Ah Polly

Fairness and recovery, Vince Cable? No, only balderdash and mendacity

At the Liberal Democrat conference, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg talked like the Tory captives they are

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/19/fairness-recovery-vince-cable-balderdash

This is a bit of a shocker for Labour. Scunthorpe enters the Conservative column with the UKPR notionals:

Con: 17,596
Lab: 16,489
LD: 8,004
UKIP: 2,064
BNP: 1,716

She grew up at Normanby Hall, which is 5 miles from Scunthorpe.

Ah, that’s the place, thanks!

215 – Why we have to be nice to the Lib Dems.

That’s funny! however i was just about to link to some of his shots and looking at them again….and in todays climate they might cause a few problems..

217 – Congress in America and Israel are making all sorts of ominous threats to the Palestinian State if they push for statehood.

Obama is set to veto their application at the Security Council and is hoping that the UK will join them.

But their party is in Government. They endorsed the LibDems at the General Election. Why arent they happy?

I don’t think using YouGov, which is the least accurate pollster, especially when it comes to the Lib Dems, is particularly useful.

I much prefer the Populus last week.

If Israel isn’t careful, the Palestinians may decide they’d much rather have the State of Israel, rather than their own state.

Differential birth rates and all that jazz.

Looks like Tim Farron is being heavily briefed against in the Times

Clegg allies shoot down president’s talk of ‘divorce’ from the Tories

Senior Liberal Democrats turned on the party’s president yesterday for talking up suggestions that a “divorce” from the Conservatives might be sought in the months leading up to the next election.

Allies of Nick Clegg took to the airwaves to insist that the coalition would hold together until 2015, after Tim Farron, who was elected president at the start of the year, suggested a “divorce” as early as 2014.

Privately, however, Mr Clegg’s allies admitted that they would have to do more to address unease over how the coalition will function in the final year of the Parliament.

Trevors_Den is an acolyte of economic failure.

Labour lead by 6: YouGov/Sun results 19th Sept CON 36%, LAB 42%, LD 10%; APPROVAL -28

Nick Clegg has proved himself to be a good leader of the Liberal Democrats
Agree: 24%
Disagree: 51%
Don’t Know: 25%

Being part of the Coalition Government will mean the end of the Liberal Democrat party in the long run
Agree: 39%
Disagree: 30%
Don’t Know: 31%

The Liberal Democrats would be more popular if they replaced Nick Clegg as leader
Agree: 28%
Disagree: 39%
Don’t Know: 34%

Cable might be a captive of the Tories but is Clegg? Peter Kellner wrote an interesting article about him on yougov.co.uk that had me despairing. I’m not sure Clegg feels captive at all.

It looks as though Osborne won’t survive the night on pbc. And the stupid msm is wasting time in Athens.

239 – Well the FT endorsed Labour between 1992 and 2005.

I can understand between 1997 and 2005, but 1992 ferfuxsake!!!

For those betting on Greece leaving the Euro this year…

@Mr_Eugenides: Reading rumours that Greeks will be offered a referendum on leaving Euro. Wonder what would happen if rest of Eurozone had a similar choice.

[Hat-tip Andy JS]
Crikey, my local MP Lee Scott seems that he’ll have his work cut on the new Ilford North boundaries:

UKPR notional figures:

Con: 19,332
Lab: 19,062
LD: 5,640

Con maj: 270

The seat should really be named Ilford since the Ilford South constituency has disappeared in the initial proposals. I think some of it has gone into the new Dagenham North constituency.

Sunil, it’s a deadheat between Scott and Mike Gapes

I’m trying to find the full demographics for the whole of Israel, West Bank and Gaza Strip

The FT endorsed Neil Kinnock in 1990. In fact the FT has endorsed Labour at every election except 2010, in which they gave a very soft endorsement to the Conservatives.

Ilford South: 35.29% into Ilford North, 22.35% into East Ham (as Sunil said yesterday…the town hall goes there), 21.27% into Barking & Dagenham, 21.09% into Wanstead and Woodford

Ilford North: 63.52% into Ilford North, 36.48% into Wanstead and Woodford

Richard but you don’t seem to realise I’m not a Tory but was and it was the nutters who were around at the time of IDS which caused me not to vote Tory again.

