What is really happening please?

Bless, I just saw Ed Miliband on the 10pm News chasing a bandwagon that was parked up a cul de sac 24 hours ago.

And Clegg is really dissapointed to be 10% ahead of Milliband.

“I don’t want MY kids….”    Has Ed put that public recognition of his children on their birth certificates yet? and they’ll be able to eat chocolate oranges while seeing the Pandas as well.

Tony Blair’s government was on -18 with Ipsos Mori in November 2000, while holding a lead of 15% in the polls:  

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/1677/MORI-Political-Monitor-November-2000.aspx 

Most Governments have negative approval ratings most of the time.  You are simply wrong on this.

Not what you were hoping to lead on, though.

God bless plucky little Czechoslovakia.

Miliband won a few days headlines at the height of the Murdoch problems last year.  Long term effect = No chance that Murdoch titles will support Labour in the next election as they did when Labour actually won elections.

Miliband wins a few days headlines attacking the city = Long Term effect, the Labour ‘prawn cocktail offensive’ is dead, Labour now entirely dependent on Unions.  City scepticism of Labour government heightened.

Ed Miliband, master strategist.  At least he’s leading in the polls…or not.

As much as I agree that all governments do pretty much have negative ratings you did pick a month after the fuel protests.

Paywall on the EU deal

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian Prime Minister and leader of the
Liberal group in the European Parliament, said that the burden of debt
must be eased for the worst-afflicted states. “It is impossible to think
that we can tackle the crisis without mutualising the debt . . .” he
said. “Italy cannot recover, paying 6 per cent for its borrowing.”

Erkki
Tuomioja, the Finnish Foreign Minister, described the treaty as “at
best necessary and at worst harmful.” He added that it was “about
Germany’s domestic policy needs” and “we should not be taking orders
from anybody.”

If you consider that ordering 2 aircraft carriers that only the Scottish shipbuilding unions wanted and hosing the rest of what money was left into the electorate in  a naked attempt to avoid a total meltdown is boosting the economy, then you are totally in tune with socialist economic theory.

No such place is there?.

Care to elaborate, old bean?

IoS is a joker isn’t he?  Hosepiping money is ‘growing the economy’ to him.
In fact Darling assured us that he was simply bringing all that spending forward – so no surprises there was a gap behind.

BRITAIN’S economy shrank a bit in the fourth quarter of 2011 and odds are good that it will contract in the first quarter of this year, putting it in semi-official recession territory. British growth has been very sluggish for a couple of years now, such that its present recovery now looks a bit worse, on some measures, than that from the Depression. What’s going on? Paul Krugman credits excessive austerity. Scott Sumner suggests there isn’t much austerity and credits tight money. In the past, he’s argued that supply-side issues are to blame. Is any of this right?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/01/britains-economy

“Miliband wins a few days headlines attacking the city = Long Term
effect, the Labour ‘prawn cocktail’ offensive is dead, Labour now
entirely dependent on Unions.  City scepticism of Labour government
heightened.”

It’s not just the City, I think a lot of businesses will feel that many politicians are talking a lot of rot, and sticking their noses into places where they don’t belong. They will have seen all the main parties jump on a bandwagon, attacking a man who is being employed to clean up a mess others made, and wanting to interfere in the running of a bank that it was agreed would be run by a board independent of government control.

All the main parties come out of this looking bad.

Ed Miliband’s Victory, as described in the Times leader tomorrow

“This week’s row over the remuneration of Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, could, one day, be seen as the “jump the shark” moment for the financial services industry in Britain. What happened was lamentable. And, potentially, disastrous.

Here is the message that Britain has sent to those considering setting up business, or locating more staff, in this country. First, we resent those who earn large salaries. Second, we do not care about contractual obligations. Third, there is a court of public opinion to which everyone is accountable and which acts as a national remuneration committee. It sets salaries by holding public hearings on the Today programme and picking an amount by vox pops on the News at Ten.”

Night all.

Perhaps because he singled out Murdoch titles for criticism when The Daily Mirror was just as guilty?

I see Dave’s “women problem” is as bad as ever: Total: 40, M: 39, F: 41, or is it now officially a “men problem” and I missed the memo?

The plan is to link London with both Edinburgh and Glasgow via Manchester and Leeds.  But the Scottish end is not a UK responsibility.
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/general/2011/12/14-new-high-speed-plans-unveiled.html

I show my drivers licence when I fly to Edinburgh. I’m wondering if they will accept my bus pass and if so do I go free?

TSE – book your train ticket now, Crystal Swing are playing Trafalgar Square for the St. Patricks Day festival. I’m couldnt be more excited – suddenly 2012 is looking nearly as good for me as it has been for Ed Miliband so far!

Deep fried chocolate oranges…

Awesome.

From the YouGov tables, the most significant figure in electoral terms is the Tory lead in the Midlands/Wales region: 42 vs 34.  OK, just a sub-sample of one poll, but the last ICM found the same.  This is a key figure to keep an eye on – Labour were well ahead here a few months ago, I believe.

It would be very interesting to know what’s behind this, assuming it’s a real trend.  Maybe the welfare cap?

