Let us see how the referendum proceeds... I've just "liked" AFKABartram's post because it's very simple: 21st century parties need decent political philosophy, an appetite for challenge and good presentational skills... We are a global player FFS playing on the world stage and we as CAFC fans live in or near one of the best cities in the world. FACT! Why would a major party put someone who isn't convincing front of stage?
Because, in Labour's case, Ed Milliband made a deal with the Unions to get their 'block' vote which got him over the line against his far better credentialed and far more impressive brother.
As you can see David Milliband won the majority of Labour Party member votes and of MPs and MEP's - but Ed's sweetheart deal with the Union (affiliated members) was enough to get him narrowly over the line.
Once David Milliband, understandably, quit Parliament soon after then Labour were stuck with the hapless and hopeless Ed because there was really nobody else to turn to.
Only that complete oxygen thief Ian Duncan Smith as LOTO before Cameron comes close to Milliband in terms of ineptitude.
But David also bottled it in 2009 when there was plenty of support for him to challenge Brown for the leadership.
Maybe, but there is a world of difference between running in an open leadership contest and knocking over a Prime Minister.
Even if David Milliband had beaten Gordon Brown in a Leadership contest (by no means certain) then he would have had a divided party and would have lost the election anyway, Labour's time was up regardless of whomever was leader.
David Milliband is no genius but he is far better than his woefully inept brother.
Never really get how some people get so entrenched in left / right politics, particularly when they by nature they fail to see anything good in one parties policies, and nothing wrong in another. Especially at a time when in reality there is a fag packet between the main parties.
However, every time I see Milliband on the telly I just ask myself how any sane individual could ever consider voting for that man to lead this country. Utterly bonkers.
How the Labour Party and their voters never addressed that in the last few years I will never understand. Genuinely feel if one of the main parties put an inflatable doll up to lead the country, the people who always vote for that party would continue to do so.
Madness.
Good post Barts. I too struggle to understand how someone's views can be so black or white regardless of the subject matter. Overall, because of my circumstances (background, experiences, priorities, etc) I'm certainly more left leaning than many on here. But there are loads of issues on which I have quite right wing views, like the environment, defence, law and order and bits and pieces around benefit reform just for a few examples off the top of my head.
It does make it amusing to be labelled a Guardianista on here but not so when trying to find the best place to put my X when no one party ticks all the boxes, if you parden the mixed metaphor. You just have to go with the best overall fit but there are plenty in my consituency for example who would vote for that blow up doll and tbf I'm not sure it would do a worse job at it in comparison...
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
Never really get how some people get so entrenched in left / right politics, particularly when they by nature they fail to see anything good in one parties policies, and nothing wrong in another. Especially at a time when in reality there is a fag packet between the main parties.
However, every time I see Milliband on the telly I just ask myself how any sane individual could ever consider voting for that man to lead this country. Utterly bonkers.
How the Labour Party and their voters never addressed that in the last few years I will never understand. Genuinely feel if one of the main parties put an inflatable doll up to lead the country, the people who always vote for that party would continue to do so.
Madness.
Six months ago I would have agreed with you about Milliband but have started to re-evaluate. With a Labour lead apparently entrenched, it seems his strategy (pivot a bot to the left, apologise a bit for Brown but not too much, a few big populist policies but not too much substance) has worked very well so far. He's also managed to keep the Labour party united, no mean achievement after it lost power following 13 years in government.
I personally don't like him and am surprised that he remains ahead in the polls but facts is facts.
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
Well, since the St Andrews Agreement Act 2006 (yes, probably ironic that the meeting was held in Scotland) Northern Ireland re-gained self-rule (to an extent). Wales of course has its National Assembly and its own Government.
So plenty of stuff has been devolved to them too. But as far as full-fat devolution is concerned, perhaps it is just the economies of scale at work? Going from the amount of news broadcast by the BBC, you'd think NI was some vast heavily populated place. In fact it has pretty much the same population as Essex. So the amount of NI news has no direct relationship with actual stuff going on that is of any importance - it just reflects the vast armies of BBC staff that work in Ulster (there's one member of BBC staff for every 2,500 people in NI!) compared to the couple of people they have working for BBC Radio Essex.
By almost every measure it is impossible to justify the amount of money poured into Government in Northern Ireland just to appease the locals. For example, Deloittes have just announced 338 new jobs in NI. This comes with £2.5mn of support from "Invest NI". I'll leave readers to consider where Invest NI gets its funding from and where those jobs might have been instead if it were not for political meddling.
