Is the Queen’s speech part of Reid’s leadership bid?
November 15th, 2006-
Has the programme been devised to boost Reid and to stop Gordon?
Stoking up the rhetoric on crime, terror and immigration looks set to be the central theme of this morning’s traditional speech by the Queen at the opening of Parliament.
For those interested in the key betting markets of the Labour leadership and “when Blair will go” the main focus is on who is going to be getting all the publicity as the new legislative programme is pushed through parliament?
For the great power that Blair still has is deciding this programme and he must have worked out that the person who will be constantly popping up on our screens in the next few months is going to be the Home Secretary, John Reid.
He’ll get all the attention as ASBOs are tightened up even further, as a revised race hatred bill is introduced and tougher terror legislation is put before MPs.
-
From Reid’s point of view this could not be better and the more squeals there are from liberal sounding elements the bigger the opportunity for him to shine.
It will be the lucid Reid’s job, as well, to focus directly on what Labour sees as David Cameron’s biggest weakness - being soft on crime and all that “hug a hoodie” can be made to represent.
Is it any wonder that Gordon Brown has also got into the tough-talking act on crime/terror issues debate? He cannot let his fellow Scotsman get all the limelight although that could be problematical for the Chancellor.
As the Independent reports this morning Reid is running a secret internal review of counter-terrorism measures which is in parallel with a separate Treasury investigation by Gordon Brown - a clash that could provide some red meat for opposition attack dogs.
As we saw in the polls in August Reid can get a big boost when terror and crime are in the news. Is this why Blair has decided that these themes should be central to his final session as PM?
MessageSpace Advertising
So all this is just a further example of the way Blair manipulates the Cabinet, the Government, Parliament, the media, the country, and even the Queen… That we know, Mike (and welcome back - hope you are comfortable, at least…).
All it means is that Blair will continue to manipulate everybody he can until the last minute - but most of us knew that already. All you are providing, Mike, is further possible evidence, when the case is already 100% set for conviction.
Will it work? I don´t think so. Because Reid is a broken ditto.
Blair ought to have been building up a credible successor over the years, especially if he dislikes the idea of Brown stepping into his shoes. Instead he has done the opposite: promoted the useless and enraged the capable (and Ms Short).
I think I have beaten Eleanor to the off today!
And my elderly Conservative relatives tell that they coincide entirely with Eleanor´s point of view. There is precious little breeding among the memebers of the present Cabinet (with the exception of H. Benn, of course)! How many Old Etonians are there in fact, Andrea?
Remiss of me….. Of course being an Old Etonian has nothing to do with breeding, does it? Often quite the contrary….
lol well if we are addibg questions in advance of eleanors early appearence, i wounder whether she could say why Mr dale was the wrong type of candidate.
In my opinion he is a lot more normal than a lot of your current m.p’s.
I don’t think tony blair has done this to try and help reid more a way of making sure that labour keeps on as mcuh of his agenda when he’s gone. The further to the right he goes on law/terrorism the harder it is for any future labour leader to go away from if they wanted. Soft on terror and crime is not generally a positive headline.
I am somewhat perplexed that my comments yesterday have sparked off such rabid and ill-informed debate amongst the left-wingers here.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have at no time made any reference to Mr Dale’s bedroom proclivities - they are of little interest to me in any sense.
I should have thought it obvious why Dale was such an unsuitable candidate in North Norfolk: he is the classic example of the self-appointed metropolitan media ‘elite’. He could not be more distant from the needs of a rural or suburban seat. He would be far better suited to a seat like Chelsea (like Portillo before him).
One of the major flaws of the so-called A list is that it assumes any Conservative candidate of this sort is suitable for any seat. In reality we need Conservatives true to our party’s traditions to stand for us in the majority of marginals if we are to win them.
Mike Smithson’s article is a good case in point: the deliberately misquoted ‘hug a hoodie’ and ‘love a lout’ slogans do leave us vulnerable to Labour attacks in marginal seats (where the ‘C2s’ are so many of the swing voters). Hence we need tough Conservative candidates who can speak and campaign convincingly on the law & order agenda). That is how we won such seats in the 1980s.
Finally, I still think we will win a majority, thank goodness - though it looks like it will be narrow. Hence we need people who will support the leadership in governing as Conservatives. The last thing we need is a group of ‘wet’ rebels, like those Mrs Thatcher had to put up with in her early (and indeed later) years. The most reliable Conservatives are those whose political education has been in the Conservative tradition rather than the ‘jonny-come-lately’ characters who have joined us now we are winning.
The real danger for Gordon at the moment is that this is becoming so drawn out that the prospect of an alternative might just become appealing for no other reason than it would appear to be less boring. The on-going saga would tax most people and it is to Gordon’s credit that he has kept his cool. He has to be ultra-careful, though, and not give Reid any hostages to fortune. Gordon has to stand back on this one for I worry at the prospect of two of our big beasts scrapping it out about over who is the toughest with criminals and terrorists.
cherie booth on i’m a celebrity…..blair is going in january….
Hey, politico-fight-fans, check this…
The terrorist, Mohammed Mostafa, convicted of a plot to blow up british tourists in Yemen, given a labourer’s job on the London Underground, pictured with Labour’s Robin Cook…
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006530135,00.html
Its almost as if he has someone sponsoring him for sensitive jobs.
