Labour are f***ing massive knobs if they think Andy Burnham is the future of their party. Jesus.

Labour are f***ing massive knobs if they think Andy Burnham is the future of their party. Jesus.

 

What do you think's wrong with him?

He won't be able to talk about the NHS at pmqs without Cameron easily downing him with the obv comeback!

Bizarrely, there is a campaign to get Keir Starmer (elected for the first time last week and a former Director Of Public Prosecutions) to stand. Perhaps the best bet, in his case, would be for someone like Creagh to lead the party and make Starmer Shadow Justice Secretary to oppose the attempt to repeal the Human Rights Act. The contrast between hi,m and Gove (who has no legal training whatsoever) should be massive. If Creagh's leadership proves to be as bad as some people suspect, she can then stand down after a couple years. By then, Starmer might be a stronger contender.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/m...arty-leadership

 

There is one potential massive spanner on the works. There are signs that the Tories want to hold their EU referendum next year. That is a massively optimistic timetable for a renegotiation, but it allows for the fact that there is a French Presidential election and a German Parliamentary election in 2017. Therefore, France and Germany may want to avoid negotiations going into 2017.

 

Let's say the referendum goes ahead in autumn 2016. Cameron may decide that that is a suitable time for him to step down. Assuming the party has not split in the course of the renegotiation / referendum process, he may think that is the best way to concentrate minds and avoid a post-referendum split. A new leader (whether Boris Johnson or A N Other) could decide to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act to allow for an election in 2017. If that happens, Labour will have very limited opportunity to replace their leader.

 

They were also suggesting they might get an interim leader who has to earn reelection in 3 years again!

Didn't she say Labour spent too much?

Heaven forbid we realise that we can make the argument that we didn't all we like and it will get us nowhere. We shouldn't have run a deficit in times of growth. Either we should have increased taxes to cover it, or we should have looked for areas where not every penny was being spent effectively - and there were plenty before the crash (could we not have found a better way to achieve our aims than giving £30 a week to every student in college merely for turning up, instead of better targeted spending on book vouchers and bus passes? Or, perhaps, the Millennium Dome? The £2bn NHS computer system? Just because they were all nice ideas doesn't necessarily mean they were all worth asking people to pay for.). Yes, it was historically small. Yes, everyone else was doing it. But it doesn't mean that we can't admit in retrospect that running that deficit didn't leave us in the best position when it came to borrowing for stimulus in the crash. That's different to going along with the ridiculous Tory narrative that it caused the crash - indeed, Liz Kendall has made that distinction.

 

Do you think every single piece of spending before 2007 was worth it? Do you think *all* of it was worth paying out of people's hard earned tax (and no, not all of it was doctors and nurses)? Because if it can't be justified through tax (and yes - the vast amount of it can be), there's even less chance you can justify paying for it by borrowing, with added interest.

Load of fluff nobody would disagree with here. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/m...rship-interview

Heaven forbid we realise that we can make the argument that we didn't all we like and it will get us nowhere. We shouldn't have run a deficit in times of growth. Either we should have increased taxes to cover it, or we should have looked for areas where not every penny was being spent effectively - and there were plenty before the crash (could we not have found a better way to achieve our aims than giving £30 a week to every student in college merely for turning up, instead of better targeted spending on book vouchers and bus passes? Or, perhaps, the Millennium Dome? The £2bn NHS computer system? Just because they were all nice ideas doesn't necessarily mean they were all worth asking people to pay for.). Yes, it was historically small. Yes, everyone else was doing it. But it doesn't mean that we can't admit in retrospect that running that deficit didn't leave us in the best position when it came to borrowing for stimulus in the crash. That's different to going along with the ridiculous Tory narrative that it caused the crash - indeed, Liz Kendall has made that distinction.

 

Do you think every single piece of spending before 2007 was worth it? Do you think *all* of it was worth paying out of people's hard earned tax (and no, not all of it was doctors and nurses)? Because if it can't be justified through tax (and yes - the vast amount of it can be), there's even less chance you can justify paying for it by borrowing, with added interest.

 

I have no idea, but it's an incredibly daft political strategy. If you think Labour have an economic credibility problem now, just imagine what it's going to be like next time when the Tories are armed with attack lines like "even Labour admit they overspent, there's the proof it wasn't just a Tory scare story, so why on earth would you trust them again?"

