross.
The problem some of the commentators have on this side is they see things from a Party’s manifesto, but people generally vote as to how they feel about a party . You can be right of centre economically and socially but still not want lots of coal fired powers stations, want more trees and undersand that reduce/reuse/recycle is a a good thing.
The Greens had a very good Euro election in 1989 I seem to remember……..
206 - In 2004, weren’t there local elections on at the same time in areas more fruitful for the BNP?
re 192. Yes - well done Tim for consistently pointing to the value in the Green price on the Ladbrokes handicap.
211 This “anti-fascist campaign” is nowhere to be seen in Luton (probably quite fertile territory for the BNP) - apart from one person displaying a UAF poster in High Town.
198 - from the canvassing done the Labour votes is a good deal firmer up here than the overall UK polls would suggest, although it is much less than 2007. The core vote will always vote Labour even if everything is falling around them. ‘Ehmm aye Layburr’ is the common refrain here. One dispairs.
205 PfP
Hat-tip to tim: I think he may have called it correctly a while back, when Greens+24 was still 5-1.
My guesstimate is currently as follows (in brackets is the handicap adjustment):
Con 29 (+0=29)
Lab 17 (+12=31)
LD 16 (+13=29)
UKIP 16 (+14=30)
Green 9 (+24=33)
BNP 7 (+21=28)
If I’m in the right ballpark, the Greens are clear by a reasonable margin. They may even do better than this.
For comparison, 2004:
Con 26.7%
Lab 22.6%
LD 14.9%
UKIP 16.1%
Green 6.3%
BNP 4.9%
SNP 1.4%
Further PR disasters for Brown and the Downing Street operation. Obama’s crew offering to help facilitate the Queen going to the D-Day celebrations, and his spokesman asking a journalist to personally pass his comments onto the Queen. How mischievous was that??
Brogan trailing the news that a senior Royal probable would attend the ceremony in an article that looked suspiciously like a Downing Street briefing. Now being reported that Prince Charles is going, but it was organised directly between him and the French, rather than through Downing Street!!
So much for the Wizard of Oz making it happen for a Royal! Downing Street still spending more time spinning in an attempt to pass the blame to the Palace and the media over this PR disaster. Might it have been easier to have made a proper attempt to take charge and clear up the mess with a suitable solution that satisfied everyone’s needs?
200. BNP tactics are it’s all the fault of guardian readers and cultural marxists. A much more productive route.
215 cont.
In 2004 I seem to remember all the Metropolitan councils being up for grabs and the London Mayorals being on.
How many BNP voters are there in the shires, and how many will turn out simply for the Euros.
220 - Christina, I have sent you an email.
214. Marc hits the nail on the head. I don’t think I’d ever vote Green, but - like UKIP and the BNP - the Greens communicate their identity very effectively. It’s a direction for policy, not a detailed set of policies.
The two main parties - Labour and the Tories - can afford to engage in vote-catching behaviour, as the success of Blair and Cameron has shown; although this brings its problems in government, and requires a degree of reliance on spin and mood-music over substance. The Lib Dems do best when (like the Greens) they express what it means to be liberal and hammer the message home in relation to current policies. I think Clegg is instinctively better than this than either of his two predecessors (though Kennedy called it right on Iraq), but the repositionings of the past couple of years have confused the Lib Dem brand a bit.
223.Thanks Marcia. Have to go out again in a minute, will reply later this evening. Hope you are now putting your feet up with a cuppa.
218 Marcia however the big question is whether these dyed in the red wool Labour supporters will bother to turn out tomorrow?
Remember in 1997 John Major lost so badly because so many Tories sat on their hands. I expect lots of Scottish Labour supporters to do the same on Thursday, especially since we dont have any other elections.
204- However, the fact that Brown is acknowledging the power of the BNP and giving credit to its supporters’ concerns does validate the party in one way: would Brown even be mentioning such issues if the BNP didn’t exist?
This shows the value of third parties, even ugly ones. They force the major parties to, at some point, address issues that otherwise would go unaddressed, because there will be an obvious electoral price to be paid for not doing so.
I think the best said about ComRes the better.
Hopefully we’ll get one final Wesminster and European voting intention poll before Thursday to let us know where we stand.
Jeez I go to the gym for a couple of hours and come back and find cabinet ministers jumping ship left right and centre. How Labour MP’s have jumped either being a minister or standing for election today? Is it 5?
Can think only one thing, Telegraph have some mega dirt to dish tomorrow! Or deluded Gordo now thinks he is Alan Sugar and telling everybody they are fired!
228 - I suspect that even if we do get another poll that it may not accurately predict what is going to go on.
226 I do hope they turn out tomorrow as it would be fun. Apart from Iain Gray appearing in Dundee today (same as AS) no obvious Labour campaign to have been seen this time.
200 Dan, as someone who knows James Gray, I have no time for him at all. He was a rat to cheat on Sarah when she was fighting cancer but he was the biggest threat Charles Kennedy has ever faced up here and he is a very smart campaigner.
If he is not forced by the Tory Star Chamber to stand down or is deselected then as with Bill Cash, I expect him to increase his majority in North Wiltshire
Did anybody hear this unexpected piece of good news for the government…
_____________
Quite amazing and could yet turn things around. Who’d have thought it.
(please fill in the blank)
Paul Staines thinks Mandelson leaked Jacqui Smith’s departure.
I can’t see why he would though…
234. Because thats just what Mandy does?
Off out, will pop back later to see if anyone else has let it be known they are leaving front line politics. Leave with you comment from Jon Craig on Boulton&Co - My Reshuffle Theory.
234. secretly undermining Brown?
226- These lesser elections are a decidedly tricky affair when it comes to turnout, including for the parties that should be motivated, as is being revealed by today’s competitive GOP primary for governor of New Jersey (and a much less competitive primary on the Democratic side). So far, turnout appears to be abysmal, magnifying the importance of the votes of people like me who bothered to vote. Today, it appears that only one GOP primary voter is voting per half hour at my precinct.
Quite a revealing story on the BNP in this Sunday’s Observer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/31/bnp-european-elections-facebook-expose
234 - If it’s out already it would be a crap secret. Mandy usually better than that.
234.Wibbler, Mandy doesn’t need a reason, he just loves briefing the media. In fact he is notorious for it.
Fraser Nelson at the Coffee House Blog last October - Will the Mandelson gamble pay off for Brown?
“3. Mandy plots. Put him in a nunnery and he’d have a rebellion stoked up by Christmas. Sure, he’s a lightening conductor taller than Brown, a Minister For The Media To Hate Even More. But it won’t be long before he gets tired of Brown, who he’ll regard – rightly – as Labour’s single biggest liability. To paraphrase Chris Patten this time, dogs bark, cats miaow, Mandy plots. It’s the natural order of things.”
219 Richard, this looks about right, although I think you’re a little high on the Tories and UKIP - your figures total 94%, the Nats and Other Others will together score around 8%.
Your handicapped figure for Labour should read 29%, not 31% as shown, which rather puts them out of the race.
222. They’re not going to get much support in places like Devon & Cornwall, but there are some counties, such as Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Cumbria, Essex, where they can expect a substantial vote.
Sky have just shown Chris Grayling congratulating Jacqui Smith for being the first woman Home Secretary. Jacqui Smith, face as dark as thunder until the very end when she seemed to make one of those contemptuous sniggers. Surreal
“Would agree that they are much stronger than 2004, but this is irrelevant in the face of the press attacks over the last few weeks…”
Doesn’t work that way. People drift towards BNP for reasons, for the sake of I can’t be a*sed arguing let’s say it’s an evil Nazi virus, the political-media pressure slows down the rate of drift but it can’t stop it while the reasons exist.
Does anyone think how remarkable it is how bad things have got for the govt. It’s a spectacular car crash, by any standards.
It’s been roughly 18mnths on a week by week basis of thinking “it can’t get any worse”, but it always does.
A truely amazing piece of work, you have to agree. You could never have planned to be this disastrous.
