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Michigan: The pendulum swings back to Santorum

February 28th, 2012

UPDATED

Will Democrat “cross-overs” give him the edge?

It’s election day in Michigan and the final poll from Public Policy Polling, based on telephone surveys last night, has reported a sharp move back to Santorum in the crucial primary.

This is Romney’s home state and is a “must-win”. On Sunday night PPP had had him with a 2% lead. Last night the firm has found Santorum to be 5% ahead.

It’s now Santorum 39%, Romney 34%, Paul 15%, Gingrich 10%. Amongst those who have not yet voted Santorum is on 41% to Romney on 31%. The big hope for Romney is that he’s got enough early votes in the bag. Amongst this group he is leading by 56 to 29 but early voters only represent about 18% of those likely to turn out.

This move back to the former Pennsylvania Senator fits with the trend from other polling over the past 24 hours.

A complicating factor which could be helping Santorum is that Michigan does not restrict its primaries to registered supporters and there’a a tradition in the state of quite heavy cross-over voting.

In this latest poll Romney leads with actual Republican voters, 43-38. But Santorum’s up 47-10 with Democratic voters.

In surveys at the 1996 Republican primary it was estimated that 16% of voters were Democrats and 17% independents. Four years later in 2000 it was said that John McCain won the primary there with the help of Democrats and Independents;

Whatever this is proving to be the pivotal primary of the campaign.

@MikeSmithsonOGH
← Older Comments
  • dr spyn

    Simon Hughes must be wowing them at that inquiry – can’t find a live link to it.

  • Socrates

    There’s no evidence 50% tax is “poisoning the well”. According the IFS, the jury is still out on whether its beneficial or not:

    http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/ifs-hmrc-50p-review-too-narrow-for-proper-assessment/1045324.article

  • Anonymous

    I think being out of school for no good reason is now being outlawed by Gove, unless I’m very much mistaken.

  • Plato

    We didn’t have any one in my primary or secondary schools who wasn’t white. I was the only one with black relatives [uncle from Sierra Leone] and that was considered very exotic/odd in the 70s/80s.

    My secular secondary school had a lot of Jewish pupils – maybe 10-15%. They never invited anyone but each other home but were friends with all in class.

    It was quite odd to be rebuffed when offering a birthday party invite to a friend and then twigging it was because I wasn’t Jewish/less proper-moral whatever.

  • Anonymous

    re the ES story on nurse training …  the headline says training is cut – but in their very story they are forced to report
    ‘NHS London said: “This is not about making savings. We are spending the
    same amount – £1.1 billion – as we did last year on training doctors and
    nurses in London,’

    So funds on training are not being cut.  The press constantly puts out headlines which bear no relation to their story.

  • Socrates

    What we also need to do is change the welfare system into a conditional cash transfer program, which have worked fantastically in reducing poverty in places like Brazil. One of those conditions should be child attendance in school.

  • G!

    “you can read on here people posting in all seriousness about the fecklessness of all public sector workers.”

    I wouldn’t use the people on here as an indicator of general public opinion.

  • Moniker of Monza

    Why didn’t Labour introduce the 50% rate in the 13  years of their rule ? Darling and Brown were sabotaging the UK economy for political advantage.

  • MrsB

    It is a really fraught topic where you have to walk a very careful line or else you will get attacked from both left AND right.

    One might – very carefully – point out that Hassidic Jews have similar problems with cultural integration. 

    I wonder whether part of the lack of integration is to do with religious morality v a perceived lack of morality in society generally.  There are very deep-seated cultural differences too, over the role of women, for example.  That would only be one strand of it.  It is an immensely complicated problem and needs careful handling.  But my feeling is that it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to fit into society in the country they have migrated into. 

  • Plato

     ”What we also need to do is change the welfare system into a conditional cash transfer program”

    I think Nigerians may be able to offer expert advice here…

  • MrsB

    My son is at a school with a big mix of cultures.  He has friends from all backgrounds, including Muslims.  So do I.

