This p**** thing could be very damaging for labour, the sun is on the case now and with some damaging revelations about Hewitt and Dromey, this could affect their poll ratings unless Ed takes decisive action to condemn them and sack them both from the labour party

 

'Labour chiefs support sex with 10 year olds'

 

Sun readers tend to be less bright than say Telegraph or Independent readers so could well start seeing labour as 'the p**** party' or 'the paedos friend' likewise people walking past a copy of the Sun seeing 'labour chiefs' would assume Ed was involved

 

Wouldn't surprise me if by this time next week Labour poll lead has all but gone

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/ma...sor-pm-arrested

 

What was that, Craig?

A modicum of a principle finally returning to Labour?

 

Mr Umunna will add: "Rest assured that we understand the challenge in respect of the public finances. But reducing the deficit is neither the only economic challenge we face, nor - in the longer term - the most important.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26422007

 

Obviously, it's quite depressing that someone saying the deficit is not the most important thing counts as a breakthrough (and a statement like this is still a lot less radical and leftwing than Labour's already-pathetic position at the 2010 election), but maybe this is a baby-step towards it finally occurring to them that making poor people even poorer and destroying public services even further, just for the sake of satisfying "the markets", is maybe not a very good idea for a party which was set up to do the exact opposite of those things.

Edited March 4, 201411 yr by Danny

<3

 

I hate how 'we have to cut the deficit!!!' has gone from a near-hysterical Tory manifesto pledge to almost a full political consensus of austerity as the new norm when the first statement hasn't really been proven true. And even if we're gonna commit to further balancing our fiscal deficit, at least do it through tax rises as they're far more effective. (there's obviously an ideological aspect to that too)

Indeed, and it's even more depressing when you compare it to what's happening in the US (which not so long ago no-one would've claimed was more politically left-wing than the UK). If someone in the UK said some of the stuff that Obama's said about the deficit (basically, that it really doesn't matter much at all), he would be hounded by the media and political establishment as a dangerous Marxist who should be locked up. Hell, there's even a few mainstream Republicans (i.e. not the Tea Party crazies) who are saying things more leftwing on public spending and the deficit than most Labour people have said in the past year, and that a surplus isn't necessary.

Edited March 4, 201411 yr by Danny

And tonight gives Labour their highest rating of the year (41%).

 

You are fast approaching Dan Hodges levels on political predictions :P

 

Must be an outlier :teresa:

 

I find it hard to believe that Labour ratings have gone up since 3 of their senior members over the years, including the possible deputy prime minister in 14 months, have shown appalling errors of judgement

 

The budget is coming soon, Gideon will cut taxes, all to play for :yahoo:

Must be an outlier :teresa:

 

I find it hard to believe that Labour ratings have gone up since 3 of their senior members over the years, including the possible deputy prime minister in 14 months, have shown appalling errors of judgement

 

The budget is coming soon, Gideon will cut taxes, all to play for :yahoo:

It probably is an outlier, but seriously - nobody actually gives a shit about a totally irrelevant smear. Harriet Harman was in government for thirteen years and the world didn't fall apart just because she was the legal officer for an organisation with hundreds of affiliates, one of which promoted paedophiles.

 

Politically the most interesting questions were about Harriet Harman and the ongoing NCCL/PIE/Daily Mail row, essentially measuring its lack of impact. Only 34% of people say they have been following the story very (6%) or fairly (28%) closely. 42% of people haven’t followed it at all or are completely unaware of it. This is reflected in the other questions which all produced large levels of “don’t knows” – it appears to be a story that hasn’t really caught the public’s attention or at least, the public don’t know what to think about vague allegations from long ago.

 

Public opinion towards Harriet Harman is very much divided – 26% say PIE probably did have influence over NCCL, 33% that it probably didn’t, 41% say they don’t know. 34% agree with Harman that is it is just a politically motivated smear, 35% that it is legitimate investigation. 35% think that Jack Dromey probably did active condemn PIE, 20% think he probably did not, 45% don’t know.

