The money’s going on David Davis not doing it
July 19th, 2005
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Can he still get to the top?
With Tory MPs due to vote on how the leadership contest should operate doubts have started to develop in the betting markets over whether the Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, will do it.
For the first time since the election “was declared” punters are moving against Davis and the most popular current bet is on him not doing it.
The 2005 Tory leadership race is the first one to be held since the betting exchanges became a siginificant force in the political gambling arena and these offer punters a totally different way of backing their judgement. In 2003, of course, Michael Howard was the only candidate.
The exchanges are attractive because instead of always having to bet FOR a particular contender they allow you to bet AGAINST a particular outcome, and that is what is currently happening with the Shadow Home Secretary.
In the contest a huge gap has emerged between the Shadow Home Secretary’s conventional bookie prices and what’s available on the Betfair betting exchange. With the former the best Davis price is 1/2 which suggests a 75% implied probablity. The last Betfair trade was at greater than evens or an implied probability of less than 50%.
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Following the Tory disappointment in Cheadle and the talk of the last three Tory leaders trying to initiate a “Stop Davis” campaign punters are rushing to take up the chance to put money on him failing to make it without having to name the person who will actually do it.
Apart from the exchanges you can also bet against a contender on the spread markets which have been relatively quiet in this contest. At the moment you can LAY Davis at the equivalent of 3/4 on IG’s BinaryBet market which represents an implied probablility of 62.5%.
Mike Smithson
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After the suspicions that were mentioned here the other day Mike, I notice an oddly curly lock of hair around DD’s parting. Is it a Bobby Charlton or an artificial aid?
If that really is a syrup then he must have particularly strong toupe tape!
Glad to see that the initial contributions on this thread live up to this sites reputation as a provider of far sighted analysis of the real issues affecting politics in the UK today.
Hope Nick Cohen is reading us.
The weekend’s reports about Fox getting the support of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard are according to The Guardian “aspirational”, not real.
Always according the Guardian, Hague won’t probably back any of the candidates (he won’t sat nothing against Fox, but he won’t endorse him)
Ian Duncan Smith is one of Alan Duncan’s talibans. All MPs linked to him are talibans too (always in Duncan’s world).
Today the tories will vote the method to choose the new leader.
3 , Icarus . I think in fairness we have to have a balance . If the site simply becomes a dry academic receptacle we risk beeing seen as out of touch as we accuse the politicians of . Long may it remain a wonderful mix of comment , analysis , invective , humour and rubbish. For which I admit to much of the latter !
The role of Howard is interesting- it is almost as though the party will try to do the opposite of anything he says. The backlash against taking the right to elect the leader away from the members is in full swing, and may yet leave MH with yet more egg on his face. Likewise the fact that Howard is increasingly publiclly hostile to DD may also end up being no bad thing for Davis. Fox- a joke candidate whose self-regard is unlimited but whose talents are not. Cameron- still too posh, (not the Eton problem, the Aspinall problem) despite establishing a surprising air of normality around him. Willets- too narrow a base of support. So in fact I would say that there is a nice arbitrage between the conventional and the spread odds. Worth a flutter definitely.
6 - Cameron- still too posh, (not the Eton problem, the Aspinall problem)
Erm I think you mean Cameron’s parents-in-law are Viscount and Lady Astor.
Do any of the Tories on the site have any info on the variety of systems available for the leadership ? Or is todays meeting of Conservatives open for alternatives ?
If you look at the current shadow cabinet and past Tory heavy weights and leaders it seems unlikely that many or any will come out for Davis (maybe Alan Duncan but that isn’t going to count for much) and that must be a problem for him, even if the reports about x leaders backing Fox are a little dubious.
I wonder what the truth is about Howard’s feelings - it seems like most of what he reportedly objects to about Cameron is actually based on what Osborne said about “opposition for opposition’s sake”, and who knows how faithfully that reflected Cameron’s views?
Well maybe Howard doesn’t want to be too closely associated with Cameron to ruin his supposedly chosen heir’s chances. All this double-crossing reminds me of Big Brother. And like Big Brother, its voting for the contestant you dislike the least rather than the contestant you most admire.
With Sir Michael Spicer as the disembodied voice of BB.
I think this is exceptional within leadership contests in that so many people are so cagey about who they’re supporting - probably a reflection of how long the process will be, and the uncertainty on when it will be over. I still think Howard was attempting a gesture of honour by stepping down straight away, but I start to see why it has been reported to have caused irritation within the party.