245: You’re not supposed to say things like that Jonathan…come on, there must be positives!
245. It is certainly hard to believe. It’s like watching ‘Some Mothers Do Ave ‘Em daily……
243. Lancashire is, of course, going to the polls as well - though the Lib Dems have some good chances of county council gains in East Lancs, so strong local campaigning might depress the BNP vote there.
For Lancashire CC results last time around, see http://www3.lancashire.gov.uk/lccelections/results/2005/resmenu.asp
245 - It is incredibly depressing. I judge my governments more than anything else by their competence. The current government couldn’t walk to the end of the street without colliding with a lamppost and tripping over its shoelaces.
249
I didnt know lamposts had shoelaces.
Murray 1 set all.
220 i can’t remember a time there was such pure chaos in goverment. Brown must have totally lost it.
246,7 Well in the end you just have to take a step back and watch with disbelief at the unfolding drama.
The good stuff, such as it is, is well and truly buried for now.
Amazing.
253 - Pound’s looking decent for my holiday, so I’m happy
245. The sooner this government is put out of its misery the better.
You get the impression that Brown is so bad he could announce the election but forget to go to the Queen beforehand!
“The current government couldn’t walk to the end of the street without colliding with a lamppost and tripping over its shoelaces.”
You missed a bit….
Then setup up an independent review into lamppost placement, before deciding to ignore the view of that independent panel (which was nothing wrong with them) and ordering all lampposts to repositioned and safety paddling added around them. They also embarked in a multi-million pound lamppost awareness campaign.
As for shoelaces, they were instantly banned on H&S grounds, to be replaced by velcro only shoes. Pedestrians were also ordered to wear safety helmets at all times. However, the shoe industry weren’t consulted and weren’t able to produce enough of the new type of shoes in time for the ban, and thus there was a national shortage.
244 someone’s going to go nuclear in the next few days. Brown will be out and the Labour party will be in utter chaos. there will probably be an election & Labour will be leaderless, and lose badly.
230.
James, What do you honestly think of that Comres Poll last night after all other recent polls have shown conservatives 39/41 ?
I would be interested to hear your thoughts !
I personally think its a rogue and the next YouGov will show Con 41, Lab 19, Lib 20
and the You Gov Euro I think Con 30 Lab 16 Lib 17 UKIP 16. I am also sticking to my statement last week that the Euro turnout will be 40-45%
257 - poor soles.
Overheard…
“I am no fan of Brown, but I will say this for him as PM, at least he isnt Chancellor.”
Just back from meeting a few fellow tories. Seems we are doing next to nothing for the Euros, because apparently everyone is going to protest vote and there is nothing we can do about it.
So those bets on UKIP, Green and possibly BNP could be very good value.
What I find odd about the GE Comres poll and the Euro Comres poll is that the Labour vote is roughly the same in both. Can someone explain how that can be?
259 Wayne
Don’t put any money on any of your ideas.
No-one has a clue what is going to happen, and that is just how it should be at this awful point in our nation’s history.
Off to the airport for the flight back to the UK.
257. I wouldn’t recommend velcro - it’s a rip-off …
244…we shall be saying next week “Jacqui whom?”. a prime example of over-promotion if ever there was one!
263 - Because there is no particular reason why people hacked off with Labour will desert them for the Euros but return for the GE?
Whereas there is a very clear narrative for Conservative voters “lending” their vote to UKIP for the Euros.
Also the two types of poll are not definitely comparable if they show differing levels of turnout ie. Labour could be losing voters but holding onto their overall percentage share.
263. They’ve gotten to the absolute hardcore who’ll vote Labour at every election come hell or high water?
.
.
MB - Don’t worry about it.
Oddly enough, Jonathan, the good stuff is not entirely forgotten on the doorsteps - as you’ll know, the core Labour vote nowadays is not made up so much of people who’ve voted Labour all their lives (unthinking loyalty is diminishing for all parties) as people who love something specific the government has done, and only really care about that - whether it’s the minimum wage, Pension Credit, short NHS waits, overseas aid increases, the hunting ban, or other things.
I had a letter the other day from someone (not a party member) who had to pay for an op in 1998 since the NHS waiting time was stil over 18 months: she noted that it’s now three months, and she said it would have made so much difference to her that it was sufficient to guarantee her vote, “regardless of any of the nonsense that’s going on”.
We are so close to the battle that we think the whole world is talking of nothing but MPs’ expenses, but it’s not entirely true, and I suspect it’s only got another few weeks to run, with a little further flurry when the official receipts files are published and people look for stuff the Telegraph missed.
259 - Honestly I am reserving judgment. I think it looks rogue but if we see other supporting evidence then obviously that assumption will diminish. I have long held that until expenses dies away we won’t know the true position. The fact is the next election is going to be about changing governments, most elections are about renewal of mandate vs. change. Labour have blown the play on renewal. I think Cameron is seen as somewhat Prime Ministerial but there are understandable concerns as he is untried. I have long thought that the next election could see the Conservatives gain a bigger vote share than since 1970 which would need to be about 44%+.
As to Euro’s I ignore the polls as they are difficult elections to prompt for. I think the main parties will take a hit comparative to their pre expenses position but not in comparison to 2004. I think the Conservatives will be at or above 30% and that Labour, UKIP and the Lib Dems will be in a three way scramble for 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
The thing I find really, really disappointing is the lack of any coherent or intelligent political fightback from the junior ranks.
They’re too busy being the govt, they’ve forgotten how to do politics. At least the likes of Prescott would have come out fighting. It appears that the juniors are too busy worrying about their careers to say anything. If they do say anything it’s either shockingly dull or far too partisan and hackneyed to carry any weight.
They had better start going for it, or they’ll be gone.
.
.
Good try Nick - Is the band still playing?
The Israelis are working out the kinks in their Armageddon preparations:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243872312292&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Meanwhile, Obama gives the green light to Iranian nuclear power while giving them until the end of the year to show they don’t really want nukes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060200947_pf.html
Ahmadinejad ought to be able to trumpet Obama’s statement as a validation of his brinksmanship approach to Iranian nuclear ambitions over the last few days of his presidential campaign.
264.
Thanks, No I definately won’t be putting any money on !
14. James Burdett - “I think Vaz just knifed Darling’s chances saying that the next Home Secretary needs to ‘understand the issues of England & Wales’ and that ‘Scotland has its own minister for Home Affairs’.”
Has anyone got a link for this?
“short NHS waits” - Still pushing the lie I see
Average NHS waits are up from 12 years ago!
And wasn’t the recent report into London A&E conclusion that the average wait was far in excess of the 4hr “limit”, when you started to take the fiddling away.
Personal experience of A&E, 3 times in past 12 months, max 10hrs, min 4hrs, never under 4hrs even when the A&E had only one other person waiting when I arrived.
268- I think most people here thought that was the case when Labour hit the mid twenties.
.
270. Oh my! What a load of crap.
Nick, you’re losing it.
*** BETTING POST ***
Serious money for the Conservatives and against LAB and NOM. As I said yesterday, it could be that people are getting less chary of tieing up funds.
These upcoming elections are the most exciting in seventeen long years.The fight for second,third,fourth and even fifth place is just thrilling.
276 - There you go…
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/vaz_next_home_secretary_must_understand_england_and_wales.html
273. Is the band still playing?
‘Always look on the bright side of life’
Or
‘Be thankful for what you’ve got’
Perhaps?
So do we think The Telegraph are going to end their expense’s expose with one final cresendo?
Sky News headlining the story as CABINET CHAOS
Brown will not be happy
283. Is there anyone left?
283 - hopefully something awesome. Brown put Blair hitman on ACA, or something
Christ I hope it’s not going to be Vaz. When I was thinking who’d be the worst possible Home Secretary I forgot about Vaz and picked Sion Simon but Vaz would be worse.
.
.
Murray going -lost 3rd set 6 - 0
270…NHS waiting time is now 3 months? from where did that information come?
