So whose idea was this?
July 20th, 2009
Why aren’t Labour using by-elections as practice?
There can’t be many Labour supporters who were glad to hear that Ian Gibson had resigned forcing a by-election in Norwich North. They might not have been much happier at the prospect of fighting the SNP for Michael Martin’s old seat either. Both are potential losses for the Government, so it should be a case of finding silver linings.
The only benefit to by-elections where you can only lose or hold on (with no chance of gaining) is that they give you a chance to test certain messages and strategies - you can see what works and what should be avoided. It is, I think, the consensual view that the ‘Stop the Toffs’ campaign in Crewe & Nantwich was seriously misguided and ineffective. Lesson learnt, and better in Crewe than nationally, I suppose.
I was always surprised that Labour didn’t hold Glasgow North East and Norwich North on the same day - if both were lost, at least it is confined to a single news cycle; if one is held and one lost, you can limit the damage of losing a seat; if you win both, you’ve missed an opportunity to spread the good news over a couple of weeks, but you should be fairly pleased anyway. By separating them, I suspect they will endure a bad story this week, and still have the ticking time-bomb of another battle with the SNP during party conference season.
So what is to be tried? The ‘Toffs’ approach failed dismally, so why not try an approach on equality of opportunity, or schooling, or rural health services, or … no, surely not … foxhunting?
In a story broken by ConHome, the picture above apparently shows an official Labour flyer. I don’t know if this is a brilliant move, or the death knell of the Labour party as a campaigning organisation. It is possible, just possible, that foxhunting was a massive issue in Norfolk because of its comparative rurality. It is plausible that liberal Norwich, with its students and Green Party voters, was the epicentre of anti-hunt feeling. It might be that Norwich represents the front line in defence of the Foxhunting Ban, and that this issue exorcises political passions like no other. Maybe.
Or it could be a desperate, grasping-at-straws, wild shot in the hopeful dark. Find an issue, any issue, attach a cute animal to the poster, cite barbarism and Tory cuts, draw the battlelines, and hope to dear Heaven that enough Greens vote tactically on a very low turnout to put the result in the lap of the deities who don’t demand animal sacrifice.
Whichever it is, I think it’s a missed opportunity. Whether it works, or whether it doesn’t, this issue is at best regional, and isn’t going to be the basis for a national General Election campaign. Norwich North is a decent testing ground for such an experiment - a majority for Labour of about 6,000 over the Conservatives, with non-negligible Lib Dem and Others. This could have been the place to test out new slogans, and an innovative line of attack that (if successful) could be rolled out across the nation. Foxhunting ain’t it.
Glasgow North East is shaping up to be a good fight - Labour have selected a lecturer in law in William Bain, whereas the SNP have finally confirmed David Kerr, a BBC journalist, will be their candidate. Mr Kerr is a member of the Catholic prelature Opus Dei, which if Glasgow East was anything to go by, might be more of a help than a hindrance. I don’t know which way it will go,but of one thing I’m sure - the campaign won’t be about foxhunting.
Morus
UPDATE: Hat-tip to ‘Max’ on the previous thread, who identified that this slogan was used by Labour at the Eddisbury by-election held on 22nd July, 1999 - a decade and a day before this by-election in Norwich North! Credit for inventing the slogan was taken by Andrew Miller MP (Lab, Ellesmere Port & Neston) a few months later. Hansard trawling indicates that the only other mentions have both been by Jane Kennedy MP (Lab, Liverpool Wavertree), who brought it up twice, both times somewhat randomly, in the last three years.
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A good read in the Guardian - Damian Mcbride’s first interview.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/20/damian-mcbride-interview-labour-spin
Labour seem to have written off NN and as result no-one of consequence is putting in any effort, other than perhaps trying to keep second place. Decision to hold NN by election as/after Commons head into summer recess while putting Glasgow into a more prominent position seems to be on basis they are more likely to win there and so get a bit of impetus into election campaign .
1 Mike - see my comment on previous thread, it’s pretty content free, the reporter doesn’t seem to have tried very hard or really questioned McBride. Reads like a summary of a pub lunch conversation.
Has the date been set for Glasgow NE by-election?
1.I thought the first paragraph was pretty shocking to be honest. As for the rest of it, I think that Brown and his team have lost the plot.
3.Ted, I thought that McBride pretty much got to give the interview he wanted. Reminds me of that Telegraph spoiler before the Sunday’s ran with the original scandal, some thought he wrote that one himself.
Believe point of “the fox gets it” is to grabs some attention, show that Labour is (yet) reduced to collection of humorless apparatchiks, and also to blunt appeal of Lib Dems & Greens to floating voters and also to alienated Labourites. With goal of achieving third place if possible for Labour candidate.
So whether or not it’s smart national strategy for next general election is beside the point.
Plus is it that certain that it’s NOT a sound national strategy, esp. as the whole issue is apparently being revived by the courts?
Finally, what’s wrong with recycling? Has been going in in politics since factions started mass producing marked pottery shards for Athenian ostracism elections.
CBS now broadcasting (in Pacific time zone) program in Remebrance of Walter Cronkite.
For American of my awkward age, really does take you back to “that’s the way it was.”
One of Cronkite’s secrets was, in a real since he was Everyman. Certain he was Every American.
For example, just had a clip of him tell about how his daughter then in college called and told him and her mother that a group of friends were going to “a concert”. Cronkike said, “her mother and I thought she meant at the Philharmonic or something.” Turned out she meant Woodstock. Which he of course ended up covering on the Nightly News. And right in the middle of the newscast it dawned on him that this was the “concert” his daughter was talking about. “My goodness!” he said.
Turns out Cronkite was also a Grateful Dead fan. Who’d a thunk THAT? He’d gotten an invite from a bandmember he’d interviewed. At intermission at Madison Garden, he found the guy. “When I got her, I was thinking of a hundred reasons for leaving. Now I can’t think of one. I like your music!”
7, yers truly - in line two, please insert “NOT” before “(yet)”!
They just showed great clip, on the day that Lyndon Johnson died. Cronkite got a call from the former president’s press secretary while he was in the middle of that night’s broadcast, while sitting at his anchor desk.
Cronkite was still talking to the guy, getting the facts, when the commercial break ended and he was back on camera. In a way that seems incredible today, you see Cronkite on the phone, listening. Then he raises his arm, palm out, index finger extended: wait a minute. He listens a bit longer, says a few words - no sense of rush - puts down the phone - then informs millions of viewers across America that LBJ had just passed away.
If that isn’t the very definition of “level headed” then what is?
Its interesting how some of those sign offs become legendary. The two I can think of from the US news are of course Cronkite’s “And that’s the way it is…” and Ed Murrow’s “Good Night and Good Luck”. I think it is fair to say that there are simply no newsreaders or journalists of that stature today either in the US or the UK.
To the average bloke on the street with a mind on job security, the slogan may be misconstrued as a strange strange joke or worse, because it comes across as you either vote Labour or Labour will hurt that fox haha. It is truly awful!
Btw i am against fox hunting unless numbers reach high levels because rabbits cos my land more harm and foxes are a free service to me.
On a purely entertainment note I’m glad they did it. It’s a little different and more entertaining than the same old same old posters.
This reminds me of that old “every time you masturbate God kills a kitten” internet meme.
Reverse side of the leaflet here.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/07/labour-wants-the-people-of-norwich-north-to-vote-for-the-fox.html
“The Tories want to bring back fox hunting Labour banned this barbaric practice” (they’ve got their coloured text slightly out of alignment).
“Labour’s priorities are protecting jobs, improving public services, and cutting crime, what’s most important to you?”.
FTP, Ted - “McBride gets a few spin lines in - mention of his father & Gordon as if both are strong moral men with Presbyterian consciences (McBride an RC surely?) to support the Good Gordon, Moral Compass meme”
Guardian article says McBride when to Finchley Catholic High; and his first name is even more a a tipoff than his last that he’s Catholic, and almost certainly his late father was too.
What I don’t get is, are you surprised that an Irish Catholic could be a person of high, even severe standards and rectitude?
Have you never been exposed to an Irish Catholic priest or nun or layperson of the Old School? Not exactly a rare breed in Erin’s Isle. Nor in the disapora, where they frequently feel the need for extra rigor to uphold standards.
Heck, an Irish priest of severe disposition once told me it was a mortal sin to bet on a sure thing. Because I was cheating the other fellow. Now that’s a defenseable position, though shocking to pbers. But certainly NOT one indicative of moral slackness.
On this I take McBride at this word - his father would NOT have approved. And the old man was damnwell right, and his son knows it.
Personally think this is another American invention - see cover of “Harvard Lampoon” January 1973:
“If You Dont Buy This magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog!”
for actual cover, see link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon_(magazine)
Is their an earlier example?
One poster, quite clearly printed off someone’s home inkjet printer, does not a campaign make. I think Morus might be overplaying the significance of it somewhat. The existence of it does not mean that Labour’s campaign is now all about foxhunting as the sole single issue - for all we know, that poster is the work of some amateur Labour enthusiast (and the fact it is clearly isn’t professionally printed would lend credence to that - it doesn’t take much digging on the internet to find the Neo Sans fonts needed) and is not “official”.
That said - I think the poster itself is clever, and if targetted in the right places could be effective.
19, meself - actually was the “National Lampoon” which was a spinoff from the HL.
The “Fox” is actually a leaflet. What the cover is, is a “grabber” - that is, it grabs your attention, and makes you look at the rest of the piece
In US political direct mail having a good “grabber” is a BIG deal. Because even in this internet age, people still get tons of junk mail. So you need something to differentiate your mailing from the mass. Otherwise it’s highly likely to end up in the “round file” without further ado.
Would imagine a by-election leaflet blizzard is somewhat similar.
This must be the big political story of the day
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1200792/Cripes-Boris-Johnson-makes-appearance-Queen-Vic-EastEnders-cameo.html
23 If you are going to do populism, then THAT is the way to do it.
Maybe Gordon will make an appearence in Casualty….or CSI?
On topic, isn’t, er, Labour’s fox shot if Chloe Smith says she doesn’t support the repeal of the hunting ban? Are there really that many hunt supporters in the new Tory intake? I don’t know, but would suspect the newbies will be significantly less passionate on the issue than the departing squire-archy…
Personally, I’d give some incentives for any hunt that turns into drag hunts. I think they should have charitable status or be able to apply for lottery grants, if they give up the fox and instead agree to chase and rip Lily Savage to pieces….
It could be a mistake for Labour to raise fox-hunting as an issue because everyone knows their legislation has been a failure. It is, in any case, just a subset of the anti-Toff theme which the electorate are apparently not in the mood for. When people are concerned about jobs, debt and war, most of them will look askance at a party that is more concerned about small furry animals.
Mayor Johnson is looking pretty fit these day. Most big city chief executives look the worser the longer they’re in office. But not yer man Boris
Is London’s answer to Jimmy Walker spending more time on a Stairmaster than at his desk? OR is this his personal contribution to the “withering away” of the state?
Also looks like he’s stopped using a Weedwacker on his hair . . . and gave it to Barbara Windsor . . .
Greg Dykes must be helping the campaign in Norfolk.
If Roland Rat saved TVAM then perhaps The Fox could save Labour!!
So McBride’s heartfelt confession consists of:
1. He didn’t tell lies - unlike tory Coulson
2. Publishing emails nothing to do with him
3.He didn’t smear ministers - they were just useless
4. Gordon rose above crisis and enquired about health of his mother.
5 He didn’t smear Tory wives
6 The smears about Tory wives came from the shadow cabinet !!
The Fox may have several audience. One is clearly the likes o’ us. Best buzz - indeed the ONLY buzz - Labour has enjoyed the whole byelection.
Another target is clearly animal lovers. For them, the fact that the law is in flux merely ups the ante.
Note that anti-toffery is NOT underlined, merely implied in the eye of the beholder IF they want to behold it. Which is of course more subtle and thus effective than running around in top hats and Eton collars.
As for Ms Smith, methinks that most voters likely to turn out for the byelection will be savvy enough to figure out that she’s part of the Junior Achievement branch of Conservative Central Office. Whatever her private views on foxhunting may be, she’s clearly destined to be a member of the payroll vote for leader with more than one pink coat in his closet.
Surely this allows Labour’s opponents to remind voters that the government spent longer on fox hunting than deciding to go to war in Iraq.
Think fact that Damien McBride did this interview shows one of two thing, perhaps both:
1. He’s a real bush leager - that is, not A nor even B team.
2. He’s not-so-subtly trying to stick it to his former bosses.
Anyway you slice it NOT a good story for Brown, Balls or Labour.
1 McBride: “The reason that matters is that if you can’t tell the truth to David Cameron, you can’t be expected to tell the truth to the press, and what I know from doing that job is the press must trust you 100% to tell them the truth.”
WHAT?? SORRY, CAN’T HEAR A BLOODY THING OVER THE BULLSHIT ALARM…
That’s better. So McBride - the same man no-one could find after Smeargate - is not only doing a Guardian piece, but also an interview on R5 with Labour’s useful idiot, Victoria Derbyshire. And all the day before Coulson appears before the Committee. Damn, they are desperate to get Coulson. A plan which would backfire so spectacularly if it succeeded, because he could then pop up as the editor of The Sun, in a position to do far more damage with his veangence than sat by Cameron’s side…
And McBride is still peddling the “Gordon knew nothing” line I see. OH HANG ON, I’LL HAVE TO TURN THIS BLOODY THING OFF AGAIN….
29 - Was that an interview with McBride or tim?!? Are they one and the same person, I think we should be told!
Foxes ache.