According the guessing game in the Commons tearoom (reported by the The Independent) the main tory talibans are Laurence Robertson, John Hayes and Gerald Howarth.
Tories who are opposing the plan to reduce the involvement of party members in the race to choose the new leader include David Willetts, Michael Ancram , Andrew Lansley, Theresa May ,Ed Vaizey, Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith.
What is the process for the constitutional amendment that would reduce the involvement of party members? Do party members have to vote on it?
This contest is following the same pattern as previous Tory leadership elections. Thatcher was elected to stop Heath; Major’s victory meant that Heseltine was kept out of power; Hague was elected because he wasn’t Clarke, as was Duncan Smith. In the end Cameron will win, because enough people will support him to stop Davis being elected. The Tory party rarely vote for who they want as a leader, they vote for the person that will stop the one they don’t.
I think it is worth reading the Telegraph leader today. It seems that they have slightly shifted their position from being pro Davis to being open to pursuasion on Cameron. They describe the race as `wide open’ and give guarded praise to Cameron. I had not expected this and the Davis camp must be a little concerned given all the positive coverage they have received from the `in house’ paper(although the piece on him on Saturday was cringe making). They will still probably back Davis in the end but Cameron must be delighted.
The Tory leader’s appearance matters plenty to the electorate, so discussing it is sensible. There are those on here who think it is more ‘grown up’ to look at ‘issues’, but that won’t determine the winner. How the leader sounds matters much more than what he says.
TB speaks absolute rubbish, but he says it expertly. Listen to his next speech. It’ll be good, sound plausible and maybe even convince you. Now listen to anything he said more than one year ago. Doesn’t stack up, does it? Waffly, vacuous and now it looks just wrong? But that really doesn’t matter; it doesn’t hurt him at all.
None of the tory leadership candidates is a brilliant speaker, and as DD is not, he is much too short a price. A good speech somewhere –maybe at the party conference–would make a mile of difference to that candidate’s chances. Their best speaker by far is Hague, and he’d be a shoo-in now if he hadn’t won the leadership too early.
13 , Andrea . Theresa May was on Radio 5 Live this morning . Frankly she didn’t give much away save she wanted the membership to retain an important role in the election of the leader.
All these lower tier leadership contenders are dancing around each other , wathching , waiting and plotting and we’ve got several more months of this .
17 , David . Did you see DD with Clarke and Oaten when they left the Home Office after their all party discussions on terrorism. DD’s initial comments were poor - hesitant , uncomfortable and somewhat nervous. I was taken aback . In contrast Oaten , who I don’t rate , appeared pretty solid .
No: the implied probability = 2/(1+2) = 67 %.
Andrea (4) Only the National Convention of the Conservative Party can change the constitution, today’s vote is merely an advisory precursor to tabling an amendment. The BBC report is very ambiguous on this issue because as things stand, very few Members of Parliament are members of the National Convention, and the report gives the impression that MPs have the final say.
Jack W (5) Quite agree, I was being facetious. I think the best bits are the spelling but we haven’t had any decent recipes recently.
Very proud of myself - the other weekend (The Saturday - was at Cheadle on Sunday)- Singlehandedly cooked 3 10lb salmon for the Cricket Club Presidents Lunch - Wrap each in foil with few bay leaves, lemon juice, pepper and a splash of Gewurtztraminer - sit in shallow metal tray half filled with water - bang in Aga for about 80 mins(could only get one in at a time)- result, though say it myself, very good!
Icarus - Gewurtztraminer - good call, sir.
22 - very nice. I made gazpacho soup at the weekend (”Waiter, this is terrible, my soup is stone cold” etc - there is a Wikipedia section dedicated to this comic trope). Not bad but I am sure my first attempt is capable of being improved upon. Less vinegar and more oil next time I think.
21 - what is the National Convention? Is it like the old National Union of Conservative Associations, before there was formally speaking a centralised party IIRC?
Gewurtztraminer is surely too good a wine to cook with.
The implicit test for any Tory leadership electoral system seems to be “would it have prevented Iain Duncan Smith?”. Have the Tories considered a Labouresque electoral college? eg.
i) Whittle the candidates down to two, as per the current rules;
ii) Then vote. 50% of votes for the MPs, 50% for party members. This would preserve a “democratic” approach but give the bulk of voting power to the MPs.