There was a piece in the Sunday Times which speculated that Ed’s poor ratings meme amongst Labour supporters is affecting the VI figures across floating voters, and the Midlands is full of floating voters. 

To paraphrase the logic if Labour voters think Ed is crap, then why will floating voters vote for him/warm to him?

Breaking news….

I’d thought IoS stood for Infantile or Senile?

Thanks for putting me right.  Good for PB spirits though, it’s like having Ash and BenM around again…

So when tim says ‘I’m sure that’, what he really means is he hasn’t a feckin’ clue.

Hester off his own bat agreed to vest the 4.8 million shares Labour (ie Darling/Brown) agreed with him, in 2008, over 5 years not 3 as it seemed the right thing to do.  He thought then he was dealing with honourable men.

I agree with you about PR but the plain issue is that the press and the BBC/SKY are not remotely interested.  The next hours headlines are all that matter.

Labour rewarded failure in the banking industry and now not only oppose rewarding success, but oppose the rewards they agreed to.

The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has already bought up much of the UK.

Mr moderator.. do I have a post awaiting release?

thanks

Moderator: Released now

Nice segment on Newsnight Scotland focusing on the Scottish community in Corby and their views on the Independence Debate.

just found the tabs. swings since dec 19 … which part could handle the problem best …
the economy – +8 to Torieseducation – +7 to Tories (change in lead)immigration – +6 to Toriesunemployment – +5 to Toriestaxation – +5 to Torieslaw & order – + 4 to Toriesnhs – +2 to Toriesthat is a worrying trend, especially with the hilarious personal ratings

Gosh, the Murdoch press is really annoyed about bankers taking a hit.

Lay off the poor downtrodden super-rich, on the front of the Times.

No wonder David Cameron is being so pathetic on the issue, if his Murdoch chums and City sponsors are having a word in his ear.

The Welfare Cap, EU Veto, taking on Salmond over the Independence Referendum, Eurocrisis. Take your pick, but with Cameron sitting in the driving seat on these issues while Ed Miliband continues to chase bandwagons that have already stopped moving. Its definitely makes the politics of being in Government vs Opposition that much easier to follow. Just take the Independence Referendum, Ed Miliband was rather late to the party and the coverage of his speech reflected that. 

O/T – Just watched the first episode of Spartacus: Vengeance, blimey, it is brilliant and even more gratuitous than Blood & Sands and Gods of the Arena.

Personally, I thought she was “Something Exceptional”!

Chukka is Labour’s big hope for the future, but please don’t tell them.

what are approval ratings like historically?

Most of the community down there want to see the Union remain as it is. Will try to find the link when it comes up on BBC Iplayer.

i posted the mori ones recently. basically only recent govt to do positive was 1997, 2005 was appalling and all the rest are in the middle. not found historical yougov figures.

Ed’s brilliant 2012 as seen by Labour supporters (rating vs Cameron Conservative voters)

Sticks to what he believes in: -30
Charismatic: – 33
Decisive: -38
Natural Leader -37
Strong -35
Good in crisis -33
Honest -8
In touch with ordinary people +19

I’d say its going swimmingly and long may it continue in the same vein….

Hester was as I read it awarded 60% of his bonus based on the banks performance.  The criteria were more than share price.

meantime – ‘France cuts 2012 growth forecast from 1pc to 0.5pc’ (Telegraph).And in a spirit of mutual friendship and co-operation Cameron has offered to welcome French banks to the UK (which will turn out to be England if our Scottish friends have their way) if they wish to escape the transactions tax.

‘So no chance of Salmond giving them a vote then.’

Nope.

Is there any hope for Labour in Scotland.  Certainly Salmond has taken advantage as voters woke up to what was going on, as if from a bad dream.

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/a-miss-is-as-good-as-a-mile-for-calamity-kenny/

Part of that may simply be that they aren’t in Scotland themselves now. 

I remember when the UK changed to decimal coinage, some people who were living abroad at the time were horrified, on returning, to find that “their” currency was different.

Actually, there is hope for Labour in Scotland. They could enthusiastically endorse Devo Max now – if they could guarantee that a UK Labour Government would deliver it.

I see the Times has descended into printing absolute bollocks

So many herds, I get confused – there’s the Labour herd, the Conservative Herd, I assume the LD’s have one too (wouldn’t want to be left out.  Let alone the SNP Herd (shhh – they might turn up, the noo).  Maybe I should start one…

I still have faith in Harriet coming through the middle of the herd to win (well, it’s an old bet I’d forgotten about, but you never know).

Are you saying Harriets an old heffer?

We have one country currently with free movement throughout it.  Why are you opposed to Scottish born people having a vote about the future of their country?

I mean at the moment Scottish nMPS vote on english only matters whilst at the same time having no say or vote on matters in their mown constituencies. So allowing people born in scotland to vote about their own country seems quite sane compared with that.

Seems a bit of a post code lottery.

All Scots are born equal but some are more equal than others.

Etc.

PS – these Scottish born people – the ones not allowed to vote on the future of their country – will they still be able to play for Scotland at football rugby tennis and represent Scotland at the Olympics?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100133619/ken-livingstone-and-boris-johnson-the-january-truth-audit/  linky