The McBride interview “exclusive” is clearly part of their Coulson campaign - or perhaps McBride’s Coulson campaign being waged with Guardian resources.
Apologies if posted previously, but Calum Cashley has the map of councils.
http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2009/07/where-was-i.html
Very different to the headwinds imposed by the Electoral Commission boundaries.
What one gets from McBride is that it was all everybody else’s fault- Brown suffered nasty attacks from other Labour ministers, shadow minsters fed stories to journalists who in turn told them to him etc etc
Marquee Mark @ 33
So the Prime Minister, who, let’s face it, just might have better things to do, has intimate knowledge of a proposed smear campaign, while the NotW editor has no idea why he is approving payments to private investigators? Is that the line?
36, BSJ - sure looks that way. But a funny way of going about it. We’re all scumbags so fire Coulson too? Heck, think it’s to Labour’s advantage to have Coulson on the job at Central Office so they can keep jumping up and down and pointing fingers at him.
It’s not that Labour seems to have given-up on NN that you might find surprising, it’s just that the party nationally seems to be going out of its way to make things more difficult on the ground.
Let’s take the example of the EcoTown announcement last week. One of the four short-listed sites was at Rackheath, just on the edge of the constituency.
EcoTowns are unpopular and the Greens in particular are making the running opposing them, not least because excessive development close by will have adverse congestion/pollution impacts in NN.
EcoTowns are a hard-sell for Labour anyway so why aggravate the people of /North/ Norwich by announcing 4000 homes on their doorstep?
Put simply it was pretty incompetent for ministers make the announcement on the Norwich/Rackheath EcoTown within 7 days of the poll on Thursday.
But it gets worse! On Friday, John Healey [and the DCLG press release even managed to spell the name of their minister incorrectly!] announces that the money to pay for the infrastructure for these houses, you know, skoolsn’ospitals, was to be cut by £2.6m having been announced and then re-announced several times previously.
And this now allows the Tories to gain traction on an issue that has previously been the domain of the Greens.
It’s not that Labour isn’t using this election as a practice-run as the Tories are. It’s not that Ministerial announcements are being timed to assist, rather than to hinder. It’s just that the Government [civil servants?] now seems to be conspiring to make sure that Labour loses and loses badly.
And I’m not even going to start on Charles Clarke’s demolition of the party on Sky News yesterday morning.
Perhaps it’s the plan. Because if, as I suspect, UKIP overhaul Labour on the ballot behind the Tories, Greens & LibDems, then the pressure for Brown to finally go will be immense.
And in a perverse way, that’s probably Labour’s best option of survival. Stand by for more Kamikaze tactics from Labour in the final days. The worse they do on Thursday, the better it is for them.
Bunnco - your man on the spot
An interesting barchart, presented in terms of a map, Brian SJ.
Not terribly useful, though, because it represents the votes in the Euro elections.
What were people voting on at those elections?
In the south of England it was MPs’ expenses, immigration, kicking the government - not forming the next government.
So I would not be over-impressed by the resulting map. Sorry.
38 Labour’s line appears to be that the PM knew nothing, Coulson knew everything. You tell me why that is a sensible thing for them to be pursuing…unless the idea is to play a “GOTCHA!” on Gordon - and make him have to leave this summer?
Weird politics…
28, strapworld - don’t forget Ireland’s own fowl, Dustin the Turkey. Right now he could give Brian Cowen and rest of Fiana Fail a run for their filthy lucre.
41 It is certainly not an over-impressive map for the LibDems, showing that like toothpaste, they are being squeezed to the far north of England and Scotland…
The slogan was certainly used (NOT Labour, of course, but in favour of me against my Tory opponent a known hunter) in campaigning with the League against Cruel Sports in 2001. I believe it was their slogan, and certainly didn’t emanate from the Labour Party (or Lib Dems for that matter). I remember a knockabout morning’s campaigning in the local shopping centre, with people dressed in fox suits, chasing the now local MP around!
Cashley’s map, and especially the text that goes with it, should be taken with a big pinch of salt!!
Isn’t the MCBride stuff an attempt to detoxify the issue. Its bound to crop up at the GE. Its the same principle as the junking of ID cards temporarily.
The main problem with the message on the leaflet isn’t the fox, it’s this:
“Labour’s priorities are protecting jobs, improving public services, and cutting crime”
Those are Labour’s priorities. After more than twelve years in office, what is the average voter going to think about Labour’s performance in these key priority areas?
The fox-hunting issue is of course a core vote strategy, although as the election’s out of term-time, the studuent vote which *might* have responded to it (if they ignored all the real issues, and students do have lives as well), won’t be there anyway. It’s also a misleading message: it was the Labour Party which devoted weeks and weeks of parliamentary time to debating foxhunting. In fact I’m sure I remember reading that debating fox-hunting took up more parliamentary time than debating Iraq before the invasion.
On the fox issue, well of course labour is grasping at straw.
But I hear that some people are really motivated by theis issue.
The fact that the Tories are prioritising it while being deliberately vague on many other policies seems a bit daft.
Announcing to the Horse and Hounds this part of your manifesto when the only seemingly firm tax pledge is to prioritise the wealthiest estates for a cut seems counterproductive to me.
If the Tories win are they really going to be chopping benefits for middle class people with kids, while the Jacob Rees Moggs of this world make speeches about foxes and their estates?
43 What chance getting Dustin to front the “What part of No didn’t you understand??” campaign in October?
Gordon foxes up the economy.
48 - It may be a core vote strategy in this seat.
In the GE it will play well for the Lib Dems in rural Tory/Lib Dem marginals.
Seemingly much of the Tory strategy over their overseas aid pledge is based around the sort of people who’ll be turned off by fox hunting.
50 - Even the Irish Green Party has decided to join the ‘yes’ campaign this time
There is simply noone left advocating a ‘no’ vote any more 
Songs of the ByElections
FOX ON THE RUN
Tom T. Hall
She walks through the corn leading down to the river
Her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun
She took all the love that a poor boy could giver her
And left me to die like a fox on the run
Like a fox, like a fox, like a fox
On the run
Now everybody knows the reason for my fall
A woman tempted me down in paradise hall
This woman tempted me and she took me for a ride
Like a lonely fox, boys, I need a place to hide
Like a fox, like a fox, like a fox
On the run
Oh, we’ll drink a glass of wine, boys, to purify our soul
We’ll talk about the world and the friends we used to know
I see a string of girls who have put me on before
The game is nearly over and the hounds are at the door
Note that a previous poster (sorry, forget whom) on prior thred pointed out that there aren’t many students or university types in this part of Norwich.
Suggestions that tuition fees will be abolished for students “living at home”. Put aside for one moment the question of how “at home” is going to be defined, won’t this give rather an advantage to people from Oxford and Cambridge? And a bit unlucky if “home” is Aberyswyth! And won’t it stifle ambition amongst the poorer students rather than encourage it, by creating new relative financial barriers against trying for the best universities?
And Labour MPs always used to justify the massive expansion of University education, even to those for whom the educational benefits were questionable, on the grounds that the University experience was about more than just academic learning - it was about the life experience of living away from home, managing your own finances, being forced to meet new people and expand your horizons…
Gordon! Gordon! What shall we write our next Norwich leaflet about?
Oh for fox ache!
—-
I think that was something about hurting foxes.
Yeah, let’s print it. Better than anything else we’ve campaigned on.
I doubt the detail matters much. All most voters will know is that Labour are against fox-hunting and the Tories are for it. Polls still show big majorities against hunting and I would guess that is even more so amongst swing voters in the suburbs.
McBride interview on R5 from 10am.
Not sure of the spin from McBride in his Guardian article, he talks about his decent, principled Father. The next time Brown prays in aid his Dad as a fine upstanding man, the journalists will just have to say: yes, I bet he was, just like Damian McBride’s…
Sneak preview of the Cameroons Election Strategy.
Vote Dave and Liam Fox gets it
58. I don’t think fox hunting is party political in quite this cut and dried way. Anne Widdecombe is opposed, Kate Hoey is for and it’s supposed to be a free vote. Tony Blair took care not to be in the House for the hunting ban vote and was said to despair of Labour’s fixation on an ideology bound side issue. I think this is just another sign of Labour running out of puff and purpose.
Labour look very likely to lose this by-election, so they may as well go down with a bit of panache. It’s got far more wit about it than the Tory toffs campaign at Crewe & Nantwich.
“Damian McBride, the Downing Street aide who quit over Tory e-mail smears, says Gordon Brown was so angry about the messages he could hardly speak…”
That certainly rings true: “You f****** *u**, you’ve been f****** caught!” as another Nokia is hurled to its final resting place.
62 - Thats is exactly how the Tories should have played it.
Too late now
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/competitionnews/392/284839.html
Damian McBride’s line that he was forced to be very very nasty because horrid Blairites were out to get the Dear Leader only exposes his moral bankruptcy. Weak weak weak.
Labour doesn’t seem to understand its own legislation on fox hunting. The measure is not designed to decrease the number of foxes killed - it simply outlaws one way of doing it, namely hunting with hounds.
So if enough foxes are shot, they will be “getting it” under a Labour Government.
42 re McBride/Coulson
Is it the Labour line that Coulson detoxifies McBride, or the Conservative line that McBride gives Coulson a free pass?
Or possibly both, though since McBride has gone, it is only Coulson who needs the barricades erected.
But it would be interesting to know which party is spinning this.
65 - “Thats is exactly how the Tories should have played it.”
You think the Tories were wrong to come to a principled position and tell the public where they stood on it? I can see why you might think that all parties should “play” every policy to their best possible electoral advantage but I’m glad it doesnt happen all the time.
“Polls still show big majorities against hunting and I would guess that is even more so amongst swing voters in the suburbs.”
The very big majority on fox hunting is for those aren’t particularly bothered one way or another.
I suspect its an attempt to stop Labour voters defecting to the Greens. And it wont work because for those who believe in the importance of green issues foxes are a triviality and those disaffected working class voters who are thinking of voting Green are doing so because of economic issues.
Re McBride and lying - During the time I worked at CCO I had to speak to him once about a story we had given to a Sunday paper that McBride was trying to shut down. He told me a barefaced lie to back up the 4-page lying letter he had sent to the paper. Hard to describe the sheer pleasure when we proved the lie two weeks later and the Sunday ran a story to show it.
So when he complains about Coulson not telling the truth, maybe he only counts lies when they are told to your boss. Lies told to other people including the press obviously don’t count.
The poster is a good idea but the execution is awful. Crude and obvious. Pre 1980…..
I can only think it was either put together by Norfolk’s finest-the well kinown ad agency ‘Inbreds’-or alternatively by a Downing St intern’s typist. Wait till the big boys start doing their work…..Cameron will be the target-and a big one!
A minor thing which has been bugging me for months. What is it about mobile phones which makes their users look so callous in photos? Maybe it’s because it helps make them look scheming or devious?
Here is one of the most used photos of Damian McBride
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23721384-details/Fuming+Gordon+Brown+%27speechless%27+when+he+learned+of+email+slurs/article.do
And this was the most used photos of Sir Fred Goodwin
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2009/03/the-news-that-s.html
73 “Gordon Brown was so angry about emails sent by his former adviser slurring senior Conservatives he could not speak, it emerged today.”
Why am I reminded of that 20 second silent pause in the Downfall where Hitler takes off his glasses…?
72 - Roger. Not for the first time, you and I are at one. All power to the Big Boys and their legendary “Tory Toffs” and the “Not Flesh (sp), but Gordon” campaigns that swept all before them.
73 You missed one:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Politics/Pix/pictures/2008/11/21/mandelson.jpg
And if the fox poster doesn’t work, then next time, it’s the puppy:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/25/article-1173592-0022FC6400000258-822_468×340.jpg
72. Perhaps the ‘big boys’ will come up with a leaflet saying:
“Never mind your job - what about foxes?
Forget about the debt - what about foxes?
Who cares about the war - what about foxes?
Vote Labour - a better life for foxes!”
That should do the trick.
73. It’s not the phone but the fact that the third person-the camera-is being excluded and secretiveness looks devious……
I like the leaflet. Its almost as if Labour have a sense of humour after all.
If I were the local tories, I might be tempted to reply.
Photo of smiling teenager. Vote tory or the boy gets knifed.
On reverse.
-Labour stopped hunting foxes with hounds,
-Labour hasn’t stopping stabbing teenagers with knives.
Labour priorities politics
Conservative Priorities, Crime, Education, the Economy
79 - The hand close to the face doesn’t help either. Either the hand looks as if it is balled into a fist raised high or it looks as if the fingers are making gestures.
Even better.
Photo of a rich banker, slogan, vote labour or the banker gets it,
Overleaf,
Only Labour can ensure that bankers get big pensions. The Conservatives are too interested in ordinary people to care.
68 - I’d guess McBrides timing finishes Coulson if he can’t cut it under oath.
Makes it too clear that Daves diligence is lacking.
Osbornes interview yeaterday hints at Coulson being in the past.
83 - I dont think McBride is in a position to finish anyone’s political career any more.
56. More to the point, it’s not exactly rare at the moment for rich parents to buy houses in the uni area, charge their children and a few friends rent for a few years and then sell it on again. I wonder if that could easily be changed to be counted as ‘living at home’ while kids whose parents can’t afford to do that will have to pay rent and tuition fees.
Just doesn’t seem to have been thought through (although it’s not quite the stupidest proposal in recent years, that imho goes to the proposal to make ‘adult’ magazines 18+ only, it is at least up there.)
83 - i’d be amazed if he hadn’t timed this for the day before Coulsons appearance.
It would be one hell of a coincidence.