Britain is governed by clowns. Not the friendly type mind. More the sinister psycho Stephen King type. Vote Labour
The Queen’s speech looks to have less to do with promoting Reid’s chances and more with Blair’s departure. It’s all the things he’d like to do before he exits stage left, including the things he’s already failed once at. And that could be the biggest headache for Reid. Certainly the focus will be on him, but he’s got to win the battles ahead - by no means certain - and it will cut down on his opportunities to be with the party in the country. He’s likely to be very much a Westminster politician over the next year.
Even if these measures are popular with the public, which I’m not sure they will be, the crucial question as far as the leadership goes is how will they play with the electoral college voters? More authoritarian stuff won’t go down well with the Guardian reading parts of the membership, nor with trade union leaders (who I know don’t have block votes any more, but their views none-the-less still count), nor with many MP’s who will know just how contrary to Labour’s traditions these measures are. And I’ll mention again that Reid has to win the votes on them and I’m not sure the votes are there. Nothing will damage his chances with the party more than proposing unpopular legislation and then not getting it anyway.
The History Boy’s right when he says that all Gordon needs to do on this is to stand back, though that’s rather counter to his nature which is to meddle and control. Still, he did it over Iraq and probably will again now.
The spin on the Queens speech seems to have back fired. The Today programme highlighted fines if your child drops a sweet wrapper and plans to let off shoplifters if they say sorry.
Not much of a platform for Reid or a legacy for Blair.
“Fanatic at the Home Office” my daitly mail front page screams at me.
Did it really take them this long to discover the truth about John Reid?
John Reid “The problem we face is what I call the justice shortfall. That is, the difference - sometimes big - between what you and I think is justice, and what a lawyer or legal academic might think it is. My kind of justice is swift, effective and matches the crime,” also “move away from the traditional view that justice has to involve going to court”
Things can only get better?
And now an on-topic, off-betting rant.
Is there any wonder why there is a climate of fear about crime and terrorism when the government introduces a Queen’s speech like this? It’s about time we got things in proportion. For thirty years this country faced a terrorist threat over the problems in Northern Ireland, troubles which killed over three thousand people - about a hundred a year, though of course there were years when the death toll was much higher. That, you may recall is a lower figure than died in a single day from terrorism in Iraq earlier this week. By contrast, since September 2001, this country has had two successful terrorist attacks on it and only one in it (successful in the sense that they were carried out), resulting in 52 deaths in London and 27 in Istanbul - at most an average annual death toll of sixteen.
I fully accept that there are substantial differences - Al Qaida and those inspired by them aim to kill as many as possible in large-scale spectaculars; many of those who died in the Troubles were single victims of shootings and barely registered on the media, especially if they lived in Northern Ireland. The IRA also developed rules for the game to avoid looking too ruthless after a more genuine ‘terror’ campaign failed in the 1970s. The security forces have no doubt stopped other terrorist attacks in recent years that would have killed many more, but then they also disrupted the IRA’s campaign.
The legislation in place now dealt with a terrorist threat that killed six times as many people in Britain as the current threat has. Despite the differences in the nature of the threat, I have grave concerns about extending already draconian powers to deal with something that has proved far less disruptive to British life than that which the current legislation dealt with successfully. In no small part, I think it may be because this government never had to deal with the Northern Ireland troubles and so a terrorist threat is a new thing to it, and it therefore believes we are now uniquely imperilled because the threat is higher than at any time in the past ten years. Perhaps so, but not the past forty.
Welcome back, Mike.
The article is a good example of the way that close observers of the Westminster scene can get too involved in abstruse analysis and miss the actual picture. This is the last Queen’s Speech that TB will be involved in. His priority is to use it for the issues that he thinks people are most worried about, the fact that the Tories are currently seen as weak on those issues being a bonus. A minor maneouvre to help Reid vs Brown would be a piffling consideration for him, even if he wanted to do it (which I doubt).
Whether the emphasis on crime and terrorism necessarily is a good thing is a separate issue. But a cunning plot to outflank GB? Nah.
By the way, I refuse to get worked up about a former terrorist who has served his time being allowed to do some gardening within sight of Westminster. The Green is a public place. He can stand there all day anyway if he wants to. As someone with a personal interest in not being blown up in Westminster, I can’t see a problem, and the fact that he was photoraphed with Robin Cook passing by as he did it shows, sadly, that it was a long time ago.
13. Gosh, Nick! Questioning whether the government’s emphasis on crime and terrorism “is necessarily a good thing”? Careful - it’s a dangerously slippery slope and before you know it you’ll be a usual suspect!
4.Good stuff Eleanor! Nice to see them rattled…
4 I thought Ian Dale lived in Tunbridge Wells….
13. - From the leaks it looks like the politics of fear and loathing. Rather than address the real problems it’s about instant ‘justice’, more draconian terror laws etc - not apparently because these are necessary but as a part of the always on New Labour electioneering. So Labour spins Love a Lout and Hug a Hoodie and uses legislation as an electioneering gambit. Reid and Brown trying to outdo each other as the toughies who will beat Cameron, while trampling liberties underneath them in their scuffle.
12. Hear, hear.
Could we leave behind us Iain Dale’s seat-searching efforts and get back to Kaiser John Reid’s attempts to ‘kick rrse’?