Would this have prevented IDS? Assuming that most of the MPs who went for Portillo switched to Clarke, then yes.
17 — Sure, a leader’s appearance, voice, tone are not irrelevant. But I think you overstate your case. Setting the party’s medium-term positioning is the leader’s most important contribution in winning elections. To credibly position a party into a position that is Tory and yet appealing to a plurality of voters, the leader will need massive policy nous as well as soft presentation skills. Blair combines both, but he would not be deadly with just the latter.
22 , Icarus . Your irony was too subtle for me !! I’m afraid my spelling can be awful , but dyslexia can be !^)?@
On recipes any good ones for venison ?!?!
28 , Moi . Only half my post appeared !! How did that happen ?
29 - if you used a < or > it may have confused the site into thinking it was HTML. Or perhaps you used spam words so filthy the filter was shocked into doing only half the job.
Re. 11, and the comparisons to BB, Fox is the Conservative Party’s answer to Science (abrasive, self-regarding, never listens to anyone else).
One odd feature of last year’s BB was the similarity of Stuart’s nasal whine to that of William Hague (all the more odd when he came from Macclesfield and was educated at King’s).
Derek Conway is the obvious candidate for the voice of BB, given his residual Geordie accent.
Re. 5, I couldn’t agree more - such levitas stops the place becoming overheated, as the other side did so often.
30 , book value . I am utterly flaberghasted that you think I am capable of using < or > !
32 - I thought Kinkel-l might have hijacked your keyboard
Sean (25) Cooking with cheap wine is a common mistake - probably a political parable in there somewhere. Anyway it gave the cook something reasonable to drink!
Am afraid my wife drinks foreign (i.e. non-French) Chardonnay but we both like Gewurtztraminer (some seem to be a bit sweeter than they used to be)
16. Do you know why IDS was Hosting HIm? FWIW I’d be astonished if the ToryGraph don’t endorse Davis, they’d be in Serious Danger of encouraging a Tory Victory then.
30/32 , book value . OK, how come your pointy things appeared but not mine ! What Hogwarts wizardry is afoot !! . book value have you been transformed into that other carrot top Ron Weasley ?
[27] Blair has ‘massive policy nous’? Right….
He is astute enough to know that policies don’t matter much, but even so… Even allowing for hyperbole on this site, that is up there with the best.
36 - if you type < you get a <
and if you type > you get a >
Now, how did I type < and > without them turning into < and > ?
Anthony Well’s Site the ICM Monthly Report, Labour up one Point, in other words no Change. Good for the British Public didn’t Let the Terrorists Affect Them one Way or Another.
38 , book value . Don’t baffle me with logic and commonsense , I can’t even manage smileys !! LOL , see !!
37 Be wary of making the ‘iceberg’ mistake of sizing up leaders by what shows on the surface…
I’m no fan of Blair’s, but to defeat your opponent you shouldn’t underestimate him. Is it an accident that in ‘issues’ polls Labour is now perceived as equal or superior on crime and the economy, while retaining a lead on health and education? Blair hasn’t achieved and maintained that over ten years by smiling and speaking well. It’s more to do with people liking extra police and ASBOs, the decision to spend huge amounts on public services, increased testing and focus on standards in schools, and reduced waiting times in NHS. People don’t vote on any one individual policy, but they will vote on a cumulative sense in each area that they agree with his diagnosis and treatment.
Do the Tory MPs votes still count if they are planning to head off and defect to the real conservative (sorry, ‘New Labour’) Party?
21. Thanks, Andy.
The BBC reports are always very ambiguous (sometimes even confusing).
Re &. His in-laws, according to last night’s Evening Standard, are Sir Reginald Sheffield, a landowner who now works for tge exclusive stationers Smythson’s of Bond Street. Another profile of Cameron, again talking about him being “Born to rule but he is too posh?
DD was very hestitant last night outside the Home Office. He seemed more concerned about looking straight into the camera for that gravitas effect rather than having anything much to say. Yes, Oaten wasn’t bad at all. Must admit I was surprised too by his command of his brief.
At the end of the day, it comes to the old chesnut of can you seem that person standing outside Downing Street. Blair for all his faults looks and sounds like a Prime Minister. DD doesn’t have it. Cameron is undoubably an interesting candidate, but I am not sure he passes the D Street test. Having said that I’ve prdicted to firends for sometime that Cameron could win and I’m happy to be sitting on bets of 8-1, 6-1, and 5-1.