 

Overall 34% think that Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey do have cause to apologise, 32% think that it’s a storm in a teacup and they do not. There’s a consistent party skew to the answers throughout – most Labour voters think it’s a smear and take the side of Harman and Dromey, many Tory supporters think they have something to apologise for.

 

The broad thrust of the results is that the story hasn’t really cut through to the public – rather than some great swathe of public outrage, people who disliked Labour to begin with seem to think they’ve done something wrong, people who support Labour to begin with seem to think it’s a smear, most people don’t seem to care one way or the other.

It probably is an outlier, but seriously - nobody actually gives a shit about a totally irrelevant smear. Harriet Harman was in government for thirteen years and the world didn't fall apart just because she was the legal officer for an organisation with hundreds of affiliates, one of which promoted paedophiles.

 

Lead is back down to 4% so looks like it was an outlier

 

I thought that the whole thing was overblown by the media, but it is a scary thought that 42% of the nation (or a good chunk of 42%) hadn't heard of the story, these people who are so ignorant of what is going on in the world have a vote, unreal, you would have had to live in a cave in Afghanistan or be on the ISS in outer space to avoid this story its been dominating tv and print and online news for a week

Edited March 5, 201411 yr by Sandro Raniere

Lead is back down to 4% so looks like it was an outlier

 

I thought that the whole thing was overblown by the media, but it is a scary thought that 42% of the nation (or a good chunk of 42%) hadn't heard of the story, these people who are so ignorant of what is going on in the world have a vote, unreal, you would have had to live in a cave in Afghanistan or be on the ISS in outer space to avoid this story its been dominating tv and print and online news for a week

 

What?? "Dominating"? :lol: I don't think it was the top story on BBC once last week. And in any case, as I've said before, there's a difference between people never hearing about a story, and hearing about it but finding it so uninteresting that they forget about it - a story as convoluted as the deputy leader of the Labour party once knowing someone who knew someone who knew someone else was always going to be the latter.

 

**

 

Second slight shred of good news for Labour in a couple of days -- Len McCluskey is finally "playing hardball". Let's see if the Labour leadership are still as disdainful about how much they should take notice of normal people if their money's about to run out. Despite the media characterising McCluskey as some unreasonable demagogue, it's really incredible he's put up for so long with handing over huge cheques to a party which said pleasing "the markets" was more important than giving normal people decent wages.

Edited March 5, 201411 yr by Danny

Lead is back down to 4% so looks like it was an outlier

 

I thought that the whole thing was overblown by the media, but it is a scary thought that 42% of the nation (or a good chunk of 42%) hadn't heard of the story, these people who are so ignorant of what is going on in the world have a vote, unreal, you would have had to live in a cave in Afghanistan or be on the ISS in outer space to avoid this story its been dominating tv and print and online news for a week

1. Quite a lot of people don't follow the news. (Which isn't to say they don't follow news around election periods, but still - even at the best turnouts 30% don't vote, and you'd expect a lot of them don't really follow the news either.)

2. The story hasn't really been dominating the media (well, outside of the rags you read - but they're preaching to the converted), and definitely not to the extent that you'd have to 'live in a cave' to not hear about it.

2. I remember reading somewhere that on average people think about politics and current affairs for about a minute and a half a day. When for the last two weeks the media's been hyping World War III as imminent, it's quite understandable that not everyone would pay much attention to a story on Labour's deputy leader working for an organisation affiliated to paedophiles forty years ago.