Well PBers as we have all seen above Mike and NOT Michelle Smithson has returned to edit his vast organ with his other vast organ fully intact !! …… and thereby dear readers hangs a tale or something resembling a tail !!
It appears that the Bedford Village Hospital idiot has made a terrible error as Dublin family builder Mickey Smith’s son was switched in the operating theatre for our genial host !! Thus Bedford now sports its first 6′ 7″ trans gender bricklayer. And they talk about luck of the Irish !!
As for Mike ….. well down at Chez Smithson it may safely be said that sitting in his huge pile, huge piles will never be a problem for Bedford’s finest !!
13 A quote from Nick Palmer, Labour MP
14. Nick Palmer, Labour MP can be quoted as saying “I refuse to get worked up about a former terrorist who has served his time being allowed to do some gardening within sight of Westminster
They just dont see a problem…Well, there you have it, from the Horse’s mouth. Wonder what Murdoch would say about that…
Britain is clearly not safe in the hands of these incompetent clowns.
Labour has never won a war, and you can see why.
Reid will never be leader because he just does not have the following in the party or the unions. He can stand if he wants, but he will just be crushed. As a member of the Labour Party and as someone who attends the monthly meetings Gordon (from what I hear) has it in the bag. Its just a matter of time.
Where Iain Dale lives is irrelevant. He looks like the metropolitan/media elite.
GB seems to be a capable chancellor. How good he is/was is irrelevant. DC seems as though he is moving away from the ‘flog-and-lock-them-up’ approach. How tough a putative tory Home Secretary would be is not material.
Appearances matter, and once in the public psyche, tough to alter. (Though not impossible—-even GB’s friends don’t think he could sell ‘prudence’ any more).
GB’s big problem is that he doesn’t look light-footed. He does not have an easy touch. When he does say more or less the same as Reid on terrorism, Reid looks on top of his brief. GB appears to be trying to board a bandwagon.
Interesting statistic that I heard on radio yesterday. This has been the government that has suffered more rebellion than any other recorded with an average 28% of it’s supporters voting against it. The second most rebellious was the 2000-2005 with 24%. John Majors famously disruptive backbenchers during Maastricht only scored 20%!
I’m sure Andrea will correct me if I’ve got this wrong.
John Reid’s leadership would be a massive boost to the Lib Dem’s. A large number of Labour’s ‘Guardian reader’ support which must would abandon ship. Even Polly Toynbee would struggle to support a Reid led Labour Party. I know I couldn’t.
22. Stupidest post of the year so far and that’s saying something!
Tressage wrote (1) Blair ought to have been building up a credible successor over the years, especially if he dislikes the idea of Brown stepping into his shoes. Instead he has done the opposite: promoted the useless and enraged the capable.
The truth is, for a long time he actually wanted Gordon to succeed him. If he had a fallback candidate, it was almost certainly Blunkett, but Kimberley Quinn took care of that one.
26. Stupidest post of the year, awarded by the stupidest poster.
Roger. What is he good for? Labour’s last loyal SS bodyguard, fighting to his last bullet, in the bunker with Adolf.
I agree with your analysis of a Reid leadership Roger (although I would leave the party if someone like Milburn got in!). Gordon has made mistakes (who woundn’t in 10 years?) but he has an economic record to die for and his work in Africa stands him in good stead with the ‘Guardian-reading left-of-centre’.
GB must accentuate this to win back the anti-Iraq voters who went over to the LDs. I have many friends who said they would not vote Labour again as long as Tony is the leader. A lot of them may come home to Labour when GB gets in (we hope!!!)
Re post 22. Actually this is the real test of how liberal the ‘right’ has become. This is far closer to the true position of the Conservatives that we know and love than the ‘liberal’ stuff we keep hearing on these boards.
I heard a shadow spokesman on homeland security yesterday saying how deplorable it was that some Muslim group hadn’t been outlawed because they might be subversive! And now The Sun The Mail and their supporters are saying that someone who has served their sentence shouldn’t be allowed in Parliament Square! Maybe they’d prefer an Island off Scotland for British ex-cons?
O/T Looks Harriet’s getting worried. Her entire strategy was always vulnerable to a Blears bid, but it’s seems she’s clearly rattled.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/15/nlabour315.xml
30. Still tilting at spoof windmills Roger? nothing better to do?
Is Reid the new Prescott? The BBC has him describing organised crime as: “at a level unprecedented 10 to 20 years ago”.
The problem for Labour with trying to outflank the Conservatives on being tough on crime, is that these measures never work, hence our high levels of organised crime and violent crime. Unless the government has something more than a few slogans-masquerading-as-policies dreamt up by Downing Street policy wonk press officers, this will just remind people what a mess Labour has made of crime, immigration and terrorism.
And dropping the Marine Bill will surely cancel out any green kudos from the proposed climate change bill.
31. The Evening Standard suggested that other camps were annoyed too
Btw, who are the union barons who want Blears to stand?!
30. roger and Nick Palmer MP show how out of touch Labour is with the British people.
But with terrorists, could we say, “out of touch” or “in touch”?
To be jaded and cynical, I think August was the last time anyone’ll get a poll boost from terrorism. Like the GOP in the US showed, you just can’t keep playing that card over and over before people get, well, jaded and cynical.