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
No-one is "offering" Scotland its independence. The Scottish people are deciding whether they want to take their own independence. It's not in our gift; nor anyone else's.
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
Ugh, this is the problem with applying 20th century social engineering in a 21st century country according to boundaries that don't take into account demographics or local feeling but how an inbred group of violent sociopaths decided to carve up the British Isles into fiefdoms and kingdoms depending on how many men with swords and horses they could depend on. Northern Ireland being the exception because that is divided on purely sectarian grounds and in modern times.
The fact is the Scots are no so dissimilar from the English in that we both want to be rid of the Houses of Parliament; they're just fortunate enough to be in the kingdom where the cesspit doesn't reside and can therefore justifiably secede. If a referendum was held in England & Wales to secede from Westminster and join Scotland, we'd do well to vote Yes as well.
The question I would like to ask is a simple one. The UK is made up of four Countries, if we are suddenly in a great hurry to offer Scotland all this devolution, why is it not being offered to Wales and Northern Ireland ? If there is a good reason other than the embarrasing stampede to hang onto Scotland, I would be interested to hear it.
No-one is "offering" Scotland its independence. The Scottish people are deciding whether they want to take their own independence. It's not in our gift; nor anyone else's.
That's not what he said. We are offering them greater devolution to encourage them to stay in the union.
Which British party member comes out of the Scottish Independence debate with the most credit? I can't help thinking that Gordon Brown seems to be the most electable Westminster candidate after the last few weeks.
Which British party member comes out of the Scottish Independence debate with the most credit? I can't help thinking that Gordon Brown seems to be the most electable Westminster candidate after the last few weeks.
Ugh. We can certainly tell which ones did the worst.
David Cameron made a serious error of judgement in choosing to remain arms-length from the debate until it was too late to join the debate, at which point it looked like a panic move. He was perhaps correct that, as a Tory, he could have been doing more harm than good but as the Prime Minister he should have been front and centre in keeping the country together. Could you imagine, say, the Southern USA states having a referendum to secede and Obama choosing to stay away from the debate because the South of the USA is full of racists?
Ed Miliband probably did the worst out of any politician - he managed to do irreparable damage to the No campaign through a mixture of ill-judged fearmongering (making up scare stories about armed guards on the border) as well as his incompetent bumbling that made a lot of voters feel that they wanted to be rid of both Labour and the Tories.
Nick Clegg - didn't notice him at all in this referendum. Probably not a bad thing.
Alastair Darling - possibly going to stand down but failed to make a convincing case for No.
Otherwise, a lot of Tory MPs have been making noise about securing more powers for England, which could resonate with voters who feel Scotland is getting too much attention and that England is being neglected. In what will be a tough election for many Tory MPs, a pro-England approach may resonate with voters tired of Scotland getting all the breaks. It will also be difficult for Labour to go down this route as it would risk their seats north of the border.
Agreed that it is a problem. But it is a problem for all political parties. All the effort and money is going into getting elected. Policies are a mere afterthought and IMO , that is very damaging regardless of which party you support.it has become a chicken and egg situation.
So the main things to come out of Labour's last national conference before the election:
1) Their flagship pledge is it increase the minimum wage to £8/hr by 2020 - which is 6p less than the £8.06 it will hit by 2020 according to forecasts.
2) Ed Miliband, by his own admission, regularly visits known dogging spots and approaches strangers, all of whom are called Gareth.
Ed isn't charismatic to put it mildly. I can't help feeling immensely sad that personality is considered more important than policies.
Any chance you could let us know a couple of his policies? For the life of me, I cant recall hearing any at all.
Obviously not listening.
My apologies. Please enlighten us of the stated policies as of 18 September.
Hopefully they wont include the entreaties of Blair who again this week is urging this country to sacrifice more of our armed forces by putting troops on the ground in an un-winnable conflict. Go you multi millionaire peace envoy!
I think the main thrust policy wise is the focus upon extra funding for the NHS from a mansion tax and a tax on Tobbaco companies. Plus a stop to further privatisation.
There was the minimum wage increase.
Votes for 16/17 year olds.
Abolition of the bedroom tax.
Re-Introduction of a 10p tax rate and a top rate of 50%
Comments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_2010
As you can see David Milliband won the majority of Labour Party member votes and of MPs and MEP's - but Ed's sweetheart deal with the Union (affiliated members) was enough to get him narrowly over the line.