Cameron Passes the Test as much as Blair did when he became Leader 44. True Gravitas only Comes with Office. The Bigger Question is do they look like stars material. i think in his case the answer is yes.
“do they look like stars material”
The only question with this metoritic shower is: is it a ‘blue dwarf’ or a ‘black hole’ ?
14 Book Value Before the election the famous Dr Fox himself sent me this statement when I asked his position on party democracy. As chairman he righly gave the party view not his own, on a party matter. It may help answer your question:
“The Conservative Party Board has been consulting over possible changes to the Party’s Constitution on a wide range of issues since the beginning of the year, but if there were to be any changes made, these would not be implemented until after the next General Election.
“No change could take place without the consent of the Party. The decision to change the constitution would rest with senior volunteers including all Constituency Chairmen and Area and Regional Officers, MPs, MEPs and Front Bench Spokesmen in the House of Lords. Any changes to the rules for electing the Leader of the Party would need at least 50 percent of those eligible to vote to do so and would need the support of over two thirds of the Members of Parliament voting and over two thirds of those senior volunteers voting.”
47 - informative, many thanks.
46. Understand the Black Holes allusion, but not being a Scientist what is a Blue Dwarf?>
48. BV, you’re really fast to read posts (or probably I’m too slow to read -and understand- them).
If you ever need a quick, shallow answer Andrea, you know where to come!
51. 2 minutes this time, too slow! (maybe you’re aging. At Kinkel’s age you wouldn’t have these problems, even with Emily around)
Word has it that John Tyndall is dead
53. Excuse my Ignorance, Who?
54. John Tyndall is a fascist politician: BNP or National Front (I’m not sure).
Ex-leader of both BNP and NF. Wonder if MS has any pictures of him doing something amusing.
He was the founder of both, I believe
His death has been confirmed
He was found dead in his home in Hove. The police said there were were no suspicious circumstances.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4697299.stm
On this occasion I think the words “he will not be missed” are a little more appropriate than the last time they were used on this site.
59 - Quite, but I’m holding out for an archive picture of Tyndall on a space-hopper. Tyndall! He wasn’t all doom and gloom!
Surely we should all be comending his statesmanship!
59. absolutely!!!!!
Although I have been as critical as anyone of Rik on his recent comments, I was slightly put in mind of a great Not The Nine O’Clock News sketch. Does anyone else remember it?
Two politicians are having a blazing row during an interview and one roars, “This man is a liar, a fraud and a hypocrite! This is the kind of man who…” (at which point his infuriated rival falls off his chair with an apparent heart attack) “…who will be sorely missed. A great parliamentarian and a close personal friend. My thoughts go out to his family.”
63. Vaguely from repeats…..
63. “Two politicians are having a blazing row during an interview and one roars, “This man is a liar, a fraud and a hypocrite! This is the kind of man who…” (at which point his infuriated rival falls off his chair with an apparent heart attack) “…who will be sorely missed. A great parliamentarian and a close personal friend. My thoughts go out to his family.””
It’s not very far from the reality. If Blair will die before Clare Short, expect her to say “in the deep, but very very very deep, of my heart I knew he was an almost decent man”. Galloway’s final tribute will be: “at the end I admired his hands full of blood”.
A 90 years old Gordon Brown will say: “I’m still waiting for him to step down”.
I am not quite sure I follow how the betting works. Doesn’t the odds of 1/2 imply a probability of 66%? I bet two pounds, if I win I get them back plus one extra. Thank you for clarifying.
20, 66 - yes, I agree: the implied probability is 2/3.
WelshMan at 49, Surely a blue Dwarf is a pygmy Tory contender?
Davis would be a disaster for us. Ken Clarke has surprised the odds before in 2001 when majority of Tory MPs supported him can he do so again? On Five Live today he seemed pretty certain that he was going to run, he would be the perfect candidate if it weren’t for the dreaded E word and age. I might have a fiver on him though.
68. Oh i see it’s not a play on words after all then?
This is riveting stuff, but like mmk, I’m a novice in terms of betting markets.
So when we say that Betfair is pricing Davis some way off the conventional bookies, I have to work quite hard to understand what’s actually going on. Hence please excuse statements of the bleedin’ obvious.