THE FOX
apologies to the ghost of Burl Ives
The fox went out to Norwich town on a day
When New Labour’s support was melting away
And old Gordon Brown had damm little to say
To the voters of Norwich North-o North-o
Yes Gordon Brown had damm little to say
To the voters of Norwich North-o
So he ran and ran till he got a leaflet done
Then stuffed it in the slots to have some fun
And make Lib Dems and Greens and Tories all run
For the voters of Norwich North-o North-o
And make Lib Dems and Greens and Tories all run
For the voters of Norwich North-o
The fox got some votes for animal rights
Againt hunting his kind in the broad daylight
And he showed that Gordon he was trying to fight
For some votes in Norwich North-o North-o
He showed that Gordon and Mandy were trying to fight
For some votes in Norwich North-o
Chloe Smith was putting her blue rosette on
When she got the word of what was going down
She cried, “Dave, Dave, some of my vote is gone
Cause the fox is in Norwich North-o, North-o
Oh, Cameron and Pickles, some of my vote is gone
Cause the fox is in Norwich North-o
When the fox made it back to Number 10
The Prime Minister was snug in his cozy den
Cause Lord Mandy was up to his tricks again
But Labour’s outfoxed in Norwich North-o North-o
Yes Mandelsons up to his old tricks again
But Labour’s outfoxed in Norwich North-o
82 Your second poster, serf, while amusing, is unlikely to be widely believed!
83 - That’s a very big if. From what we’ve heard so far, Andy Coulson’s evidence should be a walk in the park. All he needs to say is: “Sadly, I was completely unaware of these criminal activities. I was horrified and felt a sense of responsibility, which is why I resigned as editor of the News of the World.” Variants of those two sentences should get him through comfortably all day. The obvious lines of questioning are: “surely you knew what was going on?” and “shouldn’t you have known what was going on?”. You will note that both of those lines of questioning are met by the suggested answer.
The Damian McBride development is interesting. That so much energy is being invested in a lost cause suggests a sense of desperation in the Labour camp.
JohnO. As you know advertisers are humble presenters of selective truth. If this ‘truth’ changes between concept and presentation you cant blame the talented people behind the concept.
‘Not flash-just Gordon’ would have been a masterpiece if Gordon had managed to play his very small part.Who could have predicted he couldn’t even achieve that?
[25] According to Tim Montgomerie, all but one of the Conservative candidates in their winnable seats supports repealing the fox hunting ban.
Personally a heated debate about fox hunting may not be a bad thing- it stops politicians actually doing anything significantly damaging while they reheat this issue for the umpteenth time.
In fact the same survey shows a pretty extreme “class of 2010″ especially with regard to the EU, where the position is more like UKIP than Cameron’s (more trouble ahead on this issue, I think).
I was just watching Bloomberg where they had a brief piece on UK party politics. They flashed up pictures of all three leaders with their poll numbers next to them. Except… instead of Nick Clegg there was a photo of Bill Gates next to the LibDem numbers!
Fox hunting is not an issue in Norwich North. It never was an issue in Norwich North, not even here in the outer edges/villages.
This is hopelessly inept and a sign of the utter desperation in the Labour campaign.
Tim Are you certain that Coulson will have to give evidence under oath (as you KEEP saying)? Here’s what the guide to witnesses says:
When hearing oral evidence, committees have the power to require witnesses to answer questions. In practice, evidence-taking before committees is conducted with a degree of informality and such powers are seldom used. A committee also has power to take
evidence on oath. This rarely happens but, if the procedure is used, witnesses are liable to the laws of perjury.
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/witness.cfm
The strong suspicion must be that foxhunting will be revived as an issue because it is so important to Labour party fundraising. Large animal welfare organisations have put significant sums into the party funds in order to have influence on this issue.
Somewhat surprising that more journalistic investigation did not take place as it is a very interesting example of the fine line between fundraising and corruption.
Its rather funny, but it reminds of the Tory toff situation at C&N. Labour talking to themselves, excluding everyone else.
93 Not that I’m expecting Coulson to lie, but it would be a very partisan thing for a Labour-dominated committee to have his evidence on oath when virtually nobody else does.
One thing that did strike me though - how much longer do the Committees continue to meet when Parliament isn’t sitting? And do they resume their work earlier too?
OGH says there should be POLLS from Populus and IPSOS Mori coming out tonight
http://twitter.com/MikeSmithsonPB/status/2733895207
Normally the ‘under oath’ provision would be irrelevant. Anyone caught telling untruths to a parliamentary committee would be in trouble. In the case of an ex editor of the NOW the threat of a perjury charge is probably the only chance of getting him to change the habits of a lifetime.
97. MORI will be out this morning I think?
97, how super
We’ll actually have a nice idea of where the polls stand, with YouGov, ComRes (no giggling please), Populus and Mori. All we need now is a new ICM.
Anyway, I reckon a Tory lead of 15-16ish seems likely.
Regarding the fox poster: do we have any Norfolk chaps who can confirm or deny that Norwich is a hotbed of anti-hunt rage?
Hmmm… didn’t Gordon Brown, in at least two PMQs, deny any contact with McBride after he resigned?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jul/17/damian-mcbride-smeargate-emails-gordon-brown
93/96 - Whittingdale seems to think the NI people were less than honest last time so I don’t know.
89 - If Coulson knew nowt about owt then he’s in clear.
91
“In fact the same survey shows a pretty extreme “class of 2010″ especially with regard to the EU”
Just to correct that obvious fallacy Cicero. The ‘extreme’ position is that of the Europhiles who wish for us to remain subjugated by the EU.
The mainstream policy supported by both the majority of the British public and by those MPs and candidates who actually care about democracy is for a looser relationship with the EU and perhaps withdrawal entirely.
The days when Euroscepticism was considered extreme are thankfully long gone and it is now the Europhile dinosaurs who are the extremists.
I can’t believe what is being discussed on this site: Unemployment is rising, the country is facing bankruptcy large numbers of school children unable to read and you think Bloody Fox Hunting is an issue. Get Real Wake Up ans stop being so ridiculous !
Is there any evidence to date that suggests that Andy Coulson did know anything? Not even the Guardian journalist went that far.
For this purpose, grammatical analysis of politicians’ words just doesn’t cut it.
The leaflet isn’t that bad. True, it’s not exactly the backbone of an electoral strategy, but it’s somewhat amusing and does grab the attention. It’s the rest of the leaflet that needs a lot of work.
Re: the Calum Cashley electoral map. Can the LDs explain why it needs to be treated with a pinch of salt. From my own knowledge of the euro results, it looks pretty accurate. Link for those who missed it:
http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2009/07/where-was-i.html
98
“In the case of an ex editor of the NOW the threat of a perjury charge is probably the only chance of getting him to change the habits of a lifetime.”
I would have thought that on that score it would be necessary for every Minister to give evidence under oath as the only means of breaking the habits of a lifetime as well.
104, it’s legitimate to reflect on Labour’s campaigning approach. I do think helicopters and debt will be bigger issues than cute little farm pests though.
Morning all and this rather pathetic Labour poster seems to be suggesting that Gordon Brown’s wish to fight the General Election based on “class warfare” is prevailing. Pity there isnt a candidate called Fox. It would be funny to see him/her get more votes than Labour on Thursday.
As for foxhunting, we rural people dont tell you city types how to drink your cafe late in your posh coffee shops so you shouldn’t tell us country folks how to live our lives either. If we want to hunt vermin then we should be able to. I would make every fox lover visit a chicken farm after a visit by a fox or two. I doubt most would keep the contents of their stomachs in for long!
On a more serious note, poor Andy Burnham touring the studios this morning trying to explain why his junior minister’s panic advice yesterday was not contrary to settled Government advice on swine flu just sounded daft. Far more worrying is that leading economists are predicting the effects of swine flu could be a contraction not of 4.5% but 7% in the economy which means very sadly 4 million unemployed here we come.
Re Glasgow NE as I said the other day it is now Labour v Roman Catholic church and the church doesn’t like losing in it’s own heartland of Irish Catholic Glasgow which is what most of Springburn is. This is an area where IRA terrorists used to come to hide in the 1970s and 1980s when things got a bit hot in Ulster.
After the requests last night, I have started re-writing my Scotland GE predictions and instead of 8 sets covering the entire 59 seats I am writing 3 covering the 20 or so seats which will be “up for grabs”, namely the Labour-SNP battlegrounds, the 3/4 way marginals and the other 2 party battles.
109, when you say it’s Labour Vs the Church, do you mean there’s an official church candidate, or a member of a Christian party standing? Do you think they have any prospect of victory?
Accurate in terms of the Euro results, Council House Tory, presented by local councils.
But not really very illuminating in terms of the coming general election and Westminster seats.
Lib Dems in Norwich North grumbling about a Conservative bar chart. It appears to be a real stretcher of reality but there you go, not wrong.
Looks as if they might be gunning for Chloe Smith over her work with the Conservatives Party saying that this is not what she declared on her leaflet. Probably not surprising the Conservatives appear to be loathe to agree to a candidates meeting on TV.
but I like her and suspect she has a very good political future, I said that about Cameron 12 years ago.
Another interesting Lib Dem anecdote,” cavassing in Miles Cross last night and could not find any Labour voters”.Bit bizarre, some must have postal voted and anyway does not say who they are voting for.
Suspect the Lib Dems are catching up at this stage but the Conservatives must have won the postal vote handsomely and should be in by 5000+.
Have a hunch the Labour vote is being undervalued by all the other parties. They can claim second a comparitive success!
104. Wayne, I think its legitimate to discuss. Its really confirmation of what we already knew, which is that Labour are retreating or have retreated to their core and simply talking to each other, rather than with the people.
110 - He’s implying that the official church candidate is the Opus Dei bloke.
How many hunts have been stopped by the Labour legislation? How many foxes were killed in the 10 years prior to the ‘ban’ (which didn’t really ban anything but hey, don’t worry about the details) compared to how many were killed after the legislation was enacted?
The Hunting legislation was dreadfully drafted, passed out of spite rather than any real concern for animal welfare and the police have been instructed not to actively enforce it.
That shows what Labour really think about the issue.
This sort of tactic is typical of their bankrupt thinking and will put even more people off politics
114, ah right. The albino assassin, or am I thinking of someone else?
I’ve also thought:
Vote for me or die
a powerful and underused political slogan.
Wayne. I know the long school holidays are testing times but couldn’t you go and watch the new Harry Potter film? You must have an older sister or brother who can explain it to you.
95. Labour is talking to themselves on this issue. My guess would be that the objective is more about securing second place than securing first.
104. This is a political betting site. There is a by-election later this week. It’s perfectly sensible to discuss what’s happening there as it impacts on the markets which will settle soonest.
104. I’m afraid that’s Morus for you: choosing inane subjects for threads to keep his band (dwindling) of followers happy.
Instead of driving great and lively PBers, (like SeanT) from the site, he should be setting testing threads like, ‘Is Macbride in colusion with the Gardian, re Coulson?’.
But then his left leaning softness shows on every page.
109. Delighted that we will finally see your ‘Opus’ published Easterross! And to celebrate, here is a glimmer of sunshine after the recent Scottish Tory clouds:
ComRes/Independent on Sunday
Westminster voting intention - Scotland
(+/- change from UK GE 2005):
SNP 27% (+9)
Lab 26% (-13)
Con 23% (+6)
LD 16% (-7)
UKIP 4% (+4)
Grn 3% (+2)
BNP 0% (n/c)
oth 2%
http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=471&ver=1
116 “Vote for me or die - a powerful and underused political slogan.”
Outside Zimbabwe. And perhaps Iran…
Maybe “Vote for me - or take a short flight…” - with a picture of some earth-to-space artillery…
Or perhaps “Vote for me - or sleep with the enormo-haddock…”
Speaking of class warfare, LabourList calls for state-provided mediocrity for all:
http://www.labourlist.org/positive-case-for-phasing-out-public-schools-james-gray
I went to a public school (and a private one too
) but not one of those very costly ones. I could afford to go because I got a couple of bursaries (for a good interview with the headmaster and doing reasonably well in the entrance exams). It isn’t just about money, but ability as well.
121, now be honest. I have never stated the enormo-haddock are being engineered for the purposes of frenzied nocturnal activity. They’re to be used primarily for slapping, and possibly for healthy and enormous meals.
119. Have you actually read what Morus has written?
“Whichever it is, I think it’s a missed opportunity. Whether it works, or whether it doesn’t, this issue is at best regional, and isn’t going to be the basis for a national General Election campaign. Norwich North is a decent testing ground for such an experiment - a majority for Labour of about 6,000 over the Conservatives, with non-negligible Lib Dem and Others. This could have been the place to test out new slogans, and an innovative line of attack that (if successful) could be rolled out across the nation. Foxhunting ain’t it”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Labour strategy.
119
where do you get the idea that Morus is leftwing? Compared to you about 99% of this site is left wing admittedly but it is hardly a label most of us would put on him. And as others have already said, it relates directly to a by-election this week and so seesm absolutely legitimate to discuss.
124
Considering that Brown has backed Labour into a corner on just about every policy you can think of, its going to take a genius to design any poster campaign that will seriously affect the outcome.
I’m not suggesting that Morus is a Labour supporter or even a member; just left wing in that fuzzy Obama mode.
119
Of cours if you want to put the time and effort into writinga piece which is good enough for Mike to publish then I am sure he will be glad to do so. Otherwise I would resist attacking those who are doing their best to keep this site going day in day out.
112. The Lib Dem stuff on Chloe Smith’s work is utterly pathetic.
On thread - this isn’t a core vote strategy by Labour, it is much worse than that. This is a strategy aimed at getting their own activists and ultra-hard core supporters to turn up.