Once David Milliband, understandably, quit Parliament soon after then Labour were stuck with the hapless and hopeless Ed because there was really nobody else to turn to.
Only that complete oxygen thief Ian Duncan Smith as LOTO before Cameron comes close to Milliband in terms of ineptitude.
Even if David Milliband had beaten Gordon Brown in a Leadership contest (by no means certain) then he would have had a divided party and would have lost the election anyway, Labour's time was up regardless of whomever was leader.
David Milliband is no genius but he is far better than his woefully inept brother.
It does make it amusing to be labelled a Guardianista on here but not so when trying to find the best place to put my X when no one party ticks all the boxes, if you parden the mixed metaphor. You just have to go with the best overall fit but there are plenty in my consituency for example who would vote for that blow up doll and tbf I'm not sure it would do a worse job at it in comparison...
I personally don't like him and am surprised that he remains ahead in the polls but facts is facts.
So plenty of stuff has been devolved to them too. But as far as full-fat devolution is concerned, perhaps it is just the economies of scale at work? Going from the amount of news broadcast by the BBC, you'd think NI was some vast heavily populated place. In fact it has pretty much the same population as Essex. So the amount of NI news has no direct relationship with actual stuff going on that is of any importance - it just reflects the vast armies of BBC staff that work in Ulster (there's one member of BBC staff for every 2,500 people in NI!) compared to the couple of people they have working for BBC Radio Essex.
By almost every measure it is impossible to justify the amount of money poured into Government in Northern Ireland just to appease the locals.
For example, Deloittes have just announced 338 new jobs in NI. This comes with £2.5mn of support from "Invest NI". I'll leave readers to consider where Invest NI gets its funding from and where those jobs might have been instead if it were not for political meddling.
The fact is the Scots are no so dissimilar from the English in that we both want to be rid of the Houses of Parliament; they're just fortunate enough to be in the kingdom where the cesspit doesn't reside and can therefore justifiably secede. If a referendum was held in England & Wales to secede from Westminster and join Scotland, we'd do well to vote Yes as well.
David Cameron made a serious error of judgement in choosing to remain arms-length from the debate until it was too late to join the debate, at which point it looked like a panic move. He was perhaps correct that, as a Tory, he could have been doing more harm than good but as the Prime Minister he should have been front and centre in keeping the country together. Could you imagine, say, the Southern USA states having a referendum to secede and Obama choosing to stay away from the debate because the South of the USA is full of racists?
Ed Miliband probably did the worst out of any politician - he managed to do irreparable damage to the No campaign through a mixture of ill-judged fearmongering (making up scare stories about armed guards on the border) as well as his incompetent bumbling that made a lot of voters feel that they wanted to be rid of both Labour and the Tories.
Nick Clegg - didn't notice him at all in this referendum. Probably not a bad thing.
Alastair Darling - possibly going to stand down but failed to make a convincing case for No.
Otherwise, a lot of Tory MPs have been making noise about securing more powers for England, which could resonate with voters who feel Scotland is getting too much attention and that England is being neglected. In what will be a tough election for many Tory MPs, a pro-England approach may resonate with voters tired of Scotland getting all the breaks. It will also be difficult for Labour to go down this route as it would risk their seats north of the border.
For the life of me, I cant recall hearing any at all.
1) Their flagship pledge is it increase the minimum wage to £8/hr by 2020 - which is 6p less than the £8.06 it will hit by 2020 according to forecasts.
2) Ed Miliband, by his own admission, regularly visits known dogging spots and approaches strangers, all of whom are called Gareth.
The minimum wage is only due to be £8.0575 by 2020.
Please enlighten us of the stated policies as of 18 September.
Hopefully they wont include the entreaties of Blair who again this week is urging this country to sacrifice more of our armed forces by putting troops on the ground in an un-winnable conflict. Go you multi millionaire peace envoy!
Sorry I'm listening now...please go on IAgree
Not hearing.
Are you transmitting?
Is Milliband?
There was the minimum wage increase.
Votes for 16/17 year olds.
Abolition of the bedroom tax.
Re-Introduction of a 10p tax rate and a top rate of 50%
Freezes on rail and energy prices.
Err.....
The amount of free childcare for three and four year olds would be increased from 15 to 25 hours a week.
Labour plans that by 2025, as many young people will be leaving school to do an apprenticeship as go to university.
Umm.......