First point- with the single exception of Cameron, you can back any of the candidates on Betfair at better prices than at the bookies. The gap in DD’s case is 60% (ie 0.8/1 divided by 0.5/1), whereas the gap in say, Ken’s case is a staggering 86%. I’ve noticed this before and have always presumed it’s because the bookies need to earn an honest crust.
Second- once you actually look at the Backing/Laying positions on Betfair you see how thin the market actually is (a couple of quid here, a fiver there etc). Although admittedly, there does seem to be rather greater depth in the case of DD.
And try as I might, I couldn’t see where Smithson had got his info on the last Batfair trade. But I’d be very interested to monitor future trades.
Can anybody provide pointers, or any other comments?
69. If Clark will run the tories, Labour could put the next GE and the Euro Election in the same day.
Europe could become a top issue during the campaign and the risks of internal problems between the tories could be high.
69. I have always felt the Key for Ken is the Moderate Eurosceptic Center, Cameron,Hague,Rifkind etc. If Clarke can pull into a Clear SEcond Place which i guess is Cameron at the Momentr and get those Guys behind him he might have a Chance.
Wouldn’t Suprise me if KC&DC have a Madrid-London Type Understanding. Run individually and the first to be knocked out SWings Behind the Other. OTOH probably just idle fantasy.
Ps What Time Was Ken on? I may Listen Again Via Internet.
69. I have always felt the Key for Ken is the Moderate Eurosceptic Center, Cameron,Hague,Rifkind etc. If Clarke can pull into a Clear SEcond Place which i guess is Cameron at the Momentr and get those Guys behind him he might have a Chance.
Wouldn’t Suprise me if KC&DC have a Madrid-London Type Understanding. Run individually and the first to be knocked out SWings Behind the Other. OTOH probably just idle fantasy.
Ps What Time Was Ken on? I may Listen Again Via Internet.
69. I have always felt the Key for Ken is the Moderate Eurosceptic Center, Cameron,Hague,Rifkind etc. If Clarke can pull into a Clear SEcond Place which i guess is Cameron at the Momentr and get those Guys behind him he might have a Chance.
Wouldn’t Suprise me if KC&DC have a Madrid-London Type Understanding. Run individually and the first to be knocked out SWings Behind the Other. OTOH probably just idle fantasy.
Ps What Time Was Ken on? I may Listen Again Via Internet.
72. Ken Clarke will be aware of that as will the Gentlemen i’ve mentioned. To Win their support he would have to show that he has developed workable modus vivendi against that. Lab would unless they are in real trouble and going the distance have great incentive for a GE/EU Double Anyways, if KC had agreed some holdable live abd let live line on Europe with his Party, Labour couldn’t concentrate ion that or be vulnerable to the Charge they Levelled against the Tories in the past of being obssessed with things other than bread and butter issues.
With the Euro Constitution dead, and even the Euro politically impossible now for any PM whatever KC May feel it may Just be Possibless.
Ken was on at about 5.30pm on Drivetime - I think it would be foolish if Ken and Malcolm Rifkind, as the only two candidates with prior Cabinet experience, ran together, especially as their supporters are from a similar wing.
As for holding the European elections on the same day as the general election that would depend on European elections being held in the same year as a general and I doubt it would make much difference to the result anyway. If you vote Tory at a general election you’re likely to vote Tory at the European election, sceptic or not.
73.”Wouldn’t Suprise me if KC&DC have a Madrid-London Type Understanding”
I don’t remember the exact votes total at the round of Madrid’s elimination, but it seemed that at the end there wasn’t a London-Madrid agreement. Paris was already a couple of votes behind London and at the end it lost by 4 votes, so Madrid voters split between the 2 cities.
Interesting 77, any View on 76?
Interesting 77, any View on 76?
Interesting 77, any View on 76?
77 - “If you vote Tory at a general election you’re likely to vote Tory at the European election, sceptic or not.” - I disagree - the last European elections were held about a month after local elections in which the Tories did rather well, and they didn’t get over 30% in the Euro elections after being remarkably successful in 1999 (although they were still the largest party) - the reason being 1) the Euro elections at the perfect vehicle for UKIP, and 2) people are sufficiently sceptical of Europe’s ability to do anything at all that they feel empowered to vote gree, or respect, or BNP, or any of the other parties that’ll annoy the mainstream,
Good Listen 77. Recommend to everyone else. Pienaar was pretty rude. BUt listening to KC, “Team of Younger People Around me,” “Time to Peove Themselves,” Now just who could he have been referring to?