From a betting perspective this suggests to me the likelihood of Labour 3rd or 4th is very significant.
126. We discussed Foxes yesterday afternoon; we didn’t need a special thread on the same subject this morning. So sorry.
120 - Whethercock.
Are you worried about your comedy financial predictions being crowded out by a bunch of lefties led by Morus.
Don’t worry, there’ll always be a place for original satire.
http://www.londonstockexchange.com/home/homepage.htm
O/T
Just can’t keep Boris out of the news !!
Mayor of London Boris Johnson will make a guest appearance on BBC soap opera EastEnders later this year.
He will appear in a scene set in the show’s famous Queen Vic pub where he has a run-in with its fiery landlady, Peggy Mitchell, played by Barbara Windsor.
Mr Johnson said: “EastEnders is a true London icon and I was delighted to highlight to its huge audience the part the mayoralty plays in the city’s rich tapestry. It was, of course, a tremendous honour to step inside that most venerable of London landmarks, the Queen Vic, and share a scene with another of the capital’s icons, the fabulous Barbara Windsor.”
The scene will come in an episode showing Peggy, who recently got involved in local politics, enduring a frustrating time trying to track the mayor down during a visit to Walford.
Unable to find him, she returns to the Queen Vic promising to give him a piece of her mind if she ever sees him, when to her surprise he walks in the pub
Pete Hoskin on McPoison
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5195813/spinning-from-beyond-downing-street.thtml
Break the habit of a lifetime weathercock and be nice. Your whole life might change….people will smile at you in shops…..people wont cross the road when they see you coming towards them…. pubs wont empty when you arrive….dogs won’t hide under tables……sheep wont throw themselves over cliffs
127 For their posters, Labour might as well go for the full on Benetton-syle shock tactics. Maybe a white wall covered with vast amounts of bloody arterial spray, with the slogan
“Tory cuts. It’s going to be messy…”
Maybe the Tories could fightback with an image from a liposuction operation. A close up on the newly sucked gunk, with the slogan
“There’s plenty of fat in the system…”
132. Keep laughing tim.
Morning all.
Very telling paragraph in the McBride article:
“I knew I’d have to resign. It was the equivalent of coming home from a night at the pub and being told that the entire time you’ve been chatting with your mates someone’s been recording the conversation.”
In other words, he admits to what we said at the time: that he thinks his only crime was to get caught.
138. More telling still is surely the comment ‘it’s my job’…note the tense…
136, didn’t Labour have bloodied knuckles and a clenched fist during the Crewe and Nantwich by-election?
138, in his mind it was. I imagine that’s why Brown was pissed.
120. Weathercock - “… driving great and lively PBers, (like SeanT) from the site…”
Huh? Please fill me in as I have been largely computerless for 3 weeks: has Sean “bampot” T been barred or something? Shame if true. He was the best comedian on this site by a looooong way.
136 - 50 Ft Poster.
“Please sir, one wants more”
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00748/SNN0602RM_280_748045a.jpg
O/T we should also note the Tories’ excellent announcement today that they will wind up the loathed and incompetent FSA. Thousands of City workers will be raising a glass when this occurs.
Strangely enough though, this announcement has led to a lot of huffing and puffing from Labour mouthpieces like the dreadful Philip Stephens in today’s FT. I wonder why?
136 - I would put good money on lashings of blood appearing on a Labour poster at some point during the general election campaign.
143 - Thousands of City workers will be raising a glass when this occurs.
Now that is a good slogan.
Well done.
111/115 Morris Dancer/Tim, until recently the Roman Catholic church in Glasgow was the Labour party at prayer. When firstly Donald Dewar and then Jack McConnell started to tell the late Cardinal Winning to “keep out of politics” and that Labour would not be pressured into doing what the Roman Catholic church demanded e.g. on abortion and stem-cell research, firstly the late Cardinal Winning and more recently his even more reactionary successors Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Archbishop Mario Conti have been flirting heavily with the SNP.
There are some fairly fundamentalist Roman Catholic MSPs in the SNP like the chap in Falkirk and now with David Kerr, a member of Opus Dei having been picked by the SNP to fight a seat with a large working class Roman Catholic population, the RC church will behind the scenes bring tremendous pressure on its flock to support David Kerr.
141. He went off one, said something to/about Robert and flounced off apparently.
145 Do you really believe in the “lump of labour” (small L) fallacy?
If not, why can’t you see that the FSA signally failed to do anything to either arrest the credit crunch or insulate the City from its effects. In this case what was bad for the City was bad for the economy generally. But if you had left some of the required small print off your emails the FSA would have been down on you like a ton of bricks.
What an incredible waste of voters’ interest. Class warfare didn’t work in Crewe and Nantwich and it won’t work now.
Foxhunting wouldn’t even make the top 20 concerns that voters have right now, yet it’s the only ammunition Labour have got.
134. Thanks MTF
I, like Peter Hoskin of the Spectator, just cannot wait to see Guido’s next post.
146 - Some great potential for posters in that By Election then.
Thrash Kerr. You know he wants it
http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/may2006/odwhip1.jpg
120 - Oh fuck off, weathercock.
Firstly, the subject isn’t inane - what is the Labour strategy at a by-election, why are they not using it to test messaging for the General Election, and why didn’t they put both on the same day. Much like the poster, the fox is simply the hook on which to hang the issue. You’d understand that if you’d read the article.
I’ve been in contact with SeanT and am meeting him for a drink this week I think - he’ll be back when he’s back. I’d love to believe I was able to drive him from the site (not that I ever would), but I don’t think I could.
When I wrote this thread, at 1am, the Guardian wasn’t carrying the McBride story as far as I could tell. I might do something on it this afternoon.
Left-leaning and softness are both relative of course, I can understand that there is a rabid paleo-conservative and S&M-loving brand of right wing thought to which I might not appeal, but there you are: PB.com is a broad church - if you’re not satisfied feel free to apply for a refund. Or just fuck off. Your call.
148. I doubt a more ineffectual and sinecure-stuffed public organisation has existed since the 18th century.
121 Stuart, welcome back and hope you had a good holiday. This Scottish subsample just shows how unreliable all the Scottish subsamples are when the YouGov the other day had the Tories barely in double figures. Apart from our SLD friends most Scots would probably concede since 2007 in Scotland the votes have been stacking up
1) SNP
2) Labour
3) Tory
4) SLD
with the SNP pulling further away, the Tories creeping closer towards a dwindling Labour and the SLD rapidly falling from a very high second in 2005.
152 - Bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut there, old bean. No need for the ‘f’ word. Your legion of fans have already rallied to the flag
121 Stuart interesting that on those numbers Baxter predicts
Labour 29
SNP 11
SLD 10
Tory 9
152
Didn’t you mean to say “Oh for fox sake, weathercock…”
#135, by Roger July 20th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Break the habit of a lifetime weathercock and be nice. Your whole life might change….people will smile at you in shops…..people wont cross the road when they see you coming towards them…. pubs wont empty when you arrive….dogs won’t hide under tables……sheep wont throw themselves over cliffs
Weathercock, is Wodger asking for a date? Go on: you know we’d like to see that happen…!
How about a poster featuring the embodiment of our nation, Britannia herself?
Slogan: “Vote Labour and she gets f**ked.”
One thing in Morus’s original post that hasn’t been explored enough is the question of what is going to be Labour’s prospectus at the next election. What snappy slogan are we going to be asked to vote for?
The best sort of approach that I can think of is along the lines of “Labour: steering you through the storm”. Gordon Brown would make a rather good Captain Onedin.
Bravo Morus! Couldn’t have phrased it better myself. What’s happened to SeanT? It’s a more readable site without him but that’s probably not as widely shared a view as your feelings about weathercock.
“sheep won’t throw themselves over cliffs”
No, they vote Labour instead because they’re stupid and want to be controlled by Farmer Brown.
160. More like Captain Edward Smith I think.
155 - That was the polite-and-regular-sized hammer - though given the preponderance of nuts on PB.com at times, I’m wondering if a sledgehammer wouldn’t be a decent investment.
“Labour: steering you through the storm”
Be fun drawing in the rocks on those posters!!!
133
Of course Windsor is a staunch Tory. When Mrs T was first elected, she along with her then husband, Ronnie Knight, (Tory values personified) were invited to No10, for a celebration party.
‘If you ever need some gold to top up the reserves Maggie, I fink I know where I can lay me ‘ands on some’
McBride on R5 now.
152 - Sorry, but does Paleo Conservatism even exist in the UK, i mean, who’s the equivalent of Pat Robertson in the UK?
And Tim, if you even say Nadine Dorries, you’ll find yourself in a closed meeting with myself, and the the business end of a shotgun.
161 - SeanT’s taking a bit of a break (he’s not blogging at ToffeeWomble any more either - just using it to store photos!) and has been away in the wilds for a couple of weeks. I think he’s returning to civilisation any day now. I have no idea when he’ll be back on PB, but am sure he’ll be back…
McBride still trying to smear. What a scumbag. He said something along the lines of “the content of those emails, I didn’t make it up, I’d been told of every one by journalists in good faith”.
But Labour hasn’t banned fox-hunting with dogs. The hunts are continuing much as before. The only way to stop it was to make the fox a protected species — which they couldn’t do because foxes kills lambs and chickens. So the law had to be riddled with loopholes which the hunts have driven their hounds through. The fox hunting “ban” has been a massive waste of parliamentary time — gesture politics at its worse — and the result has been no real change.
171 - Are you *that* Nick Cohen?
170 R5 doing “Damian McBride - kind to kittens….”
Good Morning Fuc*ing Morus and to Reynard lovers Worldwide !!
Meanwhile …. does anyone else really believe that Mike Smithson is actually on holiday in Spain !!
Indeed intelligence reaches me that a shortish, follicularly challenged, sandal shod, laptop carrying pensioner has been spotted regularly visiting a tanning booth in Bedford mumbling incoherently about poll averaging, the 1992 general election and the Orpington by-election.
M’lud …. I rest my case.
168 - Of course it does - we just don’t give it a mainstream media outlet to infect other people,
There are plenty of paleo-conservatives in the UK - some of them post on PB.com - for whom anything to the left of Tebbit is pinko, and who believe all immigrants and gays are being sent here to damange our national heritage by the EU to break our British resolve, who would bring back corporal and capital punishment for shoplifting, national service for all youngsters, Centrists and Lefties to be shot, colonies to be re-invaded, and the Union Jack flown from every garden in the land.
You’ll find them on every street in England. Most of them read the Daily Mail, and don’t find anything funny in it.
150 Guido has put up a post on his blog. Writ possibility???.. Interesting….
http://order-order.com/2009/07/20/mcbride-ill-get-guido/
It’s not, I think, an official party poster but from the Keep the Ban pressure group which points out that it’s only likely to stay in place if there’s a Labour majority. As the absolutely ideal target for the issue, I’m not sure I like it - it’s too hard-nosed for the emotional animal welfare appeal that is at the heart of anti-hunt campaigners. (I know the arguments on both sides, but we believe that the chase inflicts suffering, regardless of whether the fox is caught - which it relatively rarely is.)
145 tim
Osborne has got this FSA issue absolutely right. Labour supporters seems to think that we need more regulation within the existing flawed framework, but that is wrong. Vince Cable (no less) puts it very well in an interview with the Investors Chronicle:
“I don’t think the issue is more regulation. There was a lot of regulation and it was of a rather mechanical, box-ticking kind. It was quite onerous. The problem was a failure of supervision rather than a lack of regulation“
http://tinyurl.com/nlt89v
175 - Ah the Simon Heffer kind of conservatism.
147. corporeal
SeanT “said something” about the lovely Robert Smithson?!? Is he mad? Robert is the behind the scenes guy who keeps this site running. Never said boo to a goose AFAIAA.
SeanT will be flouncing back one happy day.
I note, a propos of nothing in particular, that SeanT had a novel to finish at the time of his flounce. But then since I thought he would deflounce within two hours, I wouldn’t regard anything I have to say on the subject as particularly reliable.
168 - Nadine is a neo con, it seems from her blog.
Presumably Heffer is the equivalent of Pat Robertson, or Peter Hitchens
177 Nick I wish you spent as much time considering the rights of British citizens who can be extradicted to the USA simply because the US government demands it without having to put any evidence before a British court.
171. Indeed - a pointless piece of legislation aimed at appeasing extremists, grubbing money from dubious sources, wasting public resources and antagonising people who are not Labour supporters….and people who are/were as well.
174
Sounds like Roger to me, not OGH
McBride getting slated by R5 listeners. Wot a pillock
McBride isn’t convincing anyone on R5 judging by the texts they’re reading out.
I can barely tell him and Draper apart - they sound stunningly alike, even the phraseology.
What a surprise
175.”There are plenty of paleo-conservatives in the UK - some of them post on PB.com - for whom anything to the left of Tebbit is pinko, and who believe all immigrants and gays are being sent here to damange our national heritage by the EU to break our British resolve, who would bring back corporal and capital punishment for shoplifting, national service for all youngsters, Centrists and Lefties to be shot, colonies to be re-invaded, and the Union Jack flown from every garden in the land”
Indeed just such a person was poster of the year. Enjoy your drink!
154. I’m still on holiday Easterross. I have nipped home for a few days, so have broadband rather that mobile phone internet. I’ll be flouncing off to the
workcampsummer cottage again quicker than you can say Skeletor is Scary…http://forfar-loon.blogspot.com/2009/03/jim-murphy-intolerant-and-dictatorial.html
178 - Cable was criticising it this morning as shifting desks between Quangos.