285 - They have been revisiting a few of the Cabinet of late.
281. Knowing Brown he’ll send one of his rivals to the Home Office. Either Milly or Postie.
282 On the Titanic, I believe it was “Nearer My God To Thee”.
284.
The Cabinet Titanic hit an iceburg today.
It’s that old sinking feeling, that might lead to a result next Wednesday.
284.
The Cabinet Titanic hit an iceburg today.
It’s that old sinking feeling, that might lead to a result next Wednesday.
271.
Thanks, very interesting thoughts!
I am of the opinion that the Tory’s will get 46 / 48 % at the next General Election and will have a majority of around 180/200. I am that confident!
270 It should be noted that some Labour MPs, councillors and activists are doing their best under virtually impossible circumstances. And the govt does have good things to talk about.
What I feel is missing is some raw political skill that turns the govt’s work into something that you can sell.
Where is “Tough on crime and the causes of crime”
Without that there is no way you can compete with the inevitable flak.
It’s why Cameron is keeping his head above water, despite the manure coming his way.
Nick Palmer - sorry but people are glad about “overseas aid increases”. Like the hundreds of millions given to India and Pakistan, countries which choose to afford to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, and export terrorism to us, yet can’t be arsed to provide for their own citizens basic needs. And we pay them? Are we nuts?
Yes , Labour really spends overseas aid wisely.
You’re ridiculous.
278. I still do tbh. At least in GE election voting terms, whatever they’re not telling the pollsters.
“Where is “Tough on crime and the causes of crime””
Errh, the reason it is nowhere to be seen, nobody believes it! 40% reduction in crime my arse! Gordo or Smith (until today) have tried that line, people would piss themselves with laughter.
People serving only 1/3 of their sentence due to overcrowding. So what are we to make of that? More criminals, serving less time…tough on…no better not!!!
272 Do they know how, Jonathan?
They were swept in on a landslide 12 years ago, had no opposition worth talking about in 2001 & 2005, were ahead in the polls for almost all the time except one period in 2000 and the odd poll in 2005. Then it was all about when will Blair go and positioning for a role in Brown’s Government, short term bliss until October 2007 and since then a roller coaster ride as Government became more and more disorganised and dysfunctional.
our MPs in the 90’s were just as bad; despite the scare in 89/90 they believed it was their right to govern and Labour were finished.
.
.
jsfl[282] Wasn’t it Abide with me? - I was thinking of the SS Titanic.
Edit: Carp is right as usual - It is his fishy upbringing.
282- Perhaps “I Whistle A Happy Tune”:
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid.
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I’m afraid.
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!
I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid.
(Sorry, Nick, just having a bit of fun!)
OT: One aspect of interpreting the Euro election results will be the breakdown within regions, especially where there are no local elections to look at; although the Euro elections are aggregated by region / nation, they are declared at local authority level; I’ve just asked my local authority (South Glos) for the result for the South Glos bit of the South West Euro Seat in 2004 which they have sent to me, as it is in the public domain; but I can’t find the full 2004 results by local authority - funnily enough, I can find the 1999 ones by Westminster constituency; for clues as to differential results in different local areas, we could do with the 2004 baseline figures by local authority in advance of Sunday’s results;
I bet the public are really pleased to see our aid money going to China!
Come on NPMP, explain why China is getting aid?
302 Welcome!!
297. Terrorism exported from India???
301. What was the tune played by the solo violinist just as the ship started to go under in the movie?
“Where is “Tough on crime and the causes of crime””
Sorry just pi##ed myself laughing. 40% reduction in crime my arse.
Tough on crime equals prisoners serving as little as a 1/3 of their sentence (if they get one)!
Tough on crime, also seems to mean sending out plastic policemen, under trained, under paid, and who can’t arrest anybody, won’t get involved in any trouble and all the ones I see spend all their time chatting between themselves and never engaging with the public.
306 But it was an effective piece of rhetoric in it’s day. The point is that it’s day was 14 years ago. There hasn’t been much of late. “No time for a Novice” was the last time they got close.
from Pakistan
but why we should be giving aid to India is also quite a question.
I’d just like to credit Nick at this point for posting here under his own name and continually facing (to an extent) the public. Compares favourably with several of his colleagues.
307 - You don’t get it, the public don’t want all the crap sound bites, the slogans, the spin, the lies from Labour anymore, because they never add up to much.
Not saying Cameron doesn’t have a similar approach, although his is much more subtle, but your comment was why aren’t Labour doing this. The reason nobody is listening, and if they do hear it, they just don’t believe it, oh and the messenger is a useless deluded bleep bleep bleep!
.
.
Just a thought The fight back started on with Gordon Brown all over the media Sunday and Monday morning “Getting on with the job”, “Meeting the clichés”, etc, etc.
Tuesday, complete collapse. Surely he will realise it is all over.
LOL@NICK
309- Nick is truly one of a kind. He doesn’t mind, and probably even enjoys (like many of us), the rough and tumble of PB, and shows more courage and grace in the arena than most. PB would be a poorer place without Nick. It will be great if he weighs in once he has finished with his service in Parliament, as I’m sure he’ll have even more to contribute as a private citizen.
Evening all. So as widely expected Jacqui Smith is going to step down as Home Sec in the next few days, I’ve always thought that she wanted to go immediately after Porngate but she couldn’t as that would have overshadowed Gordon’s beloved G20. So she has had to stay on almost solely as a lightning conductor for the government and had to suffer further indignity over The Gurkhas. I feel sorry for her as a person, she was hopelessly out of her depth at the Home Office, a job which has got the better of far more substantial figures, I get the impression that Brown appointed her purely so as to have the first woman in the job. The ultimate blame for her humiliation lies with Brown for putting such an inadequate person into such a high profile and high pressure job. The interesting thing is as Guido points out, who leaked this story, the obvious culprit is Mandelson. It’s always been felt that he sees himself as the guardian of Blair’s legacy and if it became obvious that Brown was going to lead Labour to a catstrophic defeat then he would strike. I think this is the opening skirmish in the Labour civil war which will break out on Friday.
One last thing about Smith, she says she still intends to stand at the GE! Even if all the stuff about her second home and porngate hadn’t come out she would have been toast! Now she would just be begging for Esther Rantzen and other celeb MP’s to come and have a go! Still it’s a sad and undignified end for a former fresh faced young candidate;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/election97/live/797.htm
Where did it all go wrong?!
311.
Yes and after all the cabinet chaos today …… I wonder if the Queen has got the kettle on, in readiness for a certain Downing Street guest tonight ? Mind you the way he has treated her recently she would probably give him a glass of cold p4ss !
305 SP.Forget the name of the tune but the Band was Wet Wet Wet.
311 - I know it is like the marathon runner who has no gas in the tank and still keeps trying to put on a spurt before hitting the wall again. The question has to be which would he prefer election defeat or being dumped and therefore the first PM in 70 years to be dumped without fighting an election and the previous guy had WWII as an excuse.
Oh I nearly forgot about Labour message for 2008/2009, out went the likes of “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, in came the now infamous,
“British Jobs For British Workers”
One massive own goal!
I realize that this is hopelessly naive, but my guess is that Jackie Smith herself ‘leaked’ her own departure so as to preserve what element of dignity she could. And, er, that’s it guv.
Would any of the Cameron fans on here like to offer odds on
1.Dave doing Worse than Hague in the Euros
2.Worse than Hague but better than Howard.
3.Worse than both.
I’d guess at
1/10
1/3
7/2
Or something like.
302 Steve Webb MP
Thanks for being here!
EDIT: These MPs have (publicly) posted on PB:
- Nick Palmer
- John Hemming
- Peter Jackson
- Steve Webb
Have I missed any?
So it looks like the useless clumsy/lazy/unethical Labour Tory B-listers are beginning to leave the sinking ship. When can we expect some of the useless Tory Tory crew to do likewise? Or doe they all expect to slink under the radar into the Chamereon Big Brother House?