Good to see the select gathering at the Prince of Wales this evening, I hope they’re enjoying the curry. I’m probably getting dirty looks with people thinking I’m Googling for answers.

‘@Mr_Eugenides: Reading rumours that Greeks will be offered a referendum on leaving Euro. Wonder what would happen if rest of Eurozone had a similar choice.’

Yes, you have to wonder if this could become constagious and see others demanding a similiar referendum in their own countries.

There are a lot better ways to spend £30bn on the rail network than HS2. What’ll happen to the rest of the network whilst they’re focussing on this vanity project?

It’s not just America that wants to stand by Israel come what may. There are some very pro-Israel politicians in our government. Peter Oborne wrote a w hile ago about how the middle east could tear the coalition apart.

Wasn’t Oborne’s premise that the coalition could be torn over Israel bombing Iran?

Even the Times story has it that re Palestine, Cameron and Clegg share the same goal, just aren’t sure about the best way of achieving it.

There will only be an EU if it is bailed out by the USA. Yet the USA is undergoing a major covert war behind the scenes, where weather is manipulated, volcanoes and earthquakes are readied, and huge underground cities (DUMBs) are being blown up by nuclear devices. If the elites are being successfully pushed out by the White Hats, the EU will not be receiving the necessary subsidy for its survival. The media is oblivious to the real goings-on.

Ah Melanie Philips! Please don’t link to her articles, I end up posting on them, and she calls me a Jew killer appeaser, when I ask what’s the difference between Palestinian suicide bombers wanting statehood and those people who attacked the King David Hotel?

All change on the PB comments front – farewell Edmund’s Widget, and many thanks to its creator for the service it’s put in!

Not sure about the “Like” button. I always felt one of this site’s strengths compared to play-/battle-grounds like CIF was its lack of comment ratings, so the emphasis was on the content not popularity. But here’s hoping that the cream rises to the top – with luck the better-informed, the insightful, the original and particularly the appraisals of odds will be highlighted, and not the gossipy, backslapping, backbiting, snide, or the boringly brazenly partisan. We shall see.

FWIW I am of the opinion that tweets and links to other stories/sites may belong in either of those categories, depending on their utility and the care in their selection. If I find that relevant and interesting links appear high in the “most popular” ranks I’ll find my day’s browsing rather easier. Never understood the vendetta that some people on here seem to bear towards passing on links – they’re one of the things that makes PB such a great resource.

On which note, for those with half on eye on Aussie politics, an interesting piece in the Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/rudds-popularity-gives-libs-pause-20110918-1kfsk.html

Australian political parties seem to be going through the same shrinking pains as British ones – declining memberships, reduced political engagement of the general public (at least, with broad parties rather than single issue campaigns) – and question marks over the future of the mass-membership model. Internal reviews, structural changes and half-hearted recruitment drives seem as unlikely to resolve anything down under as they have been up over, but for people like me who believe political issues are largely systemic in character, it’s fascinating to see how even these meagre proposals become bogged down by wranglings over how changes might upset internal power balances between rival factions, or tread on the toes of little empire builders. It seems there is nothing new under the sun, or on the far side of the earth*…

* Except Australia isn’t really on the far side of the earth to us, it’s actually antipodal to the the Atlantic Ocean and its “mirror image” comes out much closer to the Americas than Europe. New Zealand on the other hand is directly opposite Spain and bits of Portugal and Morocco. An amusing map to prove it: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Antipodes_equirectangular.svg

Because we’re used to seeing the map of the world in two dimensions, our mental image of locations is distorted. There’s a great circle that passes by sea from Pakistan past South Africa and Cape Horn, up the Pacific to Kamchatka in Russia, and the only bit that has to be traversed by land is from there to the Pakistan coast.

This seems completely counterintuitive and when I first heard it, I actually had to stick a piece of paper to a globe before I satisfied myself that it was true.

“Times Atlas Wrong on Greenland Ice” screams the BBC’s Richard Black

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14969399

who then goes on to explain that it underestimates the true ice cover as measured by the Scott Polar Research group. Some environmental mea culpa perhaps?

NO – the real sting in the tail is that it’s Murdoch fault!