Osbornes stuff about lending ratios and the size of banks is of more interest, although they aren’t saying this side of the election.
Cable will trump them on this later today.
178. Labour spin should be:
Osborne: Doing the bidding of his old school chums in the City.
That was my immediate reaction when I heard him on Marr yesterday.
175 Morus. “…. gays are being sent here to damange our national heritage by the EU to break our British resolve..”
Bloody hell !!!! waves of foreign chaps who bat for the other side rampaging through the nation, chanting YMCA and changing the nations taste in floral drapes genital jewelry - The Daily Mail explodes at the thought of a ration of daily male !!
Something oddly mechanical about McBride’s voice. Sounds like on TV when they say “X’s voice has been masked to preserve his anonymity…”
McBride : I’ll Get Guido
http://order-order.com/2009/07/20/mcbride-ill-get-guido/
Interesting to note that McBride is still trying to spin that lobby hacks told him these stories and not one called him a liar, hint hint nudge nudge wink wink about the stories. Also interesting to note, Gordo would never say these stories were false or lies either. Desperately trying to keep the smears alive
192 “Bloody hell !!!! waves of foreign chaps who bat for the other side”
191
Sandy
You’ve spoilt Tim’s next line, very thought less of you.
Damian McBride would have known what reception he would receive, but he has still put himself into the firing line in order to further a cause that he believes in. I don’t like Damian McBride, that goes without saying. But you have to admire his grit, even if you despise the man.
I really can’t believe that Labour thought getting McBride in the media was a clever move.
If it’s some ‘get our dirty washing out now’ before Coulson then I really can’t see how it is going to work.
I’m totally perplexed.
194 - Nadine to sue McBride?
Oh Joy.
24.
“If you are going to do populism, then THAT is the way to do it.”
Makes all that over-hyped hoo-hah about Alan Sugar keeping his show a little lame? Everyone knows the BBC (especially at producer level) is a hotbed of overpaid liberal Tories.
200.
“Nadine to sue McBride”
Bonfire of the vanities for pyromaniac lawyers?
190 - Indeed, Osborne seems to be favouring a return the type of regulatory regime that gave us the Equitable Life fiasco. If anyone believes that shifting regulatory officials from one organisation to another changes anything they need to have their marbles checked.
201. “Everyone knows the BBC (especially at producer level) is a hotbed of overpaid liberal Tories.”
You’re kidding, right?
201 Beating Corrie in the ratings war trumps even leftie bias!
191. Yes I’m sure that kind of Paleo-left wing slogan will be very well received.
196.
“the Aussie Test team ”
Could we keep references to the Anglo-antipodean paint drying championship down here please?
Nadine to sue McBride, given the usual time lines for a libel case, i’d expect a trial around late Q1 2010.
So during an election time.
So during an election campaign, Dorries’s team could call on Gordon Brown, Ed Balls etc to give evidence.
Fcuk me, that would be explosive
Gordon is quick to apologise ‘the 10p tax’ ???
Ha ha ha ha…
McBride: “Gordon Brown has been extremely quick to apologize for things he has been personally responsible for, like 10p tax”.
209 Mr Mcbride, I think that your undergarments may be in a state if combustion…
130.
“The Lib Dem stuff on Chloe Smith’s work is utterly pathetic.”
It is rarely a good idea to boo the principal boy in a panto.
Morning all,
I hope that this ridiculous poster only gets this one mention because in my view digging up a decade old issue that Labour supposedly fixed with a failed solution is an utterly dishonest diversion when the country is in recession etc, etc. The idea that any candidate is only focussing on such minority issues is as ludicrous as the Labour Party are in general. Hence I was so irreverent about it last night. To which I will carry on the theme.
Is the fox actually Lord Rennard? Was it he that Labour kidnapped?
Have hostage negotiators been sent to free the fox?
Has Chris Huhne been on TV doing his ‘Mad Professor’ act yet?
Apologies for the facetiousness but it is all rather pathetic.
All this shows is how irrelevent as a political force Labour are - A minority party, with minority views about minority issues.
208 - Fawkes claims Dorries couldn’t find McBride to serve a writ on him
(leaving aside the obvious jokes about him hiding in her main home) it would seem unlikely.
McBride is aspiring to get back into the civil service!
facetiousness = fascetiousness (doh typo!)
191 Quite so, Sandy. Labour supporters see this as an opportunity to make silly class-based attacks. Osborne is trying to get banking regulation right.
203
From the FT.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/20/62676/george-osborne-clap-trapper/
I assume that isn’t Paul Murphy MP?
210
Thats the 10p rate that was described by the Tories as a, ’silly gimmick’ when it was introduced, is it?
209/210 - don’t you remember it? He apologised for not explaining the brilliance of his decision clearly enough, thus denying us mere mortals the chance to appriciate his economic genius…
214 - Yes does seem kind of amazing, but the Select Committee couldn’t find him either even though he was seen wandering around Westminster still using his lobby pass.
216 “Faecesiousness” would be a useful word - especially when listening to McBride!
198 McBride would have been better advised to keep his head down and stay quiet. Is he a loose cannon? He’s managed to drag the whole sordid tale back into the media spotlight, and restart open warfare with Guido Fawkes. I doubt Draper will be very happy to take all the blame! Judging by the responses on Radio 5, very few believe a word he’s saying.
54.
“FOX ON THE RUN”
Baron Rennard in full flight? Scary!
216, I think you got it right the first time.
Random fact: facetious is one of the few English words to have a single instance of every vowel, in alphabetical order.
McBride is a dead issue.
The toxicity is all but dissipated. McBride can’t be damaged any further and Brown is already known to be a vile, bullying p.o.s.
It got a momentary thawing because of the Guardian/NotW battle, and false comparisons with Coulson/Cameron, but its primary purpose is now as a controllable news item to draw attention away from Afghanistan.
QUESTIONS FOR EVERYONE:
When’s the next poll due out?
And why (to my knowledge) has there only been one poll for Norwich North? Will there be an eve-of-election day poll?
225 “its primary purpose is now as a controllable news item to draw attention away from Afghanistan.”
On the day the death of another soldier there is announced….
208.
“i’d expect a trial around late Q1 2010.”
Anyone got an inside line on a timetable for Sir Robert Atkins MEP’s libel action against News International? Might now be an interesting development on how the NoW could have come by their information on details of Atkins’ taxpayer-funded trip which just happened to take in his son’s wedding in America.
190 tim - In that respect, Cable is speaking rubbish. The point is not shifting desks between quangos, but having one clear line of supervisory responsibility rather than Brown’s tripartite muddle.
This is so clearly right that the only possible reason for Labour not to propose something similar is because to do so would be an admission of Brown’s spectacular blunder in messing up financial regulation back in 1997.
‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ (forthcoming animated movie featuring the voice of George Clooney)
222 EdP I don’t think I heard a single comment that believed him.
Another triumph - I look forward to learning what the point of it was supposed to be.
It was a complete load of nonsense - the most bizarre claim was that he didn’t want the stories published - so why write about a plan to do exactly that??
I wonder if Sarah Brown cried when she read about them?
212 Wage Slave, thats anther contemptible post from you, in fact its repetition a la Tim..
Here is the full McBride interview
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8158737.stm
228 - Wasn’t Atkins another one of those “vetted” and “scrutinised” by Dave the thorough?
O/T But anyone else bricking it like me, thinking the Aussies might just pull this off?
217.
“Osborne is trying to get banking regulation right.” just as soon as he’s mastered the tricycle. Where is he off yachting this year? Or has he run out of Oligarchs anxious to toss him a line?
235 - Yes.
And they deserve to, given that three of their first five wickets were not actually out.
224 - indeed, abstemious and arsenious being the only others I’ve ever heard used.
Question - which is the only word to have all the vowels in reverse order (u,o,i,e,a)?
229. No no Richard, to do so would eliminate a key channel of Labour patronage, with a particularly high profile casualty in the form of ‘Lord’ Turner, a Labour supercreep on a par with ‘Sir’ Ian Blair.
224. MD. Indeed so it’s the brain that’s not in gear rather than the fingers!
;o)
237 - Oh Tim, that’s cricket. In the last test, there were some english batsmen given out, when they werent.
232.
Contempt from someone who praises the woman who needlessly flooded Britain’s billions of pounds of coal reserves is the finest praise of all.
238, although I’ve heard abstemious I’d never registered that fact.
Hmm. I don’t know that.
237 - do you hate everything liked by everyone else?
244, don’t be silly. Like a good worker of Neu Arbeit tim always supports the other team, whether the Aussies or the EU.
244 - No - he’s just an (exceptionally good) wind-up merchant!
245 - MD, are you saying Tim bats for the other side?
241 - Three out of the top five batsmen?
244 - You like bad umpiring?
238.
“abstemious and arsenious”
Politicians and journalists are normally one or the other.
Then there is Frank Field.
Ferry? Doesn’t Mr Smithson know that shipping emits twice the CO2 as flying?
What a shocking dereliction of his duty to the planet for a libdem. Mind you actually leaving the house to enjoy yourself is pretty reactionary for the tree huggers.
217. Richard, behind my soundbite is the message that we should all be concerned if the Chancellor is more concerned with the interests of the investment bankers and their ilk, than those of the tax payers who have had to bail them out because of their little foibles.
As was said up thread, they’ll be raising a glass.
Oh, and why has GO changed his hair?
248 - I do. Particularly when it annoys you.
248.
Lordy Lordy, a trot paint drying fan!
I see Tim seems to be having problem with the truth again,
3 of the first 5 wickets? Which 3 would those be then? The edge to Strauss that may have hit the deck, but from the replays it is impossible to tell one way or the other, then…..cleaned bowled not out in Tim-bot universe? Or the massive edge of the bat carrying to straight to slips hands nowhere near the ground off Swann?
248 - Yes
Nick Cohen isn’t quite right about the ban. According to all the mainstream aninmal welfare groups (e.g. RSPCA and LACS), it’s inconvenient for the hunts and many of them have switched to chasing the scent of foxes already dead from road collisions. That sort of ‘hunting’ doesn’t actually do anyone or anything any harm and although it seems to me revolting that’s a matter of taste. The relative success of the ban is, after all, why the hunts are so keen to get rid of it. Naturally I’d like to see it tightened up so that ‘accidental’ chases of foxes flushed out were also illegal.
254, maybe a nickname beckons… Timmy Ponting?
251.
“why has GO changed his hair?”
A coded message to Chamereon?
251 - Because he trying to look mean.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/5865622/Tories-plan-new-consumer-champion-in-banking-shake-up.html
Which is about as convincing as his attempts at riding a bike.
Or maybe Timmy is talking about 1st Innings, when Ponting was given out caught, but didn’t hit it. The only problem being if he didn’t hit it, he was out LBW!
256. Goodness Nick you really are into self-delusion, aren’t you?
JustanObserver at 226: Two polls expected this evening - shouldn’t think they’ll show a great change from yesterday’s two. There are persistent reports that ICM did a recent NN poll showing the Tories just 4% ahead of Labour (most recently stated as fact in the interview with Charles Clarke yesterday), but as the figures are identical to their poll a month ago, most of us assmue the journos have just got confused.
#245, by Morris Dancer July 20th, 2009 at 10:52 am
244, don’t be silly. Like a good worker of Neu Arbeit tim always supports the other team, whether the Aussies or the EU.
Being bribed with £700,000 p.a. may explain Farmer Tupac’s loyalty. Let’s hope it ain’t from Beckett’s preferred list as I thought the NFU were still trying to get their members’ allocations for CAP…! :frown:
259, I’ll see your Osborne on a bike, and raise you Brown playing tennis:
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_01/BrownTennisPA_600×1012.jpg
Erm … ‘Vote Tory or the chickens get it’
264, same party but I can beat that:
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/uploads/images/Ed%20Balls_p3%231%23.jpg
261. Remember when all the hunting crowd were claiming that they would have to put down hundreds of dogs and horses, and that countless jobs would be lost if the ban came in?
They were fibbing.
McBride - I had all sorts of nicknames; McPoison was one of them. In some ways that was an inevitable consequence of working for Gordon Brown..
267 - That might have been because they found a way to continue hunting within the law and rendering the ban more or less meaningless, don’t you think?
264 - I thought Brown was supposed to be virtually clinically blind , how could he see the ball to hit it?
A poster of a close up (from photo 4) of Brown’s face would make a good campaign poster
267 Or the Ban didn’t work?
264.
“I’ll see your Osborne on a bike,”
The shot the NoW never published?
I’m still waiting for the one of hooker Sophie’s Twickenham ballplay.
267 “They were fibbing.” — no its just that hunting is continuing as before, under the law and is more popular than ever.
freddie strikes
265.
“Vote Tory or the chickens get it’”
In Norfolk isn’t it the Tory turkeys? Which reminds me, wasn’t it in Norfolk that we had the bird flu last year which we were told was inevitably going to sweep Britain? What hapened to it? Or was it just that the government thought that pigs were things which flew?
Well that didn’t take long.
251 Sandy
But that’s exactly the point. Osborne proposes something sensible, indeed unarguably so. The City therefore like it. To a Labour supporter, it follows, as night follows day, that because the City likes it, it must be a bad thing - indeed, some sort of bizarre plot ‘in the interests of investment bankers and their ilk’.
QED.
The irony, of course, is that it was Brown’s foolish tripartite system - which Darling has been forced to retain - which ended up landing the taxpayers with massive bail-out bills.
The Toff strikes again!!
How do i go about nominating Freddie for a peerage?
271 - Why are the Tories so bothered about reversing it?
All wildlife declared safe.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1zLNV2F_hRE/SeHyuXAiKkI/AAAAAAAABXs/Bxon2EROb7k/s400/george+osborne.jpg
The word with the vowels in reverse order is ’sub-continental’.
