UK General Discussion

[Leftbehind]

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week

My local young conservative branch are doing this for a week, living on £53 that is. Should be fun, and not too hard.

It'll be like a jolly old camping trip.

[Leftbehind]

It's not particularly difficult to live off a small amount of money on a short term basis, particularly if you have other resources to draw on. If it's longer term and if you don't have other resources, then things are rather difficult. Not just in terms of the general gloom (which is awful; throughout this I am writing here from personal - past - experience), but what happens when you're hit by some circumstance or other that requires you to spend a considerable amount of money (and this is ultimately unavoidable). Because then you're fycked. Frankly, it is not very funny, not very funny at all, and anyone who thinks otherwise deserves a good hiding and then some.

This.

It's worth saying this now; if/when Labour get back in power, they won't go back to how things were. This is a perfect opportunity for them.

And this.

What is noxious, in general, is the creeping return of Less Eligibility in public discourse and as an official defence for ethically dubious public policy.

And this.

[Leftbehind]

'if you don't like it, don't read it'.

That's not the point.

Why not?

Same way that if you don't like the celebrating Thatcher's death t-shirts, you don't buy them? Except the whining about that was top of the agenda for most Tories, and they weren't the largest selling newspapers in the country (the Sun themselves described it as 'state-subsidised manslaughter') but a stall at a union conference.

It's funny how laissez-faire the Right become when it suits them.

[Leftbehind]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/04/north-korea-trident-david-cameron

"North Korea threat means we still need Trident Nuclear deterrent, says PM"

Ever the opportunist. Ignoring that it doesn't even make sense it's lovely to see yet more hypocrisy from the government on what we can and can't afford.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22025035

Like the Mail and the Sun, Osborne seeks to use the tragic death of children to cut the state. f'ing scum.

[Leftbehind]

My mother speculated- and there may be something in this- that Galloway won Bradford West so convincingly because many Muslim's do not want a Jew as leader of the nation. That's just evil, and frankly, If that is at all true, I'd rather those sorts of pond-scum didn't vote at all.

...and what would you call that assumption, if not also the prejudice you decry? It's true that many muslims are bigoted against jews, but no moreso (as you and your mother perfectly demonstrate) than christians and jews are bigoted against muslims.  

Not sure how you've conflated the superficial criticisms of Miliband with that.

[Leftbehind]

£7.45 (up to £8.55 in London), rather than the minimum wage of £6.19.

I'm not to happy with a promise of tax breaks across the board; the notion that the living wage needs to be 'encouraged' just seems more customary spinelessness from our politicians - it should become the mandated minimum wage Labour promises in 2015, with any talk of tax breaks limited to a minority of businesses that can prove they couldn't financially withstand it.

The idea that supermarkets etc should get tax breaks for the very least what they should be paying is outrageous, and UK business is already sitting on astronomical sums that they've progressively stole from workers.

[Leftbehind]

Carrots for business and sticks for workers is usually the order of the day.

Those Farage figures aren't much to worry about: they're in answer to 'is x doing well or badly as leader of x' and so even I'd answer 'well' to that - he objectively is. When actually asked if he'd make a better PM or general approval he's decisively beaten by the other leaders (well perhaps not Clegg, but even then not by much, and Clegg's critically unpopular).

[Leftbehind]

One who'd professed to moderate them...

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Well it would be a fairly easy decision to raise taxes on the wealthy and comfortable and redistributing it to the working class - the opposite to what this government's doing.

[Leftbehind]

Morbid fascination?

[Leftbehind]

UKIP gain in Ribble Valley?

If Labour can return to their 2005 result of 30% surely they have a chance of nipping between the middle?

[Leftbehind]

If UKIP looks anything like a possible winner, Labour's vote'll be down.

36 Con (-14)
17 Lab (-5)
5 Liberal (-15)
35 UKIP (+29)
5 Others

Something like that?

Labour didn't fall in Eastleigh, and they're more competitive in Ribble Valley. If Labour fell from 2010 and didn't get any benefit from Liberal collapse, questions will start being asked of Ed.

