"The people of Glasgow North East were left without an MP for an astonishing 142 days because of the shocking arrogance of the Labour Party who put their electoral convenience ahead of the needs of the local community"
SNP MP Stewart Hosie
15.57 in:
Socialism, big brother, criminal law, socialist fiscal policy, the NHS and Kerry McCarthy MP are all covered in a distinctively Dan Hannan-esque manner.
Socialism, big brother, criminal law, socialist fiscal policy, the NHS and Kerry McCarthy MP are all covered in a distinctively Dan Hannan-esque manner.
I'm pretty sure there is an important message in there somewhere although what it is completely escapes me. Any suggestions on the comments board.
Labour have been telling their candidates to do anything they can to ensure "the next election is not seen as a referendum on the government". Understandable considering their record over the last 13 years but something of a lost cause if you ask me. Still, I thought, perhaps this means they are moving forward? Perhaps they are ready to set out an agenda on how they are going to change.
As it turns out I was being far too naive. To expect any such positivity from a government so bankrupt (literally, morally and intellectually) was in fact embarrassingly naive. Instead they are switching focus to simply attack the Conservatives. It is a strategy we have seen from the Lib Dems for years: we have no credible ideas of our own so we will attack the opponents.
Still this is nothing new. Labour ran out of ideas a long time ago. All this is, is a final admittance of that. So it is with little surprise that they haven't even been able to come up with a new name for this programme. In the Summer it was widely pointed out (including on this blog) that their underdog campaign "Operation Fightback" was a slogan pinched from the BNP. You would have thought after that, one of the lackeys in Labour HQ would have taken just a moment to come up with a new name. Anything? It wouldn't even have to make much sense. It would just have be something at least remotely original or stolen from a party they haven't done so much to distance themselves from. But no they are still determined to use the same name:
The BNP were talking about copyrighting their slogans to prevent these kinds of theft. I thought it was a bit ridiculous at the time as I was expecting Labour to quietly drop it but now it seems like it might be a sensible idea.
Perhaps the other parties should do the same before we start hearing "are you ignoring what we're ignoring?", "the same old alternative" or perhaps even "it's the EU's oil"?
As it turns out I was being far too naive. To expect any such positivity from a government so bankrupt (literally, morally and intellectually) was in fact embarrassingly naive. Instead they are switching focus to simply attack the Conservatives. It is a strategy we have seen from the Lib Dems for years: we have no credible ideas of our own so we will attack the opponents.
Still this is nothing new. Labour ran out of ideas a long time ago. All this is, is a final admittance of that. So it is with little surprise that they haven't even been able to come up with a new name for this programme. In the Summer it was widely pointed out (including on this blog) that their underdog campaign "Operation Fightback" was a slogan pinched from the BNP. You would have thought after that, one of the lackeys in Labour HQ would have taken just a moment to come up with a new name. Anything? It wouldn't even have to make much sense. It would just have be something at least remotely original or stolen from a party they haven't done so much to distance themselves from. But no they are still determined to use the same name:
The BNP were talking about copyrighting their slogans to prevent these kinds of theft. I thought it was a bit ridiculous at the time as I was expecting Labour to quietly drop it but now it seems like it might be a sensible idea.
Perhaps the other parties should do the same before we start hearing "are you ignoring what we're ignoring?", "the same old alternative" or perhaps even "it's the EU's oil"?
The EU commission is talking about an "economic government of Europe", and be in no doubt what that means. It means diluting the ability of Greek politicians to set tax and spending priorities. It means the end of the myth that you can have monetary without political union; and at a time of growing electoral disillusion, it means a further erosion of democracy
Boris Johnson in the Telegraph
As he concludes..."Thank heavens we stayed out of the Euro".
The North Durham Lib Dems have decided to adopt a campaign song. So many examples of music + politicians going catastrophically wrong spring to mind but apparently their candidate Ian Lindley is unperturbed (not to be confused with Iain Lindley, the excellent Tory candidate for Worsley and Eccles South).Mr Lindley (the Lib Dem one) has previously been attacked for dubious campaigning and is, one would presume, eager to avoid such criticism in the future. You would have thought then he might have taken a second to think about the lyrics of the song.
Off the top of my head and within the first few lines I can come up with three cheap shots. If his Labour opponents took him seriously I'm sure they could do the same:
"I don’t believe in this anymore" - seems to go some way to explain the Lib Dems policy change in between every TV appearance.
"I kept hoping for the best, But all I found were fatal flaws" - certainly seems to sum up every ill thought out, pointlessly optimistic policy Nick Clegg announces
"We’re broken, And this mistrust goes unspoken" - equally gives an insight into standard Lib Dem campaigning techniques
The song improves slightly after that but music is still surely best left alone by any aspiring politician. It seems highly unlikely that this seat will go anything other than Labour at the next election and if Ian is looking for the opportunity of a more winnable seat in the future he should probably steer clear of this sort of thing.