Now how about the only two Tube stations containing all the vowels (excluding ‘Heathrow Terminal 4′) - or is that too London-centric again?
OK.
The Home Office is downgrading the terror threat from “severe” to “substantial”.
Errr what?
What is the bad news being buried?
274.
“freddie strikes”
A RyanAir baggage worker?
269. They didn’t find a way to continue hunting - they always knew they could drag hunt. They came out with a load of nonsense about killing dogs and horses to try a counter attack on the animal welfare issue. It was bogus. Just like their other arguments - compare and contrast:
1. Hunting with hounds id the most effective way of controlling fox populations.
2. But we on’t actually catch that many foxes
And if they are so bothered about fox numbers, why build artificial sets and put out meat for the foxes to eat to ensure they can bread successfully. I consider hunters as scum, plain and simple.
281, that would be difficult to guess. Maybe I should’ve though, I had subbookkeeping (only word with four pairs of letters consecutively) in my mind.
That’s very London-centric. I’ve never been to London. I’d stand a better chance with Beijing tube stations
Apologies for re entering this debate on fox hunting started last night.Given what you say at 267 what on earth is the point of the Tories resurrecting this one.Hunts have apparently been as popular, if not more popular than ever, attracting people who had never hunted before, with most apparently hunts keeping within the law.
While in itself it may only make a difference on the margins at Norwich and in a GE this debate is likely to galvanise a good number of labourites who may otherwise have sat on their hands during the campaign.
284, so how would you kill foxes?
1) Lamping - dangerous. Two people have been killed in recent years.
2) Poison - a nice, lingering death. Unless they vomit, in which case they survive or die more slowly.
3) Shooting - unless you give farmers sniper rifles they’re likely to maim rather than kill. Another lingering death.
Being torn to shreds might not be pretty but it’s damned quick.
oh dear 237 - “Where is he off yachting this year? Or has he run out of Oligarchs anxious to toss him a line?”
Osborn was holidaying on land . It was Mandelson who was staying overnight on the yacht with the oligarch. Thats Labour Cabinet Minister Lord Sleaze of Rio. I wonder what the offer was that persuaded him to stay overnight?
279.You donate 1/2 Million to Labour and tell them to whom you want to give a title.
281
Mansion House is one.
“Vote Labour or the ID cards get it.”
284 I agree with your sentiments.On last night’s thread I used the term ‘nasty’ to describe the hunting fraternity. Scum is better.
287 - What % of foxes were killed by hunting?
I’d presumed it was a small number, and usually on Bank Holiday weekends.
286. No it won’t.
277.
Nabavi Bollocks. If the downfall of the UK financial system was particularly to do with the tripartide system then there would have been no problems at all in the USA, Germany etc.
The reason that our banks went down the pan was because of the useless nasty selfish Tory twat types who these ‘institutions’ were stuffed with (by Blair, Brown and their Tory mates), who should be strung from the lampposts by their prostatic ligaments along with their apologist Nabavi.
292 - is it dark up there in your own bum?
Well we are really seeing the intellectual side of Labour today, aren’t we? Dave Spartism all round.
Get ready for a 1931-style result, comrades.
284 - As I understand your argument, which I’m not sure that I do really, it boils down to disliking someone else’s pleasure. Why not ban gay sex as well?
295. What a stupid post.
292.That from the vegan, with the plastic shoes…
299. Why single that one out?
The thread last night and today re hunting has been quite stimulating.i think it shows that it is still an emotive issue and perhaps not so naive for labour to bring it up as suggested by some.
296 Not sure. don’t practice yoga.
302, depends if leftists think it matters more than 10p tax or crushing debt.
288.
“Osborn was holidaying on land ”
It’s only his brain that is all at sea? Of course we always beleive Tories about their holiday arrangements, don’t we boys and girls?
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/aug2008/3/7/F0C3F12A-BD60-8CBF-C35E5A653C09492D.jpg
As I recall, Chamereon’s flight from Britain into the Sun(sic) was funded by by the Murdoch dynasty while GideO shacked up with a load of ‘mercahnt bankers’ before he took the Mandy trip. How apt?
Ball bounces in front of Collingwood, who does not claim a catch.
Did he go to a Comprehensive school?
302 - I heartily recommend yoga, It’s very good for you.
295 wage slave
I don’t generally consider your posts worth responding to, for the obvious reason. However, the problems in Germany and Spain, to name a couple, were much less severe than here. For a starter, Northern Rock, B & B and HBOS were all purely domestic problems, which proper supervision would undoubtedly have averted. It is also clear that proper supervision could well have averted RBOS over-stretching itself in the takeover of ABN Amro.
What we do know is that things went wrong. Of course, given the global problems, there were always going to be problems and probably some failures, but for the future, getting regulation right - with a clear line of supervisory responsibility - is self-evidently the way forward.
(Incidentally - anyone who thinks the City is stuffed full of public-school twats nowadays has clearly not had much contact with it recently.)
279 habib,
Lord Freddie vs Mandybum what a prospect
300 Not quite vegan. Buy my shoes from charity shops,so its second hand leather not plastic, for me.Think Morrissey does the same.
298. Strange comparison. Fox hunting compares with cock fighting, dog fighting and the like.
There may be some sexual activities which involve the death of an animal, be these gay or straight I wouldn’t care to say, and these I presume would lead to prosecution under existing animal cruelty legislation.
How on earth did I end up talking about this???
Morning all!
281/290. Damn! Beat me to it!
Anyway, for those who missed it, here’s Damian McBride’s local railway station. I have it in could authority that tim also frequents this stop:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/New_Smeargate_stn_signage.JPG
Satire aside, took more photos at the weekend, although not the usual!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Battery_loco_16_at_West_Ham.JPG
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Excelsior_loco_Great_Whipsnade.JPG
311. “could” authority = “good”!
301.
I recognise we must all defer here to the Brown outpourings of a small bog in the Thames.
309 - Morrissey had some PETA people at his gig in Brixton last night. How can someone so irritating produce such fantastic music?!
There is one thing about mentioning a fox, it quickly brings all the fulminating vermin scurrying out of the cesspit (especially now his highness King Rat McPoison is back from hiding) in Downing Street with their trivial observations.
Until there is a real solution to the fox problem (and I am mildly on the side of the fox on this but am conscious of the libertarian issues in its regard) then I’m not going to get involved in a tedious circular pantomime debate.
So Toodle Pip - I’m off to do something useful.
309, Morrissey’s a dick. If you want to be vegetarian fine, but claiming meat is murder is bullshit.
Incidentally, I can recommend venison burgers. Mmmmm.
310, no it doesn’t. Unless you consider chickens or dogs pests that need to be controlled. Have your chickens been savaged by a bantam recently?
303 it’s all very well to talk about 10p tax and debt but you Tories either are too young to remember or have very short memories of what it was like in the 80’s and 90-’s with high unemployment and mass repossessions.
This fox hunting issue is a sense is trivial by comparison but it does separate many on the left from many on the right.
307. “Incidentally - anyone who thinks the City is stuffed full of public-school twats nowadays has clearly not had much contact with it recently.”
Spot on.
301. He implies that only a few people think that the FSA failed; but the Treasury Select Committee, BoE, politicians from all parties, and even the FSA themselves have said the same. There are disputes about whether abolishing of reforming the FSA is the best action to take, but only a fool thinks that the regulatory regime in the UK was not a significant part of why excess risk was taken by UK banks.
316. Dogs no, but cats for sure. Put them in a sack with a brick, then it’s next stop the canal.
317 - we don’t need to remember it; it’s happening now, only with a mountain of debt behind it as a sort of extra special Labour-infused bonus.
310 - But the foxes are going to die anyway by one means or another. So it’s not about preventing the deaths of foxes.
317, I’m a rightwinger but not a Tory.
Debt has never been higher and we have the highest deficit in the world. After over a decade of growth we should be in great shape.
I do agree with you though about foxhunting. It would be interesting to see how many on the left and right disagree with the standard position.
317.This fox hunting issue is a sense is trivial by comparison
yes, if even vegetarians, who won’t buy their own shoes believe that, I’m not sure Labour are onto a winner here…but we will see.
317. Do you think entirely in cliches?
320, not a fan of cats. But if you catch them savaging your chickens I’d defend your right to shoot them, or indeed chase them on horseback accompanied by hounds. People who don’t control their cats (if they’re prone to killing) can’t bitch if the moggies end up getting savaged by a dog or a few dozen people on horseback.
317 - “either are too young to remember or have very short memories of what it was like in the 80’s and 90-’s with high unemployment and mass repossessions.”
Nobody really need to rely too much on their memory for these things at the moment.
As PB.com’s resident veggie-saurus, I guess I have gone full circle on my views re. hunting. Although I used to be totally, passionately against hunting from a cruelty perspective, I actually wouldn’t mind the ban being lifted from a civil liberties POV. I mean, how many anti-hunt types actually overlook the cruelty of the meat trade?
Morris Dancer@323: “we have the highest deficit in the world.”
???
Would Labour have banned fox hunting if it was perceived to be a working mans hobby?
328. The anti-hunt brigade don’t love animals, they hate (certain types of) people. As some of the comments on here today illustrate nicely.
307.
“Northern Rock, B & B and HBOS were all purely domestic problems,”
I trust no bank allows you to make such unsafe depositions as these!
The lack of regulation of UK banks/BS’s regarding their bundled (bungled?) derivatives was precisely the same as was happening in the UK and the reason for not doing it properly given by Brown Tories (Blue Labour) was precisely the same as given by the US Republicans and extolled by British Tories at the time, who occasionally tried to differentiate themselves in ingratiating themselves to the murderous thieves, who ran (and still run) the banking system, by demanding even less regulation. “Heavier Touch Destroys Enterprise!”. Funnily enough, that same specious argument has been advanced today by bankers worried that GideO might be following Cable down the road of seperating retail and merchant banking.
Incidentally your belief that the Tory twats who stuff our banks, media and politics are all public schoolboys is your own peculiar proclivety, not advanced by me.
Now let’s get back to serious politics. If Chloe Smith does win the by-election in Norwich could she and Andy Burnham make Harry Potter Six and use the profits to pay off the MP’s expenses for the rest of the Millenium?
310. “There may be some sexual activities which involve the death of an animal, be these gay or straight I wouldn’t care to say”
Richard Gere might know. ALLEGEDLY.
“Would Labour have banned fox hunting if it was perceived to be a working mans hobby?”
In my neck of the woods that’s precisely what it is.
330 - Well they banned smoking in pubs and Working Men’s Clubs. From I am from that wasn’t just a hobby for some, it was a profession!
331.
” The anti-hunt brigade don’t love animals, they hate (certain types of) people.”
So you are a member of this brigade?
329, the Tories have stated this previously and the Government hasn’t denied it. Our annual deficit is the largest in the world. It must be because we’re uniquely well-placed to withstand this recession, which started in America.
330 - No they wouldn’t
And the Tories wouldn’t be trying to bring it back.
Its a dog whistle.
On the cricket.
Should England be allowed substitute fielders for Peterson and Flintoff, given they were injured coming into the match.
I like the Labour leaflet. It reminds me of that scene in Blazing Saddles where the black sheriff tells the mob who’ve come to lynch him to go away “or the n*gger gets it”.
188 Actually, two such people were Posters of the Year, in successive years.
334 - that’s the ironic thing. The majority of the people who would have lost livelihoods had the ban not been so easy to skirt around would have been working class. It’s seen as a toff thing because that’s how people identify it; but the vast majority of those involved are working/middle class.
316 Good Lady Marquee Mark makes a ferociously wonderful venison chilli!
336 A number of people who work with animals are quite frank that they don’t like people.
292
No Valleyboy, Scum is a word we use for Labour authoritarians who think they have a right to tell everyone else how to live their lives.
I am still waiting for Timmy Ponting to tell us about these 3 “NOT-OUT” wickets in Australia’s 2nd Innings.
328
I think its the sport bit that gets most people like me.
The meat trade, including halal is an issue which labour have failed to tackle properly.I am sure the Tories will not put it on the top of their agenda either if they get in.
292 / 343 - Dont you both think it’s a word we should try to use as little as possible on pbc?
[326] - not a fan of cats. But if you catch them savaging your chickens I’d defend your right to shoot them, or indeed chase them on horseback accompanied by hounds. People who don’t control their cats (if they’re prone to killing) can’t bitch if the moggies end up getting savaged by a dog or a few dozen people on horseback.
If I can keep my cat out of my bedroom [to prevent the darling waking me up early to be fed] then a keeper of chickens can keep their chickens safe without resorting to hunting, etc.
Violence should never be used to make up for incompetence.
Could I register my protest about some of the vitriol today? I don’t like seeing people of any type described as scum and I don’t like people fantasising about anyone, let alone excellent posters on this site, being strung up.
346.Are you related to the Editor?
345, interesting that you raise halal. Must confess I don’t know what it entails, nor kosher food. But if it does involve unnecessary suffering I’d have no problem banning it in the UK. Of course, that would probably prompt marches with “Death to the West” placards.
“Morrissey had some PETA people at his gig in Brixton last night. How can someone so irritating produce such fantastic music?!”
Morrissey makes fantastic music? Not since The Smiths split up he hasn’t.
PETA are the Tsunayoshi Tokugawas of the 21st century. (Google and Wikipedia are your friends.) Admittedly they haven’t brought about nationwide economic and agricultural crisis, as Shogun Tsunayoshi did, but give ‘em time…
A very dirty campaign from Labour and please don’t take it to be anything special. I know of occasions when Labour have accused opposition candidates of trying to open Brothels in an area and the latest Labour dirty leaflets destroyed the reputation of a local charity run school.