I don’t know whether Eastern Eye is a spoof or not but the point he raises is interesting. Somehow the Tories through some smart PR have managed to paint themselves as ‘liberal’ in contrast to the authoritarianism of Labour. It’s ridiculous but somehow thanks to Labour insecurity it’s got some traction.
It occured to me when I heard the ‘Homeland Security Shadow’ (and that gives you a clue!) talking about banning various groups how crazy this notion was. Remembering how Howard wanted to abolish the human rights act and Letwin wanted to put asylum seekers on an Island I thought it a pity that Labours insecurity was letting them get away with it.
Roger @ 30 — The Sun quotes only a Labour MP, Andrew Dinsmore: “Convicted terrorists should not be digging holes outside parliament.”
And getting worked up about convicted terrorists digging holes near parliament is akin to not wanting convicted child rapists hanging around school playgrounds, even after they have served their time.
Our glorious leader receives a warm welcome at trendy cool Britannia do - new teeth and pink shirt deemed a winner…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2454279,00.html
fantastic question from Jim Naughtie this morning on Today -
‘So it’s not secret, but it is confidential ?’
Fantastic stuff - you & the Indy boys are on to something big here
John L. These things can’t be done on an informal basis of how outraged the Sun and The Mail or Andrew Dismore feel. If released paedophiles are forbidden from going within X distance of a school so be it. But unless ex terrorists are given similar specific instructions-presumably after an Act of Parliament-then being outraged that they might choose to see London’s sights like anyone else is posturing!
See what happens if Adams and Maginness both released convicted terrorists are stopped from promenading around Parliament Square because this is what such legislation would lead to. Or maybe Nelson Mandela….
Eleanor why don’t you just come out and say it, put it into plain language: there’s nothing wrong with the Tory Party that purging it of chutney ferrets wouldn’t sort out. Go on dear get it off your chest it’ll make you feel better. We all know what your really trying to say anywat.
Jamie @ 39 — Heckling at an alcohol- and coke-fuelled awards ceremony: colour me gobsmacked. Clearly Gordon has never watched one of these events on television.
But why is Brown using the “cool” strategy so thoroughly discredited when William Hague tried it? Is there a Number Ten mole in his camp?
43. He should have worn his Artic Monkeys t-shirt - he’s a huge fan I hear.
[4] Eleanor has a very selective memory. The “law and order” agenda was far less prominent in the Tories’ offer during the Thatcher years (which focussed more on pocket-book issues, including tax cuts of certain kinds and Council house sales) than it was in the less successful Major ones.
But she does make a good point about the division between London and the rest of the country & the resentment felt by people on all parts of the political spectrum against London once you get more than about 100 miles from the place. She’ll be pleased to know that this government shares her metrophobia, if that’s the word I want - the combination of the proposed residential revaluation and the Olympics will be good for between £20 and £50 a week on Londoners’ Council Tax bills.
[22] EasternEye claimed that Labour has never won a war. Silly of me to have thought all these years that it was part of the coalition that won World War II.
Roger @ 41 — indeed. There is space for an intelligent discussion of rehabilitation policies but I fear its time has not yet come.
Even the school thing is pretty bogus in that most people in London must be live within a mile of a school.
It is hard for former prisoners to go straight because there are not many employers willing to take them on, and probably that number is not increased by hysterical headlines.
But I can see why the public is concerned about paedophiles, and also about terrorists. Some people really are a bit naughty and the government should stop chasing headlines and start chasing villains.
OT — looking at the online Times today (Brown heckled, Cameron’s preparations) one has to wonder if Rupert is not hedging his bets.
Re Eleanor
There was a lot of discussion here yesterday about whether she was a spoof poster. It had never occurred to me she might be (I’m a trusting soul) and reading her post this morning convinces me she is entirely genuine. I don’t understand spoofers anyway but it strikes me they are unlikely to be the sort who rise early to type long and coherent views on policy matters. The fact that the policies in question are as old-fashioned as kipper ties doesn’t make her a spoofer.
She obviously intends her comments to be taken seriously and whether one agrees with them or not, they should be tackled on their own merits and not dismissed as the rantings of some quaint old creature who happens to have wandered onto the wrong site.
Btw, I’ve a wardrobe full of kipper ties if anybody wants some. Very good for fancy dress parties or tying up old boxes.
Yes, it does seem this is part of a plan to get Reid on the telly. Interesting that two different departments are reviewing terrorism. I thought that was a Home Office issue?
How strange is this government.
Mind you Reid winning on the queens speech was trailed last week (Its on my blog too, though I got it from Newsnight.)
IA. It was announced yesterday that ‘Our Ken’ was planning to increase the congestion charge to £25 for 4×4’s and reduce it for smaller cars, A spokesman for a motoring organization said this wouldn’t be popular because it would amount to a tax on expensive cars and people in this country don’t like that sort of thing.
Really?
39/43. IIRC last year they booed Cameron and Davis too at the Television Awards (or something of that sort).
They probably would boo almost every politicians with the exception of the ones they don’t know who they’re.
48. PtP - I would have thought the amused satisfaction in the expression…
‘I am somewhat perplexed that my comments yesterday have sparked off such rabid and ill-informed debate amongst the left-wingers here’
…was a fairly broad hint that ‘Eleanor’ is engaged in a (successful) wind up campaign. Mind you there were people who thought the Professor was 100% genuine too.