320
Quite possibly worse than Hague. No chance on Howard.
314 - In some ways I have more respect for MPs in what appear to be hopeless seats who choose to let the voters have the final verdict rather than skulking away beforehand with a big pension and payoff.
It is perhaps unfortunate that national party considerations have denied the opportunity for some voters to have that say.
NPMP, do you know what the following are,
Prithvi
Dhanush
Agnii
Shaurya
Nag
Bramos
SU30MKI
Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft
Here’s a tip, they are all advanced weapons systems that the Indians deem more important than looking after their population. We provide aid to them to enable them to fund the above projects. Foreign aid money well spent? Not in my opinion.
309 Jonathan
I’m sorry, but it was only ever soundbites. There was no substance. New Labour was just a con-trick perpetrated first on the Labour Party, then on the electorate. A remarkably successful one, admittedly; it allowed an unholy alliance of Guardianistas and venal chancers to grab an extraordinary amount of power, influence and, it has to be said, money.
What did Blair represent? The answer is simple: nothing. Having failed to be a Mick Jagger, he instead got the adulation he craved through politics, but he was uninterested in delivery. Hence the long list of botched reforms and half-baked initiatives. The other New Labour figures were just hangers-on.
[I suspect you won't agree with this analysis..]
wage slave
When can we expect some of your useless and corrupt LibDem crew to do likewise?
Or do they expect to slink under the radar while the focus is on more important politicians?
328. spot on
319 - The phrase “sources close to her” which is being used here normally means “her” when used by a journalist (or at least people who are doing more than reporting gossip and have been actively instructed to put the news out). So I strongly suspect you’re right.
308. Agreed given that we’re up to our eyeballs in debt over here!
Just a more general thought - I asked this question some time back but why do about 90% (sorry if it’s an exaggeration!) of contributors feel the need to post here anonymously? Yet we berate our politicians about openness and honesty!
The ComRes Euro poll is NOT past voted weighted.
Ignore.
by
Mike Smithson
June 2nd, 2009 at 17:36
327 don(the other one)
Get real. The reason we send aid to China and India is basically a legalized bribe, to encourage their fast-growing industries and businesses to invest in the UK.
It serves the same purpose as the BBC World Service.
And despite being outrageously opaque, “aid for investment” works.
I halfheartedly support this sort of ‘advocacy’/lobbying despite it having more than a whiff of corruption about it.
I actually find “genuine” aid to countries which do not have the resources to look after themselves a more difficult issue. They need to be encouraged to look at countries like South Africa, India or Brazil and ask why these democracies have flourished. I am in massive favour of a global ‘emergencies response fund’ - but more? Yes, but only if done properly.
323- Have any stealth MP’s ever been identified as having posted here? I doubt it, but thought it might be worth asking…
323 wibbler. I think you mean Stewpool Jackson - that part-time Peterborough carpet bagger !!
Murray broken in 4th.Gonzales leads 5-3 and 2-1 in sets.
328. Spot on.
333 - And yet on Conservative/UKIP split it is entirely consistent with their GE poll.
Murray looks like he is out of the French. 5-3 down in the fourth set.
EDIT maybe not Gonzales is 0-40 down in this game. Oops.
Murray 3 break points
327 it’s crackers giving money to India when this is what they spend it on. can i have a handout please?
Mike S
Would you say that ComRes has seriously discredited themselves over the past day?
It seems that they have producing the sort of polls which their customers want.
I’d say you couldn’t make it up except that’s exactly what ComRes seem to have been doing.
Murray breaks back.
323. Mark Oaten stuck his head above the parapet on one thread.
Murray breaks back to love.
Paul Waugh tweets “Hazel Blears has just had a meeting with Gordon Brown..Is the Chipmunk for the chop? Maybe not - sources say it was just ‘routine”
345
Really? That must have been an interesting thread
334 Wibbler - corruption works!
Now i’ve heard it all.
You’ll be telling us next that, actually, the Mafia has actually done some really good charity work. Tessa Jowell told you.
It’s quite surprising to see that ComRes are prepared to alter their methodology apparently to suit the needs of their clients. Do the BPC not have anything to say about this sort of thing?
323. Wibbler - it’s Stewart, not Peter, Jackson.
And Mark Oaten once made a bizarre appearance.
283. From looking at the list in the Telegraph these are seemingly the remaining Labour MPs who have yet to be covered.
Bob Ainsworth
Adrian Bailey
Gordon Banks
Ian Cawsey
Barry Gardiner
Rob Marris
Dennis Skinner
David Taylor
Neil Turner
There are an awful lot (over 200), including our own ‘rent flipper’, Nick Palmer, who have been given only a cursory airing.
Of course the Telegraph could have held back some juicy details of some of those already covered?
I do wonder whether there is still much flesh for the media vultures to pick over come July.
335 SaS. Not to my knowledge. However in the past I’m aware of at least four masked MP posters - one quite prolific, and a couple from the Lords.
Think Murray made a big mistake in not holding his last service game in the 3rd set
Interesting poll on the relative approval ratings of Nick Clegg and David Cameron…
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/clegg_gaining_on_cameron.html
337 - Useless, miserable scotch ****.
EDIT: 346 - Splendid, resolute British hero.
319. 331. I expressed exactly the same view about 200 posts back. From the way Joey Jones was phrasing it, this seemed almost self-evident.
3 match points.
Match point, and it’s all over for Murray.
322
Not particularly, Tim.
I’d rather do odds on Labour’s performance - far more entertaining.
347. If Blears survives the reshuffle I would be amazed. She must be at the head of the queue to spend more time with her family.
“The reason we send aid to China and India is basically a legalized bribe, to encourage their fast-growing industries and businesses to invest in the UK.”
Fast growing industries like Tata for example?
How many car factories and steelworks have they opened in this country?
And how many subsidies have they demanded?
Gordon Brown has new Vision:
http://tinyurl.com/krg5dr
Just to let people know about how the Euro campaing is going over here in Northern Ireland. Until a few days ago the conventional wisdom was that the DUP’s Diane Dodds would top the poll narrowly ahead of SF’s sitting MEP Bairbre De Brun and that Jim Nicholson of the UUP/Conservative grouping would be in a dogfight for the third seat with Jim Allister, who was elected in 2004 as a DUP MEP but left the party to step up Traditional Unionist Voice in protest at the DUP going into government with SF. That was until Sunday when on a debate on The Politics Show NI produced this horrific display from Dodds;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_1o_aSoTa4
Now a lot of season observers are seriously speculating that Dodds may not even get elected! For the DUP to lose a seat which Paisley used to win at an absolute canter would be the biggest electoral shock in NI’s history. Personally I think she’ll still make it but only just, and that in itself will set off furious recriminations in the DUP. Dodds is the wife of Finance Minster and North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds and apparently there has been a hostile reaction on the doorstep at the idea of another DUP family dynasty, something not helped by the revelations about Peter and Iris Robinson claiming £30,000 of food over 4 years on their expenses! There was another development last night when 2 DUP councillors defected to the UUP and The Tories respectively and both endorsed Jim Nicholson.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8078178.stm
Have they seen the writing on the wall? Time will tell!
EDIT: Two more councillors, one a current DUP member and the other a former member have also announced today they are joining the UUP. Interesting!
http://unionistlite.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-more-joining-cause.html
349 JamesA
I don’t condone or approve of corruption.
But you have to recognize that corruption is endemic in politics, more so in the politics of poor countries.
It’s probably often less subtle than ‘corruption’ anyway. More ’sweeteners’.
Think about doctors getting free pens, post-it pads and USB sticks from a drug company promoting a particular drug. Completely trivial things, and it happens all the time. But psychologists have shown that it does influence their prescribing behaviour anyway.
Obviously we need to reduce corruption. But it is no good being holier than thou and losing billions in investment if other rich countries don’t join the effort at the same time.
wibbler, regarding your comment about legal bribes. I presume you have no problem with genuine bribes. BAE and Saudi Arabia spring to mind. You genuinely have no problem with that? I do but hey that’s just me.