[Leftbehind]

Well, they aren't competitive in the proper Valley, they weren't close in any of the county seats in the Valley, nor in the district elections (1 seat in a Clitheroe ward in 2003, no candidates at all in 2007, and they weren't close of winning one except in one case in 2011). If they are compettive in the seats, that's because of the South Ribble parts of the misnamed Ribble Valley seat.

Well tbf I was talking about that misnamed Ribble Valley seat. Labour need little more than to reverse their 2010 loss to squeak into the thirties, and as Eastleigh shown, that's enough when UKIP are fracturing the vote.

[Leftbehind]

Maybe then all the idiots who claimed the government was automatically 'centrist' because of it, will revise their opinion. But probably not.

[Leftbehind]

If Cameron's forced out in what would inevitably be a right wing coup, I can't imagine either side would want the coalition to continue.

[Leftbehind]

A full quarter of the Harrow Labour party breaking away? That's reminiscent of Glasgow.

I notice Harrow Observer described them as "DISSATISFIED left-wing councillors", so I wonder if they're suggesting it's a leadership coup by the Right of the party.

[Leftbehind]

"People think he's a weirdo until they actually met him face-to-face" is something that gets pushed a lot.

Can't help chuckle at your username.

[Leftbehind]

An ICM poll in the Grauniad says Lab 34 (-4) Con 28 (-4) UKIP 18 (+9) (!) LD 11 (-4).

ICM's methodology tends to dampen big swings since the last election, so this looks like an even wilder result than on a first glance.

Added changes. So a +3 for Others as well? Be interesting to see the cross-breaks.

[Leftbehind]

2015 looks set to give us such an odd realignment when you consider what'll happen in cities like Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool with Labour and the LibDems and what'll happen down south in the Bostons and the Thanets of the country with the Tories and UKIP (or even Labour, if they can run through the middle and get some unexpected gains).

2015 will be like every other election. I still don't think UKIP will pick up a more than about 1 seat (if Farage is still knocking around). It'll be a Tory v Labour fight yet again. The fact that Labour can't muster runaway Blairesque leads three years into a Tory government is good news. Indeed they haven't been able to reach the dizzy midterm highs of Foot and Kinnock either.

One thing I've noticed in Canada is that conservative parties have tended to underpoll in between campaigns since about 1990. Does the same pattern exist in the UK?

Yes, but polls account for that by various corrections. The Labour drop in the latest Ipsos-Mori is actually down to one of the measures: a very strict threshold for turnout certainty (only counting those that are 10/10, with Labour votes saying they're less likely to vote in the latest). Although even with those I think the Tories will continue to 'underpoll', as the trend for voters who are most likely to oppose them not registering/voting grows (you can already see the substantial differences in Ipsos' estimates on how the demographics voted in 2010).

[Leftbehind]

No time for gay marriage, but seemingly endless time to devote to a charade on a EU referendum.

[Leftbehind]

I thought it was England who had the hooligans, not the Scots.  Or is that only in football since there isn't anything to get excited about in Socttish football.

How did you manage to come away with the idea that Scotland was immune to hooliganism?

[Leftbehind]

lol nearly 55% for turbo neoliberalism, and I'm not even sure if I'm right to exclude Labour from it, given they look set to adopt near enough all the coalitions reforms as their own anyway. Has anyone actually exposed some of UKIP's policies, other than the fairly popular anti-EU and immigration well-known ones? Should I expect them to be? Well at least there's a chance we can get PR from this, and it'd be particularly appropriate if delivered by their own incompetency.

[Leftbehind]

Sunday Times poll suggesting close to 50/50 split for independence if there's an early vote on leaving the EU

More like 55/45, and that's one of the better figures for EU (although a lot could change within a referendum debate: see AV ).

[Leftbehind]

Well that's what I though, too, but there's no Independence-related question, let alone figures in the Sunday Times tables.

Nevermind, found what he was talking about. YouGov is usually synonymous with Sunday Times, have to say I've never heard of Panelbase?

It'd be hilarious if the Scots voted Independence on the threat that UK were leaving the EU.

[Leftbehind]

John Curtice is usually good for commentary, but yeah that sounds pretty suspect. On a UK level women seem to have less conviction (consistently more d/k's) and default towards conservatism (not necessarily right-wing, just status quo) moreso than men.

[Leftbehind]

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