Clearly Labour are dirty campaigners but its not like the Tories are any better they even had dirty leaflets which I will go into more detail with at a later stage.
346 - snap.
348 Seconded. It doesn’t show the site in its best light.
But then “Potty Mouth” Morus should be sent to the naughty step too!
338
Try learning the rules of the game before you criticise Timbot. Any fielder can be substituted for an injury or illness whether or not they had it going into the game.
And as far as Flintoff is concerned it is not to England’s advantage to have him off the field for long since it then restricts when he can bowl when he comes back on.
317 we remember it only too well which is why we have despaired since 2001 when Gordon Brown opened the piggy bank floodgates and failed to learn the lessons of Nigel Lawson over inflating the economy.
We also remember 1978 when vermin roamed every street corner due to the trade unions trying to hold the country to ransom and the last Labour government trying to bankrupt the country. Only difference is this time Gordon brown has succeeded and those of us old enough to remember the 1970s and 1980s will no longer be wealthy enough to retire because Gordon Brown has robbed our pension funds of £125 billion to part fund his public spending splurge and we are not lucky enough to work in the public sector with its final salary pension schemes.
Perhaps offenders could be slapped with micro-haddock?
351 - “Everyday Is Like Sunday” is up there with the Smiths stuff.
Bonjour,
Un grand bravo pour votre place au top50
Voici le lien pour voir ce classement :
http://www.lameilleureinfo.fr/top-50-des-blogs-europeens/
Encore Bravo !
Guy
355 - You also missed the part about it is ultimately the umpires decision to allow the substitution.
354 - Morus’s post made me go quivery. But I can understand his annoyance. In our host’s semi-absence, we have been provided with a succession of excellent articles, but in the main, frankly, those posting comments have not lived up to the standards set down by the original posters. To see a good main piece on the Norwich North by-election get savaged was well beyond discourteous.
358 “First of the Gang to Die” is up there too…
348. Antifrank - unpleasant as it is, I think it’s very revealing.
349 - No relation, no. Just enjoy the site when it’s at its civil best.
351 - “Not since The Smiths split up he hasn’t.”
You’re missing out on some very fine solo albums if you dismiss everything he’s done since The Smiths (and, anyway, there is still the legacy of The Smiths!).
You Are My Quarry is an excellent album. I still regularly listen to it, and I’m not a huge Smiths/Morrissey fan.
362, like a Jacqui Smith striptease then.
And having thrown that glass of mental acid into everybody’s eyes, I’m off for lunch.
358 I think a case can be made for wheeling out the full enormo-haddock…
359
Of course, that has always been the case even back when ‘pee breaks’ were allowed. Interestingly now that they are banned I do wonder what happens if someone gets absolutely desperate. Do they feign an injury so they can go to the loo?
355 - Stressful housemove I suspect.
1. Substitutes and runners
(a) If the umpires are satisfied that a player has been injured or become ill after the nomination of the players, they shall allow that player to have
(i) a substitute acting instead of him in the field.
(ii) a runner when batting.
Any injury or illness that occurs at any time after the nomination of the players until the conclusion of the match shall be allowable, irrespective of whether play is in progress or not.
http://www.lords.org/laws-and-spirit/laws-of-cricket/laws/law-2-substitutes-and-runners-batsman-or-fielder-leaving-the-field-batsman-retiring-batsman-commencing-innings,28,AR.html
Talking about sub fielders, obviously the most famous one from recent Ashes history was Gary Pratt, with his crucial run out of Timmy, I mean Ricky Ponting. Apparently fell out the professional game within a year of that Ashes series, and according to wiki (so obvious warnings about that) now runs a self storage company.
355 Not according to discussion regarding Pietersen’s injury on TMS - they said that while the “spirit of cricket” was that fielders could be substituted even if injury was known about before the game it was still only with agreement of the opposing captain according to the rules. Point arose that it was “within the spirit” for Ponting to refuse Pietersen a runner as a batsman playing with a known injury whereas for an injury occurring during a match it would be outside the spirit to refuse a runner, then discussion went on to substituting Pietersen as fielder.
O/T:
Whipsnade station? With my reputation?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=Sunil060902+Whipsnade&go=Go
Clarke gone!!!
Clarke out
369. Now plays his cricket in Bishop Auckland.
Clarke out!!!
Still waiting for Ricky to tell us about these 3 “NOT OUT” Wickets. Yesterday I seem to remember it being as high as 4.
“Michael Clarke is an excepional player of spin….”
“got him!”
Commentators curse strikes again!
369, was that the famous:
Ponting - Run Out - Pratt
?
367.
“Do they feign an injury so they can go to the loo?”
John Arlott says: “A crude stroke towards the misplaced short leg results in it splashing past the slip and trickling through the field off his boot.” Don’t get me on to the Irish Third Man problem.
Please Mike, these people are turning this site into paintdrying.com !”
378 - Yes,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/5750443/The-Ashes-England-super-sub-Gary-Pratt-recalls-the-day-he-ran-out-Ricky-Ponting.html
Cricket = boring! TMS = tedious match special!
Football…must have football…
Tennis…must have tennis…
As an indication of how slow the BBC “live text commentary” is, I have resorted to having the betfair market on my screen and knew something had happened as Australia suddenly went out to 20-1. Nothing on the BBC, so I came here to see that Clarke was out.
BBC just updated now.
348.
“I don’t like seeing people of any type described as scum”
And I don’t like seeing scum of any type described as people. I am sure that Richard knows full well that I would not REALLY have him strung up from the lampposts. He might shield some of the bankers from the rotten cabbages.
382 I assume there must be some reason why you can’t just go to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live_sports_extra
383. It was 20 years ago that the people of Eastern Europe rejected socialism!
So, 150 runs, 2 and a bit session, and three batsmen (all of whom are pretty handy with the bat) to go. Is it treasonous of me to hope this goes down to the wire?
383 - Does your angry button not have an off setting?
In the nicest way possible, DAMN some of you people!
When you said “Clarke gone!” I thought Norwich South MP Charles Clarke had decided to resign as an MP!
Blast, what a waste of an increased heartbeat!
game over
Freddie for King
388 - Now THAT would be a by-election and a half!
389 - Don’t say things like that, remember Edgbaston 2005, now go outside, and curse and spit 3 times.
391. I know!
384 - I’m at work, so can’t really have the volume on.
I have, however, just remembered that Sky are allowing subscribers free web video access this month, so I’m going to try that out. Not a great success so far.
Some very strange arguments by the usually logical antifrank. ‘Foxes are going to die anyway so why not hunt them’ and ‘it gives a minority pleasure like gay sex so why ban it?’
Can the real antifrank please stand up. This one is morphing into Martin Day and Wayne
392 - he’s temping the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing…
Authoritarians of any political and/or religious kind = scum
Denying that is like telling patients they can’t call cancer painful.
170.”McBride still trying to smear. What a scumbag. He said something along the lines of “the content of those emails, I didn’t make it up, I’d been told of every one by journalists in good faith”.”
wibbler, agreed. Was this radio interview live or recorded, if the latter, why?
395 - I haven’t included a single exclamation mark or smiley. Likenesses between Neil Kinnock and the current third party leader have been scrupulously avoided. No doubt Mr Day is consulting his learned friends about the comparison even as I write.
I do find it difficult to understand why anyone would want to ban fox hunting. It’s not about killing foxes, because supporters of a ban accept that foxes have to be killed. So what exactly is it about? I am genuinely completely foxed (badoom tish).
Morris Dancer@337: “the Tories have stated this previously and the Government hasn’t denied it. Our annual deficit is the largest in the world. “
I was hoping for a slightly more concrete source for this exceedingly bold claim than “the Tories have said it and the government haven’t denied it [that Morris Dancer has heard]“. Hard to think how you could possibly come up with a basis for the UK out-borrowing Japan this year. (I’m guessing it would probably involve something like including all the banking debts the UK government had made itself responsible for as “borrowing”, and not doing the same for the US.)
396 - He is.
I speak from considerable personal experience on this issue sine the ban I have been out with a large number of hunts both in Oxfordshire (mainly beagling) and the South-West (regular fox-hunting as popoularly percieved with red coats, horses etc). So to answer some of your points and ask Nick Palmer a (hoefully civil question).
310 (and before)- Sandy Rentool- you are living under a considerable illusion if you think the hunts have re-invented themselves as drag hunts. They are, as others have indicated, operating much as before. In fact in most areas of the country dra-hunting is impossible as it requires much larger tracts of land than fox-hunting. It is also really only accessible to all those except with the best (most expensive) sport horses- fox-hunting can be enjoyed by children and others on old,inexpensive and slow ponies/horses. Furthermore fox-hunting is a specator sport for followers in cars while drag hunting is not.
256- Nick Palmer. I think you are right that some hunts in more densely populated parts of the country (e.g. the home counties) mainly have found the ban an inhibition- however to be honest hunting was becoming increasingly impractical in those areas anyway and, I would argue, it just accelerated the inevitable. In less densely populated areas it continues unabated, just as before-I have not experinced a single hunt in the South-West where the huntsman has not pursued anything other than a live fox.
I was slightly surprised by your claim that the animal suffers whether or not it gets caught. My belief ahs always been that the if the animal is not caught it does not suffer any lasting damage and indeed is very succesful at evading capturein the future (a fox or a hare which has been hunted on a previous occasion has always, in my experience, proved virtually impossible to kill on a subsequent attempt to hunt it). I just wondered what your evidence was for this?
I freely acknowledge incidentally that the prey animal does experince some suffering when it is succesfully caught. You may not believe this but I have rigourously examined my consience on this issue over the years and sought to read all the available evidence as well as considerig it from a philsophical perspective (I accept that not all hunters do this by a long chalk!). I wouldn’t do it if I did not think that logic was on my side- you have obviously come to a different conclusion and I hope we can remain civil about this.
Justanobserver at 388 - exactly. Reminds me of when the tabloids kept having headlines about Kerry and pb.comers thought they were talking about the American politician. (And what’s the Dr Zhivago heroine been doing playing cricket, anyway?)
398 ChristinaD
It was recorded… it was probably too long to be done live. The full interview is available though (see my link at 233).
I thought the interviewer did very well. He pressed McBride on difficult points, but still gave him enough room to damn himself.
I’m a big fan of the long interview format. Straight Talk is amazing.
I never quite realised how stupidly this terror threat level thing works:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/5870240/Britains-terror-threat-downgraded.html
If you look at the examples, the last two times it went up was after an incident. Now, surely, right after a terrorist incident is the least likely time to expect a terrorist incident? It’s like how the safest statistical time to fly on a plane is immediately after a plane crash…
9 down…Pfeiffer for Freddie!
Super Fred - 5 wickets at Lords for first time on last appearance.
399.antifrank, it was a class war act by the Labour party. And Blair used the issue in Parliament every time he was put in a difficult spot with the PLP and the Labour party. As I said last night, this governments poor skills at legislating struck again.
First Test Michelle at Lord’s for Freddie at the last attempt.
402 perhaps I should check my spelling and punctuation as rigorously as I examine my conscience! Sorry folks!
408 - Well I understand that! But clearly many people have genuine passionate objections to foxhunting. I really don’t understand exactly what they are though.
Can’t believe you saddoes are on here when the cricket is on
405 - July 2005 rather gives the lie to your theory.
1-Hat-tip to me for the link
405 - “Now, surely, right after a terrorist incident is the least likely time to expect a terrorist incident?”
Erm, 7 July 2005 and 21 July 2005?
I think the reasoning, as with those, is that separate cells accelerate their plans for fear that they will be uncovered as part of the investigation into the previous cell.
Daily Mail - Damian McBride admits Brown and Blairite spin battle as he breaks silence over email smears
“Mr McBride is hoping to resume his career in the Civil Service and said he thinks there is ‘all to play for’ in the next General Election.
He said: ‘Momentum and the political sands can shift incredibly quickly and I think, from that point of view, I wouldn’t rule out anything happening over the next year, no matter what the polls say at the moment.
‘I would just say it looks to me like one of those elections where it’s all to play for.’”
I have been half-expecting the possibility of a terrorist attack this month. We had two attempts (one successful) in July 2005 and two attempts in July 2007. Sorry to be so grim.
411
Unless they are vegans they are entirely illogical. It annoys me that people pretend to be concerned about animal welfare but still buy their £2 chickens at Tesco and would runa mile if asked to actually kill and prepare the meat they buy from the supermarket.
A vegan I would have respect for as they have the courage of their convictions - even if I believe they are wrong. Anyone else who opposes fox hunting or shooting is just a hypocrite.
On the leaflet, apart from an attempt to sure up the base (be that voters or activists), the other principle aim for Labour from it will be to distract the Tories - as this thread has amply demonstrated.
On the cricket, there weren’t many of us on Saturday morning who said Strauss called it right with the follow-on but I still stand by my support for that decision.
On the tube stations, which was the other one apart from Mansion House?
416, is he referring to electoral victory, or the possibility of a highly unexpected result which no-one could have predicted and which will see Labour achieve a brilliant tippex-stained victory?
418- Exactly- that, in a nutshell, is my reason for carrying on hunting.
413 - actually, it doesn’t. Those attacks were a fortnight after the originals.
Look at the Glasgow airport attack - it was at the highest level for 4 days, then it went down again.
How you interpret the ‘period immeditately afterwards’ is I suppose a matter of interpretation. But so far the periods at the highest level of alert appear to have matched up with the periods of such frantic police and intelligence activity that staging an attack would actually be more difficult.