Vis Pienaar rude but right, Are the Party and KC prepared to bury the hatchet on Europe? If they can Fine. If not he won’t win anyway and the point is moot. But a Tiny outside bet on Ken maybe worth thinking of, although i’m not Sure at This Stage.
Ps Are Transcripts of Five Live Available and Emailables?
82. And the Euro Elections are with the PR system. So voting for a little party like the Greens is not a waste vote. People are more keen to vote for this party if they know that they’ve a chance to get seats.
A curious thing that may interest those on the site who’ve discussed ID cards is that both Tories and LibDems appear to have virtually lost interest in challenging the ID Card Bill for the moment. I’ve just got back from the latest committee session. We’ve zipped through over 50 Opposition amendments today, all of them put down a few weeks ago. All of them, if I remember correctly, were withdrawn today without a vote, and this evening’s session ended early for the second time. Most of the time there’s only one LibDem there and several missing Tories. I can’t make out whether it’s the approaching recess that’s distracting them or whether in the current climate they feel it’s not something they particularly want to argue about.
Re. 63, or that excellent Private Eye spoof of the media coverage after Donald Dewar’s death ‘An apology: We may have given the impression that Donald Dewar was an absolutely useless First Minister…’
It was the same with John Smith - much of the press dismissed him as plodding and complacent while Leader of the Opposition, only to posthumously lionise him.
85. maybe showing uninterest is a new tactic,but probably they’re already on holiday with their minds.
Sadly in UK only few amendments are admitted to the vote in the House….with the chance to presetn 1,000 amdendments to a bill, you’ve more interesting surprises. And opposition MPs showing unisterest on the vote of first amendments is a tactic to surprise the government.
85 - Yes the climate in thic country is getting more like Goerge Orwell,s 1984 every day . All restrictions on personal liberty and freedom and Big Brother knowing your every move in your own best interest , of course .
Hopefully , the House of Lords will still be able to halt this oppressive measure .
85-One of the main issues with ID cards is that your government keeps changing their reasons for having them.
-Firstly it was the war against terror,ID cards would have done nothing to prevent the tradegy 2 weeks ago,moreover,it did nothing to prevent the attacks in Spain a country that does have them.
-When the above rational was shown to be nonesense your government then said we needed them to stop benefit fraud.
-When this was rejected the goal posts were moved yet again & we were informed that we needed them to control illegal immigrants / asylum seekers.
The above just illustrates what nonesense the whole issue is & the fact that you got your committee business done so quickly would indicate that the participants had more worthwhile things to do,they know it will be thrown out in the house of Lords or if it becomes too unpopular your leader will simply drop it.
What we do know as with every other government IT project is that the cost will escalate & again this has been clearly shown in the LSE study.
I can only conclude that there is a differnt agenda that we are not yet aware of & covered by some of Mark’s comments in 88.
Andrea at 87: No, in committee you can have masses of amendments voted on if you want to. We’ve had around 35 hours allocated for the discussions, and nearly all of them can be spent proposing and voting on amendments (votes only take 1-2 minutes vs 20 on the floor of the House). It appeared that this was going to happen, since lots were put down, but then they seemingly lost interest.
I try not to get into the merits or otherwise of policies here (it’d take too much time from my day job for constituents, so to speak) so I won’t comment on 87/88. But the curious can find my views on http://www.broxtowelabour.org.
85. Nick, I couldn’t understand why Labour didn’t make a bigger issue of the Tories’ Poll Tax proposal at the 1987 election, or do more to obstruct its passage through Parliament. Perhaps that was just good long-term tactics and your Tory and Lib Dem committe colleagues are following suit.
22 - if, like me, you live in suburbia and are not the proud posessor of an Aga, I am told that you can poach salmon in the dishwasher. No, really.
90. Nick, try to think if there would be the chance to present 1,000 amdendments in the House. The risk for the government to be defeated would be higher. Here, sometimes, opposition MPs show uninterest during the vote of the first amdendments (maybe they accept to withdraw some or they go to the bar), so government MPs start to feel relaxed and maybe they start to go to the bar too. When enough majoirty MPs are out, opposition MPs run in to vote for an amdendment and try to defeat the government. They almost wrecked the budget last year.
Re. 89, indeed.