“The Times Atlas is not owned by The Times newspaper. It is published by Times Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, which is in turn owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. ”

I think he’s taking lessons from Peston.

Pb.com is dead to me now.
Disqus is blocked by my work firewall. Hardly get chance to read/post outside of office hours.

Deep sigh.

Paxman getting a grilling from LibDem actvists LOL!

Jeez! I’m so sad for all you people who can’t access PB during working hours!

Maybe you can now concentrate on the work you are paid to do, and improve the economy by actually working.

This proposed seat is called Brighton & Hove North. But looking at the map, shouldn’t it be Hove & Brighton North, or Hove West & Brighton North?

http://rr-bce-static.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Brighton-and-Hove-North-BC.pdf?9d7bd4

Paxo “put your hands up, who wants to be in coalition with labour”

Audience “none of us” was the shouts of the labour party

You’re all heart.

I contribute plenty thank you very much. Not too much to ask to be able to join in over lunch or coffee is it. I quit smoking so no longer leave my desk every 30/40 mins.

Sunil@275 I marginally preferred this map because the juxtaposition of antipodal cities is unjustifiably amusing: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antipodes_equirectangular.svg

Antifrank@270 I sometimes wonder just how much smaller the radius of the earth would have to be, for us all to have an immediately intuitive understanding of its curvature. If it were only a hundred miles in diameter, it’s sphericity would seem absolutely natural to us – just as a physicist pointed out (can’t remember which one, but am sure some other PBer could fill me in) everybody would grasp Special Relativity if only we could run at half the speed of light. But I suspect the earth wouldn’t have to be radically smaller given that we can justabout experience some of its effects, particularly as Sunil says since the age of flight!

Just discovered a benefit of Disqus – by clicking on your icon I can see/stalk your recent activity, and have unearthed your link to the Behavioural Insights Team report. Great stuff, thanks for sharing. Isn’t “G” on this site interested in pursuing this sort of behavioural economics/bounded rationality stuff academically? I keep intending to quiz him about it when I catch him on at the same time as me…

On the other hand re pros/cons of Disqus, Sweeney@274, it’s interesting that PB is one of those rare blogs where the comments really add so much value to the site, that inability to see them kills the site for you. But a PITA nonetheless.

Who is this James Forsythe on Newsnight? He looks about fifteen.

Political editor of the Speccie.

Newsnight finishing clip. Did anyone else visualise Toilets Mcguire been hit in the face??

MBE
I agree re the tweets and links. Some are great and some cr*p. But if we only read or saw things from our own normal standpoint we would be the poorer for it.

I think that on the whole they are a positive, although i think warnings such ” beware article by Mad Mel Phillips” is useful! As above by Trevors Den.
Whilst i like to get different viewpoints the rabblings of a maniac i can do without.

“Today”? “Learning”? “New”? Where the treacle pudding have you been for the last five years? Call yourself interested in politics? What do you think this forum is, a knitting club? Bah humbug!

Of course. Have you forgotten your medication?

“I contribute plenty thank you very much.”

Yeah, yeah. That’s what all the layabouts think of their own performance. Why do you insist on wanting to use your employer’s facilities to indulge your own personal hobbies? Use your own IT equipment during your break times.

They follow a curved path because it is the shortest distance. Whether the maps in the in flight magazine are accurate I have no idea.

To / From London – Westbound transatlantic (to the east coast) you will typically fly north and turn westbound somewhere around the latitude of Ulster. You will make landfall typically around Newfoundland / Labrador. You are only over the ocean for 2.5 – 3 hours.

Eastbound typically turns east at approximately Long Island, and fly parallel to the southern Irish coast, making landfall somewhere on the southern coast of the Bristol Channel. You are over the water for longer, but have the jet stream behind you and east bound flights are about an hour shorter than westbound flights to any given destination for this reason.

There are variations, but that’s broadly the way it works – I’ve done it literally dozens of times.

Don’t worry! Panic over! I have found it! I discovered I had to click on the other thingy instead of the Excel thingy, even though it appeared in my Excel thingy.

I wonder if the bomb would still be an issue if it had gone off over the north Atlantic and we hadn’t seen the result every day on TV?