  • G!

    EMA?

  • Plato

    He’s just finished at Leveson and droned on until Leveson shut him up – I can’t recall a thing he said.

  • Anonymous

    My elder daughter spent her reception year at a primary scool with a fair share of gypsy children.  She made friends with one little girl who seemed nice enough to me – so I asked her mother if she might like to come to tea with my daughter one day.  I was told in no uncertain terms that the little girl was ony allowed to go to school because “we have to let her go” and no way was she allowed to go to a non-gypsy’s home.  Her mum was polite enough as she said all this… “No offence, but…”.

  • Socrates

    That went to students, rather than the family as a whole. It was also tiny relative to the overall welfare check.

  • G!

    That it went to students and was tiny relative to the welfare check were two of it’s good points.

  • dr spyn

    BBC now have a link.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17188928 

    Perhaps this afternoon’s evidence might be more interesting. Funny how Hughes thinks that NI is too big for its boots, when there is a huge state run monolith dominating the airwaves, which is always seen as a force for good.

  • Anonymous

    The fun will follow the bucks .. believe me ..

  • Socrates

    Schools should just teach children very clearly that it is wrong to not be friends with people because of religion or ethnicity, regardless what their parents say.

  • Richard Nabavi

    Whatever the details on the effect of the 50p rate, the big picture is that true marginal tax rates on earned income are (a) too high to be optimal, and (b) completely barmy in the way they lurch around from an already excessive 40.2% for basic rate taxpayers, up to 49% for nominally ’40%’ tax payers, then to a stonking 66% for those stupid enough to fall into Darling’s £100K trap, then down to 49% again at £115K, then back up to 58% for ’50%’ taxpayers:

    http://www.cps.org.uk/files/factsheets/original/120113142452-Factsheet10MarginalTaxRates4.pdf

    The whole structure is completely irrational no matter what you think the overall level of taxation should be.

    (Add in the effect of Benefits, and it’s much worse, of course).

  • Socrates

    My point was that the conditions should apply to all benefits, not just the EMA.

    I don’t see how giving it to the student helped. An ex-girlfriend used to receive it, she’d spend it on CDs.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Geoffrey-Harrison/665801094 Geoffrey Harrison

    “It’s only a matter of time before some seriously large taxpayers throw in the towel and move elsewhere, where the regime is more favourable”

    Look.  The Pru’.

    “Prudential considers moving outside UK”

    Behind Times paywall

  • Socrates

    Agree with (b) but what evidence is there that (a) is true? I’d be interested in seeing evidence.

  • Anonymous

    My boss just got a new (well new for me) twist on the old email… Apprently a US Army Captain has just discovered a cave in Afganistan with two nuclear bombs in it, along with a shed load of money, and needs to send the money out of the country through the US postal system to him…and he’ll get 30% of it.

    Isn’t he lucky!!

  • G!

    Because it works better as an incentive if you give it directly to the decision maker.

  • dr spyn

    Looks as if Call Me Dave will have to tell his Business Secretary that.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120226-703843.html 

    Perhaps The Pru are making noises, but how much debate  and scrutiny has this latest EU scam actually had?

  • Anonymous

    BBC have the story as well: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17175928

  • Anonymous

    Schools should stick to teaching children how to read, add up and think for themselves.

  • Tissue Price

    @fieldproducerRT @gordonrayner Met Police confirm they “loaned” Rebekah Brooks a retired police horse from 2008-2010 #hacking

    Have fun, tim & Mick :-)

  • Anonymous

     The only prime minister to have said ‘call me..’ was call me Gordon

  • Anonymous

    It won’t apply to kids from Pakistan. The school/lea will not touch it with a barge pole. They wouldn’t intervene when they knew the girls were been taking against their will to be forced married to their cousins in Pakistan, they aren’t likely to intervene because of absenteeism.

  • Richard Nabavi

    Well, it’s hard to disentangle the various threads, but one piece of evidence is the move away from employment to self-employment or service companies (as favoured by highly-paid BBC staff, and, it seems, even people effectively working for the civil service).