348. It had something to do with a rumour about him stepping down. Then he got roundly abused for his seeming inability to type.
I think we send vast amounts of money to places like India and China because guardianistas live in a fantasy world based somewhere in the early 60s.
366 - I don’t think the £12 million reportedly paid by the Saudis to Mark Thatcher was legal was it?
328 Of course i disagree. It was more than a soundbite. It was a classic bit of political rhetoric that at the time contrasted with howard’s 1 dimensional approach.
Thanks for the friendly notes, chaps. Got this in the Nottingham Evening Post after the public meeting on expenses:
http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Post-Comment-MPs-win-public-trust/article-1035520-detail/article.html
Aid to India and China is limited - I know most about the Chinese aid, which is linked to environmental technology and IMO more sensible than using the same money to reduce domestic carbon emissions which are much lower than the Chinese smokestack industries. But too busy to get into a detailed discussion about it.
Welcome back to Steve Webb - his request for local authority data from the last Euros is hereby echoed- can anyone help.
Meanwhile, there are further rumours from the PV counts in key wards in the swing counties that the Conservatives are doing less well than they hoped - have now heard this from three different counts, though not from Broxtowe as my agent is too damned ethical to peek. (Or maybe he just enjoys the suspense.)
BTW, what was the ComRes Euros poll (so we can ignore it)? I’ve only seen their Westminster poll, a couple of threads back.
282. James Burdett
Many thanks.
So, what’s the lack of past vote weighting mean for ComRes? Is it basically worthless, beyond the comedy value?
however much Comres have been payed in recent days hasn’t been worth it, seriously undermined their brand….new definition of rogue poll: comres
367. He also did not like all the glass table jokes!
365 - Doctors aren’t allowed to accept free stuff from drug companies any more. There’s been quite a clamp down.
371 - But is that to the benefit of Labour, or smaller parties?
Cameron says Government is a ‘laughing stock’
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/cameron_the_government_is_in_meltdown.html
371. Sounds like your agent would do well in one of the “Labour Safe Seats” currently been vacated!
Obviously i would urge you to contest a different seat like Bootle as you might just hold on there!
tim, to get back to one of your topics that being unemployed allows you to research in depth. I don’t know. Does reportedly mean in fact? Did the government step in and scupper the investigation because they thought it would be politically damaging, as they did with the BAE Saudi case?
.
.
Do they still ask doctors to conferences to put forward a brief paper in far away places??
Question: Does anyone know if the broadcasters will be releasing exit polls for the Euros on Thursday evening???
373 and 374. ComRes = Muppets?
To think that people dismiss BPIX out of hand because they don’t publish their data! It would be wonderful if they did but from what I’ve seen BPIX’s results are usually well in line with other pollsters. I’ll take them over ComRes anyday!
369 - Tim, since you’re the expert of Prime Ministers and their families finances, can you do some research on the Blair’s finances and the convicted conman, Peter Foster?
“Meanwhile, there are further rumours from the PV counts in key wards in the swing counties that the Conservatives are doing less well than they hoped - have now heard this from three different counts, though not from Broxtowe as my agent is too damned ethical to peek. (Or maybe he just enjoys the suspense.)”
NPMP that comment is so vague it’s worthless.
For it to have any meaning we need to know how well the Conservatives hoped to do and how much less than that they are doing.
Hague says that if dissolution is debated, Conservatives will be in favour…
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/hague_the_government_are.html
383, it’s worth noting though that the derision from ComRes has been partially validated by the publication and analysis of their methods.
BPIX isn’t open to the same scrutiny.
366 don(the other one)
It depends what you mean by bribes. Cash under the table is beyond the pale. Aid to “marginal foreign constituencies” in return for political support for British investment projects is also unethical.
I don’t condone any of it. It is sickening and immoral.
But realpolitik isn’t at all pretty.
All I’m saying is recognize it for what it is. I’m not justifying it.
380. In many situations attack is the best, and often the only worthwhile, defense.
Question for the experts on here: can anyone remember any cabinet reshuffle, by any government, that was really agenda-changing? I really can’t. Reshuffles - well, the word says it all - they involve changing the job titles of people already well known to the public, and occasionally bringing out of retirement somebody likewise well-known.
The only cabinet change that ever raises more than a yawn from the populace at large is a change at the top.
382. Something in the back of my mind tells me that they’re not allowed to release the results until the rest of Europe has finished voting on Sunday. I could be wrong though!
218. marcia - “from the canvassing done the Labour votes is a good deal firmer up here than the overall UK polls would suggest, although it is much less than 2007.”
Chin up!
If “it is much less than 2007″, when Labour had an utterly disasterous general election, then they should surely have a hilariously poor performance come Thursday? N’est ce pas?
tim, off to work now, (got to pay my tax so you can continue to claim benefits) will read your answer with interst tomorrow.
386, heard that during his interview on the BBC News Channel. Wouldn’t it be more typical to have a no confidence vote, rather than one about dissolution?
Shame Murray went on, but glad I laid him when Federer was 2-0 down.
Sorry, have now caught up with the doubtful ComRes Euro-poll.
Nick Robinson’s blog saying that the reshuffle will be on Monday.
353- Thanks Jack, much appreciated.
I had wondered if Jackieboots dictated this :-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8079374.stm
I nearly spilt my tea over the keyboard.
394 - I suppose the difference is that you are never going to win a confidence motion when the government has a majority.
OT
SeanT in light of the discussions on the origins of the Neolithic in your novel, I wondered if you had seen this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8077168.stm
385 - Is there any actual evidence that postal votes do tend to favour one party? From all the comments on here the suggestion is that the whole postal vote system is a Labour racket anyway, so it’s hardly surprising that the Conservative vote would be “less than they hoped”
Off out to do some campaigning. I hope the government survives the few hours I’m away!
398. Decorum, please
question - if dissolution is debated is there any chance of turkeys voting for Christmas ? Based on grab the golden goodbye now rather than have a painful year wondering if it will be abolished ?
401 - the argument is that postal voting gives Labour votes they wouldn’t otherwise have got (whether through corruption or by combating apathy - take your pick) whereas it simply gives Conservative voters an alternative of which they are happy to avail themselves.
The actual relative numbers for each party are particularly relevant.
401. Indeed! Notice no comment on the Labour vote!
Labour are f*cked!
What shocked me as someone who voted Tory in 1997 was the size of the Labour majority (I suppose the number of tory seats as well but i just remember the size of the Labour majority massive!). But i am starting to wonder this time is how shocked Labour supporters will be if they have just say 100 seats left due to LD & SNP gains where the tories are not viable! Before 1997 i would not have thought such a large majority possible but now i wonder if we will all be shocked by what will be left of Labour!
401 - I think there are criticisms over fraud in certain areas and over pressing postal votes on people who might not otherwise have them (perhaps predominantly Labour supporters). Although in fact many likely postal voters remain Tories because of the age profile and to an extent because the Tories historically had an effective operation signing up postal voters in many areas.
But “less than they hoped” would probably refer to what they expected when they married up the list of recipients of postal votes with canvassing records. This is slightly more of a worry for the Tories as it indicates reluctance of their postal voters to send them back or perhaps even defections to UKIP etc - although not catastrophic as it can be recovered on the day with a good GOTV operation.
404 - it would set an interesting constitutional precedence - has Parliament ever voted for its own dissolution before?
So the informed speculation is that we will have a Foreign Secretary in the Lords, a Scotsman in charge of policing in England and Wales and a Brownite loathed by many even in his own party as Chancellor. Promotions for the richest man in the Commons and maybe a return to government for a man who has already resigned twice.
There may be trouble ahead….
I think that any conventional Cabinet reshuffle in the wake of the expected bad results on Friday and Sunday will be met by universal howls of derision and mighty disapproval because it will only be seen as prolonging the agony.
Gordon Brown now lacks the authority to carry on business as usual.