 

Not to mention, the implication that the deficit was "too big" in 2007 -- it will almost certainly be bigger than that in 2020, so they're giving licence yet again for the main issue of the next election to be the deficit yet again. But apparently these people still haven't learnt that if your opponents want you to do something, it's the very last thing you should do.

Edited May 15, 201510 yr by Danny

Load of fluff nobody would disagree with here. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/m...rship-interview

 

John Mann @JohnMannMP · 15h 15 hours ago

As I spend quality time away with my new grandson, I can't answer repeated questions over Labour: 'what on earth are they talking about?'

Edited May 16, 201510 yr by Danny

I have no idea, but it's an incredibly daft political strategy. If you think Labour have an economic credibility problem now, just imagine what it's going to be like next time when the Tories are armed with attack lines like "even Labour admit they overspent, there's the proof it wasn't just a Tory scare story, so why on earth would you trust them again?"

 

Not to mention, the implication that the deficit was "too big" in 2007 -- it will almost certainly be bigger than that in 2020, so they're giving licence yet again for the main issue of the next election to be the deficit yet again. But apparently these people still haven't learnt that if your opponents want you to do something, it's the very last thing you should do.

 

Trying to perpetuate myths (as much as the Tories are) is no way to convince the electorate who are living with the economic proof that Labour failed to "save for a rainy day", and indeed a very fore-seeable rainy day that was jumping up and down in front of them naked for at least 5 years before the crash, a bubble that was building up while they were happily pumping up the bureaucracy and heating up the property market.

 

What Labour need to do is point out that The Tories pursued much the same attitude, and as formal Opposition to the party in power they should have been pointing out the error of Labour's ways at the time. And didn't. That was their main job and they failed as much as Labour failed over the last 5 years to pump up the pressure on the TORY party behind the main policies as opposed to other parties peripherally involved, or benefitting from Labour's meandering and waffling since 2010.

 

In terms of future leaders, imagine candidate X on TV or in Parliament responding to cameron, and then ask whether they are going to look like rabbits in headlights in comparison, or a firm hand. Tried the former, didn't work....

Hopefully by 2020 the Tories won't still be talking about 2008!

Hopefully by 2020 the Tories won't still be talking about 2008!

Don't hold your breath. In 1992, they were still banging on about the Labour government they had replaced 13 years earlier.

True I hope that argument is the FIRST thing the new leadership tries to destroy with their first meeting - there was at one point around 2013 that a QT audience sighed when a Tory minister used the line 'the last government' and I thought the public had grown wary of the nonsense arguement was being defeated but the campaign showed the public were still prepared to believe it esp when DC brought out the Liam Byrne letter - ridiculous really.

True I hope that argument is the FIRST thing the new leadership tries to destroy with their first meeting - there was at one point around 2013 that a QT audience sighed when a Tory minister used the line 'the last government' and I thought the public had grown wary of the nonsense arguement was being defeated but the campaign showed the public were still prepared to believe it esp when DC brought out the Liam Byrne letter - ridiculous really.

 

the argument is undestroyable, being true and all, as I just explained. i (the newspaper) had a good quote from David Miliband on the speech he had prepared for his victory for Labour Leader (abandoned obviously) in which he meets the issue head on, accepts the blame on behalf of the party and the country and stresses a need to move on positively with dealing with a new lean government not a mean government. The issue would have been sorted on day one, instead of hanging over the head of labour like a Damocles Sword 5 years later. If you want to blame anyone blame Ed for not having faith in his more experienced, more charismatic, brother and his judgement, believing instead he, Ed, had the answer when it appears he didn't.

 

Suedehead is also right about the Tory rattling on about Labour 13 years after being in power. They will with 100% certainty be playing that card in 2020. Labour better have some way of dealing with it that isn't "it never happened, look here's a lovely pie chart showing it never happened".

 

That will not convince anyone anymore than it did this time.