50 Is this true Roger?
Personally I would charge them five times the standard road tax and allow them onto the roads only between the hours of 2am to 6am. But then I have a bit of a thing about them. (You can tell, can’t you?) Maybe it’s the way they are driven.
Bet eleanor drives a 4×4!
52. Sorry Textual, but I don’t see that at all. Until I see some clearer evidence, we’ll just have to agree to differ.
I remember the Professor. I always thought he was a spoof.
brian damage and snowflake5 are my favourite spoof posters.
My favourite spoof poster is “Rik”. He can´t be real, can he?
Benedict even has a spoof blog!!!
Welcome RedFlump! Hope you stay with us (not least cause it will save me a fair bit of typing - post 23 is spot on!).
I’ve always had my doubts about Michelle Smithson.
[54] Bet she doesn’t drive it in London… on the doubtless rare occasions she comes up to town she’ll be a black cab girl, and quite right too - her Green Party counterpart probably does the same
Peter…how did last week’s 20-1 tip go?
62. Still running, Martin.
Thank you Martin! I have been lurking for a while, but I had to jump in - there are far too many Tories here and you need a little balancing out!
PTP. I agree completely. Working from Soho the congestion charge is the best thing that’s happened to central London and if the charge included dynamite for the largest of the 4×4’s I’m sure we’d all be happy!
I’m certain Snowflakes is not a spoof and neither is Eleanor. Why should they be? I am far more familiar with snowflakes position on many things than I am with most posters here. She’s a little right for my taste but very coherent. And the only reason people think Eleanor a spoof is because her principles havent changed unlike the 90% of Tory posters here who cant tell the difference between Howard and Cameron!
Re 64. Yes. Great thing about the site is the diversity, but I sense it’s a bit less balanced than, say, around the time of the GE. We could do with a bit more Red and Green. Fortunately Nick P seems addicted, but of course we don’t just want the loyal Lab line.
Can I reiterate that Eleanor is not a spoof. I have done a Google search on her and she is exactly what she says she is and her comments are in chime of what you would expect.
57. If Rik was a spoof then who was that tall ex-RAF guy who came to the PBC party last year?
Talking of spoofs, from looking over yesterday’s thread I did notice one comment coming in the name of one person - only for exactly the same comment to come from another a couple of seconds later. If you have the odd hour or so to spare just read through the 328 contributions and you will see who it was.
Where does Cameron stand on the 4×4 issue? Knowing Witney and his part of his Oxfordshire seat quite well the place is completely over-run with them and it might not be a good idea for the local MP to be supporting measures to constrain them.
4 et seq. Iain Dale is perfectly capable of defending himself, but his family do indeed come from North Norfolk.
re 68 on the contrary. Telling that lot to sort out their priorities/lives would probably go down very well with the floating voters he needs. They’ll probably vote for him anyway (”he’s only saying that ’cause we really, really need to win next time”).
Mike (67): “If Rik was a spoof then who was that tall ex-RAF guy who came to the PBC party last year?”
I don´t know, Mike, I wasn´t there. But somebody told me he was a spoof.
On the congestion charge: I worked in central London (prior to the charge) for 23 years. Many the evening I sat in my office, looking over the Edgware Road/Bayswater/Park lane junction at Marble Arch solid with traffic in every direction, something had to be done! The congestion charge may be irksome, but it was a solution. The Tories must be careful on this one, they started out opposing, reluctantly accepted, (shades of devolution) now they are green, or are they? On Conhome this morning a Tory MP is being quoted as saying, ‘Global warming is this generations Dunkirk’ If the Tories object or oppose the anti-4×4 measures, whose side are they on?
71. Not being a rabid greenie this is not a subject that I really care about but even with Kens new charge of £25 - given the cost of driving in from say Oxford to central London every day in a 4×4 BMW when you include depreciation, insurance, maintenance and petrol then the % of the cost that is the congestion charge is still probably less than the % it is to someone driving a 1.1L Ford fiesta who pays £10 a day ?
This is a very interesting article on the white under class that seems to be developing, based on a report being prepared by IDS who, for all his cackhanded leadership, has a real concern for social justice. Some of the statistics are really worrying.
A companion article is also worth a read if only it exposes that Alibhai Brown for what she really is.
re: 4×4s
The trouble is that they’re also planning to expand the c-charge zone out to Chelsea and Knightsbridge. Since the system doesn’t operate on the weekends, that means those huge tractors won’t get tagged at all (or very little.)
Labour also needs to identify more with Europe and the EU and have less emphasis on the US. This could work well for Labour under a new leader, what with Cameron’s attempt to line up with the loonies and homophobes in Brussells on hold. He could paint DC as being reckless with the UK’s influence. Labour should try and reconnect with the EU mainstream as a counterpoint to Bush.
Strange how my earlier prediction of a huge hike in Londoners’ Council Tax bills has led on to a discussion of the Congestion Charge…
67. OK Mike…so is Benedict the real writer of Jack W or Jack W the real writer of Benedict? Or are both fantasy figures?
I find it difficult to believe that a Conservative could be as witty and irreverent as Jack is on a good day - “I am 103 you know”
74 I’m as fond of Yaz as I am of Johann Hari, and Mad Bunting.
I don’t think so, Mike. New Labour has failed to be the refreshing form of Government which it said it would be. It is deeply unpopular, in the same way that the Tories became deeply unpopular and therefore unelectable for years and years.