Maybe a bit of dodgy dealing involving the Lib Dems might change the scenery.
‘Pravda’ and the Grauniad would just luv it !
SKY reporting from Reddich are saying that Smith is part of her local community! Huh with her first house a room in her sisters London house?? THATS the whole point of her scandal innit!! Cor - you could not make it up.
Actually you cannot make it up as to how dumb the electorate can be - one woman interviewed thought Smith was unlucky, that she was not as bad as some others, that Smith didn’t know much about it.
Imagine the scene in the bunker if one of the reshuflees decided to pack it all in tonight, and resign.
371. “Meanwhile, there are further rumours from the PV counts in key wards in the swing counties that the Conservatives are doing less well than they hoped”
Well, we know they are going to do much less well than they *originally* hoped (> 40%).
404. LTL - Good point that!
I read in the daily express that the MPs buggering off means Gordon is more likely to stay because of 12 months more Pay and Pension contributions but if the Golden goodbyes go - then the PLP may think f*ck it anyway!
Well Balls has one supporter. The mercurial Irwin Stelzer:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5430435/Ed-Balls-deserves-his-chance-at-No-11.html
Interesting that McBride’s mates would publish such an article?
If Balls gets the Chancellorship, then cue reports of his claiming for Rememberence Sunday Wreaths, Heseltine joke it wasn’t Brown is was Balls. Also on reshuffle makes sense to hold reshuffle on Sunday. Take the bad headlines then try and move the agenda, and besides Brown is impersonating the Queen on Saturday in France.
408. Surely every MP (50 Labour) who have said they will not stand again should vote for dissolution…
For 2012 Presidential watchers, Pawlenty has basically thrown his hat into the ring
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/02/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5056634.shtml
His role in the ongoing Coleman/Franken saga places him in a position of great power. At the moment the case is before the Minnesota supreme court. Every indication suggests that Coleman will lose his appeal.
Although Pawlenty is a ‘RINO’ in the Huntsman mould he could really firm up his support with the conservative base by refusing to sign Franken’s certification until the case is decided by the (federal) Supreme Court itself - whilst just about maintaining the patina of legality.
EDIT: Pawlenty is available at 42 at Betfair. Sounds good value to me.
411, so she just signed whatever was shoved under her nose? Pathetic.
408. I think the Long Parliament voted to dissolve itself in 1660.
“Containment strategy” (pretending that most people with symptoms can’t have the virus if they aren’t from a school with someone who has visited Mexico) showing to be the crock of sh*t everyone in the Health Sector knows it too be.
411. I laughed my head off earlier when the BBC reporter said she had only spoken to people who thought highly of Jacqui Smith. I dont believe the reporter or they were planted Labour members! I told my Grandmother why many folk call the BBC Pravda now she just laughed! She hates Socialists and the Liberals!
Indeed i showed Nick Clegg = Neil Kinnock to her and she said my grandfather hated the Liberals as well! 
LD =
http://tinyurl.com/mr9pg9
“Containment strategy” the pile of poo everyone in the Health sector knows it to be.
If the Cameroons do get a UKIP monstering in the Euros, and the telly / LDs / Labs do make a big issue of it, and if the Cameroons aren’t closet Europhiles, they can put it down to anger at the Lib-Labs reneging on the Lisbon referendum.
421, aww, that’s sweet. You’re continuing a family tradition.
371 : Nick Palmer MP @17:48
Sorry, Nick, but saying we are giving aid to China to help tthem improve their environemntal pratices doesn’t wash. China is not a poor country, It has sufficient wealth of its own to do what ever it wants to do with regard to the environment or anything else.
British programs to provide essential battlefield surveillance and intelligence have just been cancelled or kicked into the long grass. As a result British troops will die and more will be maimed. Your party is happy to do this while subsidising the nuclear armed states of India and China.
You might not want to think about it military terms (so many of your party seem to find the military an embarassment, despite voting to send them to war). So how about this: in the coming years public service funding is to be cut by at least 7.5%, more than the Conservatives managed, and taxes are going up; so why should the poorer, less looked after people of the UK subsidise rich foreign countries (and if you can afford large armies, navies and air-forces and nuclear weapons you are rich)?
423, wiser to put it down to a general expenses driven malaise. Ties in with Brown’s strategy and will make those cuddly Labour lambs less inclined to axe him.
391. There’s an embargo on any results until voting has ended in all 27 EU countries on Sunday evening.That’s not to say that the parties won’t be crunching their own poll data from Thursday night onwards!
With apologies if it has already been posted but the 2004 Euro results can be found from the links at the right hand side.
Interesting pitch from Alan Beith for Speaker, including the following passage which I find quite attractive, though probably hard to get a consensus on.
Prime Minister’s question time is an embarrassment to Parliament. Constituents liken it to a school playground. A new Speaker should get backbenchers and party leaders together to discuss how best to make it work effectively and rationally. It has developed several legitimate functions, not all of which need to be dealt with through the same procedures: it enables some M.P.s to raise issues affecting their constituents directly and publicly with the Prime Minister, which can lead usefully to him becoming personally engaged and using No.10 resources to help deal with serious problems. It serves as a test of whether party leaders and the P.M. can carry the confidence of their own parties in the way they present their case. But as a mechanism for getting real answers to questions and challenging inadequate answers it is hopeless, and as mere raw material for the media sketch-writers it cannot be justified.
The question sessions which Prime Ministers experience at the Liaison Committee, which are far from popular with the sketch-writers, nevertheless show that much more effective probing can take place in the less heated atmosphere of a Select Committee. There is now so much No. 10 involvement in departmental policy that it is appropriate that the Prime Minister should come before departmental Select Committees on some occasions, particularly when he has taken a very close interest in an issue they
are considering. More generally, the Select Committees are a Parliamentary success story and they should be strengthened and made more independent – for example, by
secret ballot in the election of Chairmen and members. Some Select Committee reports should be open to debates with votes on key recommendations.
Labour PPC on ITV. Only caught the last 30 secs but it was all Eddie Izzard!!!
Further to my post at 418:
Pawlenty is 12/1 to be the next Republican nominee:
http://politicalbetting.bestbetting.com/politics/united-states-of-america/republican-presidential-nominee/
He is lumped together with Huntsman (who probably has no chance now as he has been appointed Ambassador to China) and Jindal.
Is that better than backing him for next president on Betfair?
371
Can someone clarify something for me regarding what Nick has claimed about the postal votes.
I was under the impression that when postal votes arrive the outer envelope is opened to check that the vote is legitimate but that the actual counting of the votes themselves does not occur until polls close on Thursday night.
Is this not the case?
418 - I don’t think your analysis is right.
Pawlenty won re-election by only 1% in 2006. Admittedly that was a bad year for Republicans but next year will be an awful one for incumbent governors of either party due to budget issues. He may well be quitting while he is ahead. If he thought he was very sure of winning, he would stand again - nothing to stop him running for President as incumbent governor in 2012.
All the polls suggest Pawlenty is nowhere compared with Palin, Romney and Huckabee in terms of the 2012 nomination. And not certifying Franken doesn’t really change that - the right dislike Franken a lot but Pawlenty is still basically a moderate Republican and will really struggle to escape from that label.
At the risk of this going down as a Roger-ism in a few years - no, Pawlenty will not be GOP candidate and 41 on Betfair (which is for President not candidate) is not good value.
ITN :- Brown visiting another junior school.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/02/article-1190242-052EA524000005DC-920_468×332.jpg
421- Birds of a feather flock together, Martin.
434 - staying away from adults ?
429. Can you recall when Brown actually answered a question?
434 - Kiddy shield again? Pathetic!
431 - If you want to back him as GOP candidate (and I advise you not to) then you might be better taking the 41 as President since, if he looks very like being nominated, you can lay on the next President market. Assuming Obama doesn’t lead by implausible numbers at that time, that will probably give you better value than 12 as GOP nominee.