 

the argument is undestroyable, being true and all, as I just explained. i (the newspaper) had a good quote from David Miliband on the speech he had prepared for his victory for Labour Leader (abandoned obviously) in which he meets the issue head on, accepts the blame on behalf of the party and the country and stresses a need to move on positively with dealing with a new lean government not a mean government. The issue would have been sorted on day one, instead of hanging over the head of labour like a Damocles Sword 5 years later. If you want to blame anyone blame Ed for not having faith in his more experienced, more charismatic, brother and his judgement, believing instead he, Ed, had the answer when it appears he didn't.

 

Suedehead is also right about the Tory rattling on about Labour 13 years after being in power. They will with 100% certainty be playing that card in 2020. Labour better have some way of dealing with it that isn't "it never happened, look here's a lovely pie chart showing it never happened".

 

That will not convince anyone anymore than it did this time.

 

Well, imo it's not true that they overspent at all; the deficit before the banking crash really was small by historic standards.

 

But even leaving aside whether it's true in reality, it makes no sense for Labour to say it. It's like an electrician putting an ad in the paper bragging about all the faulty wirings they've done; you're not exactly going to be rushing to them are you. People aren't going to think "aw they're so modest to admit they screwed up!" like these clueless politicians think -- all the public will hear is an admission of failure and resolve never to go back to them.

Edited May 16, 201510 yr by Danny

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk now has the results in a form suitable for pasting into a spreadsheet. I have done that and added in extra columns for analysis purposes. I can now play with it to my heart's content :D

 

One initial fact is the sheer scale of the SNP's victories. Just six of their seats were won by a margin under 10%. Labour are second in just two if those.

 

I did some playing around with their seat predictor a couple days ago. In each of these cases, I put the Lib Dems and UKIP on 10% each. If Labour and the Toires get the same share of the vote, the Tories win over 50 more seats than Labour. Labour need to be 3% ahead to win one more seat than the Tories. Of course, the Tories will still try to peddle the myth that the boundaries are biased against them. The truth is that, from 1997 to 2005, Labour (and, to a lesser extent, the Lib Dems) were better than the Tories at targeting their vote effectively. In the last two elections, the Tories have been better at concentrating their efforts (and huge sums of money) in the seats that matter.

Farage said on QT that he thinks it'll be in just a year's time, next May. He could be right.

May 2016 would be a very ambitious date. After all, the 27 other EU countries haven't even accepted the principle of a renegotiation yet. Some leaders have made vague noises over the last week, but there is still a long way to go.

 

However, if Cameron really does want the UK to remain a member, next May does have its advantages. The Scottish parliament election will be taking place then. That would probably increase the turnout in Scotland. UKIP's performance in Scotland was largely woeful, suggesting that Scotland may vote to stay in by a larger margin than previously anticipated. The same applies to Wales.

 

OTOH, local elections in some parts of England will probably do little or nothing to increase the turnout. A lower turnout in England may well reduce the chances of an English Out vote defeating a Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish In.

Surely a huge part of the reason (I'm guessing, I don't have any figures) that the deficit built up before the crash was that the PFI repayments had started kicking in?

 

If you want to blame anyone blame Ed for not having faith in his more experienced, more charismatic, brother and his judgement, believing instead he, Ed, had the answer when it appears he didn't.

I have never seen anyone embody the statement "absence makes the art grow fonder" than David Miliband. Please stop clinging to this idea that he'd have somehow been a beacon of hope against Cameron because he wouldn't.

Surely a huge part of the reason (I'm guessing, I don't have any figures) that the deficit built up before the crash was that the PFI repayments had started kicking in?

I have never seen anyone embody the statement "absence makes the art grow fonder" than David Miliband. Please stop clinging to this idea that he'd have somehow been a beacon of hope against Cameron because he wouldn't.

 

pretty sure we had discussions about the relative merits of each a few years back, so not really absence makes the heart fonder I'm afraid, just a practical stance that David would have been more of a statesmanlike vote winner (and therefore preferable to a Tory government). I always said that, but of course I've no way of proving that he would have been more effective other than personal belief...

David might (MIGHT) have been seen as more "prime ministerial", but his platitudinous babbling would've gone down horribly with people, just as Liz Kendall's would.

Yeah, David was overrated as fuck. He'd have done better because, frankly, aside from Diane who WOULDN'T, but he wouldn't have won and the party would basically have entered civil war had he been elected by the narrow margin he was aiming for.