The political person that is Blair cannot allow himself to consider that he has failed to deliver. But hang on, a good way to divert everyone’s attention from all of that is to put everyone into fear of terrorism. And the controls to be introduced….. etc etc.
Frankly, I find the idea of any Government with the level of powers that it proposes a far more terrifying proposition than the risk of getting blown up. Which, I’d like to point out, is miniscule compared to, say, the risk of death in a car accident or the risk of death from a coronary due to over-eating.
Another frightening thing is just how someone who was initially elected with “an ethical foreign policy” could have signed up to invade Iraq, lied through his teeth to do so, etc. etc.
80 YAB is the original Yabberwocky. Having had the pleasure of her ramblings in person the Lewis Carroll verse comes to mind when I see her byline:
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’
[74] I don’t know that that’s anything new… however on the specific point of the relationship between drug/alcohol abuse, crime & social exclusion generally if IDS (or any other MP of any Party come to that) wants to be of use they can pursue the following questions using whatever Parliamentary procedure they think best:
- what is the proportion of prison inmates who have a drug or alcohol abuse problem (i.e. are addicted in some way)?
- are all prisoners assessed for such addiction quickly after conviction? If not, why not?
- what is the link between inmates’ achievement of basic literacy skills (and indeed educational attainments generally, whether academic or vocational) and their eligibility for parole? (I suspect that at present the answer’s “none whatsoever” and also that there isn’t a politician or civil servant in the whole country who’s actually proud of this state of affairs.)
Incidentally, the answers to the first two of the above questions are “almost all of them” and “none of them, because if we did they’d all sue us for a failure in our duty of care to offer them rehab, for which we have no budget…”
78 - So, Textual, you still think Eleanor is a spoof?
Blue2Win @ 74 — very interesting. It reflects what I was saying here the other day about educational under-achievement being a class problem and not a race problem.
The low achievers tend to be working class, and male. IDS distinguishes between working and middle class whites, but I suspect if he went further and did the same for the Asian communities, he would find the same pattern there.
The companion piece you cite is perhaps a little OTT but does reflect that the establishment, including the Labour establishment, has abandoned its core. As Cruddas has noted, if people have nowhere else to turn, they can be forced into the arms of some pretty unsavoury types.
Erm, how do we get IDS to be PM?
84. I have no doubt that whoever is writing the Eleanor posts is having great fun chortling at the reaction they bring from Roger et al. A very large percentage of the posts on this site are designed for that purpose - aren’t they Peter?
86 Textual
So I am wrong and Mike S (at 67) is wrong?
Evidence, Textual?
But is Roger a spoof? Nobody ever asks that question?
85 - Report does look at comparable groups across white, black, South Asian, Chinese etc using free school meals as indicator. It shows higher levels of attainment in Indian & Chinese poor working class as compared to black and even more so white working class. So causes probably lie outside of either education spending/type of school and “class”.
88. I did, a fair while back. Actually I thought he was written by Mike, for a while.
Ted @ 85 — I’ve not yet seen the report but would need to be convinced about free school meals which may also be misleadingly correlated with family size. The mention of Indian but not Pakistani or Bangladeshi families makes me wonder whether middle class Asians are not overrepresented.
But yes, just chucking money at failing schools probably won’t help much.
RE 58 Icarus Thanks
My blog is no spoof, as anyone reading it could tell See:
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/
(Shameless plug merely a response to an unwarrented attack
)
78 Textual Analysis. I only ever post under my own name. Like Benedict though, I’m far too shy to promote such a vulgar aspirational journal as a political blog !!
91. All the data I’ve seen supports the figures given by Ted in post 89.
Educational attainment is probably most closely related to the learning culture and expectations that exist for the kids involved. These can be different within families, never mind between ethnic or social groups. The problem is that it’s not possible to measure something like ‘learning culture’, so we measure against those things we can - gender, ethnic origin, deprivation indices - but these are really proxies. For example, the difference in attainment between boys and girls varies when the figures are split by ethnic origins, which is likely to result from the cultural attitudes towards the different sexes that exist within the groups. I would guess that this also happens if the figures are split by class, deprivation indeces or the like, but I’ve not seen any figures to back that up.
RE 93 JackW
50-Roger
‘It was announced yesterday that ‘Our Ken’ was planning to increase the congestion charge to £25 for 4×4’s and reduce it for smaller cars, A spokesman for a motoring organization said this wouldn’t be popular because it would amount to a tax on expensive cars and people in this country don’t like that sort of thing.’
Not just 4×4’s also people carriers would be included in the £ 25 daily charge,so if you have 3 young children then your in for a hard time.since you physically can’t fit 3 of the new child seats that became mandatory last month, on the back seat of your regular saloon car.
Still at least we get a vote on Livingstone’s future in 18 months time,should also by then have a better picture on the Olympics overspend, currently running at double his original projection,and nothings been built so far.
Talking about blogs I’ve become hooked on one called Fact-checking PollyAnna which gives as its mission “Trying to factcheck Polly Toynbee. Because her editor clearly doesn’t.”
Lab mkt stats this morning very interesting. Unemployment rate highest in six years, and virtually no growth in real wages. This is a slow burn story, but the political economic environment for in 2007 could well be the toughest the Govt. has faced.