On Brown's appearance tonight with Piers Morgan:
Gordon's problem is not that the public don't know him well enough; the problem is that they know him all too well... I suspect the public made its mind up about Brown long ago
Matthew d'Ancona in the Telegraph
It is understandable that many public service workers are worried about their jobs. But they make a mistake if they think the country is in the mood for strikes.
Sensible people - most of us - realise that cuts are inevitable whoever wins the election.
The alternative is that we end up like Greece: bankrupt and with people fighting in the streets.
Is that really what responsible union members want?
A little sensationalist and simplistic as ever but the essential point is sound
It may well make a difference to the people at which it is targeted but I suspect many existing Tory supporters will be less impressed.
In September 2008 Andy Burnham launched a government scheme with the aim of getting more young people attending the theatre. The scheme's estimated cost was £2.5million. Whether a government should spend money on such a scheme is one possible debate although not the one I want to offer here. Whether they need to is what I want to discuss today.The scheme was meant to give away 1 million tickets over two years. This was later downgraded or altered to 618,000. Uptake figures seem hard to come by but apparently 50,000 tickets were given away in the first quarter of the scheme. Even if this rate continued it would still only come to 400,000 tickets, well short of either target.
I'm sure there are many explanations for this apparent shortcoming although if I had to guess I think it would have a great deal to do with the fact that the free or reduced seats offered are almost inevitably some of the worst in the house. If you are trying to introduce someone to the theatre then I would recommend that it should not be done from behind a pillar or so far back that oxygen tanks are provided. In addition anyone I've spoken to about using this scheme is already a regular theatre goer (myself included) and after a couple of bad experiences revert to paying a little extra for a seat where at least half the stage is visible without a telescope. Most theatres already offered reduced rates for young people and students anyway and if anything this scheme has simply reduced the prevalence of these discounts.
In contrast to this on the 30th of January I sat down in a cinema to watch a live broadcast of the National Theatre's production of Nation (based on the Terry Pratchett novel). At the same time thousands of other people at hundreds of other cinemas across the globe were doing exactly the same thing. In contrast to the Government scheme I felt like I had one of the best seats in the house. The multiple camera angles and close up shots gave a whole new dimension to the production and yet was perfectly understated to maintain the fantastic sensation that only live theatre can bring.NT Live broadcast their first production to 50,000 people in a single month. 11,000 people in the UK alone watched Shakespeare's "All's Well That Ends Well" on a single day last October. These are success rates the Government scheme can't even begin to match. The figures haven't been released for Nation yet but the cinema I visited was full as I'm sure many of the other 310 across the globe were.
Perhaps I have already oversold this event but let me make one more point. These are not people who were going to go anyway as I suspect many of the free ticket users are. The National Theatre was packed to the rafters and so everyone, in every cinema, in every country was an additional viewer.
I try to get to the theatre as frequently as I can but it is often costly. To see a free ticket production even beginning to rival the National Theatre I would probably have to travel to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Even if I opted for a matinee and returned the same day the travel costs would easily exceed the £10 for an NT live ticket at a cinema within walking distance of my house and would probably result in a far less enjoyable or visible afternoon.
The above video has been doing the rounds on the internet this afternoon. Unless I'm much mistaken there is very little difference between a "Robin Hood Tax" and Gordon Brown's suggested "Tobin tax". In fact as far as I can make out they are exactly the same thing. The whole idea has been laughed at in most arenas and torn down in several so I shall not bother to add my voice to that cacophony (a couple of links if you wish to hear it: 1, 2).
However I am interested by the re-branding. Obviously the first thought is that the groups backing it (mainly charities with little in the way of economic credentials) do not want to associate the plan with Gordon's due to the so called "Jonah curse". However this is only a short term fix as I'm sure, if this movement grows legs, Gordon will be running after it as fast as he can and shouting the new name from the rooftops.
Whatever the reason it seems a little odd (although in keeping with what one would expect from such levels of economic illiteracy) that they would rather associate a serious global economic shake up with a criminal from English folklore than a Nobel prize winning economist. As well as being a teacher at both Yale and Harvard James Tobin served on the Council of Economic Advisers and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He is something of a hero in the neo-Keynesian movement and made massive contributions to the macroeconomic school.
On the EU bailing out Greece:
It need hardly be said that it would be wrong – economically and morally – for taxpayers in other countries to step in. It was a mistake to rescue the banks from the consequences of their own errors, and that logic applies in spades to whole countries. Still, the EU has every right to make its own mistakes. What it has no right to do is to expect the United Kingdom to pay a proportion of the bill. We kept the pound. It’s not our problem.
Dan Hannan in the Telegraph
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