    OK, you could argue that that’s just because the relative rates of effective tax for employed vs self-employed vs service companies vs investment income are all wrong, and I’d tend to agree with that.  We have a very odd situation – the polar opposite of what Harold Wilson tried to do in the sixties – where employment income is taxed very substantially more than investment and other forms of income (let alone capital gains).

    So I’d say it’s a mixture of too much complexity, excessive marginal rates on earned income, and bizarre irrationalities in the operation of those marginal rates. 

  • Rexel 56

    Richard – and that’s without taking menas tested benefits into account I was only yesterday looking at the impact on my childrens university funding.  Earning a marginal £17,600 results in the loss of a £3,250 maintenance grant (to replace the student loan) – which is an 18.5% addition to the 40.2% for basic rate tax payers.  So that’ll be 41p the family will be better of for every extra £1 I slave for!

    Not surprising that Mrs R and I are seriously thinking about taking three years out and travelling whilst both kids are at Uni.

  • Anonymous

    The Met loaned Brooks a horse from 2008???

    What on earth was going on?? And how could labour not know about these things?

  • antifrank

    On a betting topic, I see that 38 Degrees are wading into the Mayoral election.  I just received the following email:

    “Dear [antifrank],
    David Cameron is trying to ride it out. He knows his plans for the NHS are a disaster. [1] But after more than a year of phoney listening exercises, aggressive spin and backroom deals, he thinks abandoning the plan now would simply be too embarrassing.But there’s one thing that politicians care about more than saving face: saving their jobs. At the moment, Cameron is gambling that it’s best to force through the changes – then hope that it doesn’t cost him too many votes later on. We can shift this calculation by proving to Cameron that the NHS is already an election issue, and a losing one for his party if they refuse to listen.Elections for the Mayor of London are fast approaching. Cameron desperately wants the Conservatives to win. Together, we can buy billboards all over the city, on the very streets where Cameron bought billboards promising the NHS would be safe with him. The adverts can warn potential Conservative voters that most doctors and nurses think the changes will make our NHS worse.
    Click here to preview the powerful advert and chip in to take it to the streets.
    https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-billboards

    We’ve tried everything else. Now we have to bring it back to something we know Cameron will understand – winning over undecided voters. He knows that a big national issue like the NHS could play strongly in a major local election. And that if it does, it will set the tone for a long time to come.

    If Cameron sees thousands of us donating to put up adverts, it might make him finally decide the game is up. The adverts carry a simple message certain to grab the attention of the kind of voters Cameron wants to keep on board: doctors and nurses are begging him to drop the dangerous NHS plans.If 5,000 of us chip in over the next 48 hours, we can get these adverts up next Monday. So please donate now:
    https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-billboards

    Cameron knows that losing the trust of voters on the NHS is bad news. Opposition to the plans is already overwhelming among health professionals — including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of GPs. [2] Last month, 38 Degrees commissioned an independent opinion poll of NHS staff which found that 66 per cent think these plans will make the NHS worse [3].

    So we’ve brought in a top advertising agency to make sure local voters get the message. If we raise enough money, we can target these ads to prospective Conservative voters, and place them in high-profile, prominent locations across the capital. Best of all, our campaign won’t star an actor, but a real-life London GP and 38 Degrees member.
    Imagine the stir on Downing Street when these people-powered billboards appear across the capital. Please chip in now to make it happen:
    https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-billboards