It’s not a major issue btw, I just thought it was a bit silly.
399. It boils down to cruelty to animals and more importantly whether an animals death should be sport. Surely we should have evolved beyond getting pleasure from seeing one animal ripping another apart? When we look back on bear baiting dog fighting and remember the vast crowds that watched public executions doesn’t it now seem barbaric even though spectator participation didn’t affect the result??
1-0 to the Ing-er-lund!
Well done England. No mean achievement to get a result at Lords!
Now, once and for all, can we close down the argument by saying Strauss was entirely correct in his decision not to enforce the follow on????
Supreme victory and humiliation for Ricky Ponting. Mwahahaha!
419 - South Ealing?
422 - Surely the reason is as stated, that if you’re a terrorist cell, you’ll accelerate your plans if at all possible? Your plane crash analogy just doesn’t have the same logic.
Ponting interview should be fun…
Fredolo = hero!!!!!!!!
There you go! I said it was a result wicket.
430 BBC Weather forecast = Neil Kinnock!
Fantastic result. Well done England and brilliant from Fred. A great way to finish your last test at Lords.
Roger July 20th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Roger =
You seem to have been away Roger recently?!!!
I always miss your funny comments as you make me laugh when ever i read your contributions!
428, will he blame the umpires? Is he tim’s older brother? Are the breweries already preparing for Flintoff’s shenanigans should England win?
“Flintoff Best” would be a good name for an ale…
425. MM.
Amen to that.
420.Morris, as I said last night, I think Brown and his team have lost the plot. McBride wasn’t just important to Brown, but also to Balls. That scandal has been one of the most damaging moments for Brown this year, and McBride is still at it in that Guardian article and the 5 Live interview.
McBride has not been able to be found since it happened, then up he pops on a Monday morning in more than one media outlet as Parliament heads into recess. Reading Iain Dale’s view this morning, I thought that he got the reasons for his sudden reappearance wrong. McBride wants back into the job, and he has spotted what he sees a window of opportunity.
Iain Dale - McBride Starts Auction for His Diaries
Some of us recall England’s last win against the Aussies at Lords !!
Jack W is 106 not out !!
427 - fine. I don’t want to argue
428 - it’ll be Duncan Fletcher’s fault, no doubt.
So, England can only beat Australia at Lords when there’s an unpopular Scottish one-time socialist PM who lead his country into a deep recession and who’s about to be replaced the following year by a Tory.
435 MM. Or Ponting’s Best Bitter !!
431. Marquee Mark July 20th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
That Darren Corbitt makes me laugh! He is funny!
Hypnotic! He quite often talks about washing machines and clothes lines and parkers about the weather!
When i see his weather forecasts i think - I’ll have some of what he has been taking!
406 equals the 15th-highest ever fourth-innings score in a Test.
424. Time for a celebratory Gin and Dubonnet, as supped by the Queen of Australia!
431 PMSL!
Couldn’t agree more, MM.
So i wonder what the GDP figures will be for the Second Quarter of 2009?
The ONS release calander says it is the Friday 24th July 2009! Should be interesting 0.5% contraction for Q209 is my thinking.
444, I was always certain that Her Majesty would see her dominion victorious.
Post match Interviews just about to start
423 - Hanging is barbaric - the presence of the public is neither here nor there. Bear-baiting and dog-fighting involved the deaths of animals where there was not a separate public interest in keeping those animals’ populations down.
Your main objection is that someone derives pleasure from the animal’s death. Now, leaving aside the fact that fox hunters often claim that it is the thrill of the chase that they enjoy, let us take you as correct on this point. You may have evolved beyond the pleasure of seeing one animal rip another apart, and I can’t imagine enjoying it (I have never so much as sat on the back of a horse, so for me this is an entirely intellectual exercise), but there are many things in life which I find repellent or distasteful but which I would not ban. I could make a better case for banning fireworks, which cause numerous injuries every year, than for banning fox hunting.
I can see no logical distinction between banning fox hunting and banning gay sex, which many others find repellent and in some way immoral. Now, I happen to enjoy gay sex rather a lot and would ignore any law that sought to ban it. I expect that fox hunters feel much the same way about their misunderstood pleasure.
mac u at 402 - thank you for your very reasonable question. I don’t think there’s any evidence (or indeed likelihood) of *lasting* physical damage from the pursuit. There was an attempt to measure the stress levels, though IIRC it was done in deer by assessing physiological data associated with extreme stress in animals shot after pursuit compared with animals shot without pursuit: this showed a large increase in stress, as I think one would expect.
The case against hunting as far as I’m concerned is that it’s admittedly ineffective in fox control (I’ve debated with a huntsman who claimed he’d not actually seen a fox caught in 20 years - an exaggeration, I suspect, but I think the hunts concede it’s not the main cause of fox death) and it seems to me extremely likely that the pursuit causes terror, and the kill obviously more so. So what it comes down to is a sport which causes suffering for little practical benefit. The comparison with bull-fighting seems valid.
I’m not at all influenced by dislike of huntsmen, class envy or the like, as suggested by Christina - my father hunted and gave it up after he concluded that it did cause suffering; my uncle continued all his active life (his view: ‘I admit it’s probably not very nice for the fox but it’s such a glorious spectacle and as we eat meat we can’t be too fussy’) and was on the Countryside Alliance march. And of course it’s not the main area of animal suffering - intensive farming and the more extreme lab experiments are far worse. But unlike those it’s not actually achieving anything except giving people an exciting day out, and perhaps you could reflect further whether that is enough justification?
Hope that’s a serious reply to a very civil question. The alternative? Well, option A is actually to do nothing else that’s not already done - as hunting is not the major form of control, it won’t make much difference. Option B is lamping, which goes on anyway and will normally produce a fast death - as Morris points out, this occasionally causes accidents, like any form of shooting, but it’s legal now and I’m not proposing to change that.
Edmund in Tokyo:
Re MorrisDancer’s claim. He is referring to budget defecit rather than total government debt and I assume his statement is based on news reports like this - http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1016532.shtml . It is only projected 2009 budget defecit rather than actual so things could change.
G20 average: 6.6%
UK: 9.8% (to 10.9% in 2010)
Japan: 9.6%
US: 8.8%
France: 6.5%
Germany: 6.1%
437-”McBride also confirmed he has kept an account of the weeks following his resignation and did not rule out publishing the diary. He begins a job as business liaison officer at his old school, Finchley Catholic High, in north London in a week’s time.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/20/damian-mcbride-resignation-gordon-brown
440. I bet Mike’s next thread will be titled ‘Will Gordon see an Ashes bounce?’
I think I can guess the answer in advance, too…
440. David Herdson.
Great spot!
Who is doing Sarah Brown’s PR ? They are working a treat.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8155377.stm
Whether it is hanging out with supermodel Naomi Campbell at Glastonbury, getting in with the crowds at Gay Pride, or posing with Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney, Sarah Brown’s diary has its fair share of celebrity and glamour.
O/T.
The Labour Stench Goverment quickly sneak in the enoblement of sugar before they all bugger off for 83 days holiday. No doub’t Roger & his socialist loonies will approve, even though the principle of bringing all these unellected peers into the Government would have the raving loony socialist’s ranting if the tories did it. Bunch of Hypocrites all of them…
456, Lord Sugar of Brown-nosing?
453. I think the Ashes question is interesting - Personally i can only see Gordons career end soon in smoke! Maybe the only Ashes Bounce Gordon will get is if Balls drops the urn after the
http://delivernothinglabourparty.blogspot.com/2009/06/gordon-brown-up-in-smoke.html
453. Gordon would be a desperate man indeed if he thought he could benefit from us winning the Ashes.
459 - didn’t Blair have the squad over for lemon squash and cheap crisps in 2005?
I can certainly imagine Brown doing the same. Heck, he’d Knight them all…
well done England. 3 draws to go.
Nick Palmer MP - shame on you over Gary McKinnon.
462. Edgebaston makes Cardiff look like Sabina Park. The Oval is a dust bowl - just need rain in Leeds.
423 Roger “It boils down to cruelty to animals and more importantly whether an animals death should be sport. ”
That might be a reasonable view if it were applied uniformly, to angling and shooting for example, AND if it were a consensus view.
However - the key point is that imposing your views on a sizeable minority of clearly perfectly decent people is unacceptable. You can agree to disagree on this, just as vegetarians and meat-eaters can agree to disagree. There is no need to attempt to impose your views on others, especially given the immense cultural and social importance of fox-hunting. What you have to understand (I didn’t until I moved to rural Sussex) is that for some people fox-hunting is almost the most important thing in their lives, and is part of a traditional rural culture which goes back many generations. It should therefore be treated with a similar degree of respect as is given to traditional religious and ethnic customs.
But of course authoritarian Labour hates the traditional culture of this country, whilst bending over backwards to accomodate all other cultures.
461 - He did, and was called a knob by Matthew Hoggard
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article192810.ece
“Peter Mandelson will not be Labour leader”
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2009/07/peter-mandelson-will-not-be-labour-leader.html
464, when’s it being played in Leeds? It’s a nice day today but we’ve had heavyish rain over the last few days.
456 - re: the Sarah Brown piece:
It is a charge Sarah Brown’s friend Kathy Lette denies.
“There has been some speculation in the press that the Labour Party are using her like some sort of stealth missile, but Sarah is a great communicator… it’s just with something like twitter it makes it more open and more accessible,” she said”
Is she? I’ve never actually heard her speak, with the exception of the fawning nonsense at the Labour conference last year. She always seems to just stand around with famous people, or hover around Gordon when he’s trying to look statesmanlike. There’s a word for that sort of thing, which I think begins with ‘p’ and ends in ‘rop’…
466, you can trust a Yorkshireman and a Loiner to tell it like it is.
Re Fox Leaflet - a desperate re-hash of failing tactics by a losing party running out of any ideas. Doomed to complete failure as the sensible thinkers in Labour will know. One wonders if Labour really exist anymore as a serious, sensible political party.
468 - Not until 7 August. It’s Edgbaston before that on 30 July.
468. 7-10th August (I’ll be there).
468 - MD, it’s being played on Friday 7th of August, through to the 11th of August.
And I’ll be there.
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/sir_alan_sugar_to_get_peerage_today.html
472-474, cheers. The odds on rain must be reasonably high. We’ve had heavy rain on and off for months now.
468. Morris Dancer.
http://www.cricinfo.com/engvaus2009/content/series/345967.html?template=fixtures
30/7 Edgbaston
7/8 Headingley
20/8 The Oval
467 - Why did that article have to go any further than pointing out that the Moggster had backed the idea. And what does it say about politics today that an article pointing out that Mandelson will never lead the Labour party even has to be written?!
459 Morris,
Or Brown Sugar - surely a euphemism for something
468. 7th-11th August. I hopefully have a ticket for the fourth day so it bloody well better not rain!
“McBride and the omertà of Team Brown”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5196103/mcbride-and-the-omert-of-team-brown.thtml
So far I make it, 3 of us (including myself) are going to the Headingley match.
PB meet anyone?
480, hehehehe. I wouldn’t bet on it.
426. No. He got lucky in that despite forecasts for rain they didn’t lose any time to it
Dave goes all out in Norwich North
The Tories reckon they will take Norwich North with a majority of 3000, but with a big margin either way.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100003930/dave-goes-all-out-in-norwich-north/
479 - If Keith Richards it to be believed Brown sugar is a euphemism of the following
“interracial 5ex, cunnilingus, slave rhape, and less distinctly, sadomasoch1sm, lost v1rginity, and her0in use.”
And if this gets past the spam filter, i’ll be amazed
476 - Don’t pray for rain. We will almost certainly need to win at least one more Test to take this series and have a decent record at Headingley. Let’s instead hope for fine weather and another fine performance!
484 - There was bags of time and it was absolutely the right decision.
New Thread up
486 habib - well done
(I already knew that)
424
‘It boils down to cruelty to animals’
Roger,
Are you therefore against halal slaughter which routinely subjects thousands of animals to severe cruelty everyday?
Or just selective with your animal welfare?
Same question to the self proclaimed animal rights campaigner Nick Palmer MP.
485 - “The Tories reckon they will take Norwich North with a majority of 3000″
Translation, Tories expect to win by at least 6,000. May be value in 5/6 available on a vote of over 41% at Ladbrokes.
Similarly, Labour’s “we might come fourth” means “we won’t come fourth but are slightly worried about third”.
481.Me, Matthew d’Ancona nails it on the head with that article.
485 - Do not make the mistake of ruling out April Pond and her team. Very sharp, very bright, could well have already pipped labour to second and then it is game on for the top spot.
489 - Sorry, it’s just the Stones are my favourite band in the world, and i’m still amazed at the people who don’t realise what “Start me up” is really about.
451
So what it comes down to is a sport which causes suffering for little practical benefit’
So what action if any, have you taken to stop the widely achnowledged cruely to thousands of animals everyday, caused by the halal slaughter?
491 - Nail hit on head there.
494 - It’s about a car isn’t it ?
497 - Well a motorbike
Nice one, which one. A Kawasaki ? Suzuki ?
Don’t underestimate Labour, Morus. They could never win this - so expectation management has been key. Weak, London based candidate with - horrors - a forrin sounding name. This is probably part of the ploy. I’d even wager the leafleters were told to leave these flapping out of the letterboxes for the Tories to come, pick them back out again, and swallow the bait.
Either that or Labour are so low on support, their campaign is being run by the spotty 20-something graduates, fresh from the Labour Club and the Student Union and the internship in Norman Shaw over summer, now working in a think tank or Victoria Street, who really thinks this is Labour’s future. You know the type.