98. There looks to be a clear link between the slowdown in disposable income growth over the last couple of years and the drop in the government’s popularity. It will be interesing to see if the recent modest upturn in consumer confidence, which seems to be the result of falling fuel prices, gives Labour any poll boost.
Dear old dear- Labour trying to claim the authoritarian populist hang and flog em agenda, and the Tories the saviours of the NHS. What is the world coming to??
And Mr Mike Smithson at 97- (hope that you are feeling better)- how dare you darken the reputation of Polly- the finest, most reputable political columnist of our generation. A woman of the greatest integrity!
re 98 the number of people actually in work increasing by 56,000 over the quarter to 28.9 million. Growth is solid. Inflationary pressures are not feeding through into wages - rates shouldn’t have to go up (much) more.
“Is Roger a spoof”
I wish!
100 Tyson. Squark ….. Who’s a Pretty Polly Boy then ??
101. The labour market picture is very mixed - even confusing - as the BoE themselves acknowledge. From a political perspective I wonder if the headline ‘unemployment rises’ isn’t more important than the detail though - if people don’t feel particularly well off they are inclined to put more weight on apparent bad news and view positive statistics with some scepticism. Going back to the mid-1990s I can remember a lot of people believing the UK was still in recession even after 2-3 years of quite strong growth.
101. Employment rate growth large significantly down to population increase (immigration). In itself, not a political ‘feel good factor’ (although means greater tax revenues!)
105 - sorry for that mangled nonsense! I meant the growth in the employment level (nos. in work), not the rate (which has actually fallen a touch recently).
97 - I always go to Factchecking a few hours after Polly’s column comes out. She does have a hard time with that and Tim Worstall
104
In the mid-nineties people were still recovering from the ERM disaster, and the effects of recession. The UK has not been recession since then, so people are feeling more secure. How this will run at the next GE we have yet to discover.
As others have pointed out, if rising employment is due simply to population growth, then this won’t benefit the government at all.
If real wages are barely rising, then US experience suggests the voters will turn against the government.
12. The best post I have read on here for a long time.
UK deaths from terrorism in last 5 years - 52
UK road deaths in the last 5 years - 15,000
Is Gordon Brown or John Reid saying they want to be a “Road Death Overlord”? Of course not.
And how many people have died from MRSA in the last 5 years? How about an “MRSA Overlord”?
Of course I realise that many more people would have died from terrorism without the sterling work of the police and the security services but the thing is to keep it in proportion.
The other key thing about terrorism is this. The more the media and politicians talk about it the more it encourages the terrorists as they think they are having an effect.
By far the best policy would be for the media and politicians to say as little as possible about terrorism. Let the police and security services do their important work to detect terrorist plots with as little publicity as possible.
110 - DO we hve overlords now and not Czars? I’m still trying to get used to the Iranians being the goodies, so can’t keep up with the other exciting changes the government is making. The new improved interest rate is doing my savings a power of good though, they might even be keeping up with the actual inflation rate rather than the fantasyland numbers produced by the CPI
From the Riddler in the Times who says that (blog) sites are politically committed………The filtering role of the mainstream media tends to be decried nowadays but it offers, at its best, detachment, experience and judgment, whether it appears on paper or, increasingly, online.
Pompous journo.
Such as William Rees-Mogg I suppose.
112. Like when Riddell described Glenda Jackson as “venomous”? I mean many probably think she’s, but he hasn’t done a great filtering role…and if he had done, I don’t dare to wonder what the pre-filter opinion was!
Peter Riddel ends his piece thus:
“As Mr Osborne concluded: “People are taking matters into their own hands through their blogs and online networks. They are organising political campaigns and building coalitions. They are the masters now.” The challenge is to ensure that we are all the masters, not just vocal and wellorganised special interests.”
Such as Mr Murdoch, perhaps?
Re 112, to 115, Yes looks like a pompous pratt to me. Don’t like losing your empire? Ahh didums.
I see John reid is back to trying to make Ghengis Khan look like a liberal.
Ah yes the un-committed mainstream press, like John Junor, who once referred to Tony Benn as an odious creep. Still we can all sit back and read his daughters unbiased musings on our wonderful next to be head of state, and how dreadful Diana was.
re 8. Surely it’s exit stage right, stage very far right!
118. I was tempted to put ‘exits stage left, pursued by a pig’, but thought the joke wasn’t worth it that far up the thread. So I’ll throw it in now.
109. Another point to ponder on with regard to this concerns GDP growth and GDP per capita growth. GDP looks like it will grow around 2.6% this year, which is close to the historical trend…but population growth according to the official figures is running at around 0.6% p.a, so per capita GDP growth is only around 2% per annum.
This is not especially impressive - per capita growth averaged around 2.5% p.a. in the 1980s and a similar rate in Labour’s first term. It appears mass immigration is only allowing us to sustain overall GDP growth rates close to the historical trend - which means growth in individual living standards below the recent historical trend.
David Herdson @ 94 — of course whatever we find is likely only a proxy for more subtle factor: no disagreement there.
That class and sex are more powerful explanatory factors than race is important though, even if it is really because working class boys (having a different “learning culture”) are more likely to be out playing football (or these days, merely hanging around outside McDonalds) than their middle class or female peers.