    Thanks for being involved,

    Marie, Johnny, David, Hannah, Becky, Cian, James and the 38 Degrees team

    PS: Sometimes 38 Degrees members come together to pay for things which otherwise only big companies and political parties can afford. Earlier thousands of us chipped in to hire a crack legal team: their report made the front page of The Observer. This helped force Lansley to back away from plans to scrap his legal duty to provide our health service. Now we can take one big, bold message to the voters Cameron cares about most. Our health service is priceless – so please chip in if you possibly can: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-billboardsPPS: Earlier this month, thousands of 38 Degrees members voted to choose things we could do to help save the NHS. Raising money for billboard adverts, and sounding the alarm in London in the run-up to the mayoral election, were both voted into our top 5 tactics. So let’s make them happen! Chip in now: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/nhs-billboardsNOTES
    [1] The Guardian: David Cameron changes NHS bill? http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/27/david-cameron-changes-nhs-bill2 BBC: NHS plans: Unions move to ‘outright opposition’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-166182073 Source: YouGov poll, paid for by 38 Degrees members. Poll carried out online on a sample of 1601 adults who work in the NHS in Great Britain between 17th and 26th January 2012 https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/NHS-poll”

    What impact, if any, will this have on the Mayoral campaign?

  • Anonymous

    One of the main problems is the hidden tax of Employers National Insurance, which makes people on wages much more expensive than just their own salary.

  • Richard Nabavi

    I tend to think that ‘you couldn’t make it up’ is a much-overused phrase, but in this case…

  • Tissue Price

    In a world with ever-greater mobility, governments are increasingly having to tax things that stay put.  i.e. [most] people, not companies.

    Just witness what has happened in the online betting industry for a small-scale example of what is going to happen elsewhere once more service industries become online-dominated.

    Unsurprisingly this has meant some people have tried to make themselves into companies to take advantage.

    Some solutions:

    (a) Harmonise international tax rates.  Yeah, right.

    (b) Reduce income taxes.
       (b.i) Increase consumption taxes to compensate.
       (b.ii) Introduce wealth taxes (e.g. mansion taxes).  Actually not as bad an idea as some of the right think.
       (b.iii) Reduce spending commensurately.

    (c) Clamp down on people-as-companies tax avoidance.  This really shouldn’t be that difficult, though there’ll be some borderline cases.

  • Socrates

    There was a recent study – I think it was the World Bank – that said the best tax in terms of its effect on growth was on immovable property.

  • Anonymous

    ‘(c) Clamp down on people-as-companies tax avoidance.  This really shouldn’t be that difficult, though there’ll be some borderline cases.’

    Yes, becuase IR35 worked really, really well of course.

  • http://edmundintokyo.wordpress.com/ Edmund in Tokyo

    Can we tax windows again? It can be assessed using Google Earth, and if people brick their windows up it’ll have energy efficiency benefits too.

  • Socrates

    I believe Paris has converted to using automatic metro trains. There is no justification for increased pay during the Olympics. As you say, it is simple blackmail because the value of the hostage has increased.

  • dr spyn

    Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

    Did it count as a benefit in kind for tax purposes?

  • Richard Nabavi

    The point is that it shouldn’t be necessary to ‘clamp down’.  Different stuctures should be roughly tax-neutral, so that people can use service companies if they have a business reason to do so, not because it saves huge amounts of tax.

  • G!

    Rather nice article by Mankiw on how to improve the US tax system, some of the lessons are applicable to the UK:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/four-keys-to-a-better-tax-system-economic-view.html

  • TimT

    Makes sense, as it encourages most productive use of land and fixed assets.  However, I can assure you its effect is very non-green.  Northampton County in Virginia gains most of its income from such taxes.  The effect is to take pristine waterfront farmland out of agriculture and fallow and into endless property development.

  • http://scottish-independence.blogspot.com/ Stuart Dickson

    redcliffe – “Bad losers via the ballot box is how I see it.”

    That’s what I think every time I hear The Herd moaning about the R*********. 

    The Tories lost the election (in fact, they got only 13.9%), and they don’t respect the voters’ verdict. Bad losers the lot of them.

  • Anonymous

    I see they’ve already raised £44000 out of the £80 000 needed…

    Am I being unreasonable to feel very uncomfortable about this?  Or is this just the way democracy is going…. Don’t like what the government is doing?  Launch a large media campaign.  “Best of all, our campaign won’t star an actor, but a real-life London GP and 38 Degrees member.”

    I can see those posters being very effective.