War Against Terror - allowing phone intercepts to be used in court cases would be far more useful (yet the government continues to reject this, making the UK one of just two countries in the EU which does not allow such evidence, which is curious when the intelligence services and their agents could be protected through either PII certificates or pre-trial hearings). Liberty (not a pressure group I often agree with) favours this, as does the current DPP. I would much rather see terrorist suspects imprisoned by such evidence, rather than be under control orders, where they might slip through a window and commit an atrocity.
Benefit fraud - ID cards may well cost more than benefit fraud costs the country.
Asylum seekers/immigration - Why not go back to counting people in and out of the country? (better still, have the £3.5m computer system which would keep records of this, but which the government rejected in 98 as a cost-cutting measure). Why not have border police at the ports?
Last, but not least, community relations. When the police who guarded the Ring of Steel erected round the City to protect against PIRA attacks frequently stopped black motorists (never mind that there were very few, if any, black members of PIRA), I suspect constant police harassment of ethnic minorities to show their ID cards will alienate Muslims, and possibly drive them into the arms of Al Qaeda.
Alongside an economic crash, I’d say ID cards represent the main obstacle to Labour’s chances of winning the next General Election.
Steering the Conversation back to the Subject of the Thread the Tory Leadership Contest. Any Views on my Posts at 83&76?
Re. 85, I remember reading in Butler, Adonis and Travers’ account of the Poll Tax (’Failure in British Government’ - easy to see where they’re coming from) that Labour kept quiet about the poll tax at the 87 GE when the Labour leadership was wary that any mention of the poll tax would lead the Tories and the tabloids, by way of retaliation, to attack ‘loony left’ Labour councils (at a time when ‘The Sun’ was running stories about Islington council banning kids from singing Ba ba black sheep).
Richard, I think another issue which will cause all sorts of problems for this government is submitting to the juristiction of the International Criminal Court (which the Americans have very wisely steered clear of).
How can our soldiers operate if they know that a bunch of ivory tower lawyers are just itching for the chance to prosecute them?
Re. 76, yes, but will he? I remember at the launch of his 01 leadership campaign, he said he didn’t want to go on about Europe, and then went to proceed to talk about very little else. I also remember his blustering (red-faced, in fact) performance on Newsnight about this time four years ago, which allowed IDS to look very reasonable.
Still, it’s just possible KC might learn from earlier mistakes.
96. Richard, I was a Labour activist at that election and wanted to make a big issue of it - the usual excuse was that our policy (rates revaluation) was also unpopular. Eventually our CLP put out one leaflet a couple of days before polling, but it was too little, too late.
98, No he won’t. He started his campaign (such as it is) by slagging off Conservative Party members. As he has got older, his boorish bullying side has become more pronounced.
98. He didn’t mention it on Five Live, (Have a Listen Classic Ken) when Listing the Key Issues. And in his Effective Campaign Launch Tonight it doesn’t Feature. Maybe he has Learn’t? His remarks see me at 83, suggest a pretty open attempt to reach out to Cameron,Willetts and Osbornet?
Re. 97, you may be right. Even Tony Howard expresses scepticism in his Times column today.
I was all for incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law, but when it’s led to such grotesque nonsense as the convicted murderer Dennis Nilsen (hope the spelling’s correct) suing the government for breaching his ‘right to information’ in stopping him keeping hardcore pornography in prison, and a convicted paedophiles winning thousands of pounds after suing the government for delays in his trial causing him ‘mental distress’, I’m prepared to admit I was wrong.
100, i Think that Reflects frustration at previous attempts. It was a mistake, and i think he’s been told so vis no repeat. As for Boorish, Bullying, Ken’s a tough Guy but i’m not sure he deserves that? Aren’t you thinking of a Friend Of David Davis’S?
Re. 99, this is no small irony, when it was the feared unpopularity of rates revaluation in England and Wales which led the Tories to adopt the poll tax.
The European Convention of Human Rights applied in Britain anyway.
99, 104 In addition the political strategy behind the poll tax (Community Charge) was that by a) taking business rates out of the hands of local councils and b) forcing people in council housing or on benefits to pay the charge, that every voter would have a direct financial incentive to vote against allegedly spendthrift Labour councillors. The theory was that “Looney Labour” councils were running up massive costs and making businesses, affluent homeowners and the DHSS (via rate rebates) pay for it, and hence able to get re-elected by everyone else.