Opinion polls are a farce

 

Last 3 days been 4%, 3% and now 9%, there has been no policy announcements, no scandals, nothing that would explain why a lead would increase by 6 points in a day

It's called natural error, it always happens. Stop reading so much into individual polls. Like I say every time, it's about the trend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26504691

 

More terrible news for the 2 Ed's

 

Wages to outstrip inflation by summer, there goes Labour's last real trump card, there wont be a cost of living crisis on a widespread scale in 2015

 

Also the economy is going to be better than it was in 2008 so Labour wont be able to say that we have f***ed up the country

 

 

A preview of what a carcrash Labour's election campaign is currently looking set to be:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26506522

 

"Everyone will be guaranteed a job, something that hasn't been done in 40 years, AND this will all be done with just a tiny bit of money!" Do they actually expect anyone to believe this? They say it's based on a scheme in Wales, and predictably, that scheme has had barely any effect whatsoever, the Jobseekers count there is still astronomically high, because you simply can't make such a drastic change like guaranteeing everyone a permanent job with a decent wage unless you stump up a huge amount of cash. Yet these people think the average person is going to have so much faith in their abilities that they expect us to believe they can give us the penny and the bun, that they can just snap their fingers and magic these things out of thin air. And to top it off, we have yet more bullying of ill people (from the "compassionate" party!) with their nonsense that "A life on benefits will simply not be an option". Idiots.

A preview of what a carcrash Labour's election campaign is currently looking set to be:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26506522

 

"Everyone will be guaranteed a job, something that hasn't been done in 40 years, AND this will all be done with just a tiny bit of money!" Do they actually expect anyone to believe this? They say it's based on a scheme in Wales, and predictably, that scheme has had barely any effect whatsoever, the Jobseekers count there is still astronomically high, because you simply can't make such a drastic change like guaranteeing everyone a permanent job with a decent wage unless you stump up a huge amount of cash. Yet these people think the average person is going to have so much faith in their abilities that they expect us to believe they can give us the penny and the bun, that they can just snap their fingers and magic these things out of thin air. And to top it off, we have yet more bullying of ill people (from the "compassionate" party!) with their nonsense that "A life on benefits will simply not be an option". Idiots.

 

Exactly, its absolutely bizarre, they reckon they are going to fund it out of bankers bonuses and entrepreneurs pensions, complete economic illiteracy, they have promised to fund god knows how many other crackpot ideas out of these same bonuses,they are either shit at finance or are under the assumption that the electorate have the mental age of 10

 

Plus these jobs don't even add up, they are creating 55,000 or something non jobs, whereas youth unemployment is about 900,000 and spinning it as 'a job for everyone'

 

Bankers bonuses are already taxed at 45% plus NI, and there are only so many bankers in the UK

 

Labour are unfit to govern

I just love the irony of Craig calling someone economically illiterate.

 

It's been said enough times that headline figures are nothing in election campaigns, it's all about whether people feel they're getting any better off. There's a considerable time delay on that AND it's notoriously partisan. The Tories need to be taking 2010 Labour votes in order to get a majority and it's just not going to happen.

I do agree with the 'life on benefits will not be an option' bit in principle, welfare should be nothing more than a temporary short term safety net not a way of life, but labour will throw more people onto the dole queues with their anti business and anti enterprise policies if they get in

 

The way to get people off the dole is to have a free market and pro business agenda that leads to employers creating jobs, that means entrepreneurs and would be entrepreneurs being allowed to keep more of their money, there needs to be a heavy cut in the 45p rate of tax, down to as low as 30 or max 35p, this encourages entrepreneurs to start a business

 

Labour will just tax them into oblivion or cause a brain drain

I just love the irony of Craig calling someone economically illiterate.

 

It's been said enough times that headline figures are nothing in election campaigns, it's all about whether people feel they're getting any better off. There's a considerable time delay on that AND it's notoriously partisan. The Tories need to be taking 2010 Labour votes in order to get a majority and it's just not going to happen.