  • Anonymous

    The way to do it could only be to remove National Insurance and combine into higher Income Tax and Corporation tax rates.

    Especially with employers NI. The difficulty then is you couldn’t force employees to convert the savings in National Insurance for them, into higher salaries for employees which would be needed to counteract the change.

    Problem is with that also with effecting corporation tax, is you hit then legitimate businesses which aren’t taking advantage for tax purposes with higher bills.

    You make losers, and potentially a huge number more than those you’re trying to catch.

  • Anonymous

    Foster McCollum White/Baydoun Michigan

    Mitt Romney 37.90%
    Rick Santorum 35.86%
    Ron Paul 9.12%
    Newt Gingrich 8.31%
    Undecided 8.90%

  • dr spyn

    Has Cameron been taken for a ride by an old nag, must be a night mare riding this media storm.

    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24039246-rebekahs-gift-horse-from-met-shows-its-close-ties-to-murdoch-newspapers.do 

    I don’t suppose you could lead the horse to culture.

  • TimT

    But to what effect on overall productivity?  Remember, sunlight is the best disinfectant…

  • Richard Nabavi

    Of course, you are quite right in everything you say there.

    Still, a start can be made: cutting Employer’s NI is the obvious first measure, immediately good for business generally, helping employment, and good for entrepreneurs.

  • Anonymous

    Mitchell Michigan Final

    Romney 37
    Santorum 36
    Paul 9
    Newt 6

  • Socrates

    Yes, a very good article. And many of the principles were included in Romney’s tax plan released in September.

    Unfortunately it was all thrown out the window by Romney’s new tax plan last week, which could basically be summed up as “tax cuts for everyone, even bigger ones for the rich and no cuts to social security or Medicare until 2022″.

  • Tissue Price

    I’m not so sure they’ll make much difference – I think most of the public have either made up their minds or mentally switched off from the debate.

    People can spend their money and time how they want.  £80k is a pretty pathetic amount of propaganda in the big scheme of things (though they’ll doubtless get plenty of free media too).

  • Anonymous

    Indeed, that would be the best course of action to start with. The downside being that it doesn’t directly effect the ‘take home pay’ of workers, so the effect doesn’t ‘feel’ as much to employees.

  • Anonymous

    When is Sir I. Blair up infront of Levenson ? Most of this stuff seems to have happened on his watch.

    “Ian Warwick Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton, QPM (born 19 March 1953) is a retired British police officer who held the position of commissioner of police of the metropolis from 2005 to 2008 and was the highest ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service.”

  • Chris A

    The Pru are going because they object to the government’s regulations which might stop them becoming another Equitable Life. Good riddance to them and customers should perhaps consider somewhere safer to put their money

  • Anonymous

    Clinton also picked up Florida in 1996 which Bush Snr won in 1992!

  • http://www.youtube.com/ajs41#p/p Andy JS

    That’s right – I knew there was another change in 1996.

  • Socrates

    Both types of NI and income tax should be merged into one single system.

  • Anonymous

    Yes, but if he now loses his home state whatever happens the momentum for Santorum will be huge, if not unstoppable. Michigan is the key primary of the whole campaign in my view, if Mitt wins he should eke out the nomination, if Santorum wins he will then probably sweep the board, leaving Mitt with only a few New England and North Eastern states, maybe California and the odd Western Mormon filled state and Virginia, where Santorum is not on the ballot!

  • Chris A

    Thanks for the link. I’ve donated

  • G!

    That is only true if firms are facing liquidity constraints. Otherwise Ricardian equivalence would hold.

  • Anonymous

    Just rip up notes and flush em down the toilet next time – better value.

  • Anonymous

    As I said, the difficulty comes from dealing with the national insurance. You effectively have to convert peoples Gross Pay into ‘Gross Pay + Employer NI’ to then get the new ‘Gross Pay’ to be taxed. Of course then that would prove tricky to get employers to do.

    It’s really not as simple as it sounds. Then of course what do you do with Pensions, and people working beyond the pension year, which pay Income Tax, but don’t pay Employee National Insurance.