They really thought it would be a vote winner at the local level….
Yes, but it wasn’t incorporated into UK law, so people had to take their cases to Strasbourg. Nilsen didn’t bother pursuing his ‘right to information’ (in his hardcore pornography) when this was the case.
Re the betfair market. This is the place where the real shrewdies who know the way the wind is blowing take advanatge of people who know nothing about politics. The people who are laying davis (that is offering better prices than traditional bookmakers) are taking a stand based on knowledge.
The traditional bookies base their market on weight of money, which is often based on wishful thinking of those placing bets, or they shorten odds to create a bandwagon. In the case of DC, it’s a mixture of bandwagon and a realisation that he could end up winning.
106. The diagnosis may have been correct, but the prescription was disastrous.
108. Obviously difficult to see outside the Two Davids, but of the pack chasing them far aways in the distance is Ken Best Placedss?
107- and they could ignore the Convention anyway like the government (ok it wasn’t the government fault, but the tories led by Baroness Young) did with the age of consent (the European Commission on Human Rights ruled against UK in 1997)
Will there be some interesting local by-elections this thursday to see if Labour will continue to have decent results like last week?
The Human Rights Act was an attempt to put the European convention into UK law to make its applicability more immediate and accessible. Well it did that, but in a way that the proponents could not have imagined would have happened, not just pornography as a right, but a right for non-citizens to stay in the UK while actively seeking to undermine it.
It needs urgent revision.
But the drafters could have reasonably expected that the judiciary, so adept they claim at using common law and legal principles, to apply it sensibly. But they have not and so you get numerous examples which include the Nilsen case and the Belmarsh judgement that the detainees should be let out because their Lordships did not accept there was a real and present danger as our friends over the pond say. Do they feel that way today?
So the Act is a problem compounded by a judiciary that seem intent on an extreme interpretation of the law. And in the face of that the Act needs redrafting very tightly with clear limitations and exceptions.
Lord Wolf’s recent pronouncements that demonstrate a disregard for the elected and their ministers is also a concern and suggests that, as in the US, some sort of open Parliamentary confirmation process for senior judges is needed with a real, rather than theoretical, ability to impeach the useless, crooked and mad. Judges need to be impartial and free from undue influence but also be part of the society in which they live and guardians of the safety of our society. Too often the criminals that seek to exploit or destroy us seem to come first and honest citizens second. Wrong way round.
In short a little bit of democracy needs to be injected into their cosy and well padded ivory towers.
Tony Blair or David Cameron might have a chance of doing something in this direction but Gordon Brown and Davis Davis wouldn’t?
Extraordinarily enough, I find myself - at least in part - in agreement with Blue2Win.
Rik… (if still with us)… calm down, calm down… Tories are not necessarily wrong….
I (also?) think that the problem is not so much the Human Rights legislation as such, but the way the legal profession is interpreting it. What they are doing makes no sense at all - unless in terms of advancing their fame, status and fees - but at the cost of undermining the public´s respect for the law (or, if you prefer, the Law).
However, I disagree with B2W about the desirabilty of subordinating the Judiciary to the Legislature. Very strongly. But if our lawyers persist in the stupidity of their extreme judgements, I fear it is only a matter of time….. and I don´t like it, especially with the authoritarian tendency clearly visible in the Tory and Labour Parties.
What would happen if we (as laymen) replaced the conceptual man on the Clapham omnibus with the QC on the the Picadilly Line?
BBC 5 Live debate after 9.00am “Who can make the Tories winners again”
Who indeed ?
I could Jack. I’d probably upset too many people in the process to be given the chance though.
BBC 5 Live debate after 9.00am “Who can make the Tories winners again”
Followed by the weather forecast at 9.01 am?
108- thank you- very interesting. But surely there must be some arbitrage between the two markets. So aren’t there limits on price divergence?
Another naive question: why don’t the bookies offer bets against DD winning?
118. Bookies don’t fancy bets against things happening as they are more vunrable to inside info if e.g a candiadate privatly friends of his intention to pull out before the media, they’ll be taken for a fortune.
P.S Did anyway see our man DD inflate his hair parting to assure us all he doesn’t wear a syrup. The power of this website.
Woody- makes sense.
As for the supposed syrup, I can think of some much stronger contenders around the front benches.
120. The amount of boot polish Ken Clarke sticks in his hair might be of more interest.