But whatever group differences we find, we need then to look further in search of precisely what it is that group A has, or does, or is done unto, differently from group B.
Incidentally, I think the class/sex thing is exacerbated by the recent emphasis on course work. Since this is apparently to be reversed, we should see class differences (and race differences too where one is a proxy for the other) shrink.
111 kingbongo. “Do we have overlords now and not Czars?”
Only Scottish Overlords and a damn good thing too !!
…………….
BTW I notice that another Scottish aristocrat has widened his culinary tastes away from deep fried native birds to “swallow” more Mediterranean cuisine !!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-2453215,00.html
109. Immigrants tend to be be younger, more childless, more likely to work, and healtier than the general population hence they tend to be fiscally positive,
110 - Ssh! I wouldn’t put the ‘road death overlord’ post past them.
RE 123, If by that you mean they end up paying more tax for less government spending you may be right, but it is the voters who need to be enriched if they are going to vote for Labour. It seems that is not happening.
uhm, Chris Bryant once auditioned for a movie (”Another Country”). They didn’t take him though:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/wales/6146728.stm
OT. Those of us who have been following the saga of the Congressional CT 02 race have a provisional winner ….. and the winner is ….. drum roll ….. pause for effect …..
Joe Courtney (Dem) wins by 91 votes over three term Congressman Joe Simmons (Rep) out of over 242,000 votes.
Simmons is due to hold a press conference at 2030 hrs, when he will announce whether he will challenge the result. Sources indicate he will not.
123. The economic inactivity rates by ethnic group for 2004-2005 were -
White 20% Indian 25% Mixed 28% Black 29% Pakistani/Bangladeshi 50%
(Labour Force Survey)
Which suggests that generalisation may not be wholly correct.
RE 128, Fred, you assume those ethnic minorities who are not working are immigrants as opposed to being born here.
126 Andrea. I declined the offered role of the new James Bond on account of my possible unavailability in the future Bond films !!
Jack W is 103 ….. but still doing his own stunt work ….. just !!
128 Fred some of those must show dramatic differences in women’s freedom/willingness to work away from home?
128,131 — probably age too.
[126] Hmm… a gay left winger who betrayed his country and whose scadelous behaviour became an embarassment to himself.
I really can’t understand why they didn’t take Guy Burgess to play Chris Bryant..
..oh yeah, he’s dead.
Fred those groups tend to contain lots of non immigrant brits - The recent (temporary) immigrants are from the EU.
133
OT- I am going to buy a laptop to replace my dying PC, any top tips or recomendations ?
I’m mainly interested in using it for politics and the odd strategy game, My IT abilities are pretty basic.
See that Guido has half inched Mikes photo of TB taken through a cell door, without any acknowledgement.
Is their no honour amongst bloggers?
Tressage your wishful thinking is getting the better of you again!
I can assure you that I am no spoof.
Crossland, Dell have started using non-Intel chips so they are considerably less over priced than they were. I use a Dell Inspiron - meaty enough to use on the desk (it doesn’t blow away) and I can carry it - just.
128 et al. Obviously, opposition to womens’ participation in the Labour force pushes up the figure among Pakistanis. However, if families are immigrating here - whose women are deterred from working - it clearly limits the economic benefit which may accrue from immigration.
sorry “there” in 137 (awful!)
138 Rik. Now if that sign off was from Andrea and had the odd ’s’ removed it would have destroyed his credibility ….. but as it’s from you …..
134 — lots of Eastern Europeans no doubt but roughly two thirds of immigrants are from the subcontinent.
116 “John Reid is back to trying to make Ghengis Khan look like a liberal.”
Labour abandoning the ‘asian vote’ again then?
Like all ‘reformed’(sic) Stalinists, Reid makes GK look a Liberal
fron the moment he confronts his bathroom mirror!
142 - Jack W - I am so glad that you have a sense of irony unlike so many posters on here - hehe!
140. et al. Yes of course those data include British born ethnic minorities as well as new immigrants. But practically all the ethnic minority population is descended from relatively recent ‘vintages’ of immigrants.
It may well be that the most recent group of immigrants from central and Eastern Europe are exceptionally hard working - we will probably have no useful data on this for some years, if at all. However the data suggest that over time, there is some evidence that immigrant populations become less rather than more economically active than the host population.
John L - how do you know that? No one is counting EU immigrants. Even the Governor of the Bof E says the passenger survey is not adequate.
Re 144 Zebidee, Yes. Mind you I put my initial take on the queens speech on my blog.
I wonder how Tyson feels supporting a party taht seems so hard line? Or indeed Roger.
I have no doubt Snowflake will be around in a moment to defend the indefensible.
145 Rik W. The pleasure is all Andrea’s.
BTW … what news from the Sutton front ??
147 — dodgy memory of the figures published a couple of weeks ago that were spun as “lots of Poles” and “lots of people emigrate too”.
“However the data suggest that over time, there is some evidence that immigrant populations become less rather than more economically active than the host population”
I’ve always understood that in fact the living standards of second-generation immigrants are closer to the average than first-generation immigrants.
150 Net immigration from the Indian sub-continent was c.70,000 p.a., out of total net immigration of 185,00 p.a.
151. I have no information on that Sean, although note the interpretation of these data is made tricky by (often inactive) dependent family members joining original immigrants at a later date….it would be interesting to see a breakdown