    If you didn’t do anything to help with that, then pensioners working would face a heavity tax increase. So youd have to have some sort of complex pension credit adjustment, or a different tax rate, or muck about with pensonal allowances…

    What a mess the system is in.

  • http://www.youtube.com/ajs41#p/p Andy JS

    Santorum is now 130/1 to win Arizona with Betfair. A few hours ago it was 7/1.

  • Richard Nabavi

    A fine example of the ill-informed anti-business sentiment which risks impoverishing us.

    Quite apart from anything else, Equitable Life did not get into trouble because it was insufficiently capitalised.  It got into trouble because it made unaffordable promises and then miscalculated its liabilities based on its (incorrect but not completely unreasonable) understanding that it had discretion to allocate final bonuses to work around the problem.

  • http://twitter.com/tracklyweb eek

    Not quite they are going (or so they claim) because staying would require them to ensure all subsidiaries meet Solvency II even if that subsidiary is in a country where the competition are not subject to the same rules.

    Whether its true or not I don’t know but the UK companies will have to meet Solvency II  regardless of where the head office is.

  • Plato

    I’m gobsmacked.

    “The former Sun and News of the World editor was loaned the horse in 2008, the year after Clive Goodman, who worked for her as royal editor of the News of the World, was jailed for phone-hacking along withe the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

    Officers from the Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch visited Mrs Brooks’s home in the Cotswolds to check she had suitable facilities and was a competent rider before the horse went there.

    A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police pointed out that it is routine for retired Mounted Branch horses to be loaned out to members of the public at the end of their working lives, but the arrangement is likely to raise fresh questions about the Met’s relationship with Mrs Brooks.

    The news comes a day after the Leveson Inquiry was told that Mrs Brooks was briefed by a senior Met officer on the progress of the original phone-hacking inquiry and even consulted on how far she thought the investigation should go.

    Mrs Brooks, who is married to the former racehorse trainer Charlie Brooks, kept the horse at her home in the Cotswolds for two years before giving it back to the Metropolitan Police in 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9110913/Scotland-Yard-loaned-police-horse-to-Rebekah-Brooks.html

  • MrsB

    For mentioning IR35 you deserve exile to this website for a week:

    http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/

  • tim

    MODERATED

  • http://www.youtube.com/ajs41#p/p Andy JS
  • francis

    O/T

    Well I get sick of being patronised by this awful person. If you don’t like the UK please move elsewhere:-

    http://janetnapolitano.com/new-labours-immigration-scandal-was-deliberate-27oct09 

  • http://scottish-independence.blogspot.com/ Stuart Dickson

    ‘Drawn and pale, Eric Joyce returns to his constituency after bar brawl charge’

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/drawn_and_pale_eric_joyce_returns_to_his_constituency_after_bar_brawl_charge_1_2142101 

  • Plato

    For Leveson watchers – Chris Jeffries is on at 2pm.

  • BenM_Kent

    Where are Rupert’s cheerleaders today?

  • BenM_Kent

    Oh, and Go Santorum!

  • Peter the Punter

     ”I’m gobsmacked.”

    You are?   I don’t see why.

    Quite apart from Mrs Brooks’s own equestrian interests, her husband Charlie was a first class jockey before becoming a trainer.   It is only natural that the Police should have wanted one of their retired animals to be in the care of such capable people.

    I do not see why the Force’s animal welfare concerns should be in any way impacted by its wholly independent obligation to pursue its investigations properly.

    Now please excuse me while I go and change my pants, which I wet whilst reading the newspaper report.

  • Anonymous

    With typical German subtly this will cue a rise in Eurozone interest rates

    Inflation in Germany accelerated in February, with consumer prices up 2.3pc on an annual basis. This compares with Bloomberg estimates of a 2.1pc rise.
    Prices were pushed higher by a rise in energy costs, statistics released by Destatis showed.