429 Nick Palmer MP
The ‘PR’ purpose of Prime Minister’s Questions isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.
And it’s probably good for Parliament overall - it gets it on the TV with a full chamber. Very few other Parliamentary proceedings (other than the budget, and particularly vicious Select Committees which are even more yah-boo) get on TV.
But the main reason I like PMQs is that it forces every government department and minister to have a weekly perusal through their portfolio, to see if there are major embarassments out there.
In other words, because it is such a pivotal and unique platform, it does an excellent job of holding the government to account.
429. Nick Palmer MP
Not being funny but Brown would just axe it (PMQ’s) given the chance. This gives him the chance.
I don’t think any speaker elected in this parliament should tinker with PMQ’s. Sure a new speaker should look at expenses and stuff like that but to me that smacks of Beith wanting the Labour payroll vote.
Alan Beith is useless anyway - I cannot think of anyone worse as a current contender!
My choice would be Frank Field or Widdicombe: I think widdies has a new candidate selected in her seat so it would definetly be an interim speaker and she does bring a purity to the role!
I am not just saying that because she reminds me of Blackadders aunt in Blackadder the IInd! Though i am sure she would slap down people just as easily!
437. Why is is always schools?
A thread on CiF asks “Who leaked the Jacqui Smith story?”
Ask your lobby correspondent!
BBC reported that despite Downing St denials “reporters were getting detailed briefings in Westminster”. MPs lying about expenses is bad enough but can we please grow up and get rid of this pretence of “sources close to”, “friends of”, “the BBC has learnt”. Every journalist writing the story knows who leaked it, many were there being leaked to and it wasn’t a dark room with a disguised disembodied voice, it was , for example, someone like Peter Mandelson leaning over and saying “she’s resigned you know, told the PM two months ago, story is she wants to spend more time with her family and fighting her seat but we know the truth don’t we?”
Go on Brogan, McGuire, White, Letts and co, tell your “sources” that you don’t do completely unattributable sources anymore, you might not always use their names but you will give job descriptions. So “the PMs press spokesman said that …, the PMs director of strategy smeared that…, an MP / a minister / a Cabinet minister told me”.
443 - It is obvious, the media can’t doorstep him, as they can’t film kids faces without parents permission.
Not just my opinion, even BBC reporter said exactly the same thing the other week when expense scandal broke and he went with Eddie Balls and surrounded themselves with kids.
418- What a horsecrap article from cBS news… I only scanned it for about half a minute and saw that it TWICE used Coleman’s name where it was obviously talking about Pawlenty. Somebody needs to take the American mainstream media out behind the shed and put it out of its misery with a shotgun.
That aside, I’m not sure how the retirement enhances Pawlenty’s 2012 chances as a presidential candidate. In my opinion, it would be better for him to be running as the incumbent governor of Minnesota rather than the guy who wasn’t up to the re-election fight. As a former governor, his profile diminishes a bit. Still, it’s early going and too soon to tell.
439, didn’t Saddam used to surround himself with children during the First Gulf War, to prevent the Allies trying to bomb him?
Am in Spain for launch of El Secreto Genesis. Four things I’ve noted:
1. Madrid is hot as hell in June.
2. There’s virtually no sign of the European elections - maybe one poster, and that was a maybe. Total apathy reigns across Europe (”We don’t care” I was told. And this parliament purports to govern the whole continent!)
3. Surprisingly, the Spaniards I’ve spoken to ARE aware of Scamalot - “we never expect the British to be that corrupt”, was what they said, flatteringly…. but deludedly.
4. It’s hot here. Did I mention that?
433 James
But Pawlenty can basically ignore Minnesota now. The Republicans aren’t going to win the Presidential vote there anyway.
And he has a key issue with which to rally the base. By holding off from certifying Franken, he will get plaudits from Limbaugh, O’Reilley and Hannity. Not enough for them to back his nomination, but enough to partially overcome his relative social moderation.
The reason I prefer the 2012 president to Republican nomination is because it will be easy to lay on Betfair once he genuinely throws his hat into the ring.
And any major Obama screw-up will shorten the odds for all potential Republican candidates, whereas Obama can’t really improve his own odds much.
EDIT: I don’t think Pawlenty has much chance of actually getting the nomination. I think there is still tremendous value as his odds will shorten when he declares.
448, how hot is it?
I remember in 2001 there was a freak heat wave in south Asia, up to 60C in India. Thousands died.
445. If that is the case, the UK is unique in having a spineless b@stard for Prime Minister, completely unable to face the public, whilst using primary school children as human shields. It is time that convention was dropped.
445 - The irony is that’s it’s the press whipping up a moral panic over the years that’s made everyone paranoid about taking photographs of kids!
444 Ted
As always, Yes Minister is the canonical text:
Journalist: “Shall I say ‘Sources close to Mr Hacker’?
Hacker: “Good Lord, no. I don’t want everyone to know it was me that leaked it”
450. I think it officially peaked today at 34 centigrade, but it felt more like 40 in central Madrid. Even the Spaniards were complaining.
Tomorrow I am going to Cordoba where it is said to be noticeably hotter - today it hit 37.
451. I am waiting for the campaign and i will meet him!
What is interesting is the way the media don’t ask him why he never meets normal people/ non political, non-party members!
Even John Major who was at times suffering similar unpopularity met the people. By hiding away as Brown does it makes it more likely some one like me will corner him and i am articulate enough to run rings round the f*cker!
If he met someone who confronted him on various issues like helping people in the recession when he has done f*ck all - he could at least explain himself but he has not and will come a cropper when someone like me corners him. If he walks off, it will be even worse for him. He will not win.
On ITV news they showed a heckler shouting at Gordo “war criminal”
456. I can think of a lot better things to have him arreasted for than that!
Gordon is a B@st@rd!
455 - Martin, today Brown was heckled by a man shouting “War Criminal” at him. He seemed oblivious to it all.
Could have been mistaken for has anyone seen that Hunt?
Does anyone want to make it 200?
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/smithshame/
449 - I don’t think that (as per your earlier post) this substantially increases the chances of him ever declaring. He’ll think about it and maybe he’ll do it at a push. But he would be crushed by the potential big spenders like Romney and Huntsman and the potential big charmers like Palin and Jindal.
458. I have been listing to music this evening - someone suggested Spotify - very good!
One of my new neighbours said i had good taste in music - I wondered if it was a coded message that it was too loud!
I am waiting for the CH4 news! I can just imagine the start, it must be the symbols and a picture of Jacqui quiting!
Nick Palmer and Steve Webb - the link to those results is on the right of this very page under Elections.
Ferrets in a sack
Hazel gets blamed for outing Jacqui
Posted By: Benedict Brogan at Jun 2, 2009 at 18:48:27 [General]
Posted in:
Tags:
Jacqui Smith’s departure had been foretold among her friends. For weeks they’d predicted that she would use the reshuffle to step out of the frontline. They could see it in her eyes, they said. The humiliation over the revelation that she claimed for porn films was the final blow, we are told. Would she have been pushed? I’m not so sure. Ms Smith was one of Mr Brown’s totemic appointments, difficult to drop now despite her dire record. So who let slip news of her departure? Hazel Blears is getting the blame. She apparently didn’t want to be the only woman booted from the Cabinet, although that accusation may just be a manifestation of the rage she is generating among some colleagues over her own expenses.
Then there’s the others using the chaos of the day to announce there own reshuffle plans. Mr Brown speaks of devolving power, but I don’t imagine he meant for his ministers to issue their own press releases. For a fleeting moment it was tempting to see in the coincidental announcements from Patricia Hewitt, Beverly Hughes and Jacqui Smith the beginnings of a sisterhood coup. Then came Tom Watson, not really one of the girls, who rewards his master by adding to the confusion with his own plans.