 

I have the luxury of not standing for public office though, if i was i would fully expect my financial projections to be subjected to the maximum scrutiny, Ed Balls' figures just don't add up, he needs to be honest and explain where the extra money will come from, he cant keep saying bankers bonuses, he needs to be honest with the public

A preview of what a carcrash Labour's election campaign is currently looking set to be:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26506522

 

"Everyone will be guaranteed a job, something that hasn't been done in 40 years, AND this will all be done with just a tiny bit of money!" Do they actually expect anyone to believe this? They say it's based on a scheme in Wales, and predictably, that scheme has had barely any effect whatsoever, the Jobseekers count there is still astronomically high, because you simply can't make such a drastic change like guaranteeing everyone a permanent job with a decent wage unless you stump up a huge amount of cash. Yet these people think the average person is going to have so much faith in their abilities that they expect us to believe they can give us the penny and the bun, that they can just snap their fingers and magic these things out of thin air. And to top it off, we have yet more bullying of ill people (from the "compassionate" party!) with their nonsense that "A life on benefits will simply not be an option". Idiots.

Since when was all 18-24 year olds out of work for over a year getting guaranteed a job = 'everyone will be guaranteed a job'? And as it says in there, it isn't guaranteeing everyone a permanent job - it's a job for at least six months, after which the employer takes over the cost if they want to keep them.

 

And I don't see how "Those who can work will be required to take up the jobs on offer or lose their benefits. A life on benefits will simply not be an option." is bullying of ill people - the key's right there at the beginning of the sentence. Slightly bizarre post Danny. I'd have almost thought you hadn't read the article properly.

Craig, we've never needed tax as low as 30-35% for entrepreneurs to be here and to be creating a boom. Are you really so short-sighted that you don't see where it ends if the solution after every downturn is 'CUT TAXES EVEN FURTHER!!!!1!!1!'. If anything, the lower tax is the more likely a crisis becomes - that's all the more money for the most well-off to be putting into financial speculation.

Since when was all 18-24 year olds out of work for over a year getting guaranteed a job = 'everyone will be guaranteed a job'? And as it says in there, it isn't guaranteeing everyone a permanent job - it's a job for at least six months, after which the employer takes over the cost if they want to keep them.

 

And I don't see how "Those who can work will be required to take up the jobs on offer or lose their benefits. A life on benefits will simply not be an option." is bullying of ill people - the key's right there at the beginning of the sentence. Slightly bizarre post Danny. I'd have almost thought you hadn't read the article properly.

 

6-month jobs would be absolutely pathetic and pointless as it is, but even that would not be covered by the minuscule costs a bank bonus tax and minor adjustments to pension relief would make. By all accounts, in Wales, the only thing this scheme has done is put people on some kind of accelerated "waiting list" for a limited number of jobs which makes someone only marginally more likely to get a job than otherwise. Certainly there's no real difference in youth unemployment figures in Wales as compared to the rest of the UK. If it was so easy to do such a thing with hardly any money, why would no government have done it yet? (Even I don't think the Tories are so evil and heartless that they would deliberately not guarantee young people a job if there was some magic cost-free way of doing it, they just don't care about it enough to plough in the billions and billions that such a policy would require.)

 

A proper Labour Party would guarantee a permanent job to all young people (with the government creating public-sector jobs if the private sector doesn't provide enough), with a decent wage, for all people who are able (genuinely able) to work. And they would they put up the massive sum of money that that would require. But that would require them to drop their current dishonest and illogical doublespeak about on the one hand cutting the deficit and having "iron discipline" on spending, yet on the other hand somehow making all these things happen with no money. Surely you can see their current position is as far away from "credibility" as it's possible to be?

 

As for the last line - it's pretty obvious what kind of sentiment "A life on benefits will simply not be an option" is pandering to, and "those who can work" is usually meant to mean those who are physically able to work, i.e. not having had a leg blown off or something. Maybe I would give them the benefit of the doubt if Labour had a track record of sticking up for people with mental health problems on benefits who have been relentlessly bullied over the past few years, but the fact is they've almost always either been silent or actively joining in (some anonymous Labour frontbencher said the other week that she thought "White Dee" from Benefits Street was fit to work, even though she's been diagnosed with depression). I don't know whether they're just so ignorant that they can't be bothered researching what life is like for people less fortunate than themselves, or if they're abandoning their principles for (what they perceive to be) political expediency, but eitherway it's an utterly depressing state of affairs.

Edited March 10, 201411 yr by Danny