  • tim

    @LadPolitics: Ladbrokes: Tony Blair cut from 100/1 to 25/1 to be next Labour leader following “secret meetings” with MPs http://t.co/xub2bM0C

  • Anonymous

    Richard … normally I don’t take issue with you but … some of us who fall into Darling’s £100K trap are neither rich nor stupid. 

    Unfortunately, those of us employed and on PAYE are screwed if we can’t arrange a salary sacrifice or can’t afford / don’t want to contribute more money to a pension pot. Any other suggestions would be gratefully received …

  • Anonymous

    From memory – only on some lines. Turin has an automated line and it looks like the future.

  • Tissue Price

    Borrow (on your mortgage) to cover the cost of the pension contributions, if it’s really that tight?

    Or register your children as a charity and Gift Aid them the money ;-)

    It is perverse to have a system which essentially encourages anyone earning £100k ish to defer any salary increases into their pension, up & until they’re earning about £130k, thereby depressing demand.

  • Icarus

    Perhaps the Met wanted some sort of hold over Brooks. Were they going to use it as the basis for some Catherine the Great type stories?

  • Plato

    It gets funnier – have you seen today’s Sun headline?

    http://twitpic.com/8pk31f

  • Anonymous

    3 million of em..sitting reading the Sun..

  • Mike Smithson

    They are saddled with that one

  • Plato

    For our resident train spotters – I’d never heard of this until now

     

    Before its refit a few years ago, the entrance to Bethnal Green tube
    station carried a small plaque, which commemorated a disaster from the
    Second World War. I used to pass beneath it most mornings, tripping down
    the stairs to the concourse, and wonder about it. I assumed that the
    station had been used as an air-raid shelter, and suffered a devastating
    hit.
    That assumption was wrong, and if possible  the truth about the
    disaster even more upsetting. In 1943 the station was indeed being used
    as a shelter. The Central Line eastern extension from Liverpool Street,
    though started in the 1930s, didn’t “go live” until after the war.
    (Imagine walking from Liverpool Street to Bethnal Green, underground,
    before a single train had carried a single passenger. Imagine the faces
    of the men who built that tunnel, if they could see the packed trains
    that run, now, through the East End and out to Essex.)

    On March 3, 1943 an air raid alarm sounded and people made their way
    to the station/shelter. Victoria Park, another jewel in the East End
    crown, is close to Bethnal Green tube. Calamitously, in the park that
    evening, the army tested a secret and novel anti-aircraft rocket; no one
    had heard the noise of this weapon before. The proximity and loudness
    of the rockets, following fast on the air-raid alert, caused panic; fear
    engulfed the crowd and it surged for safety down the stairs, and a
    woman slipped, and fell. Still the crowd pushed down. In the dark and
    the chaos, 173 Londoners died.

    I learned all this from digging about on the internet after wondering
    about the plaque (which wasn’t removed, I think, but moved to a
    different location). What struck me particularly hard is that because
    the disaster happened during the war – it was the biggest single loss of
    civilian life – news about it, while not exactly “hushed up”, was
    stripped of particular details about the victims: such as where they
    lived. Those people died in terror, in the dark, and still the spot
    where they fell doesn’t so much as list their names.

    For years, therefore, the charity Stairway To Heaven has campaigned, lobbied councillors, engaged with architects, and most importantly raised the money
    to build a lasting, fitting memorial to those who died that night.
    The building of the memorial is about to start.

    There isn’t enough money to complete it, yet, but the charity hopes
    that once the construction starts to take shape, more donors or
    benefactors might be moved to contribute…  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/graemearcher/100140114/stairway-to-heaven-a-new-memorial-for-the-bethnal-green-underground-disaster/

  • Anonymous

    My jewish (girlfriend to be?) invited me home and I made it to the main course before daddy found out I was not jewish and immediately told me to leave.
    Never forgot that.
    Needless to say I did not marry his daughter, but looking back she was stunning and great company.

  • Anonymous

    A brawl suggests multiple combatants when in fact there appears to have only been one.

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