Or maybe his was a masterstroke designed to draw attention away from Ms Smith in case we were starting to think there was something coordinated about these departures. Coordinated in the way those PPSs quit back in September 2006 to destabilise Tony Blair. Back when Tom Watson visited Gordon Brown in Scotland to drop off a present…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/benedict_brogan/blog/2009/06/02/hazel_gets_blamed_for_outing_jacqui
Ferrets in a sack
Hazel gets blamed for outing Jacqui
Posted By: Benedict Brogan at Jun 2, 2009 at 18:48:27 [General]
Posted in:
Tags:
Jacqui Smith’s departure had been foretold among her friends. For weeks they’d predicted that she would use the reshuffle to step out of the frontline. They could see it in her eyes, they said. The humiliation over the revelation that she claimed for pron films was the final blow, we are told. Would she have been pushed? I’m not so sure. Ms Smith was one of Mr Brown’s totemic appointments, difficult to drop now despite her dire record. So who let slip news of her departure? Hazel Blears is getting the blame. She apparently didn’t want to be the only woman booted from the Cabinet, although that accusation may just be a manifestation of the rage she is generating among some colleagues over her own expenses.
Then there’s the others using the chaos of the day to announce there own reshuffle plans. Mr Brown speaks of devolving power, but I don’t imagine he meant for his ministers to issue their own press releases. For a fleeting moment it was tempting to see in the coincidental announcements from Patricia Hewitt, Beverly Hughes and Jacqui Smith the beginnings of a sisterhood coup. Then came Tom Watson, not really one of the girls, who rewards his master by adding to the confusion with his own plans.
Or maybe his was a masterstroke designed to draw attention away from Ms Smith in case we were starting to think there was something coordinated about these departures. Coordinated in the way those PPSs quit back in September 2006 to destabilise Tony Blair. Back when Tom Watson visited Gordon Brown in Scotland to drop off a present…
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/benedict_brogan/blog/2009/06/02/hazel_gets_blamed_for_outing_jacqui
Darling a “has been” as reshuffle begins without Gordon Brown
By William Green on Jun 2, 09 02:55 PM
David Miliband has spoken about Alistair Darling (left) in the past tense, while heaping praise on Ed Balls (right) who may become Chancellor.
Mr Darling has come under fire over his expense claims and repaid money - and some see him as now being hung out to dry over the recession.
Mr Miliband, the foreign secretary, said of him today: “Alistair Darling has been an extremely good Chancellor. His fortitude and his care and his deliberation have proved their worth.”
He refused to give marks to his colleagues, apart from the PM who got 10/10. But then said of Schools Secretary Balls: “Ed is an extremely intelligent and effective politician.”
The news came amid speculation that Jacqui Smith will quit as Home Secretary - opening up a new job for Mr Miliband, although he has made clear that he wants to stay on as Foreign Secretary.
But Business Secretary Lord Mandelson apparently wants the Foreign Secretary post.
A merry dance indeed, that suggests the reshuffle is already underway even if Gordon Brown doesn’t know it.
http://blogs.journallive.co.uk/journalblogcentral/2009/06/darling-a-has-been-as-reshuffl.html
460 James
Huntsman is more or less out, he is going to China.
Romney can never get around his Mormon problem.
It is true that Jindal and Palin will be the obvious choices. But there has to be at least ONE ‘moderate’ candidate. Crist is out, Republicans everywhere hate him.
I don’t get the impression that there is the same hate for Pawlenty; just a mild antipathy. If Pawlenty had decided to run for governor again, he wouldn’t get Club for Growth nutters standing against him.
Incidentally I never understood why Huckabee never got further - he is very conservative but also very personable. Anyway, for whatever reason, he failed dismally in the primaries last time round.
Sky: Chaytor, Gibson, Moran and Morley barred from standing as Labour candidates at next election
Is the smithshame petition at No 10 embargoed on this site as well? stuck on 199….
surely Brown should now reshuffle now?
No point waiting for the results. If someone like the nations favourite postman accept a job in Browns new cabinet i cannot see them challanging him after the results.
466, haven’t all these people already said they wouldn’t stand again anyway?
I am banning the sun from staying in the sky at midnight.
C4 News - Gordon sounded like a man who might put electoral reform in Labour’s next manifesto.
Sanity restored.
469. All except Gibson had said they were standing down, but now all four of them are barred from standing in any constituency.
Murray = Gordon Brown!!!!
He will never win anything either!!!!!!
469. Yes - the media keep saying some are standing down but i was under the impression many were on their bike anyway!
470, good.
471, it’s still feeble. It’s like giving someone a death sentence three days after they’ve killed themselves.
472. I hate Murray - though my mother did say that maybe one of the reasons he comes across as he does is the fact he was a survivor of dunblane. So maybe we should temper are critism!
Brown has no excuse he is a B@st@rd! A Cnut and i despise him!
“Scan the coverage today of GM’s bankruptcy and you’ll see a wide range of reaction, from predictions of certain doom to sheer uncertainty about the company’s eventual fate. The word “gambling” comes up a lot in reference to President Obama’s plan, never a good thing when you’re talking about amounts of money ending in 10 zeroes. What you don’t see this morning are predictions of success.
It’s difficult to find more than a handful of analysts or commentators in the mainstream media (outside of Detroit) who believe that this blueprint is likely to work. Not that it might work, but likely to work. And that is worrying news for the White House, which is working desperately to forestall the company’s complete collapse — and the subsequent economic shock wave — but may instead be fostering the public perception that it is throwing good money after bad without a clear endgame in mind.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-browser/2009/06/rundown_-_060209.html#more
Just as many Republicans had blinders on in believing that the Iraq war and occupation would proceed smoothly, many Democrats today have blinders on in believing that GM, which couldn’t succeed as a private business, will succeed as a government/union run, politically controlled green enterprise and Democratic money machine. In many ways, GM and the government-run banks may become Obama’s own Iraq. Obama is trying to rhetorically distance himself from the effort already but, as the Wall Street Journal says, “The President is so busy not running GM that he had time the night before to call and reassure Detroit Mayor Dave Bing about the new GM’s future location.” This tar baby isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s more like a time bomb that will plague the administration for years to come.
Channel 4 basically reading Brown’s obituary, the most awful coverage for him. Its like 1990 all over again. except even more chaotic.
474.
“It’s like giving someone a death sentence three days after they’ve killed themselves”
That is a good soundbite!
New thread & Marf Cartoon
Vaz on Channel 4 News - has he any credibility left?
475 you been drinking martin?
“It is true that Jindal and Palin will be the obvious choices. But there has to be at least ONE ‘moderate’ candidate. Crist is out, Republicans everywhere hate him. ”
For obvious reasons both Palin or Jindal are candidates that Democrats would be delighted to face, Pawlenty. although more moderate, is a bit bland overall though.
Someone like Crist would be better and so would Ridge; for that to happen Republicans would have to get over their ‘Culture Wars’ problem though and, as they are looking like a party even more in the image of Limbaugh, it may take another election or two until they get the message.
So - Republican 2012 = Michael Foot style candidate - at the moment I’d say Jindal.
429. I would say that the existing format of PMQs is also a Parliamentary success story. It’s a great thing that the head of our Government is open to hostile questioning and ridicule like this.
PMQs also produces many of the most memorable moments of Parliamentary debate: people still remember some of Blair’s attacks on Major and, indeed, some of the Kinnock-Thatcher exchanges. What’s more, it’s an opportunity for the Opposition to deflect the news agenda just a little off the Government’s trajectory (which is surely healthy).
I think the complaint that “it’s like a playground” is not genuinely representative of public opinion on this. People who think it’s fine as it is will not comment and you won’t hear their view. I say this because the public is actually even more playground-like in its behaviour than MPs: we like to shout the odds, go on demonstrations, make ludicrously exaggerated claims about the other side, and work ourselves into a high state indignationover political decisions that we disagree with.
When I hear Cameron tearing into Brown at PMQs, I feel he’s speaking for me, but this is not a partisan point. If/when Cameron is Prime Minister, it’s entirely appropriate that the Labour leader of the day will be able to lay into him and not be restained by the need to be rational or constructive.